RMS Queen Mary at Long Beach, California
Career
Name:	RMS Queen Mary
Operator:	Cunard White Star Line
Port of registry:	Liverpool
Ordered:	3 April 1929
Builder:	John Brown and Company  Clydebank, Scotland
Laid down:	1 December 1930
Launched:	26 September 1934 by Her Majesty the Queen
Christened:	26 September 1934
Out of service:	1 December 1967 (retired)
Identification:	Radio Callsign GBTT
Fate:	Became a hotel ship
Status:	Now hotel / restaurant / museum, Long Beach, California
General characteristics
Type:	Ocean liner
Tonnage:	81,237 GT (gross tonnage)
Displacement:	81,961 tonnes
Length:	1,019.4 ft (310.7 m) oa 965 ft (294.1 m) B.P.
Beam:	118 ft (36.0 m)
Height:	181 ft (55.2 m)
Draft:	39 ft (11.9 m)
Propulsion:	24 Yarrow boilers , 4 sets of Parsons single-reduction geared steam turbines on 4 shafts, 160.000 shp
Speed:	approximately 28.5 kn (52.8 km/h; 32.8 mph) service speed.
Capacity:	2139 passengers: 776 first (cabin) class, 784 tourist class, 579 third class
Crew:	1101 crew
RMS Queen Mary
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
NRHP Reference#:	92001714[1]
Added to NRHP:	15 April 1993

RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line (known as Cunard-White Star when the vessel entered service). Built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland, Queen Mary along with her running mate, the RMS Queen Elizabeth, were built as part of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service between Southampton, Cherbourg, and New York City. The two ships were a British response to the superliners built by German and French companies in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Queen Mary was the flagship of the Cunard Line from May 1936 until October 1946 when she was replaced by Queen Elizabeth. The vessel also held the Blue Riband from 1936 to 1937 and then from 1938 to 1952 when she was beaten by the new SS United States.

Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage on 27 May 1936 and captured the Blue Riband in August of that year; she lost the title to the SS Normandie in 1937 and recaptured it in 1938. With the outbreak of World War II, she was converted into a troopship and ferried Allied soldiers for the duration of the war. Following the war, Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service and along with Queen Elizabeth commenced the two-ship transatlantic passenger service that the two ships were initially built for. The two ships dominated the transatlantic passenger transportation market until the dawn of the jet age in the late 1950s. By the mid-1960s the ship was ageing and though still among the most popular transatlantic liners, was operating at a loss.

After several years of decreased profits for Cunard Line, Queen Mary was officially retired from service in 1967. The ship left Southampton for the last time on 31 October 1967 and sailed to the port of Long Beach, California, United States, where she remains permanently moored. Much of the machinery including two of the four engines, three of the four propellers, and all of the boilers were removed, and the ship now serves as a tourist attraction featuring restaurants, a museum, and hotel. The ship is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Construction and naming[link]

With Germany launching Bremen and Europa into service, Britain did not want to be left behind in the shipbuilding race. White Star Line began construction on their 60,000 ton Oceanic in 1928, while Cunard planned a 75,000 ton unnamed ship of their own.

Overhead view of RMS Queen Mary docked at Long Beach in 2008

Construction on the ship, then known only as "Hull Number 534",^[2] began in December 1930 on the River Clyde by the John Brown & Company Shipbuilding and Engineering shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland. Work was halted in December 1931 due to the Great Depression and Cunard applied to the British Government for a loan to complete 534. The loan was granted, with enough money to complete Queen Mary and to build a running mate, Hull No. 552 which became Queen Elizabeth. One condition of the loan was that Cunard would merge with the White Star Line, which was Cunard's chief British rival at the time and which had already been forced by the depression to cancel construction on its Oceanic. Both lines agreed and the merger was completed on 10 May 1934. Work on Queen Mary resumed immediately and she was launched on 26 September 1934. Completion ultimately took 3½ years and cost 3½ million pounds sterling.^[3] Much of the ship's interior was designed and constructed by the Bromsgrove Guild.^[4]

The ship was named after Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. Until her launch the name she was to be given was kept a closely guarded secret. Legend has it that Cunard intended to name the ship Victoria, in keeping with company tradition of giving its ships names ending in "ia", but when company representatives asked the king's permission to name the ocean liner after Britain's "greatest queen", he said his wife, Queen Mary, would be delighted.^[5] And so, the legend goes, the delegation had of course no other choice but to report that No. 534 would be called RMS Queen Mary.^[5] This story was denied by company officials, and traditionally the names of sovereigns have only been used for capital ships of the Royal Navy. Some support for the story was provided by Washington Post editor Felix Morley, who sailed as a guest of the Cunard Line on the 1936 maiden voyage of Queen Mary. In his 1979 autobiography, For the Record, Morley wrote that he was placed at table with Sir Percy Bates, chairman of the Cunard Line. Bates told him the story of the naming of the ship "on condition you won't print it during my lifetime." The name Queen Mary could also have been decided upon as a compromise between Cunard and the White Star Line, as both lines had tradition of using names either ending in "ic" with White Star and "ia" with Cunard.^[5]

Queen Mary sailed with a shock proof compass that was one of the largest magnetic compasses in the world.^[6]

History (1934–1939)[link]

Queen Mary 1936

There was already a Clyde turbine steamer named Queen Mary, so Cunard White Star reached agreement with the owners that the existing steamer would be renamed TS Queen Mary II, and in 1934 the new liner was launched by Queen Mary as RMS Queen Mary. On her way down the slipway, Queen Mary was slowed by eighteen drag chains, which checked the liner's progress into the Clyde, a portion of which had been widened to accommodate the launch.^[7]

When she sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England on 27 May 1936, she was commanded by Sir Edgar T. Britten, who had been the master designate for Cunard White Star whilst the ship was under construction at the John Brown shipyard. Queen Mary had a gross tonnage (GT) of 80,774 tons;^[8] her rival, Normandie, which originally grossed 79,280 tonnes, had been modified the preceding winter to increase her size to 83,243 GT (an enclosed tourist lounge was built on the aft boat deck on the area where the game court was), and therefore kept the title of the largest ocean liner.^[9] Queen Mary sailed at high speeds for most of her maiden voyage to New York until heavy fog forced a reduction of speed on the final day of the crossing.

