SS Aurania 1918

N56 36.108 W6 19.531

ships bell recovered by divers and now in the Mull Museum

SS Aurania was an ocean liner owned by the Cunard Line. She was built in 1916 at Wallsend and measured 13,936 gross tons. She was propelled by two steam engines powered from four boilers and had a speed of 15kts.

The ship was built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd. of Wallsend and was the last of three ships planned to serve between Canada and Europe.

Her sister ships were the Andania and Alaunia. Although ordered in December 1913, because of the First World War, she was not completed until 1916. The two sister ships are shown in the image to the right.

 The Aurania was launched on 16 July 1916 and was immediately fitted out as a troopship. She made her maiden voyage from the Tyne to New York on 28 March 1917 and on her return sailed to Liverpool. The ship remained on hire to the British Government for the remainder of her career and was used exclusively on the North Atlantic, primarily moving troops and supplies. On 3 February 1918, she left Liverpool and was routed around the coast of Northern Ireland, bound for New York. On the following morning, she was some 15 miles north-west of Inistrahull, off the coast of Donegal, when she was hit by a torpedo from German submarine UB-67. Nine crew members were killed in the explosion. A trawler took the ship in tow but she became stranded off Caliach Point on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. Rough seas soon broke Aurania up and she was declared a total loss.

She was heavily salvaged after the war by James Gush of Greenock and today is very broken up although there boilers still stand 6m off the seabead at 23m.

The other image shows some of the silverware recovered by the South West Maritime Archaeological Group.

The image (supplied by Ron Howell) below is of the detail on one of the plates