Abbots Reading - a general history

Abbots Reading 1838-1873

Kendall & Co, Liverpool: Official No. 1500: Code Letters HKFW.

Owners: 1838 James & William Tryer, Liverpool; 1854 Kendall & Co, Liverpool; 1864 Fox & Satterfield, Liverpool; 1870 Robert Hutchinson (West Hartlepool) Liverpool; 1871 Robert Hutchinson, West Hartlepool; 1873 Messrs Fawcus & Co., West Hartlepool.

Masters: 1838-39 T White; 1840 Renner; 1841-43 Crawford; 1844-1848 Atkinson; 1848-55 James Johnstone; 1855-57 John Walsh; 1857-62 Thomas Power; 1862-63 Olivie Prout (C.N. 2915 London 1850); 1864 Charles Lima; 1865-70 Dumaresq; 1870-71 Robert Chastney (b. Norfolk 1841 C.N. 34962 Dundee 1868); 1871-73 Joseph Charlton (C.N. 85548).

Voyages: 1838 from Liverpool for Arica, Islay & Lima; 1840 Liverpool for Valparaiso; 1844 Liverpool for Calcutta; June 1853 at Valparaiso with an assorted cargo; 1 June 1857 from Gravesend for Rio de Janeiro; 1858 Liverpool for South America.

Miscellaneous: 13 September 1855 a letter to Lloyds from the master, Alexander MP Mackey of HMS Nereus, concerning Abbots Reading.  In the correspondence he states that the vessel was offloading at Valparais on 12 September & had 1,315 kegs of gunpowder aboard, each keg containing 25lbs. He assumed these were stored on deck & amongst the general cargo which consisted of iron, paint, pitch pine & hardware. Some 20 of the kegs had been landed & many were open or had hoops missing which he believed was caused by friction on the iron bars causing the waste powder to explode. The entire upper deck was blown up & two of the crew died with four others seriously injured; 8/9 March 1863 while on a voyage on Abbots Reading, the master, Olivie Prout aged 33 of St Agnes, Cornwall, & an apprentice, John Parker Hay, aged 15 of Ramsey, Isle of Man, drowned at Outer Roads, Buenos Aires; 1867 a case was heard at Thames Police Court concerning two of the crew of Abbots Reading. On 7 January 1867 the prosecutor, Donald Cameron & the prisoner, John Crane, 29, were at the pumps with others when a quarrel took place between them. Crane struck Cameron with his fist & both armed tbemselves with belaying pins. The 2nd mate came between them & sent them back to the pumps. Crane said he would ‘mark’ Cameron before he went to sleep. Five minutes later Crane was observed to put his hand to a sheath knife at his back. Cameron was seated on a spar & Crane was watching him attentively. As Cameron had another spell at the pump Crane drew his knife & slit his nose with it. The lower part of the nose was severed & the master dressed the wound but Cameron was left disfigured for life. Crane threw the knife overboard directly afterwards. The official log book was produced & the entry confirmed the events. His evidence was also corroborated in every particular by other witnesses & Crane was committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court.

21 July 1873 Abbots Reading sailed from Stockholm bound for Jacobstadt, Finland with about 95 tons of pig iron as ballast & a crew of 10. She was stranded & wrecked near Wasa, Finland on 28 July 1873.

‘Inquiry held at Newcastle-on-Tyne;

At midnight on 21 July 1873, she brought up the entrance of the river & discharged her pilot & at 4pm proceeded on her voyage. At noon on the 27th observations were obtained for latitude which gave 61.16N & the vessel, having no chronometer, the longitude was estimated by dead reckoning to be 19.32E. At 4am of the 28th the master relieved the watch, & finding land on the starboard beam nearer than he expected, marked the vessel’s position on his chart as being 10E of the longitude given by dead reckoning, & altered the course to the north; but a few minutes before 8am the she suddenly grounded on a sunken reef. The crew, after an unsuccessful endeavour to make the vessel float, took to their boats at about 3am of the 29th, & eventually landed at Wasa.

The Court considered, from the evidence before them that Abbots Reading was lost either on the outer edge of the line of broken water marked on the chart as extending from latitude 62.32N to latitude 63N, on a longitude of 20.40E or on an outlying reef some miles further to the westward, but owing to the vessel having been worked by dead reckoning, they felt it impossible to settle the question. The position given by the master at 4am on the 28th was only an assumed one; but it might have been correctly ascertained had a chronometer been on board, & under these circumstances the Court did not feel justified in suspending the master’s certificate.

The Court could not overlook the fact that the owners had neglected to supply their vessel with a chronometer, & they consider that the disaster must, in a great measure be attributed to this omission. If the vessel had carried a chronometer her exact position could have been astronomically fixed at noon on the 27th & thus the casualty would in all probability been avoided. The Court, therefore, directed that the managing owners, Messrs Fawcus, Fawcus & Co, put the sum of 10s towards the cost of the inquiry.’

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