hartlepool history logo
close button

Rokeby (1899) - a general history

Official No. 112405: Code Letters RHVB.

Owners: 1899 Pyman SS Co (G Pyman & Co) West Hartlepool; 1918 Britain SS Co (Watts, Watts & Co) London-renamed Molesey; 1928 Britain SS Co (Watts, Watts & Co, Edmund Hannay Watts mgr) London; 1929 sold to foreign owners.

Masters: 1902 G Yule; 1904-05 H Wheatley; 1906-09 GHH Sheldrake; 1916-17 DM Hood; 1929 George Edgar Huntley.

Bound from the Tyne for Leghorn with a cargo of coal Rokeby struck a mine on 31 July 1917 & suffered slight damage. No lives lost.

Molesey sailed from Manchester on 24 November 1929 in ballast & with a crew of 33, the 1st officer’s wife & a female passenger bound for Bristol dry dock prior to being handed over to new owners. She ran aground during a gale at Wooltack Point, Skomer Island, Jack Sound, Pembrokeshire & was wrecked on 25 November 1929. Some of the crew attempted to jump from the ship to the rocks and were drowned; others were drowned when the starboard side of the bridge was washed away. The remainder sheltered in various places amidship, & sent distress rockets up. At daylight on 26 November the Angle lifeboat came alongside and took off the survivors, with the exception of one fireman who had stowed away in the remaining boat and who later got ashore on the Island & was rescued from there. Eight lives lost.

Lives lost November 1929;

Ahmed Said, fireman

Ellertsen, John, sailor

Inch, Frederick W, 3rd engineer

King, E Redvers, wireless operator

Mattson, Charles, carpenter

McGinn, Thomas, ordinary seaman

Shannon, William, 2nd officer (died later from injuries to the neck)

Stocks, Ethel, stewardess

Related items :