| Career | |
|---|---|
| Name: | TMY Liberty/HMNS Liberty |
| Launched: | 1908 |
| Sponsored by: | Joseph Pulitzer |
| Christened: | TMY Liberty |
| In service: | 1908 |
| Out of service: | 1938 |
| Fate: | Scrapped |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steam Yacht |
| Length: | 308 ft (94 m) |
HMNS Liberty was a private steam yacht and later Royal Navy hospital ship, which was one of the largest private yachts of its day.
Built in 1908 for Joseph Pulitzer as TMY Liberty, she was sold on his death in 1912 to Scottish-Canadian businessman James Ross, and renamed TMY Glencairn. Having sailed around the world in her once, after his death in 1913, she was sold by his estate in 1914 to Courtenay Morgan, 1st Viscount Tredegar, who reverted her to her original name.
At the start of World War I she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy as a hospital ship,[1] operting within the North Sea and initially under the command of her owner. Refitted post war, Viscount Tredegar embarked on a world cruise, eventually going around the world twice in her, during which time he visited every colony in the British Empire and every state in the Commonwealth.[2]
Sold to Sir Robert Houston, 1st Baronet in the mid-1920s, he died on the yacht on 14 April 1926. Left in his will to his wife Lucy, Lady Houston,[3] in the 1930s she hung a huge electric sign, DOWN WITH MACDONALD THE TRAITOR in the rigging, and sailed round the British Isles in her.[4][5]
Sold for scrap, she was towed to Newport, Monmouthshire to be dismantled in January 1938.[4]