The Observation Bar lounge. The windows were once part of the enclosed Promenade Deck turnaround; the lounge was extended forward after 1967.

Queen Mary's design was criticised for being too traditional, especially when the Normandie's hull was revolutionary with a clipper shaped, streamlined bow. Except for her cruiser stern, she seemed to be an enlarged version of her Cunard predecessors from the pre World War I era. Her interior design, while mostly Art Deco, seemed restrained and conservative when compared to the ultramodern French liner. However, Queen Mary proved to be the more popular vessel than its larger rival, in terms of passengers carried.^[10][11]

In August 1936, Queen Mary captured the Blue Riband from Normandie, with average speeds of 30.14 knots (55.82 km/h) westbound and 30.63 knots (56.73 km/h) eastbound. Normandie was refitted with a new set of propellers in 1937 and reclaimed the honour, but in 1938 Queen Mary took back the Blue Riband in both directions with average speeds of 30.99 knots (57.39 km/h) westbound and 31.69 knots (58.69 km/h) eastbound, records which stood until lost to SS United States in 1952.

Interior[link]

The main dining room, aka "the Grand Salon" mural on Queen Mary, on which a crystal model tracked the ship's progress.

This room could actually accomodate all of the ship's passengers at once. Among facilities available on board Queen Mary, the liner featured two indoor swimming pools, beauty salons, libraries, and children's nurseries for all three classes, a music studio and lecture hall, telephone connectivity to anywhere in the world, outdoor paddle tennis courts, and dog kennels. This room is the main dining room (grand salon), which spanned three stories in height and was anchored by wide columns. The cabin class swimming pool facility also spanned over two decks in height. She was also the first ocean liner to be equipped with its own Jewish prayer room — part of a policy to show that British shipping lines avoided the racism evident at that time in Nazi Germany.^[12]

The main dining room featured a large map of the transatlantic crossing, with twin tracks symbolising the winter/spring route (further south to avoid icebergs) and the summer/autumn route. During each crossing, a motorised model of Queen Mary would indicate the vessel's progress en route.

main dining room on Queen Mary, now known as the "Grand Salon."

As an alternative to the main dining room, the Queen Mary featured a separate first-class only Verandah Grill on the Sun Deck at the upper aft of the ship. The Verandah Grill was an exclusive à la carte restaurant with a capacity of approximately eighty passengers, and was converted to the Starlight Club at night. Irish writer and broadcaster Brian Cleeve spent several months as a commis waiter on the ship in 1938, after he ran away from school.^[13] Also on board was the Observation Bar, an Art Deco styled lounge, with wide ocean views.

Woods from different regions of the British Empire were used in her public rooms and staterooms. Accommodation ranged from fully equipped, luxurious first class staterooms to modest and cramped third class cabins. Artists commissioned by Cunard in 1933 for works of art in the interior include Edward Wadsworth and A. Duncan Carse.^[14]

World War II[link]

Arriving in New York Harbor, 20 June 1945, with thousands of U.S. troops — note the prominent degaussing coil running around the outer hull

In late August 1939, Queen Mary was on a return run from New York to Southampton. The international situation led to her being escorted by the battlecruiser HMS Hood. She arrived safely, and set out again for New York on 1 September. By the time she arrived, the Second World War had started and she was ordered to remain in port until further notice alongside Normandie. In 1940 Queen Mary and Normandie were joined in New York by Queen Mary's new running mate Queen Elizabeth, fresh from her secret dash from Clydebank. The three largest liners in the world sat idle for some time until the Allied commanders decided that all three ships could be used as troopships (Normandie was destroyed by fire during her troopship conversion). Queen Mary left New York for Sydney, where she, along with several other liners, was converted into a troopship to carry Australian and New Zealand soldiers to the United Kingdom.

The forward superstructure on the Queen Mary, shown here in Long Beach, shares both Cunard and White Star design lineage. The curved façade resembles Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania, while the enclosed bridge wing cabs evoke White Star's Olympic and Titanic. The Sun Deck windows were enlarged, and an anti-aircraft gun placed on display astride the foremast, in Long Beach.

In the conversion, her hull, superstructure and funnels were painted navy grey. As a result of her new colour and in combination with her great speed, she became known as the "Grey Ghost." To protect against magnetic mines, a degaussing coil was fitted around the outside of the hull. Inside, stateroom furniture and decoration were removed and replaced with triple-tiered wooden bunks (which were later replaced by standee bunks). Six miles of carpet, 220 cases of china, crystal and silver service, tapestries and paintings were removed and stored in warehouses for the duration of the war. The woodwork in the staterooms, the first-class dining room and other public areas was covered with leather. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were the largest and fastest troopships involved in the war, often carrying as many as 15,000 men in a single voyage, and often travelling out of convoy and without escort. Their high speed made it difficult for U boats to catch them.

On 2 October 1942, Queen Mary accidentally sank one of her escort ships, slicing through the light cruiser HMS Curacoa off the Irish coast with a loss of 239 lives. Queen Mary was carrying thousands of American troops of the 29th Infantry Division^[15] to join the Allied forces in Europe.^[16] Due to the risk of U-boat attacks, Queen Mary was under orders not to stop under any circumstances and steamed onward with a fractured stem. Some sources claim that hours later, the convoy's lead escort returned to rescue 99 survivors from Curacoa's crew of 338, including her captain John W. Boutwood.^[17][18][19] This claim is, however contradicted by the liner's then Staff Captain (and later Cunard Commodore) Harry Grattidge, who records that Queen Mary's Captain immediately ordered the accompanying destroyers to look for survivors within moments of the Curacoa's sinking.^[20]

In December 1942, Queen Mary was carrying 16,082 American troops from New York to Great Britain, a standing record for the most passengers ever transported on one vessel.^[21] While 700 miles (1,100 km) from Scotland during a gale, she was suddenly hit broadside by a rogue wave that may have reached a height of 28 metres (92 ft). An account of this crossing can be found in Walter Ford Carter's book, No Greater Sacrifice, No Greater Love. Carter's father, Dr. Norval Carter, part of the 110th Station Hospital on board at the time, wrote that at one point Queen Mary "damned near capsized... One moment the top deck was at its usual height and then, swoom! Down, over, and forward she would pitch." It was calculated later that the ship tilted 52 degrees, and would have capsized had she rolled another 3 degrees.^[22] The incident inspired Paul Gallico to write his story, The Poseidon Adventure, which was later made into a film by the same name, in which Queen Mary depicted SS Poseidon.

