SS Runic (1900)

SS Runic was a steamship built at Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line, the fourth of five Jubilee-class ocean liners built for the Australia service. Launched on 25 October 1900 at 12,482 gross register tons, she entered service in 1901 on the Liverpool, Cape Town and Sydney route and was the first White Star ship to be launched and enter service in the twentieth century. She was requisitioned as a war transport between 1915 and 1919, and in October 1921 she returned to Harland and Wolff for her passenger accommodation to be reconditioned. In 1930 she was sold, converted into a whaling factory ship and renamed New Sevilla. On 20 September 1940, sailing in convoy OB 216, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-138 and sank the next day off Malin Head with the loss of two lives.