SS Chester (1884)

History
Name:	SS Chester
Operator:	1884-1897:Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway 1897-1910:Great Central Railway
Port of registry:
Builder:	Edward Withy and Company, Hartlepool
Launched:	29 April 1884
Fate:	Sunk in collision 28 September 1910
General characteristics
Tonnage:	1,010 gross register tons (GRT)
Length:	238.6 feet (72.7 m)
Beam:	32.2 feet (9.8 m)
Depth:	14.1 feet (4.3 m)

SS Chester was a passenger and cargo vessel built for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway in 1884.^[1]

History

Chester was built by Edward Withy and Company in their Middleton Yard at Hartlepool and launched on 29 April 1884, sponsored by Miss Florence Withy.^[2] She was designed for the passenger and cargo service between Grimsby, England, and Hamburg, Germany. She had a long poop deck, a long bridge house, and a long topgallant forecastle. The bridge house was fitted up for the accommodation of thirty first-class passengers (including ladies’ cabin), the captain, and so on. There was accommodation in the forecastle for second-class passengers, and in the poop aft for officers and crew. In the ‘tween decks were fittings for 100 emigrants.

On 4 December 1885, Chester was involved in a collision with her sister ship Wakefield, which resulted in the sinking of Wakefield and the drowning of her stewardess.^[3]

In 1897, Chester passed to the Great Central Railway. On 28 September 1910 she was in a collision in the River Elbe with a Swedish steamer which resulted in her being badly damaged. She was beached to prevent sinking.^[4] However, she sank quickly into the soft moving sand and became a total wreck, the water having flooded her holds.^[5]

References

1. Duckworth, Christian Leslie Dyce; Langmuir, Graham Easton (1968). Railway and other Steamers. Prescot, Lancashire: T. Stephenson and Sons.
2. "Launch of a Steamer at West Hartlepool". Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough. England. 30 April 1884. Retrieved 11 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
3. "Steamer Sunk". Aberdeen Evening Express. Scotland. 4 December 1885. Retrieved 11 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
4. "The Great Central Railway Company's steamer Chester…". Aberdeen Journal. Scotland. 30 September 1910. Retrieved 11 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
5. "Grimsby Steamer wrecked in the Elbe". Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer. England. 3 October 1910. Retrieved 11 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).