The Ship's Company on the Cunard Line

Verandah Café on the RMS Mauretania. Travelling Palaces 1913. GGA Image ID # 1d7def3d5e

The numerical strength of the crew of a modem first- class steamer is often underestimated by the passengers, because they cannot conceive that in what appears to them the restricted space available in a ship so many persons find employment. They forget that much of the work goes on night and day, and that some must work while others take a much needed rest.

In each big Cunarder there are altogether from 800 to 900 employees. The captain and officers total about a dozen, to which must be added the other members of the sailing department, such as sailors, quartermasters, and so on, bringing the total for this section alone up to seventy.

The engineering department, which includes all the auxiliary engines as well as the main engines, accounts for close upon 400 more men. In all large steamers these two departments vary in number very little from voyage to voyage.

In the domestic branch there are in the big Cunarders and White Star boats about 350 stewards, about 250 of whom are engaged in the saloon, while of the remainder, who are divided between the second and third cabins, about seventy attend to the second cabin.

The proportion varies slightly according to the number of passengers in the different classes on each voyage. In the winter time, in the transatlantic trade, there is generally a falling off in the third class, though the other classes of these great steamers are generally pretty full all the year round.

Cooking and Baking Staff Working in a Kitchen on the RMS Mauretania. Travelling Palaces 1913. GGA Image ID # 1d7df5b0e6

The cooks number about fifty, including the pantry men and scullery men. Nor is the personal comfort of the ladies neglected, for these vessels carry about a score of stewardesses and sometimes more.

The number provided for the steerage varies most, depending partly on the time of the year and partly on the number of women and little children making the voyage.

There is a minimum number of stewardesses for each class, but if it be seen from the passenger lists that more stewardesses may be necessary the supernumerary stewardesses are engaged or spare stewardesses from another steamer may be taken on for the voyage.

Among what may be called the latest specialists to be engaged on ship-board are the telephone exchange attendants, the wireless telegraph operators, the lift attendants, and the editorial and printing staff of the daily newspaper published on board.

The ship's band may be recruited from the staff or, as in some vessels, a special band of trained musicians may be carried. Most of the ships' bands are selected from the stewards, and their ordinary duties are lightened somewhat in order that advantage may be taken of their musical skill.

Some of them are very good musicians, and a ship's orchestra, numbering from eight to a score players, whether of string or wind instruments, or both, usually wins the commendation of the passengers.

R. A. Fletcher, "The Ship's Company" in Travelling Palaces: Luxury in Passenger Steamships, London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1913, pp 115-116.