Passenger and cargo steamer QUEEN VICTORIA wrecked in Lake Malawi (Africa) in 1924

Christmas 1924 edition of "The Red Anchor" Staff Magazine of Anchor Line of Glasgow

Courtesy of University of Glasgow

Anchor Line Special Collection

UGD/255/1/32/8

4-masted ship "Lancing" leaves Ardrossan bound for Italy

From "The Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald" dated 26th September 1969

Letters Page

The "Lancing"
Sir,
Reference your photograph (Herald last week) of the 4-masted ship "Lancing"
I was standing on Montgomerie Pier as she sailed.
Two tugs took her out, the Ardrossan tug being at the stern and leaving when the ship was out of the harbour.
The "Lancing" left Ardrossan on 24th December 1924, bound for Genoa. She carried coal, and was, I believe, to be used as a coal hulk at Genoa.

Yours
Charles Niven
43 Hunter Avenue,
Ardrossan.

Dec 24th 1924
Lancing towed Ardrossan to Genoa.
1925 Lancing broken up by Frasssinetti

Ellerman's CITY OF MANDALAY sailing from the Clyde

  CITY OF MANDALAY was sunk on 17 October 1939 by U-46.   An account of the sinking is in www. Uboat.net … CITY OF MANDALAY 

Invitation to the launch of Anchor Liner TRANSYLVANIA at Fairfield Shipbuilders, Govan, Glasgow

1925 Invitation by Fairfield, Glasgow to launching of Argentine oil tanker FLORENTINO AMEGHINO

Anchor Line's CALEDONIA launched at Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd Shipyard, Govan, Glasgow

The Ships That Perished In Arctic Waters

From: Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald Dated 20th October 1972

THE SHIPS THAT PERISHED IN ARCTIC WATERS

THE TALES OF SHIPWRECKS most recalled and related to this locality are those which occurred on our own shores - the ?TRELAWNEY?, ?LOVEN?, ?CHUSAN?, all of which have been recorded in these pages in the past year; but worth remembering also are those ships built or registered at Ardrossan and which foundered in far off waters.

For many years the vessels of the Hudson?s Bay Company plied regularly from Ardrossan Harbour and in 1925 the company placed an order with Ardrossan Drydock and Shipbuilding Company for a new single screw passenger and cargo steamer for ice navigation.

That order was placed at the end of June, and just a month later word was received that another of the company?s ships, the ?BAYESKIMO?, had been wrecked and sunk in Ungava Bay on the coast of Hudson?s Bay.

The ?BAYESKIMO? (1,391 tons) had been built at Ardrossan in 1922 and her crew was composed largely of local men - 14 from Ardrossan and six from Saltcoats, among others. Fortunately the crew and passengers after enduring considerable hardship were all rescued by the company?s steamship ?NASCOPIE? which was 160 miles away when the distress call was received. The crew of the ?NASCOPIE? were also mostly local men.

The ?BAYESKIMO? had left Ardrossan on June 16 for Montreal and was on her usual summer voyage around the stations of the Hudson?s Bay Company conveying agents of the company on their way to the trading posts, and collecting a cargo of furs.

A LEAK

In mid July the ?BAYESKIMO? and the ?NASCOPIE? met amid some pack ice and exchanged greetings; and after calling at Port Burwell, the ?BAYESKIMO? set off in a south west direction. On the morning of July 23 an inexplicable leak was discovered in No. 1 hold, and for several hours the pumps managed to cope with the incoming water; but in late afternoon it was realised the ship would have to be abandoned.

A wireless message was sent to the ?NASCOPIE? at once, and the 48 souls on board ?BAYESKIMO? took to their boats in the middle of Ungava Bay, 60 miles from Fort Chimo and surrounded by pack ice.

At 10 p.m. they saw the ?BAYESKIMO? plunge to the bottom of the sea and they made themselves as comfortable as possible on a piece of ice about 50 yards square.

The weather was just a few degrees above freezing and rain fell continuously through the night, but at eight o?clock in the morning the ?NASCOPIE? arrived and took the marooned party on board, conveying them back to Port Burwell.

Meanwhile back at Ardrossan the shipyard was proceeding with the building of the new ship which was christened ?BAYRUPERT? at her launching in March 1926. She was strongly built, the shell plating; framing and side stringers being considerably in excess of Lloyd?s requirements for ice strengthening. There was accommodation for 72 first class passengers in state rooms, and quarters for 64 Eskimos were provided in the No. 1 ?tween deck.

Unfortunately the ?BAYRUPERT? was destined to have an even shorter life than the ?BAYESKIMO?. On July 22 of the following year, 1927, she stranded on a submerged reef off the coast of Labrador. The 62 crew and 30 passengers including three women and six children put on their lifebelts, took to the boats and sheltered there for a couple of days until rescued by the ss ?KYLE? which had picked up the ?BAYRUPERT?S? SOS 500 miles away.

The ?BAYRUPERT? had to be left on the reef with all her compartments filling and showing signs of breaking in two. Her captain and crew eventually arrived home at Ardrossan seemingly none the worse of their experience.

PACK ICE

The losses of the ?BAYESKIMO? and ?BAYRUPERT? were straight forward enough, but in the case of a third Hudson?s Bay ship, the ?BAYCHIMO?, a legend has grown up which is not entirely justified.

The ?BAYCHIMO? left Vancouver at the beginning of July 1931 and collected furs along the coast of Victoria Land. At the beginning of October she was caught firmly in the grip of pack ice and the captain and crew decided it would be safer to spend the winter, not aboard in case the ship was crushed and holed, but in huts erected about half a mile away on the ice floe.

