SS Dunvegan Castle

SS Dunvegan Castle

History
Name	SS Dunvegan Castle
Owner	Castle Mail Packets Co. Ltd. - D. Currie & Co., London
Builder	Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd
Yard number	389
Launched	14 Apr 1896
Completed	1896
In service	1896
Out of service	1924
Fate	Broken up 18 Jan 1924
General characteristics
Type	passenger liner
Tonnage	5,958 tons
Length	450.0 ft
Beam	50.9 ft
Depth	31.7 ft draft 23.7 ft
Propulsion	sigle screw

Remarks

Built for the Castle Mail Packets Co. Ltd, London, and later became a part of the Union Castle Line. In 1902 she transported the Australian Cricket team to England. From 1904 until 1910 she was laid up, making occasional pleasure voyages to Norway and in the Mediterranean as required until a new London to Durban route was opened up in 1910.

Requisitioned two days after war was declared in August 1914, she served as a troopship, and was for a time a makeshift hospital ship in the Dardanelles until August 1916 when she returned to civilian use. Requisitiond under the Liner Requisition Scheme in 1917, in 1918 she undertook two voyages across the Atlantic from Liverpool to New York for Cunard and in 1919 was chartered to the French Government for two voyages from Copenhagen to Cherbourg to repatriate French prisoners of war from Northern Germany.

She was laid up at Netley in 1921 and sold in 1923 to Schwitzer & Oppler for breaking up in Kiel, Germany during 1924.

Soldiers carried

Alexandria to England 13 - 23 Sep 1915

• Reginald Alfred Nicholas MBE

England to Fremantle 4 July - 15 August 1919

• Harry Hodgson
• John Donaldson Patterson and wife Elizabeth from Durban 31 July