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SINGAPORE (1850)
Service dates: 1850-1867
Official number: 31133
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Passenger/Cargo Ship.
Career
- 24.09.1850
- Launched.
- 14.12.1850
- Registered as Singapore for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. She was a sister to Ganges.
- 29.12.1850
- Sailed from Liverpool to Malta, Constantinople and back to Southampton.
- 17.03.1851
- Sent out to the Bombay/Galle/Hong Kong service, when on the point of departure was offered to the Government to take nearly 500 troops and despatches to the Cape en route, free of charge, to deal with the ‘outbreak in Kaffraria’.
- 1856
- Proposal to overhaul her, fit new boilers and convert her to screw propulsion. Not proceeded with.
- 1857
- Gross tonnage re-stated as 1,190 grt.
- 1860/1862
- Laid up at Bombay. Extensive refit.
- 23.11.1862
- Delivered first postage stamps to Hong Kong.
- 1865/1866
- Hong Kong/Shanghai coastal service.
- 03.1867
- Inaugurated Shanghai/Yokohama service.
- 20.08.1867
- Struck uncharted rocks 8km (5 miles) off Hakodate, Japan, and sank within minutes, though without loss of life. It is reported that she had been diverted to Japan in order to collect a cargo of silkworm eggs. The Prussian steam frigate Vineta collected the ship’s passengers and crew from the shore settlements where they had been looked after, and the Japanese steamer Taipangyo took them on from Hakodate to Yokohama.