Mystery Ship

[PJS]

I know it's not much to go on but can anyone identify the ship below? It's in the centre of a page from my grandfather's scrapbook. Other photos on the page appear to be of Basra and East Africa so it is perhaps a hospital ship or troop transport.

 

 

Thank You

Peter

[MerchantOldSalt]

Peter

Fairly sure this is one of P&O's 'M' class liners, maybe MOREA, MANTUA or MALWA though there are others.  Attached is a picture of MOREA as a hospital ship for comparison but not necessarily her, there are dissimilarities throughout the various class members, just a matter of wading through lots of photos until finding the unique identifying features, the ships were altered in service things like crow's nests appeared and disappeared which makes the search more interesting. Will keep looking.

The similarities between your picture and this one are the high bridge wheelhouse, large gap between bridge and for'd funnel, crane down aft and so on.

Tony

 

 

[Ron Clifton]

I had a look at the class-list for WO95 and there are no surviving hospital ship War Diaries for any theatre other than France, whose ships included MADRAS, MAGDALINA and MAURETANIA. Not a lot of help, I'm afraid, but it blocks off a potential blind alley.

 

Ron

[PJS]

49 minutes ago, MerchantOldSalt said:

Peter

Fairly sure this is one of P&O's 'M' class liners, maybe MOREA, MANTUA or MALWA though there are others.  Attached is a picture of MOREA as a hospital ship for comparison but not necessarily her, there are dissimilarities throughout the various class members, just a matter of wading through lots of photos until finding the unique identifying features, the ships were altered in service things like crow's nests appeared and disappeared which makes the search more interesting. Will keep looking.

The similarities between your picture and this one are the high bridge wheelhouse, large gap between bridge and for'd funnel, crane down aft and so on.

Tony

 

 

 

Tony, that's excellent, Thank You.  Yes, I can certainly see the similarities (and also the minor differences). Looks like the Mongolia was also one of the P&O M Class and interestingly, was hit by a mine near Bombay in 1917 when my grandfather was at Bombay. That's probably just a coincidence though ...

 

Peter

 

[PJS]

35 minutes ago, Ron Clifton said:

I had a look at the class-list for WO95 and there are no surviving hospital ship War Diaries for any theatre other than France, whose ships included MADRAS, MAGDALINA and MAURETANIA. Not a lot of help, I'm afraid, but it blocks off a potential blind alley.

 

Ron

 

Ron, thanks for looking.

 

Peter

[DavidOwen]

Peter

 

Not yet digitised but logs can be found at TNA for 

Morea http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_hb=tna&_q=ship+AND+morea

Mantua http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_hb=tna&_q=ship+AND+mantua

Malwa (Extracted logs only and may not be for when she was "in-service" http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_hb=tna&_q=ship+AND+malwa+AND+log

 

Checked the Wellcome Library catalogues but nothing there of use (unlike HS Soudan)

 

Regards

 

David

[DavidOwen]

Additional info

 

According to Trove (National Archives of Australia) RMS Malwa was not a hospital ship in March 1916, although Nurses did embark in Sidney on 15th as they were "returning to duty" 

Mantua was used to return troops to Australia post war.

Morea was RMS in August 1915 embarking Australian General Hospital reinforcements and Nurses in Sydney and Melbourne.

[PJS]

46 minutes ago, DavidOwen said:

Peter

 

Not yet digitised but logs can be found at TNA for 

Morea http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_hb=tna&_q=ship+AND+morea

Mantua http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_hb=tna&_q=ship+AND+mantua

Malwa (Extracted logs only and may not be for when she was "in-service" http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_hb=tna&_q=ship+AND+malwa+AND+log

 

Checked the Wellcome Library catalogues but nothing there of use (unlike HS Soudan)

 

Regards

 

David

 

Thank you David. That's a lot to go through!

 

As best as I can tell the following ships were all P&O M Class:

 

Medina*
Maloja*
Marmora*
Moldavia*
Mooltan*
MOREA
MANTUA
MALWA
Mongolia*
Macedonia?

 

* Sank during WW1

 

Peter

 

 

[MKC]

PJS,

 

Malwa: was employed for trooping in the Med and on the UK-India-UK run from Dec 17 to Dec 19.  Malwa carried AIF personnel on four commercial (ie non-trooping) voyages prior to that: April 1915, March 1916, July 1916, and April 1917, mostly to Egypt, taking some to the UK via Suez Canal. The November, 1915 voyage to London via Suez Canal carried Australian men engaged under contract by British companies, so these are private individuals voyaging to the UK, though many subsequently volunteered for the Aust Munitions Workers scheme, and thus came under Commonwealth Govt control for repatriation.  

