Tod & Macgregor Shiplist
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Yard No.: |
64 |
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Name: |
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Year: |
1852 |
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Description: |
Steamship |
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Webpage: |
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Picture: |
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Tonnage: |
1,229 |
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Length: |
232.9 |
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Width: |
31.6 |
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H.P.: |
275 |
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Type: |
Iron. Beam engine with gearing, 10psi.² Single Screw³ |
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Customer: |
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Fate: |
Laid up in 1896 and later wreaked. |
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Points of Note: |
Had beam engines with gearing. [WA Baker)] Sold 1874 |
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Date of Launch: |
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Notes:
80 First Class. Madras and Bombay are historically important as the earliest screw steamers ordered for any mail service and were built to City of Glasgow principles. They started in the Southampton-Istanbul, but were soon designated for the short-lived Singapore-Sydney service. Both settled down eventually in the Suez-Bombay and afterwards moved further east.
Madras damaged herself severely in 1873 on a reef near Naoma Island, near Shantou China, but managed to reach Shantou and in 1874 was sold to the Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Company and was renamed the Kanagawa Maru.
[British Passenger Lines of the Five Oceans, Commander C.R. Vernon Gibbs]
The Madras sailed between Sydney and Singapore until November 1853. After this she sailed between Southampton, Melbourne and Sydney until the route was abandoned soon afterwards.
[Pacific Steamers, Will Lawson]
In 1853 the Directors reported that, in consequence of a Memorial resulting from a public meeting at Melbourne asking for an improved service, the Chusan and Shanghai were being replaced by the Bombay and the Madras.²
The P. & O. fleet list of 1854 gives the Madras and the Norna on the Singapore-Australia service.²
² [One Hundred Year History of the P. & O., Boyd Cable]
³[Passenger Ships of the World, Eugene W.Smith]
The Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Company took a keen interest in the international routes which, as mentioned above, had been monopolized since the opening of Japan's doors in 1859 by foreign shipping firms. In January 1875, it started a weekly steamship service between Yokohama and Shanghai, using its four best ships: the Niigata-maru, Tokyo-maru, Kanagawa-maru and Takasago- maru. This was Japan's first regular service overseas, and it marked a great stride forward in this country's efforts for international viability.
[ON THE JAGGED SHORES OF JAPAN: The Story of the Walker Brothers]
Reduced to sail in 1878 and scrapped in 1930.
