[1] She was built by Earle's Shipbuilding[2] for the Co-operative Wholesale Society for their special trade between Hamburg and Goole and launched on 7 July 1888.

[6] She was badly damaged in a collision with the Goole Steam Shipping Company vessel Aire on 14 December 1896 in the River Humber.

[7] She was lengthened in 1900 with a revised tonnage of 924, and obtained in 1905 by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to be employed on the Goole – Hamburg service.

She was captured in Hamburg in 1914 and was returned to her owners in 1918 having spent the war period mainly serving traffic to Finland from Germany.

On 25 May 1920 she ran aground in fog on Alderney in the Channel Islands carrying a cargo of potatoes from Jersey;[8] she was refloated on 15 June 1920.