Abyssinia (ship, 1870)
 Abyssinia
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The Abyssinia was an ocean liner put into service in 1870 by the British shipping company Cunard Line , which was used in passenger traffic from Liverpool via Queenstown to New York . The ship later belonged to the Guion Line and the Canadian Pacific Railway . On December 18, 1891, the Abyssinia sank without loss of life after a fire off the coast of Nova Scotia .
history
Cunard Line
After the success of Russia, which was put into service in 1867, the Cunard Line ordered five new iron express steamers for the weekly North Atlantic service. One of them, the 3,376 GRT steamship Abyssinia , was built in Clydebank, Scotland at the shipyard of J. & G. Thomson, the predecessor of John Brown & Company , and was launched on March 3, 1870. She and her sister ship , also owned by J. &. G. Thomson built Algeria (Bj. 1870), were the first Cunard steamers, which not only carried cabin passengers but also tween deck passengers. This concept was adopted by the Inman Line . A total of 200 passengers in the first and 1,050 in the third class could be accommodated.
The 110.78 meter long and 12.86 meter wide ship had a chimney, three masts, a straight stern and could reach a top speed of 13 knots (24 km / h). On May 24, 1870, the Abyssinia left Liverpool on her maiden voyage via Queenstown to New York. When the Oceanic of the White Star Line was put into service in March 1871 , Cunard's new express liners seemed outdated again. The Oceanic consumed daily as 58 tons of coal, while the Abyssinia and Algeria required in each case 90 daily tons.
On September 18, 1880, the Abyssinia ran out on her last voyage for the time being on her planned route. She was then traded in at her shipyard to finance the construction of the two new ships Servia and Catalonia (both completed in 1881).
Guion and Canadian Pacific Railway
In the same year she was chartered to the Guion Line to replace their Montana, which was stranded near Anglesey . From November 20, 1880, the ship was back on its old route. In 1882 it was equipped with new compound steam engines. In 1884 it was traded in again. This time at the John Elder & Company shipyard to help finance the construction of the Oregon Guion Line.
The Guion Line, stuck in a serious financial crisis, could not pay for the Oregon costs and therefore left them to the Cunard Line. Guion kept the older Abyssinia for it . At the same time, Cunard's ships Parthia and Batavia were traded in at John Elder & Company in return for record-breaking Oregon . In 1885 the founder of the shipping company Stephen G. Guion died, after which Sir William Pearce became the company's new chairman. On March 27, 1886, the last trip for the Guion Line began.
In the following year Pearce chartered the Abyssinia , the Parthia and the Batavia to the Canadian entrepreneur and railway pioneer William Cornelius Van Horne in order to introduce a steamship service in the Pacific for his Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) . In this way, the CPR's freight transport from Great Britain across the Atlantic to Canada by ship, through Canada by rail and from Canada to Japan, China and India by ship could be expanded again. The Abyssinia opened this new Pacific service with space for 22 first and 80 third class passengers. For the trip from Vancouver to Yokohama , where she arrived on June 13, 1887, she only needed 13 days and thus set a new transpacific record. The shipload of tea and silk was brought by train to New York via Montreal on June 21 and arrived aboard another ship in London on June 29 .
Downfall
The Abyssinia was in service with the Canadian Pacific Railway until it had three new, larger ships built with the Empress of China , the Empress of India and the Empress of Japan (all in 1891). In 1891 she was returned to the Guion Line and used from November 28, 1891 on her old route Liverpool-Queenstown-New York.
On December 13, 1891, she set out with 88 crew members and 57 passengers in New York on her first journey in an easterly direction since she was returned to Guion. At 12.40 p.m. on December 18, the steamer was on the coast of Nova Scotia when a fire broke out in one of the storerooms. The ship was only 1,300 nautical miles east of New York. Despite the fighting by the crew, the fire quickly got out of control. Captain GS Murray gave the order to leave the ship. The lookout of the passenger steamer Spree of the North German Lloyd saw the smoke rising from the burning Abyssinia , and the Spree hurried to help. By 4.15 p.m., all passengers and crew members had been taken over by the Spree , which arrived with the survivors in Southampton on December 21, 1891 . The Spree's 2nd Officer , Charles August Polack , was recognized for his work in the rescue by the Liverpool Shipwreck & Humane Society .
Since the fire broke out in a hold where large quantities of cotton were stored, the incident sparked controversy over whether passengers and cotton should be transported on the same ship.
Web links
- A comprehensive description of the ship can be found in The Ships List
- Abstract of the history of the Abyssinia
- The absyssinia in the Clydebuilt Ships Database (with picture)
Footnotes
- ^ Edwin Drechsel: North German Lloyd Bremen, 1857-1970; History, Fleet, Ship Mails , Volume 1, Cordillera Pub. Co., 1995, ISBN 1895590086 . P. 27.