Morea: was employed as a hospital ship from Oct 1915 to March 1916, then as an Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) from April 17 to Oct 1919.

Mantua was employed as an AMC from Aug 14 to Dec 1919. Upon return to owners, it made one voyage to Australia in early 1920 which included a small number of AIF officers, wives and children. 

 

The above might help to narrow down which ship was where and when, and narrow down the possibilities for your image.

 

Mike

Edited 14 March , 2019 by MKC

[MerchantOldSalt]

Peter

Having spent a happy afternoon pondering loads of photos of "M" Class ships, I believe there were 6 of them which were sufficiently alike to be possibilities for your photo, counting cranes, derricks, stays and ventilators I am prepared to stick my neck out and say your photo is the MALWA of 1908.  On searching for details of the ship I found this previous post on the GWF from 2010 which I have pinched to save me writing it all out, thanks to "Akduerden".  As you can see she was indeed a troopship from 1917 to 1920.  Maybe someone else can absolutely confirm or correct my best guess, but I'm pretty confident. I cannot find a picture of her as a troopship unfortunately.

Tony

MALWA 1908

The MALWA was built in 1908 by Caird & Co, Greenock for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co (P&O Line). She was a 10,883 gross ton ship, length 562ft x beam 61.2ft x depth 24.6ft, two funnels, two masts and twin screw. There was passenger accommodation for 407-1st class and 200-2nd class. Launched on October 10th 1908, she sailed from Tilbury on her maiden voyage for Columbo, Melbourne and Sydney on January 29th 1909. In 1910 she was in collision with the British steamer NAIRN off Columbo, and in 1917 was requisitioned for use as a troopship. She resumed the Australia service on September 24th 1920 and continued on this route until December 16th 1932 when she was sold for breaking up in Japan.

 

Edited 14 March , 2019 by MerchantOldSalt

[PJS]

1 hour ago, MerchantOldSalt said:

Peter

Having spent a happy afternoon pondering loads of photos of "M" Class ships, I believe there were 6 of them which were sufficiently alike to be possibilities for your photo, counting cranes, derricks, stays and ventilators I am prepared to stick my neck out and say your photo is the MALWA of 1908.  On searching for details of the ship I found this previous post on the GWF from 2010 which I have pinched to save me writing it all out, thanks to "Akduerden".  As you can see she was indeed a troopship from 1917 to 1920.  Maybe someone else can absolutely confirm or correct my best guess, but I'm pretty confident. I cannot find a picture of her as a troopship unfortunately.

Tony

MALWA 1908

The MALWA was built in 1908 by Caird & Co, Greenock for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co (P&O Line). She was a 10,883 gross ton ship, length 562ft x beam 61.2ft x depth 24.6ft, two funnels, two masts and twin screw. There was passenger accommodation for 407-1st class and 200-2nd class. Launched on October 10th 1908, she sailed from Tilbury on her maiden voyage for Columbo, Melbourne and Sydney on January 29th 1909. In 1910 she was in collision with the British steamer NAIRN off Columbo, and in 1917 was requisitioned for use as a troopship. She resumed the Australia service on September 24th 1920 and continued on this route until December 16th 1932 when she was sold for breaking up in Japan.

 

 

Tony, Thank you so much for spending your afternoon on this. Much appreciated.  When I get home tonight I will see if I can improve the quality of the original image and if I can, I will re-post it.

 

Peter

 

1 hour ago, MKC said:

PJS,

 

Malwa: was employed for trooping in the Med and on the UK-India-UK run from Dec 17 to Dec 19.  Malwa carried AIF personnel on four commercial (ie non-trooping) voyages prior to that: April 1915, March 1916, July 1916, and April 1917, mostly to Egypt, taking some to the UK via Suez Canal. The November, 1915 voyage to London via Suez Canal carried Australian men engaged under contract by British companies, so these are private individuals voyaging to the UK, though many subsequently volunteered for the Aust Munitions Workers scheme, and thus came under Commonwealth Govt control for repatriation.  

Morea: was employed as a hospital ship from Oct 1915 to March 1916, then as an Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) from April 17 to Oct 1919.

Mantua was employed as an AMC from Aug 14 to Dec 1919. Upon return to owners, it made one voyage to Australia in early 1920 which included a small number of AIF officers, wives and children. 

 

The above might help to narrow down which ship was where and when, and narrow down the possibilities for your image.

 

Mike

 

Mike,

 

Thanks for the background information. Looks like it will come in handy.

 

Peter

[PJS]

Below is a marginally improved version of the original photo:

 

 

 

Thanks again to all who posted.

 

Peter