RMS Kildonan Castle
History
United Kingdom
Name	Kildonan Castle
Owner	Union-Castle Line
Builder	Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited, Glasgow
Yard number	408
Launched	22 August 1899
Completed	1899
Commissioned	December 1899
Decommissioned	1931
Renamed	H. M. Transport 44 / Pennant MI 74
Fate	Broken up 18 May 1931
Notes	Requisitioned in two wars
General characteristics
Tonnage	9,652 GRT 5,105 NRT
Length	515 ft. 3 in.
Beam	59 ft 2 in (18.03 m)
Depth	34.7 ft.
Installed power	1,663 nhp
Propulsion	As built: Steel Screw Steamer 2 Stroke Double Acting engine 2 × Steam 4 cylinder (28, 39.75, 57.5, 82 x 60in), 2-Screw
Speed	Cruising: 17 kn (31 km/h; 20 mph) Max: 18 kn (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Capacity	As built: unk. first class passengers unk. second class passengers unk. third class passengers
Armament	As armed merchant cruiser 8 × 4.7-inch guns (later 8 6-inch guns)

The RMS Kildonan Castle was a Royal Mail Ship and passenger liner that went into service with Castle Line, and its successor, the Union-Castle Line. She was built to run the mail route from Southampton, England to Cape Town, South Africa starting in 1900. However, she began her life early, in December 1899, being requisitioned by the government to carry 3,000 troops to Cape Town at the start of the Boer War, and was temporarily used in South Africa to house POW's. She returned to England in 1901 for an outfitting to carry passengers and mail. She was one of nine ships on the England-South Africa run.^[1] At the outbreak of World War I, she replenished the South African Army with arms and ammunition. She also served as a hospital ship during the Dardanelles Campaign, outfitted with 603 beds, and converted in March 1916 to an armed merchant cruiser. In January 1917, she took Lord Milner and 51 VIP delegates from England, France and Italy to Murmansk, Russia, on the Petrograd Mission.^[2][3][4][5] She then undertook convoy duties in the North Atlantic, returning to her normal South African mail run after the war.

During the Roaring 20's, the Kildonan Castle was one of 38 ships in the Union-Castle Line fleet.^[6] She was retired in 1930.

• Hodson, Norman, The Race to the Cape: A Story of the Union Castle-Line, 1857-1977, Hampshire: Navigator, 1995
• Hochschild, Adam, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion: 1914-1918, Boston: Houghton, 2011
• Wrench, John Evelyn, Alfred Lord Milner: The Man of No Illusions, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958
• Marlowe, John, Milner: Apostle of Empire, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1976
• George, Lloyd, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, Vol. III, III, Boston: Little Brown, 1934–36

• History of the ship: Link
• History as an armed merchant cruiser (AMC): Link
• Nomenclature: Link
• The Castle Line Atlas of South Africa, London: Currie, 1895