NEW COMMODORE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 140, 10 March 1938, Page 15

NEW COMMODORE

Cunard White Star Line

IRVING, OF THE QUEEN MARY Captain Robert B. Irving, commander of the Queen Mary since last October, has been appointed commodore of the Cunard Whi£e Star fleet, succeeding Commodore Reginald V. Peel, who retired in December.

During the Great War Commodore Irving served in the British Navy, leaving the merchant marine in 1913. After the close of the war he served as staff captain of the Mauretania and . later commanded most of the other ships of the line.

Commodore Irving has spent 44 years at sea. Starting at the age _of 14, he served two years: in the training ship Conway in the Mersey River, at Liverpool, and three years in a full-rigged ship out of that port. In 1896 he passed his examination for second mate and went into steam.

He joined the Cunard Line in 1904 as fourth officer of the Veria. He obtained his first command in the company in 1919, on the Venonia. Later, in turn, re commanded the Albanian, Scythia, Laconia, Franconia, Aquitania, Berengaria, and Majestic. He made ejght voyages around the world and many cruises to the Mediterranean and the West Indies.

Commodore Irving is a Scottish chieftain with all the glory of’a plan dating back 1100 years. He was born in Bickington, Devon, pf Scottish parents, in 1877, the son of a British army officer. His home, when ashore, is Bonshaw Tower, seat qf the Irving Clan. It is located near Kintiebridge, in Dumfriesshire. Running into Southampton in the Queen Mary, Captain Irving has little chance to go home. Whenever he has any time to spend there he enjoys showing visitors over his landed estate. While in command of the Scythia, Captain Irving directed the rescue of four men, the crew of a small herring drifter, the Innisarcrin, which caught fire between Fastnet Rock and Galley Head, off the south-west coast of Ireland.

-Commodore Irving was promoted to the rank of Captain in the Royal Naval Reserve in 1925. He had joined the force as a midshipman in 1895, and during the Great War distinguished himself by the way he carried out the arduous work of a naval transport officer in the Mediterranean.

Collecting pipes—and smoking them—is one of the Commodore’s chief pleasures. He has more than 120 pipes of rare workmanship. He credits Sir Walter Raleigh with being the greatest benefactor of the peoples of Europe because he introduced tobacco and the art of pipe smoking. Commodore Irving says the one real thrill he ever had at sea, in sail or steam, was .at the battle of Jutland, when he was serving as a lieutenant-commander in the light cruiser Yarmouth of Admiral Beatty’s squadron. He saw the battlecruiser Queen Mary and the Indefatigable go down within half an hour. One big shell came close to his ship. The Yarmouth came out of what he calls the “show” without being hit once. Commander Irving was mentioned in the official ■dispatches of this engagement.