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Built 1898, Vickers Ltd, Barrow in Furness

Length 467 ft. Breadth 54.25 ft. Depth 27 ft. Gross tonnage 6514

Cable laying ship owned by the Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company and sold by them in 1906 to T.W. Tamplin & Company for commercial trading and renamed ITONUS. Sunk by torpedo in 1916 when owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company.

CABLE WORK

1899 Cape Town - St Helena
Ascension - Cape Verde Islands
Gibraltar - Malta - Egypt
Commercial Cable No 4
Germany - Azores - USA
1900 Fanning Island - Fiji
Fiji - Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island - Australia
Norfolk Island - New Zealand
Ascension - Cape Verde Islands
Azores - Ireland
1901 UK - Canary Islands
Sierra Leone - Ascension
South Africa - Mauritius
Mauritius - Rodriguez Island - Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Ireland - UK
England - Madeira
Madeira - Cape Verde Islands
1901 Canada - New York
New York - Ireland
Ireland - England
1903 Honolulu - Midway Island
Midway Island - Guam
Guam - Philippines
1905 Azores - Ireland

Various Web sites
Cocos Is SG130, Ascension SG250, Nauru SG161,163.

Built under yard no 266 by Vickers, Sons & Maxim Lt. Barrow, U.K. for the Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Co. Ltd. London.
20 June 1898 launched as "ANGLIA".
Tonnage 6.538 gross, dim. 449.0 x 54.2 x 36.0 ft., draught 24.7 ft. length between pp 440.0 ft.
Two triple expansion steam engines manufactured by the builder 3.750 ihp, speed 13.46 knots during trials. Twin screws. Steam was supplied by 4 single ended boilers.
Building cost £ 110.000.

When commissioned she was the largest cable-laying vessel of the world, special designed for laying of deep-sea cables.
Four cylindrical cable tanks two for the bridge and two behind.

Her career as cable layer you can find on:
http://www.atlantic-cable.com/stamps/Ca ... indexa.htm

1906 Sold to T.W.Tamplin of London. He resold her the same year to the Hamburg-Amerika Linie, who sends the vessel to the Harland & Wolff's yard at Belfast for conversion in a passenger-cargo vessel.
15 Dec. 1906 before she reached the yard, she ran aground at Bailly Point, was abandoned to the underwriters when it was not possible to refloat her.

28 April 1907 at least refloated, and the underwriters sold her to Grangemouth & Greenock Dockyard Co. Ltd. who took her to her yard for the intended conversion in a passenger-cargo vessel.
During the conversion Archibald Currie was looking for a replacement ship for his "FORTUNATUS" (lost by fire) and he bought the vessel, renamed her "ITONUS" at the end of 1907.
Tonnage given then: 5.340 gross, 3.401 net, 7.320 dwt.
Passenger accommodation for 51 first and 40 second class.
Registered at Melbourne, Australia.

October 1909, had three outbreaks of fire in her bunkers from spontaneous combustion, while berthed at Fremantle. The ship herself was not damaged.
15 April 1913 grounded at the entrance to the Brisbane River, but was refloated undamaged during the rising tide.
04 June 1913 handed over to the British India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. after Currie sold his company to the B.I.
Her first voyage for the B.I was with pilgrims to Saudi Arabia on the end of 1913.

By outbreak of World War I joined a convoy which sailed in October 1914 from Bombay to Marseilles.
December 1914 became the Australian Expeditionary Force transport A50.
After the Gallipoli landings used as an ambulance carrier.
20 December 1916 and still on Australian service was she torpedoed by "U-38", 60 miles West from Malta on a voyage from Marseille to Sydney loaded with tiles.
She went down within minutes with the loss of 5 men (one engineer and four native engineroom hands) which died during the explosion or were drowned.
Captain T.Costello was taken prisoner on board the submarine.

Ascension 1979 3p and 8p sg 249 and 250. and 1999 15p sg?
Cocos and Keeling Islands 1985 65c sg 130.
Nauru 1977 7c and 10c sg 161 and 163.
St Helena 1999 30p sg ?


Register of Merchant Ships Completed in 1898. The British India Steam Navigation Company Lt. By W.A. Laxon and F.W. Perry. Dictionary of Disasters at Sea, during the age of steam by Charles Hocking.

Anglia (Cable Ship)

Ascension Island 1999, S.G.?, Scott: 745.