During the war, Queen Mary carried British Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic for meetings with fellow Allied forces officials on several occasions. He would be listed on the passenger manifest as "Colonel Warden",^[23] and he insisted that the lifeboat assigned to him be fitted with a .303 machine gun so that he could "resist capture at all costs".

After World War II[link]

Queen Mary in open seas during the 1950s

From September 1946 to July 1947, Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service, adding air conditioning and upgrading her berth configuration to 711 first class, 707 cabin class and 577 tourist class passengers.^[24] Following refit, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth dominated the transatlantic passenger trade as Cunard White Star's two-ship weekly express service through the latter half of the 1940s and well into the 1950s. They proved highly profitable for Cunard, but in 1958 the first transatlantic flight by a jet began a completely new era of competition for the Cunard Queens. On some voyages, winters especially, Queen Mary sailed into harbour with more crew than passengers, though both she and her running mate Queen Elizabeth still averaged over 1000 passengers per crossing into the middle 1960s.^[25]

By 1965, the entire Cunard fleet was operating at a loss. Hoping to continue financing their still under construction Queen Elizabeth 2, Cunard mortgaged the majority of the fleet. Finally, under a combination of age, lack of public interest, inefficiency in a new market, and the damaging after effects of the national seamen's strike, Cunard announced that both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth would be retired from service and were to be sold off. Many offers were submitted, and Long Beach, California beat the Japanese scrap merchants. Queen Mary was retired from service in 1967, while running mate Queen Elizabeth was withdrawn in 1968. RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 took over the transatlantic route in 1969.

[edit] Queen Mary in Long Beach

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Queen Mary from the Northern side of Long Beach harbour

After her retirement in 1967, she steamed to Long Beach, California, where she is permanently moored as a tourist attraction, hotel, museum, and event facility. From 1983 to 1993, Queen Mary was accompanied by Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, which was located in a large dome nearby (the dome is now used by Carnival Cruise Lines as a ship terminal, and formerly as a soundstage).^[26]

The Clint Eastwood movie Blood Work was filmed opposite the ship, which can be seen in the background in one scene.

Since drilling had started for oil in Long Beach Harbor, some of the revenue had been set aside in the "Tidelands Oil Fund." Some of this money was allocated in 1958 for the future purchase of a maritime museum for Long Beach.^[27]

Conversion[link]

Queen Mary from the stern

When Queen Mary was bought by Long Beach, the new owners decided not to preserve her as an ocean liner. It had been decided to clear almost every area of the ship below "C" deck (called "R" deck after 1950, in order to lessen passenger confusion, as the restaurants were located on "R" deck) to make way for the museum. This would increase museum space to 400,000 square feet (37,000 m²). It required removal of all the boiler rooms, the forward engine room, both turbo generator rooms, the ship stabilisers and the water softening plant. The ship's now empty fuel tanks were then filled with local mud which would keep the ship's centre of gravity and draft at the correct levels, as these critical factors had been affected by the removal of all various components and structure. Only the aft engine room and "shaft alley", at the stern of the ship, would be spared. Remaining space would be used for storage or office space. One problem that arose during the conversion was a dispute between land-based and maritime unions over conversion jobs. The United States Coast Guard had final say; Queen Mary was deemed a building, since most of her propellers had been removed and her machinery gutted. The ship was also repainted with its red water level paint at a slightly higher level than previously. During the conversion, the funnels were removed as it was the only practical way to lift out the scrap materials from the engine and boiler rooms. It was subsequently found that the funnels were held together with 101 coats of paint, and they had to be replaced with replicas.

With all of the lower decks nearly gutted from R deck and down, Diners Club, the initial lessee of the ship, was to convert the remainder of the vessel into a hotel. Diners Club Queen Mary dissolved and vacated the ship in 1970 after their parent company, Diners Club International, was sold, and a change in corporate direction was mandated amidst the conversion process. Specialty Restaurants, a Los Angeles-based company that focused on theme based restaurants, took over as master lessee the following year.

During this conversion, the plan was to convert most of her first and second class cabins on A and B decks only into hotel rooms, and convert the main lounges and dining rooms into banquet spaces. On Promenade Deck, the starboard promenade deck would be enclosed to feature an upscale restaurant and cafe called Lord Nelson's and Lady Hamilton's themed like early 19th century sailing ships. The famed and elegant Observation Bar was redecorated as a western themed bar.

Queen Mary's bridge, now open to visitors

The smaller first class public rooms, such as the Drawing Room, Library, Lecture Room and the Music studio, would be stripped of most of their fittings and converted to commercial use, heavily expanding the retail presence on the ship. Two more shopping malls were built on the Sun Deck in separate spaces previously used for first class cabins and engineers' quarters.

A post war feature of the ship, the first class cinema, was removed for kitchen space for the new Promenade deck dining venues. The first class lounge and smoking room were reconfigured and converted into banquet space, while the second class smoking room was subdivided into a wedding chapel and office space. On Sun Deck, the elegant Verandah Grill would be gutted and converted into a fast food eatery, while a new upscale dining venue was created directly above it on Sports Deck in space once used for crew quarters. The second class lounges were expanded to the sides of the ship and used for banqueting. On R deck, the first class dining room was reconfigured and subdivided into two banquet venues, the Royal Salon and the Windsor Room. The second class dining room was subdivided into kitchen storage and a crew mess hall, while the third class dining room was initially used as storage and crew space. Also on R deck, the first class Turkish bath complex, the 1930s equivalent to a spa, was removed. The second class pool was removed and its space initially used for office space, while the first class swimming pool was used for hotel guests. Combined with modern safety codes and the structural soundness of the area directly below, the swimming pool is no longer in use. No crew cabins remain intact aboard the ship today.

