SS Montrose

A number of steamships were named Montrose, including -

HMS Forfar (F30)

HMS Forfar was formerly the liner SS Montrose, requisitioned as an Armed Merchant Cruiser in 1939 and sunk in 1940.

She was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd in Glasgow, being launched in 1920 as passenger ship Montrose(II) of Canadian Pacific Steamships Ltd. In 1939 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and converted to an armed merchant cruiser and renamed HMS Forfar.

On 2 December 1940 Forfar, on the Northern Patrol, was torpedoed and sunk by U-99 under the command of Otto Kretschmer. Forfar was en route to join convoy OB 251 and was about 500 miles west of Ireland. 36 officers, including her Captain Norman Arthur Cyril Hardy, and 136 men lost their lives. The survivors were rescued by the Canadian destroyer HMCS St. Laurent, the British destroyer HMS Viscount and the British cargo steamer Dursley.

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Coordinates: 54°35′N 18°18′W / 54.583°N 18.300°W / 54.583; -18.300

SS Montrose (1897)

SS Montrose was a transatlantic ocean liner for Elder, Dempster & Company and the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company. She was the vessel on which Hawley Crippen and his lover, Ethel Le Neve, fled England after Crippen's wife was murdered.

A 444.3-foot (135.4 m) ocean liner with a 5,440 gross tonnage (GT), Montrose was built by Sir Raylton Dixon & Co. of Middlesbrough and was launched on 17 June 1897 for Elder, Dempster & Company. Making her maiden voyage from Middlesbrough to Quebec and Montreal in September 1897, she began regular service from Avonmouth to Montreal the following month. On 14 March 1900, she began the first of eight voyages from Liverpool to Cape Town as a Boer War troopship.

Rebuilt to 7,094 GT in 1901, she was sold to the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company in 1903, and outfitted for 70 second-class and 1,800 third-class passengers. She began her service between Liverpool and Montreal, Quebec on 20 April 1903. She moved to service from London to Antwerp and Saint John, New Brunswick, in April 1904, and from London to Antwerp, Quebec, and Montreal the following month. Rebuilt again in 1905, the liner was increased to 6,278 GT.