Two liners named Arawa were operated by the Shaw Savill Line in its service to Australia and New Zealand from the 1930s and, by coincidence, both began life with other names - Esperance Bay in the case of the first vessel, and Arlanza in the second.

The first of the two ships was built by Beardmores of Glasgow and made her maiden voyage at Esperance Bay in 1922. A 15-knot twin-screw ship, she was owned by the Australian Commonwealth Line and had excellent accommodation for 12 first-class and 720 tourist-class passengers.

In 1927 Esperance Bay and other Bay- class liners were sold to British interests, and the ship was re-modelled as a one-class liner and operated on the Suez route.

Transferred in 1936 to Shaw Savill the ship, by then named Arawa, served on the China station during the Second World War as an armed merchant cruiser and later became a transport, carrying thousands of servicemen and vital food cargoes.

Following a refit by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Arawa returned to the Australian and New Zealand service in 1947, and paid many calls to Southampton.

She was sold to the British Iron and Steel Corporation for scrapping in 1955, when she was almost 30 years old.

The second Arawa, formerly the Royal Mail passenger-cargo liner Arlanza, began a new career with Shaw Savill in 1969. Within a few years combined passenger-cargo ships were made redundant by the introduction of container vessels.

Arawa was sold to a Norwegian firm and converted into a car-carrying freighter but was withdrawn in 1981 and sold to Japan for scrapping.