(RETURN)



                SAIL VOLUME III


                                                                                    II.  BLACKWALL PASSENGER SHIPS -2


                NORTHFLEET (1853 - 1873), 895 tons (old) 951 tons (new measurement), length 180ft, beam 32ft 3in,
                depth 20ft 9in.  Constructed of wood , built at Northfleet on the Thanes for Dent & Co (China traders).  A
                typical Blackwall frigate with first class passenger accommodation  under the poop and tween deck space
                for troops or eigrants. Purchased by Duncan Dunbar in 1855, and in Crimean war service in 1855-56.
                Made eight voyages in the China tea trade from the 1856-57 tea season until the 1866-67 season.  After
                Duncan Dunbar's death in 1863, she was bought by her commander who sold her in 1868.  In January 1873,
                while at anchor at Dungeness sheltering from a Westerly gale, she was run down by a Spanish steamer and
                sank in twenty minutes.  She was at the start of a voyage to Tasmania.with emigrant railway workers on                                
                board.  The passengers panicked and only one boatload of women and children got awy from the sunking ship.  
                There were  293 fatalities from the accident. 
               




                STAR OF INDIA (1861 - 1892), 1045 tons, length 190ft 4in, beam 34ft 2in, depth 22ft 1in.  Constructed
                of wood, built by Stephen, Dundee, for Joseph Somes.  A Blackwall frigate built for the first class
                passenger trade to India.  After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1863 it did not take many years before
                P & O steamers were taking over the first class passenger trade to India but in the early 1879s
                the passenger trade to Australia was booming.  The STAR OF INDIA was moved to this trade and
                was in it for ten years.  In 1873 and 1874, she made two voyages to New Zealand under chater to Shaw
                Saville. In both voyages she carried 300 emigrants 'tween decks to first Lyttelton and the Wellington.
                About 1881/2 she was sold to Norwegian owners and spent a dozen years as a barque in the North
                Atlantic timber trade.  She was abandoned at sea in 1892.
                




                MIDDLESEX (1884 - 1896  ), 1,824 gross tons and 1,742 net tons, length  268ft 4in, beam 38ft 8in,
                depth 23ft 6in. Constructed of iron, built by Barclay, Curle of Glasgow, for George Marshall & Sons. as
                a first class passenger ship. She was the largest ship in the Marshall fleet. In her maiden voyage, she
                reached Sydney from Dundee in 78 days.  Most of her crew left the ship and after waiting a
                month for a wool cargo,  she was sent to Chittagong  and waited three months for a jute cargo.  In her
                second voyage, she carried coal to Singapore then went toChittagong  for jute cargo.  Her third voyage
                followed the sme pattern to Sigapore and Chittagong.  At this point George Marshal & Sons sold all their
                sailing ships - the MIDDLESEX to a London company.  The ship was posted as missing in Januay 1896.
             




             RETURN