RMS Queen Mary is a former British ocean liner that operated primarily on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line. It is currently a hotel, museum, and convention space in Long Beach, California, United States. It is on the US National Register of Historic Places and member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland, she was subsequently joined by RMS Queen Elizabeth in Cunard's two-ship weekly express service between Southampton, Cherbourg and New York. These "Queens" were the British response to the express superliners built by German, Italian, and French companies in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage on 27 May 1936 and won the Blue Riband that August; she lost the title to SS Normandie in 1937 and recaptured it in 1938, holding it until 1952, when the new SS United States claimed it. With the outbreak of World War II, she was converted into a troopship and ferried Allied soldiers during the conflict. On one voyage in 1943, she carried over 16,600 people, setting a record for the most people carried on one vessel at the same time that still stands.
Following the war, Queen Mary returned to passenger service and, along with Queen Elizabeth, commenced the two-ship transatlantic passenger service for which the two ships were initially built. The pair dominated the transatlantic passenger transportation market until the dawn of the jet age in the late 1950s. By the mid-1960s, Queen Mary was ageing and operating at a loss.
After several years of decreased profits, Cunard officially retired the Queen Mary from service in 1967. Bought by the City of Long Beach to function as a restaurant, museum, and hotel, she left Southampton for the last time on 31 October 1967 and sailed to the Port of Long Beach where she was permanently moored. After undergoing extensive refurbishment and modifications, Queen Mary opened to the public in 1971 and has remained operational since.
With Weimar Germany launching Bremen and Europa into service, the United Kingdom and its shipping companies did not want to be left behind in the shipbuilding race. White Star Line, Cunard's chief British rival, began construction on the 80,000-ton Oceanic in 1928, while Cunard planned a 75,000-ton unnamed ship. Cunard's Chief Naval Architect, George Mcleod Paterson, was the principal designer.
Construction on the ship, then known only as "Hull Number 534", began in December 1930 on the River Clyde by the John Brown & Company shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland. John Brown assisted in the design and construction of the vessel, which was his first major project in the shipyard. Work halted in December 1931 due to the Great Depression and Cunard applied to the British Government for a loan to complete 534. The Government granted the loan, providing enough money to complete the unfinished ship, and also to build a running mate to provide a two ship weekly service to New York.
One condition of the loan was that Cunard merge its operations with the White Star Line, which was also struggling due to the depression and had cancelled construction of its Oceanic. Both lines agreed to the merger, and, on 10 May 1934, the companies created a third company, Cunard-White Star Line, to manage their newly combined fleet. Work on 534 resumed immediately with a launch scheduled for 1934. Prior to the ship's launch, the River Clyde had to be specifically deepened and widened to cope with her size, undertaken by the engineer D. Alan Stevenson.
On 26 September 1934, Her Majesty Queen Mary launched Hull 534 as RMS Queen Mary. Eighteen drag chains slowed the ship down the slipway, which checked the liner's progress into the River Clyde. Until her launch, the name was a closely guarded secret. 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 King George V's permission to name the ocean liner after Britain's "greatest queen", he said his wife, Mary, would be delighted. Accordingly, the delegation had no other choice but to report that 534 would be called Queen Mary. The name had already been given to the Clyde turbine steamer TS Queen Mary, so Cunard made an arrangement with its owners and this older ship was renamed Queen Mary II.
Following her launch, workers began fitting out the Queen Mary. She received 24 Yarrow boilers in four boiler rooms and four Parsons turbines in two engine rooms. The boilers delivered 400 pounds per square inch (28 bar) steam at 700 °F (371 °C), which provided a maximum of 212,000 shp (158,000 kW) to four propellers, each turning at 200 RPM.
Workers completed most of Queen Mary's work by March 1936 and she left Clydebank for her sea trials. During those trials, she achieved a speed of 32.84 knots. She then prepared for her maiden voyage. The 1,019.4 ft (310.7 m) LOA Queen Mary measured 80,774 gross register tons (GRT), potentially capturing the title of the world's largest passenger ship. Her rival Normandie, was 1,029 ft (313.6 m) LOA, but only measured 79,280 GRT. However, before Queen Mary entered service, Normandie resumed service after her winter overhaul. During that overhaul, CGT modified Normandie to increase her size to 83,243 GRT, retaining the title of world's largest passenger ship. Completion of Queen Mary ultimately took 3+1⁄2 years and cost 3.5 million pounds sterling, then equal to $17.5 million (equivalent to $320 million in 2024).
Commanded by Sir Edgar Britten, Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton on 27 May 1936. She sailed at high speed for most of her maiden voyage to New York until heavy fog forced a reduction of speed on the final day of the crossing, arriving in New York Harbor on 1 June 1936.
Queen Mary's design received criticism for being too traditional, especially when 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-First World War era. Her interior design, while mostly Art Deco, seemed restrained and conservative when compared to the ultramodern French liner. Nonetheless Queen Mary proved to be the more popular vessel than her rival, in terms of passengers carried.
In August 1936, Queen Mary captured the Blue Riband from Normandie, with average speeds of 30.14 knots (55.82 km/h; 34.68 mph) westbound and 30.63 knots (56.73 km/h; 35.25 mph) eastbound. In 1937, Normandie received a new set of propellers and reclaimed the Blue Riband. However, in 1938, under the command of Robert B. Irving, Queen Mary took back the Blue Riband in both directions, with average speeds of 30.99 knots (57.39 km/h; 35.66 mph) westbound and 31.69 knots (58.69 km/h; 36.47 mph) eastbound, records which stood until lost to United States in 1952.
In 1938, a smaller fleetmate based on Queen Mary, Mauretania, entered service. She will later provide some inspiration for the Queen Elizabeth, which was due to enter service in 1940.
Arthur Joseph Davis of Messrs, Mewes and Davis, and Benjamin Wistar Morris designed the Queen Mary's interior spaces. The Bromsgrove Guild constructed much of the ship's interior, while H.H. Martyn & Co. built the staircases, foyers, and entrances. Among the 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, a lecture hall, telephone connectivity to anywhere in the world, outdoor paddle tennis courts, and dog kennels. The largest room on board was the cabin class main dining room (grand salon), spanning three stories in height and anchored by wide columns. The ship had many air-conditioned public rooms on board. The cabin-class swimming pool facility spanned over two decks in height. This was the first ocean liner to be equipped with her own Jewish prayer room – part of a policy to show that British shipping lines avoided the antisemitism evident in Nazi Germany.