Official No. 102722 Code Letters NPQF. Built in 1894 by Grays, West Hartlepool. According to A History of the Central Marine Engine Works 1884 – 1961 by Peter L. Hogg (1995), the contract price agreed for the ship (including both hull and machinery) was £19,000. However, this may not necessarily have been the actual final cost to the ship owner.
Owners: 1894 North of England SS Co. (Crosby, Magee & Co) West Hartlepool: 1914 A/S Bainbridge (CJ Svendsen) Christiana
Masters: 1894-96 T. Barnard: 1898 R.W. Gardiner: 1902 J. Crofts: 1904 R.W. Gardiner: 1905 J. Gardner: 1906-11 T.B. Smith: 1913 J. Porter.
Manchester Courier & Lancashire Advertiser, Tuesday, March 24th, 1914:
SHIP CANAL COLLISION. IMPORTANT ACTION CONCERNING THE RULE OF THE ROAD.
An Admiralty action which raised important questions relating to the rule the road in the Manchester Ship Canal came before Judge Taylor and assessors at the Liverpool Court of Passage yesterday.
The Manchester Corporation, as owners of the hopper Joseph Thompson, sought a declaration of liability against Messrs. Crosby, Magee and Co., of West Hartlepool, owners of the s.s. Bainbridge, in respect of a collision which oocurred in the Ship Canal in March of last year.
The hopper having passed through Eastham locks was proceeding to Manchester and met the Bainbridge just beyond a point where the canal narrows slightly. Captain Peacock, of the hopper, stated that the bows of the steamship appeared to touch the bank the other side of the canal, with the result that the rebound sent her across the canal, the bows of the two coming into collision. The hopper was forced into the bank on her side and a number of her plates were damaged.
It was put to the captain in cross examination that according to rule fifteen of the regulations of the canal it was his duty to have remained in the wider waters of the canal until the Bainbridge had passed. He declared that the rule did not carry so strict a meaning as the one suggested, and that it was the practice on the canal of vessels of even much larger dimensions than these two to pass each other in the narrower portions the canal.
This view was supported by Captain Lewis, a Ship Canal pilot, who stated that the rule in question was so impracticable that it was shortly to be rescinded.
The respondents relied upon "the legality of the rule, and called evidence to show that it was observed at the particular spot where the collision occurred. The pilot of the Bainbridge, Thomas Lamey, also stated that the collision was caused by the hopper entering the narrow part of the canal on a cross bearing, and striking the Bainbridge, which had not the necessary space to pursue a straight course.
The hearing was adjourned until to-day.
Bound from Sunderland for Bayonne with a cargo of coal Bainbridge was stranded in fog at Pointe de Kerlouan and abandoned on 16 July, 1916. No lives lost.
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