Shipboard life in the 1920s

 

What was it like to travel to Sydney from the UK in the 1920s?

Nanny's ticket to Australia

One little scrap of paper in my father's memorabilia and a couple of internet sites gives some  insight on this.

This is a ticket for my grandmother's travel to Sydney in 1926. She purchased the third-class Orient Line ticket on the Ormond in April for £33. Together with her future mother-in-law, Mary Ann, and future brother-in-laws, Alfred and Frank, she was immigrating to Sydney and joining her fiancé, James Kerr of Glasgow Scotland. He had moved there 12 months previously.

£33 buying power is £2,500 in 2025 100 years later and with inflation.  I would imagine it was pretty difficult for most people to afford the fare.

Not much was known about her background. Details of her mother, Mary McLaughlin have only just been discovered. She was known by her family to be an only child but as it turns out, she had  an illegitimate Strelley half-sisters and two half brothers. She went by the name Strelley and spent time with her father at his gym, even though it turns out she was illegitimate. She worked firstly for Saltcoasts Mission biscuits  and then for McFarlane Lang Biscuit Company as an ovens woman and lived with a relative of Macfarlane family in 1921 census. She earned extra money working at fight night events for the Strelley gym. She was able to buy her £33 ticket to Australia without anyone's help.

They applied for their passports and the four prepared for their journey to Sydney. They were travelling to London before departure, on the 29th of May, 1925, staying with Joe Valli's wife (vaudeville fame) prior to the journey.

RMS Ormonde

The Ormond was previously a World War I 14,853 tonnes ship, now converted to a three-class passenger liner. This oil-burning steamer ran a regular service from Tilbury, London, to Australia until 1952. Its regular route went from Tilbury, London, via Gibraltar, Toulon, Naples, Port Said, Suez, Aden, Colombo, Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne, Burnie, Sydney and Brisbane. It was known as the RMS due to its extra role as a Royal Mail Ship. It carried post-war immigrants keen to make a new home in Australia. Generally, it had around 278 first-class, 196 second-class and 1,017 third-class passengers as it plied its way back and forward several times a year.

The ticket reveals what the third-class passenger would expect for their money. Firstly, each ticket was for either a six, eight or 10 berth cabin. It was guaranteed to carry four quarts of water per passenger per day. Presumably, this was provided for bathing and toilets as well as quality drinking water. Bedding, cabin and table requirements were provided by the ship.

What to look forward to

The ticket lists the weekly provisions supplied to each adult. These were dictated by the Board of Trade and Ministry Scale. This included

2lb 4ozs of pork, 1lb of preserved meat and 2lb 8ozs of bread or biscuits. Also listed was the required  quantity of potatoes, raisins, butter, suet, sugar, oats and  flour etc.

Third Class Dining Room Deck F

Meals were supplied in the third-class dining rooms at the following times:

8am for breakfast

1pm for dinner

5pm for Tea

8pm for supper

Breakfast consisted of porridge with milk, sausage, Irish stew, curried meat, rice, cold meat with bread, butter, jam, marmalade, tea and coffee. Dinner or lunch was served with soup, fish or boiled meat, fresh vegetables, stewed fruits, pudding, bread and butter and jam and marmalade.

Tea consisted of cold meats, pickles, salad, cakes or scones, et cetera, plus bread and butter and jam, et cetera. Supper was bread and butter, cheese and biscuits.

Dining Room Third Class Deck E

Each passenger was permitted 15 cubic feet of luggage, carried in trunks to the value of £10 unless insured for more. A 15 cubic feet is a trunk of 14 inches (L) by 35 inches (W) by 17 inches (D).

Being so far from home on this lengthy trip oh how they would have marvelled at the exotic sights along the way.  Was the trip an epic adventure expected of travellers today? Did they partake in the sun and sea air? Between meals did they use the gym, enjoy dancing, partake of shipboard sports such as  tennis and shuffleboard.

A few stories from other relatives who made the long trip.

An earlier trip by the Kerrs travelling to New Zealand resulted in a shipwreck. David Montgomery Yuill Kerr, Hannah Anderson Johnson, with their children, James, Robert, May and David left Scotland to make a new life in New Zealand in 1922. They originally left for N Z on the SS "Remuera" on 20 July 1922. It appears to have had a collision with the SS " Marengo" near Weymouth in the English Channel. The passengers were taken off the ship by the SS "Victoria"

My Gadsby family travelled with great great grandmother Selina and family Grace, Maude, Julia, Kitty, Selina, and young son William. They met up with future friends the Thurlows, and a shipboard romance ensued. They carried with them a well-thumbed copy of the “Girl's Own Annual” hundreds of pages   with stories of fashion, Australian lifestyles, cooking and memories left behind. I've often imagined my relatives and their exploits on the six-week trip with their experiences and new found friendships.

Later in the 1920s, my mother-in-law, Wynne travelled over as an eight-year-old with her six-year-old sister, Patricia under the guidance of a stewardess. One of her memories is of the residents of the Suez Canal welcoming them by lifting their dresses. To their shock, they were wearing no underwear!

 At port stops were our relatives too scared to venture ashore at exotic and unfamiliar ports?

Perhaps they were offered shells, ivory carvings, exotic foods et cetera, by the locals at docks on the way. Pieces of coral and ivory, amongst my grandparents’ memorabilia makes me think they  did gather some souvenirs on the way!

Carved Ivory

Vintage Coral