Part of the
Acorn Archive
Hearts of Oak
J Temperley
& Co Ships
PEMBRIDGE
Pembridge
PEMBRIDGE
ON
98922
2,935
grt
Built
1891 Raylton, Dixon & Co,
Middlesbrough
Yard
Nr.333
For
The Temperley Steam Shipping Co, London.
1899 Missing since sailing from Savannah, Georgia
for Hamburg
on 13th August, with
a cargo of phosphate.
Captain J L Vivian Millett said ….
I
applied for a voyage off, which the owners granted, so I took the ship round to
Cardiff on completion of the discharge and handed her over to an elderly man
who had previously been a master in the employ. She was chartered by Messrs.
Vogemann, of Hamburg, for two voyages across the Atlantic, going in ballast to
Savannah and returning with cargo for Hamburg.
My
owners had just formed a company for marketing West Australian timber, and had
bought forty-two acres of ground at Purfleet in Essex to use as a depot known
as Purfleet Wharf and Saw Mills, Ltd. On hearing this I immediately made
application for a position on shore, and was shortly afterwards offered the
position of superintendent of the pier, which was then being constructed. It
was a small position, but as a daughter had been born to me I longed to give up
the sea and remain on shore with my wife and child.
I
wrote to my late chief engineer informing him that I should not return to my
ship. His wife had gone over to him at Hamburg, and when she heard the news she
urged him also to give it up, to which he replied that he would do so at the
end of that voyage. The ship sailed again for Savannah from Hamburg, and when
loaded out there proceeded down the river, and found that the meteorological
signals were up signifying that a hurricane was approaching. The captain
decided to anchor and await developments, but as the weather did not appear to
grow any worse, after a few hours he sailed. Unfortunately this was an error of
judgment. He must have sailed right into the centre of the hurricane, for I
regret to say the ship was never heard of again.
Raymond
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