Manchuria Voyage History

In this section you will find information, photographs and stories relating to more than 260 Hartlepool seamen who lost their lives during during the First World War, and of the ships they served on.
To find a particular crewman, simply type his Surname in the Search Box at the top of the page.

This section will, in time, contain the stories of more than 450 merchant ships built or owned in the Hartlepools, and which were lost during the First World War. As an illustration of the truly global nature of shipbuilding, these ships were owned by companies from 22 different countries, including more than 30 sailing under the German flag at the outbreak of war.

Steamship Manchuria.

Northern Daily Mail, Tuesday, June 20^th, 1905

Launch at West Hartlepool

Messrs. William Gray and Co. Ltd. yesterday launched the handsome steel screw steamer Manchuria for Messrs. Metcalfe, Simpson and Co., West Hartlepool. She will take the highest class in Lloyd’s and is of the following dimensions: Length over all 342 feet, Breadth 48 feet, and Depth 24 feet 4 inches, with long brisge, poop, and topgallant forecastle. The saloon, staterooms, captain’s, officers’ and engineers’ rooms etc., will be fitted up in houses on the bridge deck and the crew’s berths in the forecastle.

The hull is fitted with deep frame, cellular double bottoms, and large aft peak tank for water ballast, six steam winches, steam steering gear amidships, hand-screw gear aft, patent donkey boiler, shifting boards throughout, stockless anchors, telescopic masts with fore and aft rig, and all requirements for a first-class cargo steamer.

Triple-expansion engines are being supplied by the Central Marine Engine Works of the builders, having cylinders 24ins, 38ins and 64ins diameter, with a piston stroke of 42ins, and two large steel boilers for a working pressire of 180lbs per square inch.

The ceremony of naming the steamer Manchuria was gracefully performed by Mrs. T. Metcalfe, West Hartlepool, wife of one of the managing owners.

Completed July 1905; Official No. 19877: Code Letters HCWT.

Owners: 1905 Manchuria S.S. Co. (Metcalfe, Simpson & Co.) West Hartlepool.

Masters: 1906-11 WJ Traylor: 1915-17 Hector Bennett.

On a voyage from La Goulette to Hartlepool with a cargo of iron-ore Manchuria was torpedoed without warning by German submarine (U-53 Hans Rose) & sank 60 miles NW of Ushant on 17 October 1917. 26 lives lost.

Lives lost October 1917: Anderson, James, able seaman, 46, b. Ferrydene, Craig; Anderson, John, able seaman, 57, b. Edinburgh; Andrews, Joseph Shepard, seaman, 42, Dock St, West Hartlepool; Bell, William, fireman/trimmer, 27, Durham St, Hartlepool; Bennett, Hector, master, 37, Gamlakarlcby, Finland; Boyce, William Henry, able seaman, 46, b. Stockton-on-Tees; Brown, Henry Laverick, 1^st mate, 27, Pensher Street, Sunderland;

Christensen, Carl Christian, 1^st engineer, 60, b. Denmark, resided Wansbeck Gardens, West Hartlepool; Collins, Percy, 2^nd mate, 21, b. Workington; Flintoff, John Scott, donkeyman, 54, b. Sutton-on-the-Forest, York; Garland, John, fireman/trimmer, 33, West Street, West Hartlepool; Goodwin, Charles, leading seaman (Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve) aged 19, Clare, Suffolk; Hanson, Albert, mess room steward, 16, West Hartlepool; Harries, Edgar, able seaman (Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve) 19, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire; Kenon, J, fireman, 45, b. Jamaica; Liddle, William, boatswain/lamps, 43, b. West Hartlepool; Mack, Tom Prince, fireman/trimmer, 29, b. Salford, Lancashire; Mordaunt, Charles Osbert, able seaman, 35, b. Sunderland, resided Robinson Street, West Hartlepool; Nichol, Daniel, sailor/carpenter, 37, b. Middleton, Hartlepool; Richards, Michael, sailor, 57, b. Dumbarton; Ridley, Harry, fireman/trimmer, 24, b. Middlesbrough; Rumsey, Arthur Ernest, 2^nd engineer, 39, Crimdon St, West Hartlepool; Steadman, Joseph, fireman, 30, b. Brighton; Stoddart, William, 2^nd engineer, 29, West Hartlepool; Wheeler, Leslie Victor, signalman (Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve) 23, Birmingham.

Thomas Metcalfe and Robert Simpson were shipping agents and shipbrokers trading as Metcalfe, Simpson & Co. In 1903 they formed a shipping company to manage the new steamship Alicia bulit by William Gray & Co.

In April 1903 a newspaper report stated: 'Alicia Steamship Company (West Hartlepool) (Limited). This company has been registered with a capital of £26,000, in £10 shares to adopt an agreement between William Gray & Co. (Limited) and Metcalfe, Simpson & Co. to carry on the business of shipowners in all its branches, provided that the company may not own more than one steamship at the same time.'

Their last steamship Manchuria was torpedoed in October 1917 and Robert died in December 1917 which brought about the end of the company.

Family History:

Robert Woodliffe Simpson was born at Middlesbrough in 1852 to parents Robert and Hannah (nee Dale). His father died in 1860 in China and by 1871 Hannah and her son and three daughters had moved to Stranton, West Hartlepool. Robert started his working life as a timber merchant’s clerk and by 1881 had become a shipbroker. He married Mary Elizabeth Clark at Stockton in 1881. By 1911 the couple were living at 'Ingleside' 57 Hutton Avenue with their daughter.

Robert died aged 66 at Harrogate on 30 December 1917 leaving effects of £109,342.

Thomas Metcalfe was born in 1855 at West Hartlepool to parents John and Jane. He married Mary Jane Banks in 1871. By 1901 the couple were living at Stamford House, Victoria Road with their four daughters and their son, John, who was listed as a shipbroker. Mary Jane died in 1926.

Thomas died aged 71 at West Hartlepool on 12 October 1926 leaving effects of £127,347.

Herbert Metcalfe, a brother to Thomas, held a prominent position in the shipping world at Gothenburg.