After completing all the transfer requirement,
Mount Temple was refitted to carry large number of passengers, and the
Marconi Company equipped her for
wireless telegraphy. Her
call sign was "MLQ". Following the redesign, the vessel was also reassessed at and .
Mount Temple departed Liverpool for her first voyage under new ownership on 12 May 1903 carrying 12 cabin and 1,200 steerage passengers for
Quebec City and about 1,000 tons of general cargo for
Montreal. She returned to Liverpool on 10 June with a cargo of 1,361 heads of cattle, wheat, hay and other produce. The steamer conducted five more runs between Liverpool and Montreal until the end of navigation season on the
St. Lawrence River in November 1903, carrying general cargo and immigrants from Europe to Canada, and returning with cattle, foodstuffs and lumber. She was subsequently reassigned to the London–
Antwerp–Canada route, serving
Saint John and
Halifax in winter seasons, and Montreal in summers. For example, on 18 April 1905 she brought in 1,922 immigrants to Saint John, the largest number brought by a single ship at the time, destined for settlement in Western Canada.
Stranding in 1907 Mount Temple left Antwerp on 20 November 1907 on her usual route to Saint John, carrying around 6,000 tons of general cargo and 633 passengers. She was under command of Captain Boothby and had a crew of about 150. After passing
Cape Pine, the captain took
soundings in the morning of 1 December to ascertain the ship's position. By late afternoon the weather deteriorated, becoming overcast, with occasional snow squalls appearing. At around midnight, the captain retired leaving the watch to the second officer, Griffith Owen Lewis, with an order to call him if the weather worsened. Between 01:00 and 02:00 on 2 December, the vessel ran into a series of snow squalls which got progressively stronger and more persistent. At about 02:30 it started snowing heavily and visibility was reduced severely to only about half a length of the ship. About 02:35 the look-out reported a light ahead, which the second officer erroneously interpreted as another ship closing in. He ported the ship, and at 02:44
Mount Temple struck on the rocks of the
West Ironbound Island. As the ship struck, the rocks pierced the steamer's hull right around the engine room flooding it and extinguishing the fires. A huge wave then smashed over the vessel, destroying about half of the
lifeboats on board. Several distress signals were made but due to rough weather no help could be dispatched until the next morning. At daylight it was observed that
Mount Temple was on the ledges of the island and there were about between the steamer and the cliffs. Since it was unsafe to disembark the passengers down the sides of the ship into the waters, the crew managed to get the cable from the ship tied directly to the cliffs, and started transferring people in a basket tied to the cable. As the sea subsided, the lifeboats were employed to speed up the evacuation, and the help arrived in the form of several fishing vessels,
schooners
Hazel and
Guide, and the
tug Trusty. By about 17:00 on 3 December all passengers were successfully moved from the wrecked ship to the island, and 150 of them were taken to
Bridgewater by
Trusty.
Mount Temple had to spend the winter stranded, but was not damaged by the storms, and three attempts were made to float the steamer in February 1908, yet all of them proved to be unsuccessful. Finally, on 15 April 1908 the ship was successfully refloated and was able to proceed under her own steam to
Lunenburg. On 19 May 1908 it was reported that the repair contract was awarded to the
Newport News Shipbuilding Co. and
Mount Temple proceeded to
Newport News, Virginia, from Halifax in tow on 22 May. The steamer sailed from Newport News on 22 August for Quebec City after almost three months of repairs, which cost Canadian Pacific about $140,000. Upon arrival she loaded her usual cargo and left 2 September for London, resuming her regular service. On 14 October 1911 while entering
Gravesend Mount Temple collided with an Australian steamer SS
Osterley anchored at Tilbury Dock, causing some slight damage to her bow. On 18 January 1912
Mount Temple on her trip from Halifax to London under command of Captain Moore encountered steamer SS
Dart about east-northeast of Halifax, drifting helplessly with broken rudder. She spent the night standing by but did not connect the towing cables and abandoned
Dart the next day.