[edit] Queen Mary as a tourist attraction

Hotel Queen Mary with permanent boarding gangways

On 8 May 1971, Queen Mary opened its doors to tourists. Initially, only portions of the ship were open to the public as Specialty Restaurants had yet to open its dining venues or the hotel. As a result, the ship was only open on weekends. In December 1971, Jacques Cousteau's Museum of the Sea opened, with only a quarter of the planned exhibits built. Within the decade, Cousteau's museum closed due to low ticket sales and the deaths of many of the fish that were housed in the museum. In November 1972, the hotel opened its initial 150 guest rooms. Hyatt operated the hotel from 1974 to 1980, when the Jack Wrather Corporation signed a 66-year lease with the city of Long Beach to operate the entire property. Wrather was taken over by the Walt Disney Company in 1988. Wrather owned the Disneyland Hotel, which Disney had been trying to buy for 30 years; Queen Mary was thus an afterthought and was never marketed as a Disney property.

First Class accommodations on Queen Mary, converted into a present-day hotel room with modern curtains, bedding and amenities surrounded by original wood panelling, portholes and light fixtures.

Through the late eighties and early nineties, Queen Mary continued to struggle financially. During the Disney years, Disney planned to develop a theme park on the remaining land. This theme park eventually opened a decade later in Japan as DisneySea, with a recreated ocean liner resembling Queen Mary as its centrepiece. Hotel Queen Mary closed in 1992 when Disney gave up the lease on the ship to focus on what would become Disney California Adventure Park. The tourist attraction remained open for another two months, but by the end of 1992, Queen Mary completely closed its doors to tourists and visitors.

In February 1993, under the direction of President and C.E.O. Joseph F. Prevratil, RMS Foundation, Inc began a five-year lease with the city of Long Beach to act as the operators of the property. Later that month, the tourist attraction reopened completely, while the hotel reopened in March. In 1995, RMS's lease was extended to twenty years while the extent of the lease was reduced to simply operation of the ship itself. A new company, Queen's Seaport Development, Inc. (QSDI), came into existence in 1995 controlling the real estate adjacent to the vessel. In 1998, the City of Long Beach extended the QSDI lease to 66 years.

Starboard Sun Deck of Queen Mary docked at Long Beach

In 2005, QSDI sought Chapter 11 protection due to a rent credit dispute with the City. In 2006, the bankruptcy court requested bids from parties interested in taking over the lease from QSDI. The minimum required opening bid was $41M. The operation of the ship, by RMS, remained independent of the bankruptcy. In Summer 2007, Queen Mary's lease was sold to a group named "Save the Queen" managed by Hostmark Hospitality Group, who planned to develop the land adjacent to Queen Mary, and upgrade, renovate, and restore the ship. During the time of their management, staterooms were updated with iPod docking stations and flatscreen TVs and the ship's three funnels as well as the waterline area were repainted their original Cunard Red color. The portside Promenade Deck's planking was restored and refinished. Many lifeboats were repaired and patched, and the ship's kitchens were renovated with new equipment.

In 2004, Queen Mary and Stargazer Productions added Tibbies Great American Cabaret to the space previously occupied by the ship's bank and wireless telegraph room. Stargazer Productions and Queen Mary transformed the space into a working dinner theatre complete with stage, lights, sound, and scullery.^[28]

In late September 2009, management of Queen Mary was taken over by Delaware North Companies, who plan to continue restoration, and renovation of the ship and its property, and work to revitalise and enhance the ship.^[29]

In April 2011, The City Of Long Beach was informed that Delaware North was no longer managing the Queen Mary. Garrison Investment Group^[30] (the current owner of the Queen Mary) said this decision was purely business. Delaware North still manages the Scorpion, a Soviet submarine that has been a separate attraction next to the Queen Mary for the last decade.^[31]

Evolution Hospitality, LLC. assumed operational control of the Queen Mary on 23 September 2011, with Garrison Investments leasing the Queen Mary.^[32][33][34]

Meeting of the Queens[link]

On 23 February 2006, RMS Queen Mary 2 saluted her predecessor as she made her port of call in Los Angeles Harbor, while on a cruise to Mexico.^[35]

Ship's horn[link]

The salute was carried out with Queen Mary replying with her one working air horn in response to Queen Mary 2 sounding her combination of two brand new horns and an original 1934 Queen Mary horn (on loan from the City of Long Beach).^[36] Queen Mary originally had three whistles tuned to 55 Hz, a frequency chosen because it was low enough that the extremely loud sound of it would not be painful to human ears.^[37] Modern IMO regulations specify ships' horn frequencies to be in the range 70–200 Hz for vessels that are over 200 metres (660 ft) in length.^[38] Traditionally, the lower the frequency, the larger the ship. Queen Mary 2, being 345 metres (1,132 ft) long, was given the lowest possible frequency (70 Hz) for her regulation whistles, in addition to the refurbished 55 Hz whistle on permanent loan. 55 Hz is the lower bass "A" note found an octave up from the lowest note of a piano keyboard. The air-driven Tyfon whistle can be heard at least ten miles (16 km) away.^[39]

Queen Mary's wireless radio room

W6RO[link]

Queen Mary's original, professionally manned wireless radio room was removed once the ship arrived in Long Beach. In its place, an amateur radio room was created one deck above the original radio reception room with some of the discarded original radio equipment used for display purposes. The amateur radio station with the call sign W6RO ("Whiskey Six Romeo Oscar") relies on volunteers from a local amateur radio club. They are present most of the time the ship is open to the public, and the radios can also be used by other licensed amateur radio operators.^[40][41][42]

In honour of his over forty years of dedication to W6RO and Queen Mary, in November 2007 the Queen Mary Wireless Room was renamed The Nate Brightman Radio Room. This was announced on 28 October 2007, at Mr. Brightman's 90th birthday party by Joseph Prevratil, Former President and CEO of the Queen Mary.

