SS Nomadic was a steamship of the White Star Line. She was laid down in 1891, in yard 236 at Harland and Wolff Shipyards, Belfast, as a livestock carrier and completed on 14 April 1891. She sailed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage to New York on 24 April 1891 and spent the next few years on this service. She was requisitioned as a troopship and horse transport in October 1899 and spent the two years of the Boer War on this service, making three trips to the cape under the designation 'HM Transport No. 34'.