RMS Dunottar Castle

After the outbreak of the First World War she served as HMS Caribbean, first as a troop ship and then as an armed merchant cruiser, until she sank in a storm off the Scottish coast on 27 September 1915.

In 1914 she was requisitioned as HMS Caribbean for World War I, initially as a troop ship to bring soldiers from Canada to Europe and later as an Armed Merchant Cruiser.

Several ships were despatched to assist when her SOS message was received, but most were obliged to turn back due to the poor weather.

[3] My dear Mr Rhodes, Abe Bailey has spoken to me about a plan to send a small private expedition from Cape Town to Cairo, and has suggested my coming with him.

Now it seems to me that this writing would help to attract public attention to the Cape to Cairo route and stimulate the interest taken in your railway scheme: so that perhaps you will think that our roads lie for some small distance in the same direction.

This should reach me in about two months time, and I will then give you a definite answer without delay, for by then I shall know what prospect there is of my being able to play at 'the cup and ball trick' (to quote your expression) in the House of Commons.

Dunottar Castle , from an 1893 book
A formative photograph of 17 men. Eight stand, seven sit on chairs and two are on the floor. Sir Byron Leighton Claud Grenfel Major Frederick Russell Burnham Captain Gordon Forbes Abe Bailey unidentified Lord Brooke Major Bobby White Lord Downe Major-General Sir Henry Edward Colville Major Harry White Major Joe Laycock Sir Winston Churchill Sir Charles Bentinck Colonel Maurice Gifford unidentified
Returning from the Boer War on the RMS Dunottar Castle , July 1900. [ 4 ] Standing L-R: Sir Byron Leighton, Claud Grenfel, Major Frederick Russell Burnham , Captain Gordon Forbes, Abe Bailey (his son John would marry Diana Churchill in 1932), next two unidentified, John Weston Brooke . Seated L-R: Major Bobby White, Lord Downe , General Sir Henry Edward Colvile (a year later Churchill as MP would demand an inquiry over his dismissal from South Africa), Major Harry White, Major Joe Laycock , Winston Churchill , Sir Charles Bentinck. Sitting L-R: unidentified, Col. Maurice Gifford (who had lost his arm in the Second Matabele War).