Actions during the sinking of RMS Titanic Mount Temple set out on her usual voyage at 14:00 on 3 April 1912 from Antwerp bound for Saint John, New Brunswick. The steamer was under the command of captain James Henry Moore and was carrying 1,466 passengers, mostly steerage, and a crew of 143. On the night of 14–15 April,
Mount Temples
Marconi wireless operator, John Durrant, was about to sign off for the evening when at around 00:11 ship's time (22:25 New York Time) he picked up a distress signal from , which was sinking after a
collision with an iceberg. The message contained an erroneous distress position of . Durrant had the message relayed to the bridge by a steward, and acknowledged receipt of the signal to
Titanics wireless operator,
Jack Phillips. Phillips had difficulty hearing the call from Durrant, however, because of the racket of steam which was then 'blowing off' from
Titanics funnels. Durrant made sure not to jam the ongoing exchange between
Titanic and other ships, which he assumed to be closer to the scene. Ten minutes after the first distress call from
Titanic was received (at 00:21 ship's time, 22:35 New York time), another message came in from
Titanic with corrected distress coordinates: the position of . This position was west of where
Titanic actually sank, as confirmed by the wreck's coordinates. (The center of
Titanics boiler field is located at ) When this message was received, Captain Moore was asleep. After being awakened, he assessed the situation carefully. He had standing orders to avoid icebergs, but after receiving the distress call he decided to mount a rescue operation. He immediately turned his ship around and steamed north-northeast at an estimated speed of towards
Titanics last reported position of . He consulted with his chief engineer, John Gillet, to try to coax even more speed out of the ageing vessel. Moore worked out his own rough position as , about south and west from the now-established location of the wreck of the
Titanic (). Even at full speed, it would take around four hours to cover the distance between his ship and
Titanic. Once underway, Moore had his off-duty crew awakened and briefed and ordered the 20 lifeboats aboard uncovered. He had ropes and ladders readied, lifebelts prepared and posted extra lookouts to aid avoiding the icebergs reported in the area. Initial progress was good but after finding his ship coming upon a large ice field at around 03:00 on 15 April, the vessel slowed until becoming increasingly surrounded by pack ice. Around this time,
Mount Temple encountered what was thought to be a schooner with just a single green light, which went unidentified and caused the ship to take evasive action.
Mount Temple sent a wireless request to
Carpathia but received no answer. At around 08:30
Californian came along
Carpathia as she was finishing picking up the last survivors. At 08:31
Carpathia reported picking up 20 boats, and sent another message at 09:26 telling everyone there was no more need to stand by, following which, Moore gave the order to reverse course and continue the voyage to New Brunswick. As soon as
Mount Temple reached Canada, she became the center of controversy as two passengers, and allegedly some crew members, stated that the ship was close to
Titanic but failed to come to her rescue as they saw her distress rockets and even watched her sinking. These speculations were ignored by both the American and British inquiries, and none of
Mount Temples officers either testified or submitted affidavits in support of these claims. Captain Moore himself testified that no passenger could have witnessed an event such as rockets bursting over a ship since no passenger was on deck at 12 o'clock at night to be able to see it. Over the years, attempts have been made to stir up further controversy over
Mount Temples role in the sinking of the
Titanic, often in a thinly veiled attempt to deflect blame and responsibility from the Leyland liner
Californian, which was probably closer to the scene of the tragedy, and whose officers reported seeing a number of rockets bursting over an unidentified ship they were watching. The controversy surrounding
Mount Temple was further stirred up in November 2020 by the PBS program
Abandoning the Titanic, part of the
Secrets of the Dead series. Airing in some countries as
Titanic: A Dead Reckoning, it was co-produced and co-written by journalist and
Titanic author
Senan Molony. The show repeated some old claims about
Mount Temple and its role in the disaster, and made some new ones. Among these claims, it was said that
