DECCAN (1868)

Service dates: 1868-1889

Official number: 60889

Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY

Ship type:

• Passenger Ship

Passenger Liner.

Career

16.03.1868

Laid down for the yard’s own account on speculation. P&O given first refusal, and initially intended to name her Lahore.

03.10.1868

Launched.

26.11.1868

Registered as Deccan for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. Named after the volcanic plateau area of south central India.

11.12.1868

Trials on the Clyde.

15.12.1868

Left builders.

12.01.1869

Maiden voyage Southampton/Galle/Suez/Galle/Calcutta.

1870

Lost screw.

25.05.1872

Special tea voyage Shanghai/Woosung/Singapore/Aden/Port Said/Gravesend (arrived 16th July).

18.04.1874

Machinery breakdown outward bound from Southampton. Returned to port and then fitted with new engines by R & W Hawthorn by Palmer’s at Jarrow. Their greater economy meant she could carry 500 tons more cargo. A new poop was built at the same time, and she was fitted with electric light, the first P&O ship to carry it.

14.02.1875

Returned to commercial service.

15.09.1875

Re-registered at Glasgow.

05.10.1875

Dropped her propeller 65km (40 miles) south of Gibraltar. Pekin was sent to relieve her on the Gibraltar/Bombay leg, and Deccan was towed back to Southampton by P&O’s Khedive.

26.11.1877

Aground for 48 hours in the Suez Canal.

26.12.1879

When the new Orient Line was running its service to Australia via the Cape and publicising it as the ‘cool weather route’ avoiding the Red Sea, Deccan was put on a direct route London/Southampton/Port Said/Aden/Galle/Melbourne/Sydney in competition, but only for one voyage.

01.09.1880

Collided with and sank the Swedish barque Adolf Andersha in the Channel, but all her crew were saved.

29.12.1881

The last P&O ship to drop passengers at Southampton before the Company transferred to London.

23.08.1882

Taken up for three trooping voyages during the Egyptian Campaign.

11.12.1882

Returned to commercial service.

22.05.1884

Re-measured. 3,429 grt, 2,022 nrt; 85 first class and 20 second class passengers; cargo capacity 3,352 cubic metres (118,389 cubic feet).

24.09.1884

She and Australia took 85 officers and 1,550 men taken from the Guards and other top regiments from London to Alexandria to form the Camel Corps of the Egyptian Expedition. Deccan continued trooping until early in 1886.

07.03.1886

Returned to commercial service.

04.1889

Sold for £7,853 to Hajee Cassum Joosub, Bombay.

09.02.1892

Sailed from Mauritius for Bombay with a cargo of sugar and disappeared without trace.

Ship technical details (PDF)