See also[link]

• RMS Mauretania (1938)
• RMS Queen Elizabeth
• RMS Queen Elizabeth 2
• RMS Queen Mary 2
• MS Queen Elizabeth
• MS Queen Victoria

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• The Cunard White Star Quadruple-screw North Atlantic Liner, Queen Mary. – Bonanza Books, 289 p., 1979. – ISBN 0-517-27929-0. Largely a reprint of a special edition of "The Shipbuilder and Marine Engine-builder" from 1936.
• Duncan, William J., RMS Queen Mary: Queen of the Queens, Anderson, South Carolina: Droke House, distr. Grosset & Dunlap, 1969, ISBN 978-0-8375-6746-4.
• Cunard Line, Ltd., John Brown and Company archives.
• Clydebank Central Library Clydebank, Scotland.
• Roberts, Andrew, Masters and Commanders: How four titans won the war in the West, 1941–1945, Harper Collins e-Books, London
• Grattidge, Harry, Captain of the Queens, Dutton, New York

External links[link]

	United Kingdom portal
	Nautical portal
	Greater Los Angeles portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Queen Mary (ship, 1936)

• Website of current commercial operator (Event listings as well as Facts & History section)
• Queen Mary Alternative Visions (Describes the construction and conversion of the Queen Mary and advocates its partial restoration)
• Time Magazine: The Queen; 11 August 1947
• "Thirty Million Dollar Super Liner Is Built", January 1932, Popular Mechanics detailed article on the construction of the future RMS Queen Mary
• The Great Ocean Liners: RMS Queen Mary
• Clydebank Restoration Trust
• Restored colour archive film of RMS Queen Mary on the Clyde (1936)(archive films from the National Library of Scotland)
• Launch of the Queen Mary (1934) (archive films from the National Library of Scotland)
• RMS Queen Mary at Chris' Cunard Page.
• The Haunted RMS Queen Mary The Queen Mary is a featured ship at the 2012 Maritime Ghost Conference

Coordinates: 33°45′11″N 118°11′23″W / 33.7531°N 118.1898°W / 33.7531; -118.1898

Coordinates: 51°31′23″N 0°02′25″W / 51.52306°N 0.04028°W / 51.52306; -0.04028

Queen Mary, University of London
Motto	Coniunctis Viribus With United Powers
Established	1123 (Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital) 1785 (London Hospital Medical College) 1843 (Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital) 1882 (Westfield College) 1885 (Queen Mary College) 1989 (merger of Queen Mary & Westfield) 1995 (medical schools merge with QMW)
Type	Public
Endowment	£33.59 million (at 31 July 2011)[1]
Chancellor	HRH The Princess Royal (University of London)
Principal	Professor Simon Gaskell
Students	16,919[2]
Location	London, United Kingdom
Campus	Urban
Colours
Affiliations	1994 Group Association of Commonwealth Universities Universities UK University of London
Website	www.qmul.ac.uk
File:Qm logo.png

Queen Mary, University of London (informally Queen Mary, QMUL or QM) is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. With roots dating back to 1785, Queen Mary was formed by the merger of four historic colleges, and since joining the University of London in 1915 has grown to become one of its largest colleges.

Queen Mary's main campus is located in the Mile End area of the East End of London, with other campuses in Holborn, Smithfield and Whitechapel. It has around 16,000 full-time students and 3,000 staff^[3] and had a total income of £297.1 million in 2010/11, of which £73.7 million was from research grants and contracts.^[1] Queen Mary is organised into three faculties – the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science and Engineering and the Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry – within which there are 21 academic departments and institutes.

In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, Queen Mary was ranked 11th by the The Guardian and 13th by Times Higher Education out of the 132 UK higher education institutions assessed. In the 2010 Times Higher Education World University Rankings Queen Mary is ranked 35th in Europe and 120th in the world.^[4] Queen Mary's degree courses in English, Drama, History, Politics, Law, Linguistics and those based at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry are particularly strong, ranking in the top 10 of national academic league tables. In the 2011 Guardian University Guide, the Queen Mary School of Law is ranked 3rd in the UK.^[5] There are five Nobel Laureates amongst Queen Mary's alumni and current and former staff.^[6]

Queen Mary is a member of the 1994 Group, the Association of Commonwealth Universities and Universities UK. On 12 March 2012 it was announced that Queen Mary would be joining the Russell Group in August 2012.^[7]

History[link]

Queen Mary's origins lie in the mergers, over the years, of four older colleges: Queen Mary College, Westfield College, St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College and the London Hospital Medical College. In 1989 Queen Mary merged with Westfield College to form Queen Mary & Westfield College. Although teaching began at the London Hospital Medical College in 1785, it did not become part of Queen Mary until 1995. In that same year the two medical schools merged to form the School of Medicine and Dentistry at Queen Mary & Westfield College, but Barts and The London has, to some extent, retained its own identity. In 2000, the college adopted its present title of Queen Mary, University of London, but the official legal title remains Queen Mary and Westfield College.^[8]

Queen Mary College[link]

Formative years[link]

Queen Mary College was founded in the mid Victorian era when growing awareness of conditions in London's East End led to drives to provide facilities for local inhabitants, popularised in the 1882 novel All Sorts of Conditions of Men – An Impossible Story by Walter Besant, which told of how a rich and clever couple from Mayfair went to the East End to build a "Palace of Delight, with concert halls, reading rooms, picture galleries, art and designing schools."^[9] Although not directly responsible for the conception of the People's Palace, the novel did much to popularise it.

The trustees of the Beaumont Trust, administering funds left by Barber Beaumont, purchased the site of the former Bancroft's School from the Drapers' Company. On 20 May 1885 the Drapers' Court of Assistants resolved to grant £20,000 "for the provision of the technical schools of the People's Palace."^[10] The foundation stone was laid on 28 June 1886 and on 14 May 1887 Queen Victoria opened the palace's Queen's Hall as well as laying the foundation stone for the technical schools in the palace's east wing.

The technical schools were opened on 5 October 1888, with the entire palace completed by 1892. When opening them, the Master of the Drapers' Company declared their aims to be "to improve the scientific and technical knowledge of apprentices and workmen engaged in industrial life". However others saw the technical schools as one day becoming a technical university for the East End.^[11] The conflicting demands of pleasure and education were identified by the Assistant Charity Commissioner as early as 1891 and for the next forty years this was to dog the People's Palace. In 1892 the Drapers' Company provided £7,000 a year for ten years to guarantee the educational side income.

