SS Metagama
SS Metagama was a Canadian Pacific Ocean liner built in Glasgow to pioneer a new “cabin class” concept with no separate first and second class. She was launched on 19 November 1914 and completed in March 1915. Owned by Canadian Pacific Railway Co and operated by Canadian Pacific Steamship Co, she was registered in London.
Metagama’s dimensions were about 500.4 feet long, 64.2 feet wide and 37.9 feet deep, with a tonnage of 12,420 GRT and 7,484 NRT. She had two quadruple-expansion engines driving two screws, delivering around 1,492 NHP for a speed of 16 knots. The ship could carry 520 passengers in cabin class and 1,200 in cabin class, along with 46,070 cubic feet of refrigerated cargo space.
Her regular routes started as Liverpool to St. John, New Brunswick, and from 1927 she sailed Antwerp to Montreal, occasionally calling at Glasgow. Metagama carried both passengers and troops during the wartime period. Notably, on 21 April 1923 she took 300 Lewis emigrants from Stornoway to Canada, a major early step in the Hebridean migration.
Metagama had two notable collisions: in May 1923 with the Baron Vernon in the River Clyde, and in June 1924 with the Italian steamer Clara Camus off Cape Race, Newfoundland. The latter collision damaged her port side and a lifeboat with three crew members disappeared.
By 1924 she had wireless direction finding, and by 1930 her call sign was GMLQ. The Great Depression reduced demand for passenger ships, and Metagama was laid up in 1931 at Southend-on-Sea. She was scrapped on 13 April 1934 at Bo’ness on the Firth of Forth.
Her sister ship Missanabie, launched earlier, was sunk by a U-boat in 1918.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:22 (CET).