SS Saxon
From Our Contribution
History | |
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Name | SS Saxon |
Builder/Built | 1900 Harland & Wolff, Belfast |
Type | Passenger / cargo ship |
Displacement | 12,385 tons |
Speed | knots |
Contents
Remarks
Originally ordered by the Union Steam Shipping Co, she was sold while being fitted out to the Union-Castle Mail Steam Shipping Co. Used on the UK-South Africa route.
During World War I Saxon remained on commercial service, although her third-class was devoted to troop-carrying on occasion. (Since Southampton had become a military port when the war began, Saxon's British terminus was moved to London.) From 1917 on, she was used full-time for trooping, primarily in the Mediterranean, and after the Armistice she repatriated Australian troops before being refitted for passenger service again.
Saxon resumed her Union-Castle service in 1919, and remained on the mail service through 1930. She made her final sailing on the intermediate service in January 1931 and was then laid up as a "reserve" ship. She was scrapped at Blyth in 1935, the last survivor of the Union Line flee
Soldiers carried
England to Fremantle 21 September - 11 December 1918
England to Port Melbourne 11 December 1918 - 31 January 1919
- Arthur Percy Thomas Boyle
- Walter Robert Hayes
- Henry McCavana disembarked in Fremantle 20 January
- William Richard (Billy) Orr