 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2011) |
PS Queen Victoria was a paddle steamer built for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company in 1838 and wrecked in 1853 with the loss of more than 80 passengers and crew.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2011) |
PS Queen Victoria was a paddle steamer built for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company in 1838 and wrecked in 1853 with the loss of more than 80 passengers and crew.
Queen Victoria was built by Wilson shipbuilders of Glasgow, Scotland in 1838 for The City Of Dublin Steam Packet Company. She had a wooden hull, was 150 feet long and was powered by a two-cylinder steam engine.
The Queen Victoria left Liverpool on the night of 14 February 1853 with cargo and approximately 100 passengers. As it approached the Irish coast at Howth it was hit by a snowstorm. It struck Howth Head around 2:00am on 15 February. The Captain backed the ship away from the Head in hopes of being able to navigate into the harbour. The damage to the ship was more extensive than the captain thought and it quickly began to fill with water. It drifted, dead in the water, and struck below the Baily Lighthouse. It sank within 15 minutes of the second hit, 100 yards south of the lighthouse. Approximately 83 passengers and crew perished, including the Captain. One lifeboat, with 17 passengers, made it to shore. [1]
A subsequent Board of Trade inquiry blamed the ship's captain and first officer, as well as the lighthouse crew. A fog bell was supposed to have been installed in the lighthouse in 1846, seven years earlier, but was delayed due to costs of other construction projects. The bell was finally installed in April 1853, as a result of the Queen Victoria shipwreck and the subsequent inquiry.
At least one attempt to raise the ship was made afterwards, which failed, and the ship was salvaged where she lay. The wreck is still in place.
Members of the Marlin Sun Aqua Club, Dublin discovered the wreck in 1983. They reported their discovery to the authorities, and were in part responsible for having the first Underwater Preservation Order placed on a shipwreck in Irish waters. They also carried out the first underwater survey on such a wreck. The wreck was the first to be protected by The National Monuments Act (Historic Wreck), when the order was granted in 1984, thanks to representations made by Kevin Crothers, IUART, and the Maritime Institute of Ireland. [2]
RMS Tayleur was a full-rigged iron clipper ship chartered by the White Star Line. She was large, fast and technically advanced. She ran aground off Lambay Island and sank on her maiden voyage in 1854. Of more than 650 aboard, only 280 survived. She has been described as "the first Titanic".
The steamship, SS Thames, was built in 1827 by Fletcher's in Limehouse, London, and belonged to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. She was commanded by Captain James Grey and wrecked on the Cribewidden Rock in the Isles of Scilly early on the morning of 4 January 1841 on her way from Dublin to London.
The Baily Lighthouse is a lighthouse on the southeastern part of Howth Head in County Dublin, Ireland. It is maintained by the Commissioners of Irish Lights.
RMS Leinster was an Irish ship operated by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. She served as the Kingstown-Holyhead mailboat until she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine UB-123, which was under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Robert Ramm, on 10 October 1918, while bound for Holyhead. She sank just outside Dublin Bay at a point 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) east of the Kish light.
Forfarshire was a paddle steamer with brigantine rigging, built in Dundee in 1834, and which struck and later foundered on one of the Farne Islands on 7 September 1838, giving rise to the rescue for which Grace Darling is famed.
The City of Dublin Steam Packet Company was a shipping line established in 1823. It served cross-channel routes between Britain and Ireland for over a century. For 70 of those years it transported the mail. It was 'wound-up' by a select committee of the House of Lords in 1922 and finally liquidated in 1930.
Events from the year 1853 in Ireland.
SS Sirius was a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamship built in 1837 by Robert Menzies & Sons of Leith, Scotland for the London-Cork route operated by the Saint George Steam Packet Company. The next year, she opened transatlantic steam passenger service when she was chartered for two voyages by the British and American Steam Navigation Company. By arriving in New York a day ahead of the Great Western, she is usually listed as the first holder of the Blue Riband, although the term was not used until decades later.
PS Portland was a large side-wheel paddle steamer, an ocean-going steamship with side-mounted paddlewheels. She was built in 1889 for passenger service between Boston, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine. She is best known as the namesake of the infamous Portland Gale of 1898, a massive blizzard that struck coastal New England, claiming the lives of over 400 people and more than 150 vessels.
The SS Ava was a 1,613 GRT British steamship, constructed in 1855 by the Tod & McGregor shipyard in Glasgow. Described as "an iron screw barque with one funnel", she was operated by the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company on the China mail service and was named after Ava, the ancient capital of Burma. She ran aground and was wrecked off the coast of Ceylon in February 1858.
SS (RMS) Queen of the Isle was a paddle steamer which was constructed by Robert Napier & Co. Glasgow. No Official number is recorded for the vessel, as formal registration was not introduced until the Merchant Shipping Act 1854.
SS (RMS) Empress Queen was a steel paddle steamer, the last of its type ordered by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company. She was chartered by the Admiralty in 1915 and used for trooping duties until she ran aground off Bembridge, Isle of Wight, England in 1916 and was abandoned.
SS (RMS) Mona (II) No. 76302 was a packet steamer operated by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company. Mona was the first screw-driven ship in the company's history.
SS (RMS) Mona's Isle (III), No. 76304, the third ship in the company's history to be so named, was a paddle steamer which served with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company until she was purchased by The Admiralty in 1915.
Clonmel was a three-masted wooden paddle steamer built in Birkenhead, England, in 1836. Clonmel was one of the first steam-powered vessels on the Australian coast. It ran aground in the early hours of 2 January 1841, or the 3rd. and was wrecked on what is now known as Clonmel Island in Corner Inlet, Victoria. This was only its second voyage from Sydney.
The SS Nile was an iron-hulled cargo steamship. She is best remembered for her sinking in bad weather on 30 November 1854 with the loss of all hands, most likely after colliding with The Stones, a notoriously dangerous reef off Godrevy Head in Cornwall.
PS Nimrod was an Irish passenger-carrying paddle steamer. Built in 1843, it took passengers from Cork in the south of Ireland to the ports of Liverpool, the first leg for emigrants wishing to start a new life in the United States. It operated for 17 years, until it ran aground at St David's Head in 1860. It smashed into three pieces and sank, with the loss of 45 lives.
HMS Prospero was a wood-hulled British paddle steamer built in 1829 on the River Clyde at Port Glasgow as Belfast for service between Glasgow and Belfast. In 1837 she was purchased by the Admiralty to run as HMS Prospero on the packet service between Pembroke and Ireland. She was broken up in 1866.
Coordinates: 53°21.50′N06°03.00′W / 53.35833°N 6.05000°W
 | This Ireland maritime–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
