Robert Irving

Captain Sir Robert Beaufin Irving OBE (16 July 1877 – 28 December 1954) was a Scottish officer of the Royal Naval Reserve and the British Merchant Navy. He became Chief of Clan Irving and ended his naval career as Commodore of the Cunard-White Star Line. Early life The son of Colonel John Beaufin Irving, of Kirtlebridge, Dumfriesshire, Irving was born in 1877 and educated at Fulland's College, Taunton, Ashborne Grammar School, and HMS Conway, in which he trained as a cadet from 1891 to 1895 and was a contemporary of John Masefield. In 1895 he became a midshipman in the Royal Naval Reserve.<ref name=Times>"SIR ROBERT IRVING: 40 YEARS WITH CUNARD WHITE STAR FLEET" (obituary), The Times, 30 December 1954</ref> In 1901 he was promoted to Sub-Lieutenant, R.N.R., and in 1909 to Lieutenant. Career In 1904 Irving joined the Cunard Line as a fourth officer in the Veria. He went on to serve in the ships Caronia, Umbria, Lucania, Carpathia, Lusitania, Carmania, Ivernia, and Brescia, and in 1913 he was appointed as chief officer in RMS Lusitania.