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West of England - a general history

Official No. 54975: Code Letters HWNT.

Owners: 1866 Liverpool & London S.S. Co. (Pennington & Samuel Hough) Liverpool; 1880 Robert Irvine & Co (Orchard House, West Hartlepool) Liverpool.

Masters: 1866-72 Wraight; 1880 Watkins.

On a voyage from Pomaron to Liverpool with a cargo of 760 tons of copper ore, about 100 tons of bunker coal, two passengers & a total crew of 17 West of England sprang a leak & foundered in the Bay of Biscay in 48.16N/7.30W on 15 September 1880. The crew & passengers were taken off by the German ship George Washington & given a boat 60 miles off Madeira and left to row to shore. One seaman, Griffiths, drowned.

Board of Trade inquiry summary: This vessel sprang a leak in her engine room, the water gained on the pumps, the engine fires were put out, & she was abandoned. She was subsequently seen to go down stern foremost. The vessel’s load-line disc was formerly 3 inches lower than when she was lost she then having a freeboard of 2 feet. When she was put into the foreign ore-trade the disc was altered giving her a freeboard of 1 foot 9 inches & the Court of Inquiry were inclined to think it would have been better had thee freeboard had not been changed. They found that the vessel’s loss was due to a leak in the engine-room, the exact locality of which could not be ascertained from the evidence & they were of the opinion that up to the time the leak was discovered the vessel appeared to have been staunch & tight.

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