Model of John Bowes at the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museum. | |
History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name | John Bowes |
Owner | Charles Mark Palmer, Newcastle [1] |
Port of registry | United Kingdom |
Builder | Palmer Brothers & Co, Jarrow |
Yard number | 2 |
Launched | 30 June 1852 [2] |
Christened | 30 June 1852 |
Completed | 22 July 1852 |
Maiden voyage | 27 July 1852 |
Out of service | 12 October 1933 |
Refit | 1853(?), 1864 and 1883 |
Homeport | Newcastle [1] |
Identification | Official number 26276 [1] |
Fate | Foundered |
General characteristics | |
Type | Iron hulled steam screw & sail collier |
Tonnage | 437 GRT [2] |
Length | 149.0 ft (45.4 m) [2] |
Beam | 25.7 ft (7.8 m) [2] |
Depth of hold | 15.6 ft (4.8 m) [2] |
Propulsion | Steam, two cylinder by Robert Stephenson [2] |
Sail plan | Topsail schooner |
Speed | 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
John Bowes, built on the River Tyne in England in 1852, was one of the first steam colliers. She traded for over 81 years before sinking in a storm off Spain.
The John Bowes was the first purpose-built steam collier, [3] [4] [5] [6] although the steamship Bedlington of 1841 carried coal before she did, but the Bedlington carried it in railway wagons as a railway ferry, not as a collier. [7]
Charles Mark Palmer was responsible for the design of the John Bowes which was just the second vessel of over a thousand ships eventually built by the Jarrow shipyard which he had founded with his brother George.
The vessel's novel features included an iron hull, the use of water ballast, and steam propulsion with a screw propeller. As was still common, an auxiliary sailing rig was also fitted.
The steamer was launched on 30 June 1852 and named for John Bowes, a mine owner, business partner of Charles Palmer and the then High Sheriff of Durham. [8] Commercial service began on 27 July 1852, with coal from the Tyne to London. Within the week, it had moved more coal than two collier brigs could have moved in a month and its success resulted in the construction of many similar ships.
The ballast tanks could not initially be kept watertight, and Palmer tried a number of solutions before settling on longitudinal iron tanks beneath each hold as proposed by John McIntyre, the Jarrow shipyard manager. [2] [9] During a voyage from Rosedale, Yorkshire to the River Tyne on 16 July 1860, she was run aground on the Insand, off the coast of County Durham on the North Sea. [10]
Despite the mishap, a long and prosperous career followed. New engines were installed in 1864 and 1883 as the technology improved. [11]
A second grounding happened on the Heligoland on 9 June 1864, and although refloated, had to be beached for repairs before continuing to Hamburg. [12] [13] In 1873, John Bowes was sold to Benjamin Barnett and registered at London, [14] and in 1896, to James Mackenzie ('John Bowes' Steamship Co Ltd) of Dublin. In 1898, it was sold to Scandinavian owners as Spec and later Transit. In 1908, she was sold on to Spain, where she traded for a further twenty five years as the Carolina, Valentin Fierro and finally as the Villa Selgas. [15]
While carrying a cargo of iron ore from Bilbao to San Esteban de Pravia, Villa Selgas, [16] [17] now owned by Federico Fierro of San Sebastián, [15] encountered a storm in the Bay of Biscay, began taking on water, and foundered off Ribadesella, on 12 October 1933. [16] [18] All twelve of the crew abandoned ship and were rescued by the fishing vessel Aurora. [18]
Jarrow is a town in South Tyneside in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the south bank of the River Tyne, about 3 miles (4.8 km) from the east coast. The 2011 census area classed Hebburn and The Boldons as part of the town, it had a population of 43,431. It is home to the southern portal of the Tyne Tunnel and 5 mi (8.0 km) east of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Sir Charles Mark Palmer, 1st Baronet was an English shipbuilder born in South Shields, County Durham, England. He was also a Liberal Party politician and Member of Parliament. His father, originally the captain of a whaler, moved in 1828 to Newcastle upon Tyne, where he owned a ship owning and ship-broking business.
