The passenger and cargo steamer M.G. Melchior was built by Burmeister & Wain of Copenhagen for the Danish company Det Forenede Dampskibs-Setskab (DFDS) who owned her for practically all of her long life. Launched in 1885 and registered at 1,153 gross tons, she measured 226½ feet in length with a 30 foot beam. Operating out of Copenhagen on mostly Scandinavian routes - excepting two brief periods doing North Sea crossing to the U.K. - she was eventually laid up from 1939-40 before resuming service for the rest of the War including some German sailings in 1944. Returning to busy peacetime duties in the immediate post-War period, she was laid up again in July 1946, sold twice within two years, renamed Astrea in 1948 and finally broken up in 1950.