The Jubilee class were a group of five passenger and cargo ocean liners built by Harland and Wolff at Belfast, for the White Star Line, specifically for the White Star Line's service from the UK to Australia on the Liverpool–Cape Town–Sydney route. The five ships in order of the dates they entered service were: (1899) (1899) (1899) (1901) (1901)
Background
The White Star Line had originally been based on the Australian trade. Thomas Ismay had purchased the houseflag of the Pilkington and Wilson's White Star Line which had prospered during the Australian gold rushes of the 1850s. In the late 1890s the company decided to restart an Australian service, and ordered five new steamships for the new service, these were referred to as the "Jubilee class" as their commissioning coincided with the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
The ships were built in two groups, with the first three ships of the class (Afric, Medic and Persic) entering service in 1899, and the last two (Runic and Suevic) entering service two years later. The five ships enabled White Star to run their planned monthly "Colonial service" to Australia.
Features
The Jubilee-class ships were built for a dual role of carrying both passengers and cargo, and were at the time, the largest ships ever made for the Australia service. The first three had a gross register tonnage of slightly below 12,000 tons, and a capacity for 320 passengers. The passenger service proved more popular than White Star had expected, and so the last two ships of the class incorporated some design changes, giving them a slightly higher tonnage of around 12,500 tons, and an enlarged capacity of 400 passengers. The most notable design changes were the extension of the poop deck and the moving of the bridge closer to the bow. All of the ships had three continuous decks, with the passenger accommodation located mostly aft of amidships.
The passenger accommodation was built with the immigrant and settler trade in mind, and only a single class of accommodation was provided; this was described as third-class, but was of higher quality than most third-class accommodation for ships of the period, and ranged in scale from two or four berth cabins, to open berth dormitories as the cheapest option. Passenger facilities included a dining salon, a library and a smoking room: These facilities were considered luxurious, and were not at the time normally included in third-class accommodation. One of the advantages of having a single class of accommodation was that passengers could have a free run of every part of the ship except the bridge, instead of being confined to the part of the ship reserved for one particular class.
As well as passenger accommodation, all of the Jubilee class also had a substantial 15,000 deadweight tons of cargo capacity, in seven cargo holds, most of which were refrigerated using a carbonic anhydride system: These were intended principally for the transport of Australian meat, with the capacity for 100,000 frozen carcasses of mutton in of refrigerated space. Each ship also had one cargo hold which was specially designed for the transport of up to 20,000 bales of wool. The cargo holds were served by twenty-five derricks.
The ships all had a single funnel and four masts with schooner rigging; plans had apparently been drawn up in the design stage for the ships to be equipped with sails, but this idea was abandoned. They were powered by two quadruple-expansion steam engines through two propellers, with a service speed of around .
Careers
Afric
Afric was the first of the five ships to be launched, although not the first to sail to Australia, She was launched on 16 November 1898, making her maiden voyage on 8 February the following year from Liverpool to New York as a test run, after further work she entered service on the Australia service on 9 September. Afric and her sisters carried troops and horses during the Boer War (1900–1902), which often interfered with their schedule, it would not be until the war concluded in 1902 that White Star was able to put their planned regular monthly service into effect. After twelve years of uneventful peacetime service, Afric was requisitioned for use as a troopship by the Australian government in 1914 on the outbreak of World War I. She was sunk by a German U-boat on 2 February 1917 in the English Channel with the loss of 22 lives, making her the shortest lived member of the class.