Into the University of London[link]

Part of the Charterhouse Square site

The classes reached a peak of 8000 tickets in 1892–1893 but fell to less than half for the following year, due to competition from the London School Board, despite the Palace's classes being more advanced. With the level of teaching growing, in 1895 John Hatton, Director of Evening Classes (1892–1896; later Director of Studies 1896–1908 and Principal 1908–1933) proposed introducing a course of study leading to the Bachelor of Science degree of the University of London. By the turn of the century the first degrees were awarded and Hatton, along with several other Professors, were recognised as Teachers of the University of London. In 1906 an application for Parliamentary funds "for the aid of Educational Institutions engaged in work of a University nature", led to the College being told it was "of the highest importance that there should be a School of the University in the faculties of Arts, Science and Engineering within easy reach of the very large population of the East End of London." The educational part of the People's Palace was admitted on an initial three year trial basis as a School of the University of London on 15 May 1907 as East London College.

The first aeronautical engineering department in the UK was established at the College in 1909, boasting a ground-breaking wind tunnel.^[12] Professor A. P. Thurston, a former student at the College gaining a first class degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in 1906, was encouraged and financially supported by P. Y. Alexander, a wealthy aeronautical enthusiast and acquaintance, and J. L. Hatton, the then Principal, to start regular courses of lectures in aeronautics.^[13][14] Thurston gradually brought in more and more skilled aeronautical engineers, and with the newly built laboratory, started giving lectures in aeronautics ("Flying machines", "Balloons, airships and kites", "The mechanical principles of flight")^[15] and started extensive research on fundamental matters such as the characteristics of wing sections and propellers, structural and material characteristics, and the forces on struts, leading to use in military aircraft for the First World War.^[14][16]

In 1910 the College's status in the University of London was extended for a further five years, with unlimited membership achieved in May 1915. During this period the organisation of the governors of the People's Palace was rearranged, creating the separate People's Palace Committee and East London College Committee, both under the Palace Governors, as a sign of the growing separation of the two concepts within a single complex.^[17]

During the First World War the College admitted students from the London Hospital Medical College who were preparing for the preliminary medical examination, the first step in a long process that would eventually bring the two institutions together. After the war, the College grew, albeit constrained by the rest of the People's Palace to the west and a burial ground immediately to the east. In 1920 it obtained both the Palace's Rotunda (now the Octagon) and rooms under the winter gardens at the west of the palace, which became chemical laboratories. The College's status was also unique, being the only School of the University of London that was subject to both the Charity Commissioners and the Board of Education. In April 1929 the College Council decided it would take the steps towards applying to the Privy Council for a Royal Charter, but on the advice of the Drapers' Company first devised a scheme for development and expansion, which recommended amongst other things to reamalgamate the People's Palace and the College, with guaranteed provision of the Queen's Hall for recreational purposes, offering at least freedom of governance if not in space.^[18]

In the early hours of 25 February 1931 a fire destroyed the Queen's Hall, though both the College and the winter gardens escaped. In the coming days discussions on reconstruction led to the proposal that the entire site be transferred to the College which would then apply for a Charter alone. The Drapers' Company obtained St Helen's Terrace, a row of six houses neighbouring the site, and in July 1931 it was agreed to give these over to the People's Palace for a new site adjacent to the old, which would now become entirely the domain of the College. Separation was now achieved. The Charter was now pursued, but the Academic Board asked for a name change, feeling that "east London" carried unfortunate associations that would hinder the College and its graduates. With the initial proposed name, "Queen's College", having already been taken by another institution and "Victoria College" felt to be unoriginal, "Queen Mary College" was settled on. The Charter of Incorporation was presented on 12 December 1934 by Queen Mary herself.^[19]

Under the Charter[link]

The Queens' Building

During the Second World War the College was evacuated to Cambridge, where it shared with King's College. Meanwhile the Mile End site was requisitioned for war work and was for a time used as the Municipal Offices of Stepney Borough Council. After the war the College returned to London, facing many of the same problems but with prospects for westward expansion.^[20]

The East End had suffered considerable bomb damage (although the College itself had incurred little) and consequently several areas of land near to the College site now became vacant. The former church of St Benets' to the immediate east of the College was now defunct and was demolished in 1950, with the space used to build a new block for physics, but most of the acquisitions in the immediate post war years were to the west of the college. Even the new People's Palace was no longer able to meet its needs and it was acquired by the College along with several pieces of land that together formed a significant continuous stretch along the Mile End Road. New buildings for engineering, biology and chemistry were built on the new sites, whilst the arts took over the space vacated in the original building, now renamed the Queens' Building (to reflect the support and patronage of both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother).

Limited accommodation resulted in the acquisition of further land in South Woodford (now directly connected to Mile End tube station by means of the Central Line's eastward extension), upon which tower blocks were established. Consequently, student numbers continued to expand. The College also obtained the Co-operative Wholesale Society's clothing factory on the Mile End Road which was converted into a building for the Faculty of Laws (and some other teaching), despite being physically separated from what was now a campus to the west.^[21]

From the mid-1960s until the mid-1980s the College was in a period of uncertainty and flux. Much planning was dominated by the "BLQ scheme" which proposed to link Queen Mary College with the London Hospital Medical College and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College with a joint facility in Mile End, but the land was not yet available. Over the period land that came onto the market was purchased with the intention to consolidate as soon as possible. The Queen Mary College Act 1973 was passed "to authorise the disposal of the Nuevo burial ground in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and to authorise the use for other purposes thereof..." and gave the authority to disinter and reinter most of the graves to Dytchleys. A further link with both The London and St. Bartholomew's was made in 1974 when an anonymous donor provided for the establishment of a further hall of residence in Woodford, to be divided equally between Queen Mary College students and the two medical colleges.^[22]

At the start of the 1980s changing demographics and finances caused much concern through the university sector and led to a reorganisation of the University of London. At Queen Mary some subjects, such as Russian and Classics were discontinued, whilst the College became one of five in the University with a concentration of laboratory sciences, including the transfer of science departments from Westfield College, Chelsea College, Queen Elizabeth College and Bedford College.^[23]

From the mid 1980s onwards the College began expanding across the newly acquired land to the east, taking the campus to the Regent's Canal. A part of the burial ground remains to this day but the rest of the area has been absorbed by the College's expansion. The long planned Pre Clinical Medicine building for the BLQ Scheme finally materialised in the late 1980s, further strengthening the ties between the three colleges.^[24]

1989 to 2010[link]

In 1989 Queen Mary merged with Westfield College to form Queen Mary & Westfield College (often abbreviated to QMW). Over subsequent years, activities were concentrated on the Queen Mary site, with the Westfield site eventually sold.