Mount Temple was much closer to
Titanic when the SOS was received, that
Mount Temple approached to within of
Titanic when Captain Moore decided to retreat after encountering the ice field in an attempt to avoid risk to his own ship, and that
Mount Temple matched the appearance of the "mystery ship" that was being observed from
Titanic because of the distance between her four
masts, as later observed by the commander of the raider which sank
Mount Temple in World War I. The show concluded that
Californians captain,
Stanley Lord, was wrongly pilloried for failing to reach
Titanic, when it was actually
Mount Temples
Master who abandoned the doomed liner's passengers and crew to their fate. This hypothesis, however, is strongly contested by historians. In January 2021, a well-known team of
Titanic historians and authors released a rebuttal paper entitled: 'Abandoning the
Titanic, Abandoning Reality: The Truth About the SS
Mount Temple.' Although the new show attempts to discredit Captain Moore of
Mount Temple and lays blame for "abandoning"
Titanic and those aboard her to their fate, the historical record clearly proves otherwise. At a distance of from the famous distress coordinates of
Titanic, and roughly from the actual location of the disaster,
Mount Temple was simply too far away to be seen from those aboard
Titanic, and for those aboard
Mount Temple to see
Titanic or her distress rockets. Captain Moore and his crew made a desperate attempt to reach the stricken
Titanic, but only reached the western side of the ice field that stood between her and the wreck site some 2 hours and 40 minutes after
Titanic sank. There was no way that she could have reached
Titanic in time to carry out a rescue; she did not 'abandon'
Titanic.
Mount Temple Seamount, one of the
Fogo Seamounts southeast of the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic Ocean, is named after
Mount Temple for her role in the sinking of the
Titanic.
Grounding in 1913 On 24 September 1913
Mount Temple left Montreal at 05:20 for her regular trip, carrying a large cargo of grain for London and general cargo for Antwerp. She was still under command of Captain Moore, and had a
pilot on board. At the time of her departure, the weather was foggy. The vessel proceeded as far as the new drydock before changing her course too far south and subsequently ran aground opposite off
Maisonneuve at 05:35 on the mud banks of
Longueuil. Ten or eleven tugs were dispatched right away, but they could not refloat the ship. Attempts to refloat the ship continued the next day as the ship's general cargo was being partially discharged to lighten the ship, but they proved to be unsuccessful. As most of the cargo was taken out from the forward holds, the vessel stern sunk deeper into the mud, which prompted the rescuers to also unload the aft holds to even the ship. The ship was also taking on water indicating that some bottom plates were damaged in the grounding. The steamer was eventually floated in the morning of 26 September and was taken to dock where she had to unload her cargo of grain. The situation was somewhat exacerbated by the fact that Montreal had limited grain discharging equipment installed being a grain export port. Following the unloading of her cargo which took almost a week,
Mount Temple was repaired and released from the drydock on 12 October.
War service Mount Temple continued trading on her route all the way until Great Britain entered
World War I on 2 August 1914. She arrived at London on 5 August with her usual cargo from Montreal, but on 12 August it was announced that the steamer was requisitioned together with many other large commercial vessels by the Admiralty to serve as a food and troop transport. In her transport capacity she sailed between England and France carrying troops and provision. For example, on 12–15 February 1915
Mount Temple carried 15th Battalion of the
48th Highlanders from
Bristol to
St Nazaire. During the war she was
defensively armed with a
naval gun on her stern. In August 1915 it was announced that
Allan Line Steamships and Canadian Pacific Railway had merged forming a new company named Canadian Pacific Ocean Services, Ltd. As a result,
Mount Temple was released by the British Admiralty back to her commercial service in October 1915. After the release,
Mount Temple transported about 1,200 German
prisoners of war (POWs) captured during the
Battle of Loos from France to England before proceeding to Montreal, where she arrived on 28 October 1915. ==Sinking==