Garthorpe was built in 1926 at Smiths Dock as John Holt, founder of the shipping company serving his trading interest in West Africa. In 1937, the shipping company ordered a ship called after one of his sons, Jonathan B. Holt and re-registered the older ship under a new name of Garthorpe to avoid confusion. In 1939, Garthorpe was sold to a Soviet Union shipping company and given the name Anatoli Serov and she survived until 2002 as a training vessel.
Confusion still exists between ships called John Holt and Jonathan B Holt to this day. The 1938 built ship was sunk during WW2 and in 1946 another Jonathan B Holt entered service. Because all three ships were similar in size and general layout, pictures and models of these ships are often mis-labelled, particularly in on line sources.