Built on the Tyne by Swan & Hunter for the Cunard Line, the Carpathia was a dependable workhorse rather than a record-breaker. After her first crossing from Liverpool to Boston in 1903 she was soon moved to Cunard's Mediterranean service, carrying thousands of emigrants from Hungary and Italy to New York.
Her place in history was secured in the night of 14–15 April 1912. Answering the Titanic's distress calls, Captain Arthur Rostron drove his ship at full speed through a field of icebergs and arrived around four in the morning, roughly two hours after the liner had foundered. His crew took more than 700 survivors out of the lifeboats – every person who lived through the disaster. The Carpathia stayed in service during the First World War and was sunk off the Irish coast on 17 July 1918 – torpedoed by the U-boat U-55.
