They could more normally be found gently cruising the Solent or criss-crossing the route between Southampton and the Isle of Wight but at the outbreak of the First World War Red Funnel vessels answered the call of duty.

The steamers were requisitioned by the government, their comfortable fittings removed and either painted a dull grey or camouflaged.

The company’s official history proudly says: “Little ships against the naval giants with which they operated in many theatres of war, they showed that their steel hearts were stout and ready for stern tasks.

“Two of them were sunk, one had to be abandoned, others were damaged but all had active service records that can be recalled with justifiable pride.”

The 1900 built Balmoral was requisitioned by the Transport Depot in February 1915 and made her first trip as a transport ship to Le Havre with 680 troops in a southerly gale.

She survived her wartime baptism without mishap and made more cross-Channel voyages before she was converted into a minesweeper and continued in that capacity in the English Channel and the North Sea until she was handed back to her owners in February 1919.

It was back in 1891 that Lorna Doone entered service with Red Funnel but at the outbreak of war she took on the role of patrol vessel.

Her first role was to warn incoming ships that the Western entrance to Southampton Water was closed to all traffic and in December 1915 was converted into a minesweeper.

She operated in the English Channel for part of her war service and was attached to the Dover patrol. She, too, returned to more peaceful passages in February 1919.

In 1915 the Bournemouth Queen was taken over by the Admiralty and renamed HMS Bourne. Her role was patrol and minesweeping work and her operations took her to the north of Ireland, to Scotland, the North Sea and the English Channel.

According to the company’s history The First Hundred Years four other ships, Princess Mary, Queen, Stirling Castle and Duchess of York, later the Duchess of Cornwall, were all commandeered in May 1916.

This group of vessels were all fitted out for service in the Mediterranean and reached Malta as a convoy in July 1916 to serve as patrol ships and minesweepers.

“Stirling Castle was sunk by an explosion of unknown cause off the west coast of Malta on September 26, 1916 and, just after the Armistice, Princess Mary had the bad luck to strike the wreck of HMS Majestic, which had been mined during early operations in the Dardenelles. Her hull was ripped open and she became a total loss,” said the history book.

In the South Coast Guide of 1930 there appeared accounts, chosen at random, from the stories of those who formed the crews of the company’s ships on war service between 1914 and 1918. On one occasion the crew of Balmoral watched an air battle between a British aircraft and a German Albatross in which both were forced down.

The British airmen were picked up by Balmoral, which during her active service and while alone off Ostend was shelled by German shore batteries for more than half an hour.

Southampton-born Admiral Sir John Jellicoe highly commended Bournemouth Belle for her work in assisting to sweep a big minefield in the Moray Firth.

The ship endured a severe shaking when a mine exploded under her bows, spattering the deck with fragments and displacing the binnacle.

The same ship circled the British Isles in the course of her war career and had several lively brushes with U-boats.

In her service with the Dover Patrol Lorna Doone was constantly exposed to air raids, shelling by German destroyers making night attacks and endangered by floating mines. She was run into by a big steamer and had to be towed in for repairs and she was close to another ship which struck a mine and sank within a minute. The Red Funnel vessel rescued 22 of the crew of 24.

“The four ships which went to Mala all had their share of the war’s excitements,” said the history book.

“During a patrol off Malta Princess Mary sighted a small boat in a prohibited area heading away from the island and gave chase. The three occupants were found to be prisoners-of-war who had escaped from Malta prison camp. Their spell of liberty was a short lived one. Shortly after this Princess Mary rescued 180 Serbians from a French ship which had been torpedoed. A little later she was in peril herself when she dragged her anchor in a gale and went on to a sandbank where she was held fast for four days.

“The stout little passage and pleasure steamers of peacetime stood up well to the rigours of that war as did those seven of the Red Funnel fleet that came under the White Ensign in the Second World War.”