HMCS Lady Evelyn

HMCS Lady Evelyn, with two 12-pounders visible forward and another at the stern.
History
Canada
Name: Lady Evelyn
Launched: 1901, as Deerhound
Acquired: 1907
Commissioned: 1917, as HMCS Lady Evelyn
Decommissioned: 1919
Fate: 1936 scrapped
General characteristics
Displacement: 483 tons
Length: 189 ft (58 m)
Beam: 26 ft (7.9 m)
Draught: 9.5 ft (2.9 m)
Speed: 9 knots (17 km/h)
Armament: 3 × 12-pounder

HMCS Lady Evelyn was a commissioned patrol boat of the Royal Canadian Navy during the First World War. Originally built as Deerhound, she was acquired in 1907 by the Canadian government and renamed Lady Evelyn. After the war, she was sold for civilian service and scrapped in 1936.

SS Deerhound

She had been built by John Jones and Sons in 1901 in Tranmere, Merseyside, Great Britain as Deerhound for the North Pier Steam Ship Company Limited, Blackpool. From 1905 to 1907 she operated between Penzance and the Isles of Scilly. She was sold in 1907 by the West Cornwall Steam Ship Company for use as a mail tender in Canada.

Lady Evelyn

Canada's Postmaster General purchased Deerhound in 1907 at a cost of some $65,000 to act as a mail tender for transatlantic steamers. Renamed Lady Evelyn, she met ocean liners in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to transfer mail to and from trains at Rimouski in order to speed its delivery. She replaced Rhoda, an older, smaller ship that had previously performed these duties.[1] In 1914 Lady Evelyn was involved in the rescue of survivors from RMS Empress of Ireland when that ship sank following a collision off Rimouski.[2]

Lady Evelyn was one of a number of Canadian government ships taken over by the Royal Canadian Navy during the First World War. Commissioned in 1917, she spent her career on the East coast, and was decommissioned in 1919. At the time of the December 1917 Halifax Explosion, Lady Evelyn was on patrol off the harbour's approaches.[3]

Postwar career

The Howe Sound Navigation Co. brought Lady Evelyn to Vancouver in 1921.[4] In 1923 she was bought by the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia and remained with them until 1936, when she was scrapped.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Against Cigarettes: Government may Introduce a Bill this Session, Announces Mr. Fielding" (report on Parliamentary debates), The Montreal Gazette, April 27, 1908, p.21. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
  2. ↑ "Empress Wireless had Only 8 Minutes; In That Time the Operator Was Able to Summon Two Boats", New York Times, June 5, 1914, p.3. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
  3. ↑ John Griffith Armstrong, The Halifax Explosion and the Royal Canadian Navy: Inquiry and Intrigue, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002, p.31, 52, ISBN 0-7748-0891-8.
  4. ↑ "The Penzance / Isles of Scilly Mail Packets"
  5. ↑ "Union Steamship Co. of British Columbia"

External links

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