She was built by Barclay Curle & Company Glasgow, at Yard No 504, she was launched 3rd Sepetmber 1913 and completed in 1914. She was a Passenger Cargo Vessel owned by Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company. She was commissioned as a hospital ship in 1916 transferring sick and wounded Canadians to Nova Scotia.

The Union-Castle Hospital Ship Llandovery Castle, bound from Halifax, Nova Scotia, for Liverpool, was torpedoed on June 27th, 1918, 114 miles south-west of the Fastnet Rock (Ireland) by German U-boat 86. She had 258 people on board, including 94 Medical Officers and Nursing Sisters of the Canadian Medical Staff. This act on, what was clearly identified as a hospital ship, was one of the worst atrocities of World War 1 on the sea, compounded by the U-boat captain's (Panzig) attempts to destroy the lifeboats with their occupants in order to remove any evidence. In all 248 victims, all non-combatants, including nurses, medics and crew were killed, either on the steamer itself, or as they struggled in the water.