Cheviot Range

Middlesbrough Daily Gazette 16^th Oct. 1914
The steel screw steamer Cheviot Range successfully underwent her official trial trip in Hartlepool Bay yesterday. The vessel was built Messrs Irvine’s Shipbuilding and Dry Docks Co., Ltd., to the order of Messrs Furness, Withy, and Co., Ltd., for the Neptune Steam Navigation Company.

Newcastle Journal 30^th Dec. 1915
STEAMER'S CAPTAIN WASHED OVERBOARD. New York, Wednesday,—The steamer Escalona has reported that the English steamer Cheviot Range, from Fowey to Philadelphia, signalled that Captain Fell was washed overboard during hurricane December 22.

Dundee, Perth, Forfar & Fife’s People’s Journal 1^st Jan. 1916
Philadelphia. Thursday.—The British steamer Cheviot Range, arrived Delaware Breakwater, reports damage about the decks, and that the captain was lost overboard.

Christopher Furness was born at New Stranton, West Hartlepool, in 1852, the youngest of seven children. He became a very astute businessman, and by the age of eighteen was playing a major role in his older brother Thomas’ wholesale grocery business, being made partner in 1872.

In 1882 the two brothers decided to go their separate ways, allowing Thomas to concentrate on the grocery business, while Christopher took over the ownership and management of the four steamships their company was then operating.

This was the beginning of what would eventually become the huge Furness Withy & Co. Ltd. empire. As many books have been written detailing the history of this company, its ships and its many subsidiaries, this section will only feature those ships with direct Hartlepool connections.

Some of the ships that were not built at Hartlepool but owned by Furness are listed below as 'a general history'

In this section you will find information, photographs and stories relating to more than 260 Hartlepool seamen who lost their lives during during the First World War, and of the ships they served on.
To find a particular crewman, simply type his Surname in the Search Box at the top of the page.

This section will, in time, contain the stories of more than 450 merchant ships built or owned in the Hartlepools, and which were lost during the First World War. As an illustration of the truly global nature of shipbuilding, these ships were owned by companies from 22 different countries, including more than 30 sailing under the German flag at the outbreak of war.