Official No:                               108781

Builder:                                     C.S. Swan & Hunter Ltd, West Yard, Wallsend-on-Tyne

Launched:                                28 October 1898

Pennant No:                             Y 3.771

Signal Letters:                         QMHW

Into Service:                              15 June 1915

Out of service:                          6 July 1915

Fate:                                           6 July 1915 mined and sank

Items of historic interest involving this ship:

Background Data:  One of an additional group of ships requisitioned by the Admiralty during WW1 to augment the ships of the RFA

Career Data:

28 October 1898 launched by C.S. Swan & Hunter Ltd, West Yard, Wallsend-on-Tyne as Yard Nr: 237 named Osborne for Monarch Steamship Co Ltd., (Raeburn & Verl Ltd., Managers), Glasgow

2 November 1898 Lloyds List newspaper reported …

1898 register opened at Glasgow as Nr: 110/1898 in the Register Book

December 1898 completed

11 January 1905 notice given by the owners to renamed the ship African Monarch. Details published in the Lloyds List newspaper to this effect on this day –

22 April 1905 when on passage from New York suffered very rough seas and part of the deck cargo shifted and some was lost overboard

28 April 1905 arrived at Fremantle, Australia

5 June 1905 arrived at Newcastle, NSW

2 June 1910 sailed from Rotterdam

16 June 1910 passed St Catherines Point

3 November 1914 the Daily Record newspaper reported …

15 June 1915 requisitioned for service as a Collier to Northern Russia for Russian Government a/c until …

6 July 1915 struck a mine most probably laid by the German SMS Meteor (KvtKpt. Wolfram von Knorr) and sank nine miles S of Cape Orlov at the entrance to the White Sea with the loss of one life

Notes:

Pennant Nr: subsequently allocated to Southville