Uncover objects from the Titanic, find out about life at sea and learn about the port of Liverpool.
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Uncover objects from the Titanic, find out about life at sea and learn about the port of Liverpool.
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Details of model
One of the most impressive and beautiful models in the museum's collection.
This model is currently on display in the Emigration gallery in the basement of Merseyside Maritime Museum.
Transatlantic passenger liner, Cunard Line
'Gallia' was built in 1879 by J&G Thomson of Clydebank. She and her slightly smaller and less powerful sisters, 'Bothnia' and 'Scythia', were an enlarged and improved 'Abyssinia' (1870) class. They were among the last iron ships built for their owner. Indeed, 'Gallia' was the last ship built for the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company before it officially became the Cunard Steamship Company. She was very successful. She had a wide cruising range and could carry 300 first class passengers in luxurious two-berth cabins modelled on the White Star and Inman liners. She could also carry 1200 steerage passengers and 2,000 tons of cargo. 'Gallia' was rigged as a three-masted barque, and her captain used sail whenever possible. Two new features of the ship were an improved main saloon, which took up the full forty-two feet of the ship's width and steam steering gear. However, despite her improved accommodation, she was fitted with only two baths for the entire ship.
'Gallia' spent most of her career on the Cunard services between Liverpool and New York or Boston. In 1896 she was chartered by the Spanish Government to carry troops to Cuba. She sailed under the name 'Don Alvaro de Buzan'. In the following year she was sold to the Beaver Line Associated Steamers (D & C MacIver) for its service from Liverpool to Halifax and St John, New Brunswick. In 1898 the ship was transferred with the rest of the Beaver Line fleet to Elder Dempster but was not used by them. In 1900 she was sold to the Allan Line for its service to Quebec and Montreal. On her first voyage for her new owner she grounded near Sorel Point, near Quebec, on 4 May 1900. She was damaged beyond economic repair. She was later scrapped at Cherbourg.