Built by
Caird & Company at
Greenock at a cost of £166,000 ($332,000),
Marama arrived at
Port Chalmers in November 1907. She was the largest and most powerful ship (though not the fastest) in the USS Co fleet. Initially, she sailed on the
Horseshoe run to Australia, and occasionally in
transpacific services.
Wartime service During World War I,
Marama was charted by the New Zealand Government to serve as a hospital ship for the
British Empire. She was renamed ''His Majesty's New Zealand Hospital Ship No. 2.'' and given the
prefix HMHS (His Majesty's Hospital Ship). The ship was outfitted with a new hospital setup funded through a public fundraising campaign supported by Governor Lord Liverpool. Her livery was also painted white in alignment with the
Hague Convention on hospital ships. Her crew consisted of civilian men from the country's
merchant navy alongside army medical staff, including female nurses. in the NZEF. While her sister ship, the
SS Maheno, served at
Gallipoli,
Marama did not reach Europe until after the
Allied evacuation of the peninsula In July 1916, she also carried wounded soldiers and German
PoWs directly from the trenches during the
Battle of the Somme. In 1919, the
Ministry of Defence allocated surplus funds from the hospital ship's service to the university for the construction of the hall. Building began the same year, and the hall was completed in 1923 under the architect
Edmund Anscombe. It was originally used as a gymnasium and
drill hall for medical students, and is now part of the university's School of Performing Arts. Displayed in the hall is a memorial board listing members of New Zealand's Medical and Dental Corps, as well as the New Zealand Army Nursing and Chaplains Department who served during World War I. == See also ==