SS Chester (1884)

SS Chester was a passenger and cargo vessel built for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway in 1884.[1]

History
NameSS Chester
Operator
Port of registryUnited Kingdom
BuilderEdward Withy and Company, Hartlepool
Launched29 April 1884
FateSunk in collision 28 September 1910
General characteristics
Tonnage1,010 gross register tons (GRT)
Length238.6 feet (72.7 m)
Beam32.2 feet (9.8 m)
Depth14.1 feet (4.3 m)

History

Chester was built by Edward Withy and Company in their Middleton Yard at Hartlepool and launched on 29 April 1884, sponsored by Miss Florence Withy.[2] She was designed for the passenger and cargo service between Grimsby, England, and Hamburg, Germany. She had a long poop deck, a long bridge house, and a long topgallant forecastle. The bridge house was fitted up for the accommodation of thirty first-class passengers (including ladies’ cabin), the captain, and so on. There was accommodation in the forecastle for second-class passengers, and in the poop aft for officers and crew. In the ‘tween decks were fittings for 100 emigrants.

On 4 December 1885, Chester was involved in a collision with her sister ship Wakefield, which resulted in the sinking of Wakefield and the drowning of her stewardess.[3]

In 1897, Chester passed to the Great Central Railway. On 28 September 1910 she was in a collision in the River Elbe with a Swedish steamer which resulted in her being badly damaged. She was beached to prevent sinking.[4] However, she sank quickly into the soft moving sand and became a total wreck, the water having flooded her holds.[5]

References
  1. Duckworth, Christian Leslie Dyce; Langmuir, Graham Easton (1968). Railway and other Steamers. Prescot, Lancashire: T. Stephenson and Sons.
  2. "Launch of a Steamer at West Hartlepool". Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough. England. 30 April 1884. Retrieved 11 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. "Steamer Sunk". Aberdeen Evening Express. Scotland. 4 December 1885. Retrieved 11 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  4. "The Great Central Railway Company's steamer Chester…". Aberdeen Journal. Scotland. 30 September 1910. Retrieved 11 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  5. "Grimsby Steamer wrecked in the Elbe". Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer. England. 3 October 1910. Retrieved 11 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.

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