Early career
Persic set out on her maiden voyage on 7 December 1899, as the Boer War was underway by this time, she carried 500 troops for South Africa. The maiden voyage turned out to be a fiasco as the ship developed a major fault: cracks developed on her rudder stock casting, which resulted in it breaking by the time she reached Cape Town. Persic had to remain at Cape Town until a replacement could be shipped out from Belfast and fitted. When the voyage resumed early the next year, Persic repatriated injured and sick Australian troops.[5]
On 26 October 1900 the England-bound Persic travelling along the equator assisted the crew of the Glasgow steamer Maudra, which had caught on fire. Although extinguished the day before, it was found to be more serious, and the Maudra was abandoned.[6] Part of the September–November journey, Australian artists Hugh Ramsay and George Washington Lambert travelled on the Persic from Sydney to London. Lambert became successful in London; Ramsay preferred Paris but had to return to Australia when his health failed.[7] During 1901, the Persic made at least three return journeys between England and Australia. In February 1901 the vessel transported 'one of Australia's greatest and most loved poets' and bush balladeers, Will H. Ogilvie from Sydney, where he returned to Scotland.[8] Artist G. W. Lambert who travelled the year before on the Persic also served as an illustrator in Ogilvie's 1898 work Fair girls and gray horses.[9][10]
In July 1901 described as a large steamer, the Persic went from Liverpool, to Cape Town, via Adelaide and Melbourne to reach Sydney.[11] The return journey saw her loaded with 1,200 tons of wheat (bound for England) as large general cargo.[12][13]
Her November 1901 journey from Liverpool via Cape Town saw a passenger manifest of 335 passengers being 15 bound for Adelaide, 113 for Melbourne, and 207 for Sydney. On board were invalided and time-expired Australian and New Zealand soldiers from the Boer War.[14] Additional to over two-hundred passengers on her return journey leaving Australia for England also saw her well-laden with cargo:
The Persic continued her return trips services through the 1900s and 1910s. Mid-1910 saw the ship fitted with wireless telegraphy.[16]
- She carries a very large and varied cargo, comprising amongst other lines 10,200 bales wool, 300 tons coconut oil, 160 casks tallow, 1467 ingots tin, 140 tons chrome ore, 120 bales sheepskins, 30 bales furskins, 16,130 carcasses of mutton and lamb, and 1200 boxes butter.[15]
