Hartington Gallery

Steamship Hartington.

A FINE STEAMER

Launch at West Hartlepool Dock

Northern Daily Mail 22/04/1932
      
Yesterday afternoon, Messrs. William Gray and Co., Ltd., launched from their dockyard, West Hartlepool, the steel screw steamer Hartington which has been built to the order of Messrs. J. and C. Harrison, Ltd., of London.
    
The vessel, will take the highest class in Lloyd’s register and is of the following dimensions :-  Length over all, 441ft. 8in.,  breadth, 56ft 3in.,  depth moulded to the upper  deck, 28ft 9in, with long bridge, poop, and forecastle.
      
Constructed on the cellular double bottom principle with fore and after peaks for water ballast, the framing being of the deep bulb angle type, she has seven watertight bulkheads together with a steel centre line bulkhead and has wood shifting boards dividing the holds for grain carrying.
    
Spacious accommodation for the officers is arranged in a steel house amidships. The engineers will be berthed in steel large houses alongside the casing, and the crew will be in the poop with separate messrooms.
    
For the quick handling of cargo ten 7in. x 12in. steam winches will be provided which work 11 derricks, and a 7in. x 12in warping winch is to be fitted on the poop. A direct acting steam windlass forward and combined steam steering gear aft are also to be fitted.
      
The topmasts are to be telescopic, lowering to a height suitable for the Manchester Ship Canal bridges.
    
The Hartington will be completed in all respects as a first-class cargo steamer, her equipment including an efficient wireless installation, and electric light throughout.
    
The fine form and lines of the hull, the stream-lined stern frame, and the balanced reaction rudder are all designed to reduce the amount of propelling power required to drive the ship through the water, and this, combined with the highly-efficient machinery, will enable the vessel to carry cargo on a relatively small consumption of fuel.

                                               THE MACHINERY
    
The propelling machinery, which will be supplied by the Central Marine Engineering Works of the builders, is specially designed to give high efficiency in coal consumption.
      
Steam at 260lbs. per square inch pressure will be generated in three large cylindrical boilers which will work under forced draught and be supplied with air brought up to a high temperature before it enters the furnaces. The boiler feed water will be raised to a temperature of about 300deg. F. And the steam will be superheated to about 200deg. F.
      
The main engines are of the high pressure balanced quadruple type with “C.M.E.W.” poppet valves fitted to the H.P. and first M.P. cylinders.
       
A complete installation of “C.M.E.W.” engine room auxiliaries will be installed including centrifugal circulating pump, pair of vertical singlex independent feed pumps, exhaust steam feed heater, high pressure surface feed heater, winch condenser with vertical duplex circulating pump, vertical singlex harbour feed pump, vertical duplex general service pump, vertical duplex ballast pump, evaporator, gravitation feed filter, combined drain and scum tank, boiler circulators and boiler steam separators.
      
A “C.M.E.W.” thermocouple installation will be fitted, by means of which the temperatures of the gasses in the combustion chambers of the boilers, the smokeboxes the base of the funnel and other points may be easily read at one place in the engine room, thus enabling the operating engineers to control the temperature with scientific exactitude and reduce the loss of heat to a minimum.

                                        THE NAMING CEREMONY
    
The Hartington is the third vessel to be launched of the series of ten ordered by Messrs. J. and C. Harrison, Ltd., from various builders in the second half of last year, and the first of three which are being built by Messrs. William Gray and Co., Ltd.,
      
The ship and machinery are been built under the supervision of Mr. F.G. Neil, and Mr. N.J. White, and the ceremony of naming the steamer Hartington was performed by Miss Irene Harper of London.
    
The owners were represented by Mr. Frank Harrison (director) Mr. F.G. Neil, and Mr. N.J. White, and the builders by Mr. F.C. Pyman (managing director) Mr. M.S. Gibb (managing director Central marine Engine Works) Mr. J.H. Farmer, and Mr. A. McGlashan (directors), Mr. T.S. Simpson (general manager), and Mr. J. Nelson (yard manager).
    
Amongst those present were Mr. and Mrs. Harper and the Misses Harper, Lady Gray, Mrs. Gibb, Mrs. Farmer, Mrs. W. Guy Ropner, and Lt. Col. R.N. Gordon.  Lloyd’s Register of Shipping was represented by Mr. J.R. Dippie and Mr. C.A. Millar.

Master: 1942 Maurice James Edwards.

Hartington sailed from Halifax on 27 October 1942 in convoy SC-107 on a voyage for Belfast with 8000 tons of wheat, 6 tanks as deck cargo & a total complement of 48. She became a straggler & was torpedoed by German submarine U-438 (Franzius). The crew abandoned ship & she was hit by another torpedo from German submarine U-521 (Klaus Bargsten) & sank on 2 November 1942 in 52.30N/45.30W. The crew left in 2 lifeboats which were separated in the severe weather with one never found. 2 gunners, the master & 21 of the crew were lost. 25 lives lost.

Lives lost November 1942: Arkley, Robert, 4^th engineer, 22, Sutton, Surrey; Brewster, Jack, cadet, 18, Hull; Chapman, Alfred Henry, able seaman (Royal Navy) aged 36 Harrow, Middlesex;

Clements, Owen William, chief officer, 37, Barry, Glamorgan ; Davies, Brymor Edgar, cadet, 18, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire; Dawson, Robert, 2^nd engineer, 30; Donkin, Lancelot, greaser, 52 ; Edwards, Maurice James, master; Gibb, Edwin Gilchrist, 1^st radio officer, 28; Griffiths, George David, fireman/trimmer, 18, Wellingborough Northants.;

Harding, Harold Osmond, cabin boy, 17, Pleck, Staffordshire; Hose, Michael Terence, 3^rd officer, 21; Huckle, William Arthur, able seaman, 39, Ashtead, Surrey; Leask, Magnus, able seaman, 53; Maccoy, Septimus Thomas Leslie, assistant steward, 18, South Shields; Maclean, Duncan, fireman/trimmer, 49; Macrae, John, carpenter, 60; Madore, Walter, boatswain, 36; Ramm, Oliver, able seaman, 23, Cleadon, County Durham; Scarfe, James Henry, assistant steward, 24; Spencer, George Alfred, able seaman, 32, Walker, Newcastle-on-Tyne; Thompson, Frederick George, cook, 34, South Shields (his brother Ernest also fell in this War); Tyler, Alfred George, fireman/trimmer, 20.