Collections
Search our collections for images, objects and ship records. Get started with the search box or browse what you can see. You can also find out about our collections and how to access them.
ERIN (1846)
Service dates: 1846-1857
Official number: 32730
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Passenger Liner.
Career
- 22.05.1845
- Construction begun.
- 10.06.1846
- Launched as Erin-go-Bragh for the company. Renamed Erin prior to completion. Both are antique or poetical names for Ireland.
- 18.08.1846
- Ran trials.
- 19.08.1846
- Registered as Erin for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company at a cost of £35,000.
- 09.1846
- Maiden voyage Southampton/Black Sea.
- 12.1847
- Lost her starboard paddle box and deck house in a storm off Ushant, but made Dartmouth safely and then put back to Southampton.
- 08.1849
- On the short-lived Southampton/Italy service.
- 13.01.1851
- Sent out to help open the Calcutta/Penang/Singapore/Hong Kong service. She carried P&O’s first cargo of 400 chests of Malwa opium from India to China.
- 22.07.1851
- In collision with the company’s steamer Pacha (548 tons, built 1843) in the Straits of Malacca. Pacha sank. Captain Tronson of Erin was detained in Hong Kong when the ship arrived there on 15th August.
- 24.10.1851
- Embarked Suez-bound passengers and mail from P&O’s Precursor, which had gone aground in the Hughli outward bound from Calcutta.
- 20.03.1852
- Carried troops from Amherst to Moulmein for the Burmese War.
- 19.12.1852
- To Hong Kong/Bombay service.
- 12.1853/06.1854
- Laid up at Bombay.
- 15.12.1854
- To Bombay/Aden service.
- 30.07.1855
- To Hong Kong/Shanghai service.
- 06.06.1857
- Stranded off Caltura, 55 km (34 miles) north of Galle, Ceylon, when on a voyage from Bombay to China. Her passengers, crew and mails were rescued, as were 400 out of the 1,200 cases of opium that she was carrying.