RMS ''Lady Nelson'' was a

steam turbine A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...

ocean liner An ocean liner is a type of passenger ship primarily used for transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). The ...

which served in passenger service from 1928 to 1968 and operated as wartime

hospital ship A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating healthcare, medical treatment facility or hospital. Most are operated by the military forces (mostly navy, navies) of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or ...

from 1943 to 1945. One of a class of five

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same Ship class, class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They o ...

s popularly known as "Lady Boats", she was built for the Canadian National Steamship Company (CNS). The five vessels were

Royal Mail Ship Royal Mail Ship (sometimes Steam-ship or Steamer), usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract to the British Royal Mail. The designation dates back to 1840. Any vessel de ...

s that CNS operated from

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and most populous municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2024, it is estimated that the population of the H ...

and the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

''via''

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

. ''Lady Nelson'' was sold to Egyptian owners in 1953 and served as ''Gumhuryat Misr'' and ''Alwadi'' until she was scrapped in 1968.

Building and peacetime service

''Lady Nelson'' was built in 1928 by

Cammell Laird Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. It was formed from the merger of Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. The company also built railway rolling stock until 1929, ...

Birkenhead Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...

, on the Wirral in England, the same builder for all five ''Lady'' class liners. Like her sisters ''Lady Nelson'' was an oil-burner, with a set of four Cammell Laird steam turbines driving the propeller shafts to her twin

screws A screw is an externally helical threaded fastener capable of being tightened or released by a twisting force (torque) to the screw head, head. The most common uses of screws are to hold objects together and there are many forms for a variety ...

by single-reduction gearing. She had three passenger decks, and by 1931 she was equipped with a

direction finding Direction finding (DF), radio direction finding (RDF), or radiogoniometry is the use of radio waves to determine the direction to a radio source. The source may be a cooperating radio transmitter or may be an inadvertent source, a naturall ...

device. CN introduced the liners which became known as "Lady Boats" for mail, freight and passenger traffic between Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean. ''Lady Nelson'' along with and were designed for service to eastern islands of the British West Indies and had larger passenger capacity but lesser cargo capacity than and who were built for service to western islands. The hulls of all the Lady Boats were painted white, which then was a relatively new fashion among shipping companies, and confined largely to passenger ships serving tropical or sub-tropical destinations. After her launch, ''Lady Nelson'' was introduced to Canadian ticket and travel agents when the ship hosted a special lunch, press conference and tour to introduce the "Lady Boats" on 27 November 1928 at Pier 21 in

where the ships were acclaimed as "the finest boats afloat" in North America. The ships were introduced at the same time as Canada opened the Pier 21 ocean liner terminal in Halifax designed to give Canada a competitive presence in Atlantic travel routes. ''Lady Nelson'' sailed fortnightly between Halifax and

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies. It was located on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first known Europeans to encounter Guia ...

''via''

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, the

Leeward Islands The Leeward Islands () are a group of islands situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean. Starting with the Virgin Islands east of Puerto Rico, they extend southeast to Guadeloupe and its dependencies. In Engl ...

, the

Windward Islands The Windward Islands are the southern, generally larger islands of the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean islands or the West Indies. Located approximately between latitudes 10° and 16° N and longitudes 60° and 62° W, they extend from D ...

and

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

. In summer the route was extended to the port of

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. CN named each of its five new liners after the wife of an English or British admiral who was noted for his actions in the Caribbean. ''Lady Nelson''s namesake was

Frances Nelson Frances "Fanny" Nelson, Viscountess Nelson, Duchess of Bronte ( Frances Herbert Woolward, formerly Nisbet; (1758 4 May 1831)) was the wife of Horatio Nelson, the British naval officer who won several victories over the French during the Fre ...

, wife of the famous

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

Admiral

Horatio Nelson Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte ( – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer whose leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French ...

War service

''Lady Nelson'' was torpedoed by on 10 March 1942 while alongside at Castries, St. Lucia. Fifteen passengers and three crewmen were killed. The ship sank at the wharf but was refloated in late March and towed to

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobil ...

for repairs. LadyNelsonCommemorationStadaconaHospitalCFBHalifax

The Canadian government decided to convert ''Lady Nelson'' to a

to bring home Canadian wounded. Canadians had previously been sent home for treatment on British hospital ships but as casualties mounted from fighting in North Africa, the British asked Canada to provide its own hospital ships. Although informally called HMCS or HMCHS ''Lady Nelson'' by her crew, she remained owned by Canadian National Steamships, under charter by the Canadian Department of National Defence and retained a civilian crew of 75 from the

Canadian Merchant Navy Canada, like several other Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth nations, created the Canadian Merchant Navy () in a large-scale effort during World War II. A total of 12,000 men and women served in Canada's Merchant Navy. By war's end, 1,500 Can ...

and 100 medical staff from the Canadian Army. Completed as a hospital ship in April 1943, ''Lady Nelson'' had an operating theatre, x-ray machine and wards for 515 men. A special medical embarkation unit was created at Pier 21 in Halifax to unload patients and transfer and escort them on hospital trains which took the wounded to hospitals across Canada. As a hospital ship, ''Lady Nelson'' made 30 crossings of the Atlantic and brought 25,000 wounded Canadians home. When fighting ended in Europe in June 1945, ''Lady Nelson'' was switched to returning Canadian soldiers and war brides.

Postwar

''Lady Nelson'' returned to civilian duties in 1946, the only Lady Boat, along with ''Lady Rodney'', to survive the war. However declining passenger traffic due to air travel, high fuel consumption from the ship's turbine engines and rising labour costs made the Lady Boats too expensive to run. It was decided to replace the two lady boats with motor vessels with smaller passenger capacity in 1951. In 1952 ''Lady Nelson'' and ''Lady Rodney'' were sold to Egyptian owners for $750,000. After being refitted at

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

and then renamed, they were used to carry passengers in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Under her new owner, the Khedivial Mail line, ''Lady Nelson'' was renamed ''Gumhuryat Misr'', later becoming ''Alwadi'' in 1960 until she was scrapped in 1968."Canadian Hospital Ships", ''Royal Canadian Dental Corps Association Newsletter'', Fall 2014, p. 35
/ref>

Legacy

A large model of the ship in hospital colours is displayed at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax at the terminal where ''Lady Nelson'' operated for most of her career. A short street at

CFB Halifax Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Halifax is Canada's east coast naval base and home port to the Royal Canadian Navy Atlantic fleet, known as Canadian Fleet Atlantic (CANFLTLANT), that forms part of the formation (military), formation Maritime Forces At ...

is named Lady Nelson Road in her honour. The Naval Museum of Halifax owns a 1944 painting by Wilfred Leonard Whitern of ''Lady Nelson'' and her original hospital ship flags which are displayed in the Stadacona Health Centre at

. ''Lady Nelson'' is also the subject of two paintings in the war art collection of the

Canadian War Museum The Canadian War Museum (CWM) () is a National museums of Canada, national museum on the military history of Canada, country's military history in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The museum serves as both an educational facility on Canadian military hist ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lady Nelson 1928 ships Maritime incidents in March 1942 Ocean liners of Canada Ships built on the River Mersey Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II Steamships of Canada Steam turbine-powered ships Hospital ships of Canada World War II naval ships of Canada Hospital ships in World War II