Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company in Jarrow built Montcalm, launching her on 17 May 1897 and completing her that August.

[1] Sir Raylton Dixon and Company in Middlesbrough built her sister ship Montrose, launching her on 17 June 1897 and completing her that September.

[5] She had a single screw, driven by a three-cylinder triple expansion engine built by T Richardson and Sons of Hartlepool.

[8] On 14 March that year Montrose began the first of eight voyages from Liverpool to Cape Town as a troop ship for the Second Boer War.

[17] In 1910 the US homeopath Hawley Harvey Crippen and his lover, Ethel Le Neve, fled England shortly after the suspicious disappearance of his wife.

After a body was found in the basement of their London home, Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Walter Dew sought Crippen and Le Neve on suspicion of murder.

Her master, Captain H G Kendall, identified the disguised Crippen and Le Neve, and got his wireless operator to reply to this effect.

When Montrose reached Quebec, Dew arrested the couple and brought them back to England to stand trial.

[15] In August 1914 Montrose and another Canadian Pacific ship, Montreal, were in Antwerp as the German army was advancing into Belgium.

Captain Kendall, who was now working at Antwerp as Canadian Pacific's marine superintendent, arranged for Montreal to bunker Montrose.