SS Mount Temple

The SS Mount Temple was a ship owned by Canadian Pacific Lines (Now CP Ships), built in 1901 in Walker-on-Tyne, England by Armstrong Whitworth & Company. The ship was launched for the Elder Dempster's Beaver Line on June 18 1901.

Early History

The ship was named for William Francis Cowper (1811-1888), Baron Mount Temple, an English politician and Lord of the Admiralty. The ship was 8790 gross tons and was 485 feet long. It also had one funnel, four masts, twin screw propellors, and a top speed of 13 knots.

Mount Temple saw use in November 1901 as a Boer War transport ship.

In 1903, Canadian Pacific Lines purchased the ship, with 14 other ships, and was equipped with a wireless telegraph. In the early days of wireless telegraphy, the call sign established for the SS "Mount Temple" was "MLQ." [Trevent, Edward. (1911) [http://books.google.com/books?id=6xxIAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA13&dq=SS+Empress+of+China#PRA1-PA12,M1 "The A B C of Wireless Telegraphy: A Plain Treatise on Hertzian Wave Signalling," p. 12.] ]

The ship saw action during World War I, where she had a 75 mm gun mounted on her stern.

After two successful Liverpool-Quebec City runs in 1903, the ship ran aground on West Ironbound Island, Nova Scotia in 1907. No lives were lost, and the ship was stranded until 1908, when it was refloated.

Assisting the RMS Titanic

The SS Mount Temple was one of the ships that responded to the RMS Titanic's distress signals. On April 14, 1912. The ship arrived at the Titanic's reported position at roughly 4:10 AM local time next day. She was separated from the scene of the wreck by an icefield and was unable to assist in rescue operations.

Capture and Sinking

The Mount Temple departed from Montreal on December 3, 1916 for Brest, France, and then Liverpool, England, with Captain Alfred Henry Sargent at the helm. The ship's cargo was 710 horses and 6250 tons of goods, including 3000 tons of corn, and 1400 cases of eggs. Also on board were 22 wooden crates of dinosaur fossils, collected in the Badlands of Alberta by Charles H. Sternberg. These were en route to Sir Arthur Smith-Woodward, keeper of the British Museum's Natural History Department.

The ship was captured roughly half-way between Cape Race and Spain, roughly 2000 km north of the Azores islands on December 6, 1916 and sunk by the German raider SMS Moewe. Four crewmembers aboard the Mount Temple died, and on December 12, 1916, her captain and surviving crew were brought aboard the captured British ship Yarrowdale and arrived at Swinemunde, Germany on December 31. One US citizen in the crew, Richard Zabriskie, was released on March 2, 1917. Five more US citizens, Raymond Gilbert, Harry Gilmore, John Glennan, Harold Hinkley and John McGreal were released on March 8. The United States was neutral at the time. The others were interned as prisoners of war.

The Mount Temple was the fourth vessel that Canadian Pacific Lines lost during the First World War, and by the war's end, CP Lines would lose a total of 18 ships. Its sister ship (the SS Montezuma), was torpedoed and sunk by the German Submarine UC-41 on July 25, 1917.

Crewmembers Lost

The four crew members lost on December 6 were:
* Seaman G. Baker, Canadian Merchant Navy.
* Seaman Karim Baqir, Indian Merchant Service. He was buried at sea by the crews of the Mount Temple and Moewe with Captain A. H. Sargent presiding on December 7.
* Chief Steward William Gilbert (Born as William Oddy), Mercantile Marine, Age 38, Born at Bradford.
* Seaman F. Janssen, Mercantile Marine, Drowned, Age 61, Born in Sweden.

Notes

References

* Trevent, Edward. (1911) [http://books.google.com/books?id=6xxIAAAAIAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=SS+Empress+of+China&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0 "The A B C of Wireless Telegraphy: A Plain Treatise on Hertzian Wave Signalling."] Lynne, Massachusetts: Bubier Publishing.

ee also

* CP Ships

External links

* [http://www.ssmounttemple.com Mount Temple Official Website]
* [http://www.smsmoewe.com/ships/smsms39.htm Mount Temple biography]
* [http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=motem Mount Temple Timeline and data]