Hartlepool History Then & Now

James Freeman - a general history

Official No. 9162; Code Letters KGDS.

Owners: Hartlepool & Durham Commercial Shipping Co (Thomas Rowell, Abraham Scotson & William Lisle) Hartlepool; April 1851 James Errington Ritchie & Robert & Samuel Couper, Market Place, South Shields.

Masters: 1840-50 Thomas Hindmarsh; April 1851 John Couper (C.N.1375 South Shields 1849); May 1852-54 Alfred Cannute Swinfin Couper (b.1822 C.N.1475 South Shields 1849); March 1854-57 E Charlton; 1857-58 Alfred Cannute Swinfin Couper; 1858-60 Gibb.

With the dissolution of the Hartlepool & Durham Commercial Shipping Co an auction was held on 15 April 1851 at the Wheat Sheaf Inn at Hartlepool to sell 12 of their vessels including James Freeman which sold for £1,060.

Voyages: June 1840 Newcastle-on-Tyne for Smyrna; 13 October 1845 arrived Gravesend from Taganrog; 1854 Shields for the Mediterranean; 4 April 1856 Shields for Havre.

Bound from Hamburg for Newcastle-on-Tyne in ballast James Freeman was totally wrecked near Lemvig, Denmark on 21 October 1860. No lives were lost.

Crew 1848:

Clouston, Henry, mate: qualified as master 5 April 1848 at Leith (C.N. 24639).