Hebburn is a town in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It governed under the borough of South Tyneside; formerly governed under the county of Durham until 1974 with its own urban district from 1894 until 1974. It is on the south bank of the River Tyne between Gateshead and Jarrow and opposite Wallsend and Walker.
The Blyth and Tyne Railway was a railway company in Northumberland, England, incorporated by Act of Parliament on 30 June 1852. It was created to unify the various private railways and waggonways built to carry coal from the Northumberland coalfield to Blyth and the River Tyne, which it took control of on 1st January 1853. Over time, the railway expanded its network to reach Morpeth (1857/8), North Seaton (1859), Tynemouth (1860/1), Newcastle upon Tyne (1864), and finally Newbiggin-by-the-Sea (1872). It became part of the much larger North Eastern Railway in 1874.
Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited, often referred to simply as "Palmers", was a British shipbuilding company. The Company was based in Jarrow, County Durham, in north-eastern England, and also had operations in Hebburn and Willington Quay on the River Tyne.
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Sir William Blackett, 1st Baronet was a businessman who founded a mercantile and industrial base in Newcastle and a politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1673 to 1680.
The Keelmen of Tyne and Wear were a group of men who worked on the keels, large boats that carried the coal from the banks of both rivers to the waiting collier ships. Because of the shallowness of both rivers, it was difficult for ships of any significant draught to move up river and load with coal from the place where the coal reached the riverside. Thus the need for shallow-draught keels to transport the coal to the waiting ships. The keelmen formed a close-knit and colourful community on both rivers until their eventual demise late in the nineteenth century.
Fenwick Justin John Lawson, ARCA is an English sculptor based in the north-east of England.
A collier is a bulk cargo ship designed or used to carry coal. Early evidence of coal being transported by sea includes use of coal in London in 1306. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, coal was shipped from the River Tyne to London and other destinations. Other ports also exported coal – for instance the Old Quay in Whitehaven harbour was built in 1634 for the loading of coal. London became highly reliant on the delivery of coal by sea – Samuel Pepys expressed concern in the winter of 1666–67 that war with the Dutch would prevent a fleet of 200 colliers getting through. In 1795, 4,395 cargoes of coal were delivered to London. By 1824, this number had risen to about 7,000; by 1839, it was over 9,000. The trade continued to the end of the twentieth century, with the last cargo of coal leaving the Port of Tyne in February, 2021.
SS Wandle was a British coastal collier owned and operated by the proprietors of Wandsworth gas works in south-west London. She was a flatiron, meaning that she had a low-profile superstructure, hinged funnel, hinged or telescopic mast and folding wheelhouse to enable her to pass under low bridges on the tidal River Thames upriver from the Pool of London. She was in service from 1932 to 1959 and survived a number of enemy attacks in the Second World War.
The Merksworth was an iron steamer screw built in 1874 at, Paisley, that was wrecked when it swamped whilst carrying coal between Newcastle and Sydney and was lost off Newcastle, Stockton Beach, New South Wales on 7 May 1898.
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Queen Cristina was a steam cargo ship built in 1901 by the Northumberland Shipbuilding Co of Newcastle for Thomas Dunlop & Sons of Glasgow. The ship was designed and built for general cargo trade and spent her career doing tramp trade. She was the second ship named Queen Cristina in service with the Queen Line.
SS Rosalind was a cargo ship built by Tyne Iron Shipbuilding of Willington Quay and launched in 1879. She operated as a cargo carrier based at Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1907, she was sold to a Swedish operator named N P Shensson and sailed the Baltic Sea until May 1918 when she was sunk by a mine.
SS Vespasian was a steel-hulled cargo steamship that was built in Sunderland in 1887 as Eastern Prince, renamed Vespasian in 1908 and scrapped in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1914. In 1908 the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company converted her to steam turbine propulsion. She is notable as the first ship in the World whose turbines drove her propeller by reduction gearing instead of direct drive.
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