RMS Saxon
History
United Kingdom
NameRMS Saxon
Owner Union-Castle Line
BuilderHarland & Wolff, Belfast
Launched21 December 1899
Completed9 June 1900
Out of service1931
FateScrapped 9 April 1935
NotesRequisitioned as a troop transport in 1917
General characteristics
Tonnage12,385 GRT
Length570 ft.
Beam64 ft 4 in (19.61 m)
Installed power1,396 nhp
Propulsion
  • As built:
  • Steel Screw Steamer
  • 2 Stroke Double Acting engine
  • 1 × Steam 2 cylinder (28, 39.75, 57.5, 82 x 60in), 1-Screw
SpeedCruising: 17.5 kn (32 km/h; 20 mph)
Capacity
  • As built:
  • 310 first class passengers
  • 203 second class passengers
  • 154 third class passengers

The RMS Saxon was a Royal Mail Ship that went into service with Castle Line (and its successor, the Union-Castle Line) in 1900 on the passenger and mail service run between Britain and South Africa. She was the 4th ship by this name, the first being a coal carrier dating back to the Crimean War.[1] After the Boer War, the Saxon was one of nine ships that made up the Southampton-Cape Town Mail Run.[2] In May 1901, the High Commissioner of South Africa, Lord Alfred Milner, traveled aboard the Saxon on his way back to Southampton, England.[3] He traveled on the same route aboard the Saxon in 1925, shortly before his death.[4]

During World War I, the Saxon was requisitioned by the government and served as a troopship in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic, carrying American troops from New York to France. She made six voyages across the Atlantic from May 1918 to October 1918. She returned to service after the war, but suffered a serious fire in 1921 and had to be escorted to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where another ship picked up her passengers and mail.

The Saxon was retired in 1930, and replaced by the refrigerated ship Warwick Castle.[5]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Hodson, Norman, "The Race to the Cape", pg. 2
  2. ↑ Hodson, pgs 28-29
  3. ↑ Marlowe, pg. 112
  4. ↑ Marlowe, pg. 361
  5. ↑ Hodson, pg. 43

References

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