H.M.S. The Ramsey
1914
(Pier Head PHF-18w)
- Class: Armed Boarding Vessel
- Displacement: 1,620 tons
- Dimensions: 320 x 37 x 16 ft.
- Machinery: Steam reciprocating, twin screw 4,000 ihp = 17.5 knots
- Armament: 2-12 pdr.
- Complement: 98
- Builder: Barrow Shipbuilders, 1895
- Service: Built as Duke of Lancaster for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway/London & North Western Railway west coast service from Fleetwood to Belfast. In 1911 she was bought by the Turkish Patriotic Committee and refitted, but the outbreak of war between Turkey and Italy prevented her from being delivered. In 1912 she was sold to the Isle of Man Steam Packet Co and renamed The Ramsey. After completing the 1914 season on the Liverpool and Douglas service, whe was taken over by the government and fitted out by Cammell Laird and Co as an armed boarding vessel. Based at Scapa Flow from Nov 1914 from whence she made nightly patrols. Sunk with the loss of 55 lives by the German raider Meteor 8 Aug 1915, which had been disguised as a Russian steamer. The 43 survivors were taken aboard and treated well. British cruisers caught up the next day forcing the Germans to scuttle their vessel after transferring the British to two neutral ships, from whence they were picked up by the British forces and returned to England.
Up