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ORIENTAL (1840)
Service dates: 1840-1861
Official number: 30714
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Paddle Steamer.
Career
- 06.03.1840
- Launched as United States for Transatlantic Steam Ship Co, Liverpool.
- 31.07.1840
- Owners merged with Peninsular Steam to form The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company before her completion, and she was modified and renamed (after the ‘Oriental’ i.e. ‘Eastern’ addition to the Company’s name) to suit the Mediterranean route rather than the Atlantic for which she was intended. She cost £60,000.
- 01.09.1840
- Opened the Northern leg of the mail service to India when she left Southampton under Captain J R Engledue for Falmouth, Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria
- 11.1840
- Arrived in Alexandria to find the port under blockade by the Royal Navy, but after Oriental was delayed at Malta, Pacha Mehemet Ali agreed to the British Consul-General’s request to allow the mails through.
- 01.06.1841
- The celebrated Scottish painter Sir David Wilkie died on board while returning from the Near East and was buried at sea off Gibraltar, an occasion depicted in J M W Turner’s ‘Peace: Burial at Sea’.
- 07.12.1841
- Towed disabled Great Liverpool from Finisterre to Falmouth
- End 1842
- Carried to Egypt the prefabricated canal tug Atfeh that P&O was to put into service towing passenger barges on the Mahmoudieh Canal between Alexandria and the Nile to speed up the Overland Route.
- 27.04.1843
- Ownership transferred to The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.
- 23.10.1846
- Took mails from Ripon, disabled in Torbay
- 17.02.1848
- Re-registered after lengthening in the bow at Southampton; length now 65.51m (215.0ft); tonnage 1,752 gross, 1,103 net. Her engines were improved at the same time, and a second funnel was installed.
- 15.04.1848
- Left Southampton via the Cape for the Calcutta/Suez service.
- 1851
- Overhauled and speed improved.
- 1857
- Troopship for Persian campaign.
- 1857
- Gross tonnage re-stated as 1,787 grt
- 1858
- Three trooping voyages Suez/Bombay and Karachi.
- 1860
- Troopship for Anglo-French expedition to China.
- 1860
- Reduced to service as a storeship at Bombay.
- 10.1861
- Sold to Jairaz Faizul and Co., Bombay, and following removal of her machinery was broken up at Hong Kong.