1000 Days-1910

PREWAR SERVICE

1910

For a beginning to Queen Mary’s story we must look back to the naval building programme of 1909, which embraced the laying down of six battleships and two battle-cruisers in its extent. The latter units being Lion from Devonport Dockyard, and the Princess Royal from Vickers at Barrow, both ships whose careers were to be later inexorably linked to that of the principal subject of this book, and upon whose design the subsequent Queen Mary was to be closely based.

As will become quite apparent in this coverage concentrating upon Queen Mary, the involvement of Princess Royal will be quite evident, not only in aspects concerning her trials, but actual service, especially the inclusion of edited extracts from her Log, covering the decisive period 7th November 1914 to 9th September 1915 in considerable depth, capturing not only the operatiuons she, and the 1BCS, were involved in, but providing an invaluable glimps of daily routine on-board such a battle-cruiser, providing insights and facets crucial in the overall telling of Queen Mary’s story.

The Admiralty Estimates for the follow-up 1910 building programme although less grandiose were nevertheless impressive, being centred on four 13.5 inch gunned super-dreadnoughts of the King George V class, and one battle-cruiser, this last mentioned capital ship would eventually become Queen Mary. Although there is no dated correspondence concerning this matter, the renowned Tyneside yard of Palmers had been successful in their tender for this lucrative contract, with this battle-cruiser’s official order placed with them by the close of that year.