In 1990, the London Hospital was renamed to the Royal London Hospital, after markings its 250th year, and a reorganisation of medical education within the University of London resulted in most of the freestanding medical schools being merged with existing large colleges to form multi-faculty institutions. In 1995 the London Hospital Medical College and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College merged and into Queen Mary & Westfield College to form the entity now named Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.^[14]

In 2000 the college changed its name for general public use to Queen Mary, University of London; however, the College's charter has not been reissued and its legal name remains Queen Mary & Westfield College. The VISTA telescope is a is a 4-metre class wide-field telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile that was conceived and developed by Queen Mary University, costing approximately £36m.^[25]

The Westfield Student Village opened in 2004 on the Mile End Campus, bringing over 2,000 rooms to students and a huge array of facilities, restaurants, and cafes.^[14][26]

The Blizard Building, home to the Medical School’s Institute of Cell and Molecular Science opened at the Whitechapel campus in 2005. The award-winning building was designed by Will Alsop, and is named after William Blizard, an English surgeon and founder of the London Hospital Medical College in 1785.^[27][28]

The year 2006 saw the refurbishment of The Octagon, the original library of the People's Palace dating back to 1888.^[29]

In 2007 parts of the School of Law – postgraduate facilities and the Centre for Commercial Law Studies – moved to premises in Lincoln's Inn Fields in central London. The Women at Queen Mary Exhibition was staged in the Octagon, marking 125 years of Westfield College and 120 years of Queen Mary College.^[14]

In September 2009, the world's first science education centre located within a working research laboratory at the Blizard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science, hoping to inspire children with school tours and interactive games and puzzles.^[30]

2010 to present[link]

Queen Mary became one of the few Universities to implement a requirement of the A* grade at A-Level after its introduction in 2010 on some of their most popular courses, such as Engineering, Law, and Medicine.^[31][32]

Following on from the 2010 UK student protests, Queen Mary have set fees of £9,000 per year for September 2012 entry, but also offer extensive bursaries and scholarships.^[33]

On 12 March 2012 it was announced that Queen Mary would be joining the Russell Group in August 2012.^[7][34] Later in the same month, Queen Mary and the University of Warwick announced the creation of a strategic partnership, including research collaboration, joint teaching of English, history and computer science undergraduates, and the creation of eight joint post-doctoral research fellowships.^[35][36]

Campus[link]

The main Mile End campus contains the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science and Engineering, the Queens' Building/People's Palace/Octagon, the main college library, the student union, Draper's bar and club, several restaurants, a number of halls of residences and a gym. The educational and research sites of the Arts Research Centre, Computer Science, the large Engineering building, G.E. Fogg Building, Francis Bancroft Building, G. O. Jones Building, Joseph Priestley Building, Lock-keeper’s Graduate Centre, and the Mathematical Science Building, are all located within the Mile End campus.^[37][38]

The Whitechapel campus encompasses Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, the Whitechapel Medical Library, the award winning Blizard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science, and the Royal London Hospital.

The West Smithfield campus of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, the West Smithfield Medical Library, the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, the John Vane Science Centre, the Heart Centre and St Bartholomew's Hospital are based in Smithfield.^[39]

The Centre for Commercial Law Studies and LLM teaching and postgraduate law research activities are based in Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn.^[39]

Nuclear reactor[link]

From 1964 until 1982 QMC maintained a nuclear reactor, the first to be built for a UK university. Initially sited beneath Mile End Road, it was moved to the new QMC Nucleonics Laboratory in Marshgate Lane, Stratford, London in 1967, upgraded in 1968, and decommissioned in 1982, with the site licence surrendered in November 1983.^[40][41] The Marshgate Lane site became part of the Olympic Park from 2006; in response to safety concerns about the former purpose of the site, a Greenpeace spokesman was quoted as saying "In our view there's nothing to worry about."^[42]

Harold Pinter Drama Studio[link]

On 26 April 2005, Harold Pinter, who was to win the Nobel Prize in Literature later that year, gave a public reading and was interviewed by his official authorised biographer, Michael Billington, in the studio named for Pinter and located as part of the Faculty of Arts (School of English and Drama) in the Mile End campus,^[43][44] to celebrate its refurbishment.^[45]

Organisation and administration[link]

Queen Mary and Westfield College was established by Act of Parliament and the granting of a Royal charter in 1989, following the merger of Queen Mary College (incorporated by charter in 1934) and Westfield College (incorporated in 1933).^[1] The Charter has subsequently been revised three times: in 1995 (as a result of the merger of the College with the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry); in 2008 (as a result of the Privy Council awarding the College Degree Awarding Powers; and in July 2010 (following a governance review).^[1]

Queen Mary is an 'exempt charity' under the Charities Act 1993. The Higher Education Funding Council for England has been Queen Mary's principal regulator since June 2010.^[1]

Faculties and schools[link]

The three faculties are split further into independent schools, institutes, and research centres:^[47]

Finances[link]

In the financial year ended 31 July 2011, Queen Mary had a total income (including share of joint ventures) of £297.1 million (2009/10 – £289.82 million) and total expenditure of £295.35 million (2009/10 – £291.56 million).^[1] Key sources of income included £100.02 million from funding body grants (2009/10 – £103.97 million), £82.8 million from tuition fees and education contracts (2009/10 – £76.22 million), £73.66 million from research grants and contracts (2009/10 – £68.47 million) and £1.17 million from endowment and investment income (2008/09 – £1.48 million).^[1] During the 2010/11 financial year Queen Mary had a capital expenditure of £42.53 million (2009/10 – £45.61 million).^[1]

