| P&O Registrater number: |
1896/0912 |
| P&O Service: |
1896-1915 |
| Official Number: |
105572 |
| Tonnages: |
7911 gross, 4185 net. |
| Dimensions: |
Length
Breadth
Depth |
152.32 m (499.9 ft)
16.55 m (54.3 ft)
7.65 m (25.1 ft) |
|
| Machinery: |
Tripple expansion four cylinder engine
manufactured by the shipbuilder. 11000 i.h.p. |
| Propulsion: |
1 screw. |
| Speed: |
18 knots. |
| Passengers: |
317 1st class, 152 2nd class. |
| Crew: |
400 |
| Duty: |
Employed on the Indian and Australian services.
(She was also designed to act as a 2,500-man capacity troopship.) |
| History: |
15.04.1896 |
Launched by Caird and Co. Ltd., Greenock (Yard
No. 281), for Peninsula and Orient. The first of five sisters (Persia,
China, Egypt, and Arabia), she was the largest P&O vessel yet and the
biggest built at Greenock. |
|
03.09.1896 |
Registered. |
|
28.01.1898 |
First Australian sailing. |
|
08.1900 |
Inaugurated mail service calls at
Freemantle (replacing Albany). |
|
1903 |
Beat Norddeutscher Lloyd's Friedrich
der Grosse from the Red Sea to Australia by no less that 24 Hours. |
|
13.03.1915 |
Hired by the Admiralty for service as an armed
merchant cruiser, and served in the 10th Cruiser Squadron. |
|
08.08.1915 |
Torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U.22
off the island of Helligvaer, near Bodo, Norway. She sank with the loss of
10 officers and 150 ratings. The surviving 22 officers and 119 men were
taken to Narvik by Gotaland and HM armed trawler Saxon. |
