Ordered by the British Tanker Company in 1936, Abbeydale was built by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd, Wallsend and launched on 28 December 1936.

[1] She made several voyages between Abadan on the Persian Gulf, and on the outbreak of the Second World War she was returning to the UK from Australia and New Zealand.

[1] From there she operated in the South Atlantic, calling at Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Port Stanley, Falkland Islands.

In October she was refitted at Gibraltar as a defensively equipped merchant ship and in November was assigned to support Operation Torch, the allied invasion of North Africa.

[1] Postwar, Abbeydale spent most of her time sailing between the UK, the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and the Pacific, with occasional visits to the Caribbean.

On 19 June 1954, while sailing from Finnart to the Persian Gulf, she was involved in a collision with the British steamer Charles Dickens at Aden.

She was sold on 11 August 1960 to British Iron & Steel Corporation for scrapping, and on 4 September 1960 arrived under tow from the tug Campaigner at Thos.