RMMV Oceanic: White Star Line’s Unfinished Masterpiece

As the judge’s gavel clattered down upon his sound block, a verdict for the infamous Royal Mail Case had been reached. Lord Kylsant, a once-respected member of upper society, was led to his jail cell.

His company was to be liquidated, owing in excess of £10 million (£533 million by today's standards), and the British government were set to salvage what remained. Outside the Old Bailey, journalists huddled in the piercing November cold to discover the adjudication.

There had originally been three counts of criminal activity against Lord Kylsant, director of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and owner of White Star Line, and although court proceedings had started during the calm warmth of July 1931, Kylsant’s appeal against his conviction had ensured he was bailed, pending appeal.

However, that was merely a stay of execution. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and Kylsant was given a 12-month sentence behind bars. His lavish lifestyle was now to be traded for the bitterness of Wormwood Scrubs.

His crime? Lord Kylsant had falsified company accounts to ensure his firm appeared profitable. That might not sound like an evil deed, but punishment had to be issued for luring potential investors into parting with millions of pounds.

The case fell with huge impact, and changed the face of business as the world understood it. Substantial changes to the law were thrust forth, and accounting and auditing practices would now be dominated by the strictest of procedures.

A domino effect was felt across the nation, but there was one company that suffered more than most – Lord Kylsant’s beloved White Star Line. His behaviour effectively ended the marque and one of its most promising projects.

White Star Line: a celebrated brand

As a symbol of romanticism and style, nothing surpasses the heroic saga of the White Star Line.

Founded from the ashes of a defunct packet company, the Liverpool-founded partnership swiftly grew into one of the world’s most prominent shipping brands. It now resides as a wildly popular historical topic enhanced by the progression of the digital age.

Arguably, history’s most researched liners are nestled within the White Star Line fleet. From the infamous iceberg victim of 1912, to the violated war-time HMHS Britannic and steadfast RMS Olympic, each ship sports a huge cult following.

Yet, there’s one ship that seems to have disappeared from culture’s celebrated radar. And that’s because it never actually took to the sea. Scandals and financial problems ensured that it was never finished.

The project even brought about the end of White Star Line as the world loved it. The fateful ship was titled RMMV (Royal Mail Motor Vessel) Oceanic.

RMMV Oceanic: doomed project origins

Following the First World War, and the loss of two flagship vessels during hostile tribulations, White Star Line was ‘awarded’ two German liners as a form of compensation.

The confiscated Germanic ships were quickly renamed RMS Homeric and RMS Majestic, and set to work on the transatlantic service in tandem with RMS Olympic; the sole surviving member of the pre-war ‘Olympic-class’ liners.

There was a problem, however. While RMS Majestic could almost keep up with the RMS Olympic, the Homeric was too small, and too sluggish, to provide White Star Line with a viable replacement.

It wasn’t long before a press release was issued regarding the imminent construction of a fresh project to replace RMS Homeric. Not that Homeric was unsuccessful.

On the contrary - passengers adored the RMS Homeric. She even survived a nightmarish transatlantic voyage through a hurricane, safely making it to New York with no loss of life – despite an 80-foot rouge wave causing considerable damage.

Sturdy she may have been, but her lack of pace was a genuine issue. White Star Line prided itself on a clockwork timetable. Thus, a 25-knot ship was required as an Olympic-style replacement, and Homeric would then be hauled off for scrap.

Just as the new project was developing pace, the trust that owned White Star Line – International Mercantile Marine Co. – decided to separate from its non-American entities.

This boardroom tactic opened up a sale to Owen Philipps, 1st Baron Kylsant, who integrated White Star into his company; the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.

Lord Kylsant was the owner of Harland & Wolff of Belfast, and it was therefore inevitable that the new project would be constructed there. Studies were carried out over many months before the keel was laid 10 days after the contract was signed on June 18, 1928.

As savvy as he was, Lord Kylsant would prove to be one-half of RMMV Oceanic’s unceremonious fate. The other factor would hit during the autumn of 1929 - The Great Depression.

Oceanic takes shape - 1928

White Star Line appeared to get all dewy-eyed and nostalgic when appointing the Oceanic namesake, directly referencing the very first liner put into service by the company after Thomas Henry Ismay took the brand under his wing.

Set to cost an eye-watering £3.5 million, measuring in with a length close to 984ft (300 meters) and registering no less than 60,000 gross tons, RMMV Oceanic was on track to become the largest liner ever built.

There was a real chance that Oceanic would be the first to surpass the symbolic 1,000-foot benchmark after some revisions, too.

After initial celebrations marking the project’s birth gave way to the sound of construction, plans were finalised for the Oceanic’s capacity; 2,808 passengers.

