SS Little Western (1858)

History
Name: 1858-1872: S.S. Little Western
Operator:
Port of registry: United Kingdom
Route:
Builder: James Henderson & Sons
Yard number: 25
Launched: 4 November 1858[1]
Out of service: 6 October 1872[2]
Fate: Wrecked on Southward Wells Reef
General characteristics
Tonnage: 105 gross register tons (GRT)
Length: 115 ft (35 m)
Beam: 18 ft (5.5 m)

SS Little Western was a passenger vessel operated by the Scilly Isles Steam Navigation Company from 1858 to 1871 and the West Cornwall Steam Ship Company from 1871 to 1872[3]

History

The Little Western was built by James Henderson and Son at Renfrew as a two cylinder iron screw steam schooner and launched on 4 November 1858. (The report of her launch on 25 April 1860 in the Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette of 28 April 1860[4] is presumably an error).

She was operated from operated by the Scilly Isles Steam Navigation Company from 1858 to 1871. Captain Tregarthen was captain of the Little Western from 1859 to 1870. She transferred from the Scilly Isles Steam Navigation Company to the West Cornwall company in 1871 for the sum of £2,640 (equivalent to £222,000 in 2015).[5]

Only a few weeks after the loss of the company’s other ship, the Paddle Steamer Earl of Arran, she was wrecked on Southward Wells Reef, off Samson on 6 October 1872 while attempting to give assistance to a disabled brigantine ship, Due Fratelli’'.[6]

Approximate position of Little Western's wreck

References

  1. "Launch at Renfrew". Glasgow Herald (Glasgow). 5 November 1858. Retrieved 10 October 2015 via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
  2. McFarland, F (1927). "Shipwrecks of Scilly 1841 to 1880". Scillonian 11.
  3. Duckworth, Christian Leslie Dyce; Langmuir, Graham Easton (1968). Railway and other Steamers. Prescot, Lancashire: T. Stephenson and Sons,.
  4. "Launch". Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette (Glasgow). 28 April 1860. Retrieved 10 October 2015 via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
  5. UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2016), "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.
  6. "Total Loss of the Little Western". Cornubian and Redruth Times (Cornwall). 11 October 1872. Retrieved 10 October 2015 via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
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