At year end Queen Mary had endowments of £33.59 million (2009/10 – £29.95 million) and total net assets of £300.79 million (2009/10 – £291.38 million).^[1]

Academics[link]

Queen Mary has around 3,000 staff, who teach and research across a wide range of subjects in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Laws, Medicine and Dentistry and Science and Engineering. Almost 17,000 students study at the 21 academic schools and institutes, with just over 30 percent coming from overseas and represent 130 different countries.^[38] Queen Mary awarded over £2 million in studentships to prospective postgraduate students for the 2011/12 academic year.^[39][48] A staff survey in 2011 found that Queen Mary staff were highly motivated, proud to work at Queen Mary, felt that Queen Mary is a good place to work, and could see constant improvements over 12 months.^[49]

Research[link]

In 2009/10, Queen Mary received a total of £68.5 million in research grants and contracts, the highest research income of any UK university which was not then a member of the Russell Group.^[50] In the UK Research Assessment Exercise results published in December 2008, Queen Mary was placed 11th according to an analysis by The Guardian newspaper^[51] and 13th according to The Times Higher Education Supplement,^[52] out of the 132 institutions submitted for the exercise. The Times Higher commented "the biggest star among the research-intensive institutions was Queen Mary, University of London, which went from 48th in 2001 to 13th in the 2008 Times Higher Education table, up 35 places."^[53]

The growth and strength of research at the College was rewarded with an invitation to join the Russell Group of research-intensive universities in the UK in 2012.^[54]

The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise classified research on a scale from 1 to 4, with 3 meaning "internationally excellent" and 4 meaning "world-leading". The areas in which Queen Mary excels are (technically, these are the areas where at least three quarters of the research output was judged as internationally excellent or world-leading):^[55]

• Cancer Studies (15% world leading plus 70% internationally excellent)
• Computer Science and Informatics (25% world leading plus 50% internationally excellent)
• Dentistry (25% world leading plus 50% internationally excellent)
• Drama, Dance and Performing Arts (50% world leading plus 40% internationally excellent)
• Economics and Econometrics (30% world leading plus 55% internationally excellent)
• Epidemiology and Public Health (30% world leading plus 50% internationally excellent)
• Geography and Environmental Studies (25% world leading plus 50% internationally excellent)
• Other Hospital Based Clinical Subjects (15% world-leading plus 65% internationally excellent)

The raw data from the Research Assessment Exercise does not rank or otherwise compare universities. Other parties interpret the raw data and compile university rankings. Queen Mary placed in the first five in UK, according to The Guardian rankings, in the following subjects:

• Cancer Studies (rank 5–6).^[56]
• Dentistry (rank 2)^[57]
• Drama, Dance and Performing Arts (rank 2–4)^[58]
• English Language and Literature (ranked 2–4)^[59]
• Epidemiology and Public Health (rank 3)^[60]
• Geography and Environmental Studies (rank 1–5)^[61]
• Health Services Research (rank 4)^[62]
• Linguistics (rank 1)^[63]
• Pre-Clinical and Human Biological Sciences (rank 4)^[64]

Libraries[link]

As members of a college of the University of London, students at Queen Mary have access to Senate House Library, shared by other colleges such as Kings College London and University College London and are permitted to use the facilities at the University of London Union, located a 15 minute tube ride away in the academic melting pot of Bloomsbury. Requests by students to carry out research at other College's libraries, such as the Maughan Library and the collections at SOAS, are also welcomed by member institutions.

Partnerships[link]

Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications[link]

Queen Mary offers a joint degree programme with Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, one of China's top engineering universities. This was the first of its kind to be approved by the PRC Ministry of Education: it is taught 50% by each institution; in English; in Beijing; by staff who fly out from Queen Mary to teach its part of the programme; and the students receive two degrees, one from each university. The programmes are in Telecommunications and Management and Ecommerce Engineering and Law. Almost 2,000 students are studying on these programmes in 2009 and the first cohort graduated in the Summer of 2008.^[65] The joint programmes have been praised by the UK Quality Assurance Agency; the PRC Ministry of Education; and the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology.^[66]

University of London Institute in Paris[link]

Queen Mary collaborates with Royal Holloway, University of London to help run programmes at a college of the University of London in Paris, France, known as the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP), enabling undergraduate and graduate students to study University of London ratified French Studies degrees in France.^[67]

Rankings[link]

Internationally, Queen Mary was ranked 172nd in the 2011 QS World University Rankings.^[75] In 2010 it moved up 17 places to 147th from its position of 164th in the 2009 THE-QS World University Rankings (in 2010 Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings parted ways to produce separate rankings—with the new 2010 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Queen Mary now is ranked 120th in the World^[76]). The Shanghai Jiao Tong University's 2009 Academic Ranking of World Universities placed it in the 59 – 79 band in Europe and 152 – 200 globally, putting it level with University of Warwick, Durham University and St. Andrews.^[77] The 2007 CHE-ExcellenceRanking, examining the academic performance of graduate programs in natural sciences, placed Queen Mary in the European top group for biology and physics.^[78] Queen Mary is ranked in the top 10 for subjects including Medicine and Law (both surpassing King's College London), with some of these ranked equal to University College London and Oxford University.^[79] In addition, The Guardian Newspaper's League Tables placed Queen Mary 12th in the UK in 2005; it was placed 42nd by The Times; and 28th in 2006. Queen Mary has also been ranked the sixth best UK university for student employability^[80] – with the second highest UK graduate starting salary.^[81] The NUS-supported National Student Survey of 2011 ranked Materials at Queen Mary 1st in the UK, with Aerospace Engineering ranked 2nd and Mechanical Engineering 5th, with the entire School of Engineering and Materials Sciences ranked 1st in London. Overall, Queen Mary achieved student satisfaction of 88% to rank equal 2nd in London with UCL, and ahead of King’s College London, LSE and Imperial College.^[82]