Launched as the Cunard liner RMS Aurania she was requisitioned on the outbreak of war to serve as an armed merchant cruiser.

Damaged by a U-boat while sailing with an Atlantic convoy, she was purchased outright and converted to a floating workshop, spending the rest of her life as a support ship for the navy.

As one of the post-Great War "A-class" ocean liners, RMS Aurania was built by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd. at their Wallsend-on-Tyne yard for Cunard and launched on 6 February 1924.

With the merger of Cunard and the White Star Line in 1933, she continued to serve with the resulting company, Cunard White Star Ltd. With war looming, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty on 30 August 1939 and converted to serve as an armed merchant cruiser, which involved the fitting of a number of guns.

The Aurania's cargo of empty drums acted to keep her afloat, and the captain was able to reduce the list to 15 degrees and get underway again.

[6] She sailed to join the British Pacific Fleet in early 1945, and by March was being deployed out of Manus in the Admiralty Islands, supporting the ships of Task Force 57.

HMS Artifex was sold for scrapping to BISCO on 28 December 1960 and departed Rosyth under tow on 7 January 1961, bound for the shipbreakers at Spezia.