TAGLIAFERRO

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TAGLIAFERRO

Post by shipstamps » Mon Nov 10, 2008 3:35 pm


Built as an iron screw cargo ship by the yard of Schlesinger, Davis & Co. at Wallsend on Tyne for Trading SS Co. London.
1882 Launched under the name TAGLIAFERRO.
Tonnage 1.598 gross, 1.036 net, 3.200 dwt., dim 260.0 x 55.2 x 20.5ft.
One compound steam engine, manufactured by Black, Hawthorn & Co, Gateshead, 150 nhp. Fitted with two Scotch boilers, and one donkey boiler
Carried sufficient coal bunkers to sail at ten knots for 8500 miles without re-fuelling
One deck, two masts.
At that time she was one of the largest cargo vessels of the world. She was fitted with 5 bulkheads-at that time normal was four.

I believe she was managed by B. Tagliaferro at Malta; he was an important businessman in Malta. He was a Genoese merchant with a thriving ship chandlers business who in 1812 founded the “Bank Tagliaferro e Figli” in Malta.
Most of his ships were used in the grain trade between the Crimea and almost every country in Europe, and Tagliaferro became know as the “Father of the Maltese Merchant Fleet”. He was also the owner of the TIGRE, STRANGER, PROVIDENZA and WIGNACOURT, all ships were registered under different owners but in reality owned by Tagliaferro. Most probably his bank supplied the money for the ships or build them and he leased or managed them.
I think the same happened with the TAGLIAFERRO, till 1885 Trading SS Co. London was the registered owner

Dec. 1885 sold to J.McIlwraith, Melbourne and registered at Melbourne, Australia.
Her outward voyage to Australia was with emigrants; she arrived at Townsville from London on 07 March 1887, then Rockhampton 12 March 1887 before proceeding to Melbourne.
She was used in the coal trade, and made at least one trip to the UK with wool.
But mostly used in the Australian coastal cargo and passenger service.
Sept. 1890 owners are given as M.D. McEacharn.
Dec. 1891 owners are given as McIlwraith,McEacharn Ltd.

1893 Used in a fast service between Melbourne and Albany. She carried many passengers to the West Australian goldfields.
15 July 1904 she survived a collision with the schooner WESTERN STAR 15 miles off Nobby’s, Newcastle. The schooner sank with the loss of four lives.

Sept. 1906 sold to K.Yoshida at Matsubara Sagashi, Hizan, Japan and renamed KYUSHU MARU.
It looks they were trading between Australia and Japan, one of the survey’s carried out took place in Melbourne in 1907.

Wrecked October 1911 on the Honshu Island, Japan.

The following story was published in the Quarterly Dog Watch of March 1946.

Stories of the North West. (Australia), and taken from the late Captain H.Storm captain on the TAGLIAFERRO, not a date is given but the event took place late in the eighty-nineties.

We had a unique cargo one voyage. The Roebourne branch of the Western Australian Bank had hardly a sovereign left in the vault and there were no notes circulating in those days.
The head office of the bank in Perth wanted urgently to send the sum of £20.000 in gold to their impecunious relation, but it wasn’t so easy to find a means of transporting it. It was the general opinion that there were bands of cut-throats ready to murder anyone for half-a-crown, and the mail-steamer’s agent would have nothing to do with the proposition. There was a thumping big freight for it, however, and McIlwrath, McEacharn and Co suggested that the TAGLIAFERRO might be persuaded to shepherd the bullion to the north.

I arranged with the manager of the Perth bank to put four boxes – each containing £5000 into bags. The strongest and heftiest man in the bank was to bring these down to the ship in the butcher’s cart, the butcher having been told they were pump buckets for McIlwraith’s mine at Marble Head.

At the time appointed the cart drove down to the ship and I took care to have the chief steward, who was the ship’s bulletin, in my cabin at the time. Presently the bank man came in with a bag in one hand bending slightly. £5000 in gold is a tidy weight.
What have you go there?” I asked. He answered, “A pump bucket for your mine up North”.
I replied, isn’t there any room in the hold, that you must litter my room with cargo?” he replied, “The mine is already half full of water, and if those buckets don’t arrive in good order I’ll get the sack and perhaps you will too.”
Well, put it in there.” I said, pointing to a wardrobe.
“There are three more,” he announced.
“Put ‘em all in!”
The gold was all on board by 3 p.m., and no doubt the steward explained about McIlwraith’s mine, which was, of course news to everyone. (It would have been news to McIlwraith’s.)
By 5 pm I was on the bridge, ready to take the ship away from Fremantle, when the chief engineer sent up word that something had happened to the engines and the ship could not sail before morning. I had to think fast, Should I send for the police and cart the money back to the bank, or should I send for them to guard the ship?
I finally decided on neither course.

Malta 1985 7c sg 773

Sources: Mr. Araignon. Australian Coastal Passengers Ships. Steamships in Colonial Western Australia both by Ronald Parsons. North Star to Southern Cross by John M.Maber. Lloyds Wreck Register. Sea Breezes. Mr. Stevenson. Some web-sites

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