On Christmas Day and Boxing Day there was a blizzard which confined the crew to the hut, and when they managed to go out the next day they found the ?BAYCHIMO? had vanished.

They searched for her but without success and when the spring came they made their way safely back to civilisation, and subsequently to Ardrossan.

LEGEND

There is a legend that the ?BAYCHIMO? then became a sort of ghost ship sailing independently around the Arctic waters with her valuable cargo still intact; there are stories of lone trappers coming across her and being unable to salvage the million dollars worth of furs because of lack of facilities. Good stories; but the captain of the ?BAYCHIMO? is quoted in our paper of February 1932 as stating that the ship had been located and the furs salvaged by a company agent assisted by natives; and that the ship ?was twisted like putty and had a long gap in the side which meant she would sink immediately in open water?.

Despite this there were reports and rumours over the next few years of the ?BAYCHIMO? being sighted still afloat. Perhaps they were true, but in the past 40 years she has certainly gone to the bottom somewhere in the Arctic Ocean; pleasant as it would have been to the Ardrossan members of her crew to think of her sailing proudly on, defying the elements - a sort of ?FLYING ESKIMO?.

Scribe Tango

Painting of the Great Lakes steamer MINDEMOYA in the Welland Aqueduct, Canada

Invitation to the Trial Trip of Anchor Line's new ship CALEDONIA at Tail-of-the-Bank, Greenock

"Baron Haig" launched by Ayrshire Dockyard Co., Irvine.

From "The Irvine & Fullarton Times" dated Friday 5th February 1926

Hopper Barge HOPPER NO.1 launched at William Simons Shipyard, Renfrew, River Clyde

Loading cattle onto MAGDALA in Prince's Dock, Glasgow

   A little aside about livestock cattle

 But first, ….. in U.K. the men loading and unloading ships are called “Dockers” or “Stevedores” – in USA they are called “Longshoremen”

and in Spain a man who fights the bulls in bullfights is called a “Toreador”  

So… the little story

   Donaldson Line of Glasgow employed their own stevedores to load and unload their vessels in Prince’s Dock, Glasgow, and the Company carried much livestock, horses and cattle, across the Atlantic between U.K. and Canada.   The photographs show cattle being brought from the holding pens at the quayside and then coaxed or pulled up a ramp onto the ship and then channelled through a wooden tunnel to their holding pens on the ship.

   A well-known story in Donaldson Line is about a time in Glasgow when their dockers were shipping (loading) bulls and cows onto a ship to take them to Canada.

  A docker was having a great deal of trouble handling some very unruly and aggressive bulls onto the ship and he approached his Dock Manager saying “I’m employed by Donaldson’s as a stevedore --- not as a Toreador”

General Strike 1926

Deployment of Troops.

In support of a strike by coal miners over the issue of threatened wage cuts, the Trades Union Congress called a General Strike in early May 1926.

The strike only involved certain key industrial sectors (docks, electricity, gas, and railways).
But, in the face of well-organised government emergency measures and lack of real public support, it collapsed after nine days.

Causes of the General Strike

The British coal-mining industry suffered an economic crisis in 1925, largely caused by five factors:
World War I:
The heavy usage of coal in World War I domestically meant that rich seams were depleted during this time, and that Britain exported less coal in this time than it would have done in times of peace, allowing other countries to fill the gap left by Britain. In particular the United States, Poland and Germany benefited from this.

Productivity, which was at its lowest ebb. Output per man had fallen to just 199 Imperial tons in the period 1920?4, from 247 tons in the four years before the War, and a peak of 310 tons in the early 1880s.

The fall in prices resulting from the 1925 Dawes Plan that, among other things, allowed Germany to re-enter the international coal market by exporting "free coal" to France and Italy as part of their reparations for World War I.

The reintroduction of the Gold Standard in 1925 by Winston Churchill:
This made the pound too strong for effective exporting to take place from Britain, and also (because of the economic processes involved in maintaining a strong currency) raised interest rates, hurting all businesses whether they exported or not.

Mine owners wanted to normalise profits even during times of economic instability ? which often took the form of wage reductions. Coupled with the prospect of longer working hours, the industry was thrown into disarray.

In Glasgow.
It was the Central Strike Co-ordinating Committee of the Trades and Labour Council that took control, this was set up at the last minute. There was an overwhelming response to the first line call-out which included workers from railways, transport, building, chemical, gas, print and steel.

Hard Labour.
On Monday May the 10th 100 people appeared before the Glasgow Sheriff Court, 22 were given from 1 - 3 months hard labour. On the same day at the Glasgow Police Courts a further 100 cases were dealt with for minor offences.
There was widespread anger at the conduct of the police, more so the Specials and at the severity of the sentences. Parliament passed regulations giving power to the police to prohibit public meetings.
Courts were being seen as instruments of class hatred and vengeance. In one hearing a well dressed young man was charged with stone throwing in a disturbance and given 3 months on the evidence of two policemen, contrary to several independent witnesses.
A woman charged with mobbing and rioting was arrested on Friday the 7th of May she was refused bail and held in remand for two weeks in spite of the fact that she was the mother of
5 young children.
On May the 14th the Labour group on the City Council called for a full inquiry into the conduct of the police after receiving several complaints from uninvolved citizens about unwarranted attacks on them, in particularly by the Specials. Tales of police and strikers playing football together never happened in Glasgow.
There were calls for workers to carry "walking sticks" as a means of defending themselves, however instructions from the higher echelons instructed the workers to be peaceful and law abiding even though this was proving almost impossible due to the attitude of the police.