Things were looking good. The ship was going to be a record-breaker. The new owner was pumping investment into the company, and the media support was second-to-none. Yet, problems started before the echoes of fanfare had even dissolved.

Despite the company’s best intentions and positive mantra, construction gradually slowed to a halt. The keel was still not completed by the time a full year had passed, and a large dispute over the Oceanic’s power plant burned deep within the boardrooms.

Lord Kylsant demanded the use of diesel-electric engines, rather than the tried-and-tested steam power of old. Harland & Wolff opposed this idea for a multitude of reasons, and voiced themselves so strongly that a compromise wasn’t reached for several months.

The new agreement brought about a new bragging right for White Star Line. The Oceanic would now become the first quadruple-screw ocean liner, with four low-speed diesel power plants directly gearing one propeller shaft each.

During this time, White Star Line also had the ongoing project of a smaller ship to manage; the MV Britannic. And, to that point, Britannic’s construction had gone without a hitch. The stars seemed to have aligned. Everyone was back on track, Lord Kylsant was happy, and the market was there for the taking.

Then, on the morning of October 24, 1929, everything changed. The world seemed to stop spinning as the first edition of global newspapers arrived at the vendors. The economy was about to be plunged into a decade-long depression.

Economic crisis: the Great Depression

It didn’t take long for the American-born Black Thursday to arrive on European shores. The Great Depression had spread across the Atlantic with the blackened gusto of Revelation’s apocalyptic Four Horsemen.

Although the glamour of New York’s Stock Exchange was far removed from Belfast’s shipyards, their fates were to become intertwined.

The Oceanic was already postponed and badly delayed, and when more than 16 million shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange in less than a day, the crisis escalated.

The Great Depression had turned the world on its head overnight. The grime and toil of the shipyards were halted as firms took stock of their new positions.

Jobs would have to go.
Passenger numbers would soon dwindle.
Inflation would rise.
Cash flows would be starved.

Everyone was in trouble. And then, just as things couldn’t get any worse, Lord Kylsant was suddenly arrested on serious financial irregularity charges.

RMMV Oceanic: a quiet expiry

Work on the Oceanic was postponed indefinitely, yet Belfast’s loyal ship workers didn’t give up hope. They coated the keel with preservative oils in the hope that construction would soon resume after the media scrum over Lord Kylsant’s arrest wore out.

That didn’t happen. The headlines remained awash with dirty dealings and coverage of Kylsant’s trial. Paired with the economic woe of the global depression, it came as no surprise when White Star Line pulled the plug on RMMV Oceanic.

Some impassioned individuals valiantly highlighted that Government-backed loans for the Oceanic project were still in force, but these funds were diverted to complete the construction of Britannic and also build her consort, to be named Georgic.

Without so much as an industrial obituary, the Oceanic’s hull was quietly broken up and scrapped. The glorious ship would now only exist as a footnote in history, with her hull dismantled for reuse on other White Star vessels.

Of the allocated £3.5 million, only £150k went into the RMMV Oceanic. Not that all efforts were in vain.

The Oceanic’s engineering inspired the next round of White Star Line design (including several styling cues that were adopted by MV Georgic), and her propulsion system found employment within a multitude of projects.

Arguably, there is some weight to the claim that SS Normandie – the ground-breaking French transatlantic cruiser – took certain inspirations from the failed RMMV Oceanic.

Designed shortly after the Oceanic’s blueprints made the rounds, the SS Normandie strikes an impressively similar silhouette.

White Star Line: End of the Road

As the Great Depression raged on and transatlantic pursuits fell by the wayside, White Star Line lived on the brink of collapse.

They weren’t the only shipping company in danger, and in a parallel struggle, Cunard had also had to postpone construction of their new superliner - known only as Hull 534; later to be the globetrotting Queen Mary.

The British government pushed White Star Line and Cunard to merge in 1934, promising to provide financial assistance that would complete Hull 534. Formed as Cunard-White Star Limited, following the challenges of a Second World War, the company dropped the White Star name to be known simply as Cunard.

After the internal wrangling of company politics had successfully rebranded, two White Star ships continued under the Cunard flag – the Georgic and the Britannic.

Both of these liners used fabricated metal originally placed down as the Oceanic’s hull, and it wasn’t until the Britannic was scrapped in 1960 that the final traces of the mythical Oceanic were lost to time.

The White Star marque lives on as a term Cunard employs to describe exemplary levels of customer service; receiving White Star Service is a byword for exemplary standards and devoted support.

A fitting legacy for such a celebrated historical juggernaut.

And as for Lord Kylsant? Well, he kept a very low profile for the remainder of his life, despite an emergence back into public life in 1933. However, that’s a different story with a very different ending.

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Lead image: "The ocean liner that never existed" - Digital Representation of RMMV Oceanic (Credit: AntonLogvynenko via the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license).