THE Cunard liner Ivernia, seen here being worked on at John Brown’s yard in Clydebank in November 1954, was launched the following month.
Clementine, Lady Churchill, wife of the then Prime Minister, who had named and launched a sister ship, Saxonia, sent a telegram to Cunard and Brown’s, saying: “May blessings and good fortune attend the Ivernia.” The new vessel was the second of three ordered from the yard by the Cunard Steam-Ship Company and was bound for Canada. Cunard chairman Col Denis H. Bates said the very first Ivernia had made her maiden voyage 54 years earlier and had met her end on New Year’s Day, 1917, when she was torpedoed in the Mediterranean.
It had recently emerged that a small yacht now bore the name Ivernia; Cunard had had to approach the owners and ask if they would be so kind as to change it, thus freeing the name up.
The new liner was named by Alice Howe, the wife of C.D. Howe, Canada’s Minister of Trade and Commerce. She recalled that 14 years ago to the day, in December 1940, her husband, then the Minister of Munitions, had been a passenger on another Scots-built vessel, the Western Prince (launched from Old Kilpatrick, just two miles from Brown’s) which had been torpedoed in the Atlantic. He had survived, she said, thanks to the courage and skill of British seamen.
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