RFA Abbeydale (A109) was a fleet tanker of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and was originally one of six ships ordered by the British Tanker Co which were purchased on the stocks by the Admiralty. She was built by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd and launched on 28 December 1936. Abbeydale served until being decommissioned on 18 September 1959 and laid up at HMNB Devonport. She was then sold for scrapping, arriving at the Thos. W. Ward breakers' yards at Barrow-in-Furness on 4 September 1960.
Swan Hunter, formerly known as Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, is a shipbuilding design, engineering, and management company, based in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England.
The Wigham Richardson shipbuilding company was named after its founder, John Wigham Richardson (1837-1908), the son of Edward Richardson, a tanner from Newcastle upon Tyne, and Jane Wigham from Edinburgh.
SS Volo was a British steam cargo ship that was built on Tyneside in 1938 and sunk by a German U-boat in the Mediterranean Sea off North Africa in 1941. 23 people on board the Volo died as a result of the attack.
SS City of Paris was a steam passenger ship launched in 1920 and completed in 1922 for the Ellerman Lines. She was requisitioned for service by the British government during the Second World War.
HMS Artifex was a repair ship of the Royal Navy from late in the Second World War and into the Cold War. Launched as the Cunard liner RMS Aurania she was requisitioned on the outbreak of war to serve as an armed merchant cruiser. Damaged by a U-boat while sailing with an Atlantic convoy, she was purchased outright and converted to a floating workshop, spending the rest of her life as a support ship for the navy.
Lesbian was a 2,352 GRT cargo ship which was built by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1923 for Ellerman Lines Ltd. She was seized in 1940 by the Vichy French forces.
SS Gallois was one of seven merchant vessels which became stranded and then wrecked on Haisbro Sands of the Norfolk coast on 6 August 1941 during the Second World War. The SS Gallois had been part of a convoy with the designation Convoy FS 559.
SS Polar Chief was a merchant steamship that was built in England in 1897 and scrapped in Scotland in 1952. In her 55-year career she had previously been called Montcalm, RFA Crenella, Crenella, Rey Alfonso, Anglo-Norse and Empire Chief. Early in the First World War she spent eight months pretending to be the battleship HMS Audacious.
HMS Empire Dace was a 716 GRT coastal ferry that was built in 1942 as a merchant ship by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT). In 1943, she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy. She served until December 1944, when she struck a mine and sank in Greek waters.
SS (RMS) Tynwald (III), No. 95755, was an iron passenger steamer which served with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, and was the third vessel in the Company to bear the name.
SS (RMS) Douglas (III) – the third vessel in the line's history to bear the name – was a packet steamer which entered service with the London and South Western Railway in 1889 under the name Dora until she was purchased by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company in 1901 for £13,500.
SS Shuntien was a 3,059 GRT coastal passenger and cargo liner of the British-owned The China Navigation Company Ltd (CNC). She was built in Hong Kong in 1934 and sunk by enemy action in the Mediterranean Sea with great loss of life in 1941. A Royal Navy corvette rescued most of Shuntien's survivors, but a few hours later the corvette too was sunk and no-one survived.
SS (RMS) Mona's Isle (IV) was a steel, triple-screw turbine driven packet steamer operated by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company between 1920 and 1948. Built in 1905 for the South Eastern & Chatham Railway Company, she operated as Onward between Folkestone and Boulogne. In 1918 a fire was only controlled by scuttling the ship. She was righted and in 1920, the hull was purchased by IOMSPCo to replace tonnage lost during the war. She was the first ship to complete a round trip during the evacuation of Dunkirk, rescuing a total of 2,634 troops.
SS Abukir was a British coastal steamship that was launched in 1920 as SS Island Queen and renamed in 1934 as SS Kyle Queen. In 1935 she was renamed Abukir and registered in Egypt. In May 1940 she was torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea while evacuating UK and Belgian soldiers, airmen and civilians from Ostend on the last day of the Battle of Belgium.
Shepperton Ferry was a train ferry built for the Southern Railway in 1934. Requisitioned by the Royal Navy during World War II, she served as the minelayer, troopship and heavy lift ship HMS Shepperton. She was returned to the Southern Railway post-war and saw service with them and their successor British Railways until 1972, when she was scrapped.
SS Trent was a steamship built by Robert Napier and Sons of Govan in 1899 for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.
TrSS St Petersburg was a passenger vessel built for the Great Eastern Railway in 1910.
SS Sardinia was a passenger-cargo ship which caught fire off Malta's Grand Harbour on 25 November 1908, resulting in at least 118 deaths. The ship was carrying Moroccan pilgrims on the way to Mecca. It is believed that a cooking fire on deck accidentally ignited nitrate in one of the ship's cargo holds, resulting in a number of explosions and causing the ship to run aground.
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