The R.M.S ('Royal Mail Ship') Rotorua. Also prefixed as the TSS ('Twin Screw Steamer') Rotorua.
The ship was built in 1911 as The Shropshire by John Brown & Co, (Clydebank, Glasgow, Scotland) for the Federal Steam Navigation Co. It came under the ownership of the NZ-based Union Steam Ship Company in 1923, and was renamed the Rotorua when it became one of the 'R-ships' shuttling between the UK and NZ (the company had a tradition of giving its main passenger vessels names beginning with the letter R). During World War II it was hit by a torpedo from a German U-Boat in December 1940 off the coast of Iceland and sank with the loss of 23 lives and 108 survivors.
