Magdalena was a 17,547 GRT passenger and refrigerated cargo ocean liner that Harland and Wolff built in Belfast in 1948 for Royal Mail Lines (RML). Launched on 11 May 1948, she was the third-largest ship being built in a UK shipyard at that time.

The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was a British shipping company founded in London in 1839 by a Scot, James MacQueen. The line's motto was Per Mare Ubique. After a troubled start, it became the largest shipping group in the world in 1927 when it took over the White Star Line. The company was liquidated and its assets taken over by the newly formed Royal Mail Lines in 1932 after financial trouble and scandal; over the years RML declined to no more than the name of a service run by former rival Hamburg Süd.