Royal Mail Ship (sometimes Steam-ship or Steamer), usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, a designation which dates back to 1840, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract to the British Royal Mail. Any vessel designated as RMS has the right to both fly the pennant of the Royal Mail when sailing and to include the Royal Mail "crown" logo with any identifying device and/or design for the ship.
It was used by many shipping lines, but is often associated in particular with the Cunard Line, Royal Mail Lines and Union-Castle Line, which held a number of high-profile mail contracts, and which traditionally prefixed the names of many of their ships with the initials "RMS".
While some lines in the past, particularly the Royal Mail Lines, called all their ships RMS, technically a ship would use the prefix only while contracted to carry mail, and would revert at other times to a standard designation such as "SS".
Read more about Royal Mail Ship: History, Modern Times, Other Designations, List of RMS Ships
Famous quotes containing the words royal, mail and/or ship:
“Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.”
—O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862–1910)
“Always polite, fastidiously dressed in a linen duster and mask, he used to leave behind facetious rhymes signed “Black Bart, Po—8,” in mail and express boxes after he had finished rifling them.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,”
—D.H. (David Herbert)