She had the suffix "(1918)" added to her name in order to distinguish her from HMS President, the Royal Naval Reserve base in St Katharine Docks.

It was intended that a U-boat captain, unwilling to expend a precious torpedo on a small coastal merchantman, would surface to sink it by gunfire.

In the case of the warship-Qs the individual builders were asked to use their existing designs for merchantmen, based on the standard Flower type warship hull.

The class were also given a wide variety of spectacular dazzle camouflage schemes to confuse the primitive range finders of World War I submarines.

HMS Saxifrage escorted convoys in UK waters during 1918, and engaged nine U-boats, as recorded in her logbooks held in the National Archives at Kew.

She was the last Royal Navy warship to wear Victorian battleship livery of black hull, white superstructure and buff yellow funnel and masts.

Her sister Flower class Q-ship, HMS Chrysanthemum, was moored ahead of her in 1938 to provide additional office and training space.

After the war both ships were reconstructed by the Royal Navy with large deckhouses fore and aft, giving an improved drill area and extra offices; they were also provided with tall wheelhouses and dummy funnels.

[3][4][5] President had been permanently berthed in the River Thames on the Victoria Embankment in the City of London close to Blackfriars Millennium Pier since 1922.