Commonwealth Technical Specification

Owners: 1896 Stewart SS Co Ltd (R Stewart & Co) Liverpool: December 1899 Lord Curzon SS Co Ltd (John Herron & Co) Liverpool: October 1900 Commonwealth SS Co (Charles Radcliffe & Co) Cardiff: 1910 Commonwealth SS Co (Thomas & Appleton) Cardiff: 1916 Kent SS Co (Samuel Walton) Cardiff

Masters: 1899 J James: 1906-09 J Davies: 1916-17 J Jones: 1918 James T Beckerleg.

Between 1899 & 1900 Commonwealth sailed for the Tyne then Cardiff to load for Pensacola & Alexandria, through the Dardanelles to the Russian Black Sea port of Batoum, where she loaded for Bombay. The next call was at Vizagpatam, where the vessel loaded for Antwerp which she reached via Colombo, Perim, Suez & Algiers.

On a voyage from Bizerta for Middlesbrough with a cargo of iron-ore she was torpedoed without warning by German submarine (UC-71 Walter Warzecha) & sank 5 miles NE of Flamborough Head on 19 February 1918. 14 lives lost.

Lives lost February 1918: Ali Sabit, fireman/trimmer, India; Attwell, Harold, chief steward, 36, Bridgetown, Barbados; Bick, Henry George, messroom steward, 15, Canonbury St. Berkeley, Gloucester; Campbell, Archibald, able seaman, 49, b. Glasgow; Coglin, William Frater, 2^nd mate, 56, b. West Hartlepool; Craigg, W, ship’s cook, 40, b. Barbados; Davies, John Thomas, able seaman, 20, Llangranog, Wales; Fagnant, O, able seaman, 34, b. Quebec; Lane, CF, carpenter, 63, b. Finland; Morris, John Stanley, signalman (Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve) aged 19, Tredegar, Wales; Muhammad Ahmad, fireman/trimmer, India; Muhammad Nagi, donkeyman, India; Robley, Claude Crossley, wireless operator, 18, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

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.