|
Letters
TSS Nestor Hello from the UK. Can you help me throw some light on a table my brother in law has recently been given. It is a small coffee table with a plaque on it inscribed as follows;
The plaque is undated. The table originally had a bench seat with it, but it was destroyed some years ago. Almost all my searching on the internet points to the ship probably being used in the transport of passengers and goods between the UK and Australia, as nearly all of the references involve wartime activities. ( I realise that there is a famous ship called HMAS Nestor, so I know I am not getting the two confused) Any help would be appreciated.
Her History. Designed by Henry B. Wortley, to be launched on 7/12/1912. Her maiden voyage on 13/5/1913, with a general cargo from Liverpool to Brisbane Australia with calls at Cape Town/Adelaide/Melbourne/ Sydney/Brisbane. She was back in UK on the 19/9/1913 after a 4 months round trip. In 1949 the same voyage took 5 months and 20 days due to inferior coal, and labour disputes, mainly in Australia. From September 1915 until 1918 she operated as an Australian Expeditionary Force transport, ferrying troops, and resumed her commercial service on the 22nd. of April 1920. In 1936 she managed to get a tow line with her very last rocket across to Australia United's Mungana, which was drifting onto rocks off Cape Jaffa, and then towed that vessel 170 miles to Adelaide. The passenger accommodation was reduced from 350 to 250 in 1940, and the ship was requisitioned for Government service, and she ran the Liverpool/Brisbane route, on that first sailing carried British children evacuated to Australia because of WW2. ( as an aside, I had four cousins from UK travel to Adelaide with that programme ) In September/October 1940,TSS Nestor carried Australian sailors from Australia to England to man the new Australian N Class Destroyer HMAS Nestor.Her final voyage to Australia was on the 23/12/49, she arrived at Faslane ( on the Clyde in Scotland ) on the 8/8/1950 to be broken up by Metal Industries Limited. As you believed she was not broken up at Blyth ( not Blythe ) by Hughes and Bolckow ( not Hughes and Blocklow ). At the end of her career, the ship had completed 68 round voyages, steaming some 2,111,602 miles. Her Captains, T. Bartlett, R.D. ( Daddy ) Owen, G.K. Houghton, W. Christie, F. Adcock, J.J. Power, J.H. Blythe, and E.W. Powell. Pete, these notes come from a huge web site about the history of The Blue Funnel Line, so I anticipate that they are correct about where the ship was broken up. I am not able to track down anything about your teak table, but trust these few notes may be of interest. All the best,
|
Here is a photo of your TSS Nestor, you may be aware the TSS stands for Turbine Steam Ship, She was a Blue Funnel ship, and the third to carry that name.