SS Lanthorn was a 2,299 GRT cargo ship built in 1889 as SS Magnus Mail, renamed in 1916 and sunk by enemy action in 1917. She was a combined steamship and two-masted sailing ship.
Short Brothers of Sunderland built her in 1889 for the Westoll Line, also of Sunderland. [3] Her triple expansion steam engine and two boilers were built by Thomas Richardson and Son of Hartlepool. [1] She was named after Captain Magnus Mail (1858–1916), a friend of James Westoll. [3]
Magnus Mail was one of the last tramp steamers to be built with a clipper stem. [1] A painting of her from 1895 by the Italian artist Antonio Luzzo (1855–1907) shows her under sail with her two masts under schooner rig. [5] Westoll Line ships exported coal and patent fuel to Italy and Egypt and imported grain from Black Sea ports to the United Kingdom. [4] In February 1908 Magnus Mail ran aground outside Garston Docks in Liverpool. [3]
The Gas Light and Coke Company of Westminster bought Magnus Mail in 1916 [1] to carry coal from North East England to Beckton Gas Works. The GLCC renamed her SS Lanthorn and placed her under the management of Stephenson Clarke and Associated Companies. [1]
On 21 May 1917 the German U-boat SM UB-41 [2] shelled her from astern in the North Sea off Whitby. [1] Lanthorn was hit in her saloon amidships, twice in her port quarter and then in her stokehold and engine room, bursting her main steam pipe. [1] All her crew survived the attack, abandoned ship, and rowed away. [1] From their lifeboat they saw the U-boat come alongside her and assumed a German boarding party went aboard Lanthorn. [1] The U-boat then left the area and half an hour later Lanthorn suffered an explosion amidships, which her crew assumed was caused by charges planted by the Germans to scuttle her. [1]
Vessels from Whitby rescued the crew, found Lanthorn still afloat and took her in tow. [1] However, before she could reach safety she sank about half a mile south of the Whitby Rock buoy. [1]
P Henderson & Company, also known as Paddy Henderson, was a ship owning and management company based in Glasgow, Scotland and operating to Burma. Patrick Henderson started business in Glasgow as a merchant at the age of 25 in 1834. He had three brothers. Two were merchants working for an agent in the Italian port of Leghorn; the third, George, was a sea captain with his own ship.
Cory is a recycling and waste management company based in London. Originally founded as William Cory & Son in 1896, the company has operated vessels on the River Thames for more than 125 years, transporting a range of commodities and materials including coal, oil, aggregates and waste. Ships from Cory's fleet supported Britain's war efforts in both world wars, with 30 ships being lost during the conflicts. From the 1980s onwards, the business has become increasingly focused on waste management.
HMS Nottingham was a Town-class light cruiser built for the Royal Navy just before World War I. She was one of three ships of the Birmingham sub-class and was completed in early 1914. The ship was assigned to the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron (LCS) of the Home and Grand Fleets for her entire career. Nottingham participated in most of the early fleet actions, including the battles of Heligoland Bight, Dogger Bank, and Jutland, helping to sink several German ships during the battles. The ship was sunk by the German submarine U-52 during the Action of 19 August 1916.
The Gas Light and Coke Company, was a company that made and supplied coal gas and coke. The headquarters of the company were located on Horseferry Road in Westminster, London. It is identified as the original company from which British Gas plc is descended.
SS California was a twin-screw steamer that D. and W. Henderson and Company of Glasgow built for the Anchor Line in 1907 as a replacement for the aging ocean liner Astoria, which had been in continuous service since 1884. She worked the Glasgow to New York transatlantic route and was sunk by the German submarine SM U-85 on 7 February 1917.
German submarine U-46 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She had a highly successful career during the war.
SS Sagamore was a steam cargo ship that was launched in 1893 and sunk in 1917. She was the only whaleback ship built in the United Kingdom, and one of only three whalebacks to operate outside the Great Lakes.
SS Zaanland was a cargo steamship that was built in Scotland in 1900 for Dutch owners, and sunk in a collision in 1918. She was built for the Zuid-Amerika Lijn, which in 1908 became Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd. The US Government requisitioned her in March 1918 as USS Zaanland, with the Naval Registry Identification Number ID–2746. She was sunk in a collision less than two months later.
HMS Attack was an Acheron-class destroyer built in 1911, which served during the First World War and was sunk in 1917 in the Mediterranean by a German U-boat. She was the third ship of the name to serve in the Royal Navy.
Short Brothers Limited was a British shipbuilding company formed in 1850 and based at Pallion, Sunderland since 1869. The company closed in 1964 when it failed to invest to build bigger ships.
SS Lapland was a steam ocean liner built in Ireland for the Belgian Red Star Line, as Red Star's flagship, similar in appearance to the fellow liners SS Samland, SS Gothland and SS Poland, but far larger. She was a half sister to White Star Line's "Big Four." They were similar in many ways, such as the island bridge, 4 masts, 2 funnels. But Lapland had a less luxurious interior.
HMHS Dover Castle was a steam ship originally built for the Union-Castle Line and launched in 1904. In 1914 she was requisitioned for use as a British hospital ship during the First World War. On 26 May 1917 she was torpedoed 50 nautical miles North of Bône, Algeria by UC-67 of the Imperial German Navy.
SM U-21 was a U-boat built for the Imperial German Navy shortly before World War I. The third of four Type U-19-class submarines, these were the first U-boats in German service to be equipped with diesel engines. U-21 was built between 1911 and October 1913 at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig. She was armed with four torpedo tubes and a single deck gun; a second gun was added during her career.
RFA Lady Cory-Wright was a cargo steamship that had been built as a civilian collier in 1906, became a mine carrier in 1914 and was torpedoed and sunk with significant loss of life in 1918.
SS Bovic was a steamship built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line.
Result is a three-masted cargo schooner built in Carrickfergus in 1893. She was a working ship until 1967, and served for a short time in the Royal Navy as a Q-ship during World War I. She currently rests on land at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, and in 1996 was added to the National Register of Historic Vessels.
SS Sagamore was a transatlantic cargo liner that was built in Ireland in 1892 for George Warren's White Diamond Steam Ship Company. In 1913 she was modified to carry passengers as well as cargo. In 1917 a German U-boat sank her, causing the death of 52 members of her crew.
SS Thistlegarth was a British armed merchant cargo ship that the German submarine U-103 torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean 45 nautical miles west-northwest of Rockall while she was travelling in Convoy OB 228 from Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom to Father Point, New Brunswick, Canada in ballast.
SS Rotorua was a New Zealand Shipping Company steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship that was built in Scotland in 1910 and sunk by a U-boat in 1917.
SS Torrington was a British cargo steamship that was built in England in 1905, owned and registered in Wales, and sunk by a German U-boat in 1917. She was a turret deck ship: an unusual hull design that was developed by William Doxford & Sons of Sunderland in the 1890s.