R.M.S. "TEUTON"
R.M.S. "TEUTON"
Builder: William Denny & Bros., Dunbarton. (yard no. 135)
O.N. 60927
Launched: 1869, 13th. March for Robert Jardine (Matheson & Co.) named the "Glenartney"
and armed against pirates.
Tonnage: 1,741 gross, 1,088 net.
Dimensions: length 286.4 x beam 34.4 x depth 25.1 feet
Dimensions (1875): length 332.9 x beam 34.4 x depth 25.1 feet
Tonnage (1875): 2,313 gros, 1,466 net.
Engine: 2-cyl. simple by Denny & Co. 300 h.p., 1,345 i.h.p. speed 13.2 knots Engine compounded: 1875
Re-engined: 1878 compound by Thomas Clark & Co., Newcastle.
1873, February. Purchased by the Union S.S. Co., for the mail service & renamed "Teuton". Passenger accommodation increased to 250 in three classes.
Registered: 1873, February 12th. Arrived Cape Town 1873, April 22nd.
Lengthened: 1875, by 46 ft.
1879, chartered as a transport during Zulu war.
1881, doungraded to an 'extra' vessel.
(details from Union-Castle A Fleet History by Peter Newall)
THE LOSS OF THE "TEUTON"
The RMS Teuton had sailed from Plymouth on August 6th, 1881 at 2pm and Madeira on August 10th, 1881 at 11pm. She arrived in Cape Town on August 29th, 1881 at 6am. After leaving Table Bay on the evening of August 30th she struck an object off Quoin Point, between Danger Point and Cape Agulhas, on the south coast of South Africa at about 7:30 in the evening. The passengers were ordered onto the poop deck and the lifeboats prepared. Captain Manning, however, convinced that the 6 compartment hull would be safe from flooding, kept the ship underway until the bow had sunk so low that the stern was out of the water. At about 10:30pm the captain ordered the women and children into a lifeboat and the other passengers were preparing to abandon ship when she suddenly dipped at the bow and somersaulted. An eyewitness, Mr Kromm, said "She went down like a streak of lightning...I would not have believed it possible that a vessel could go down so quickly...I am almost certain that the boat with the women and children in it was fastened by rope to the vessel or did not clear the vortex." Mr Kromm, who could not swim, miraculously survived by jumping from the poop deck. After being dragged under the surface of the water by the suction of the sinking ship, he managed to grab hold of a piece of wreckage and was later hauled on board one of the life boats.
(Taken from a newspaper cutting August 1881 - publication unknown)
(from South African Genealogy web site. www.sagenealogy.co.za)
JUDGMENT of the Court of Inquiry held at Cape Town into the loss
of the steamship "TEUTON," off Danger Point, on the 30th August
1881.
The Court finds that the steamship "Teuton," under the command
of Edward Manning, left Table Bay about 10 a.m. on the 30th
August 1881 bound to Port Elizabeth, having on board about 105
officers and crew, including 20 coolies, and about 157
passengers, of whom about 95 were women and children, and that
the ship was sound and efficiently equipped; that she duly
arrived at 2 p.m. at a point of departure due south of the
Bellows Rock, when and where the error of the compass was
verified under the personal direction of the captain; and that
the subsequent courses and distances maintained were also under
his personal direction.
The Court finds that these courses and distances should have
taken the ship one and a half sea miles off the outermost sunken
rocks off Quoin Point, at about 60 miles from her point of
departure, which rocks extend one and a quarter miles off that
point, and which point is three and a half miles from the bluff
hill of the same name, forming its background; and that the ship
should have arrived there very soon after 7 o'clock, and after
dark.
The Court feels no hesitation in pronouncing that the vessel
struck on the known outermost rocks off Quoin Point at about
7.25 p.m. of the 30th August 1881, and regretfully adds that it
finds this casualty was attributable to the injudicious
navigation adopted by the captain.
The Court concurs in the propriety of the steps that were
immediately taken, and of the endeavour, at that time, to reach
a port.
The condition of the ship became, however, in the opinion of the
Court, so altered and suggestive of peril as indeed, at a
considerable time before her foundering, to manifest the
impossibility of reaching a port (although, from the want of
evidence, the Court has not been able to get any clue to the
mind of the captain on this point) that the Court is led further
to find that it was a grave error of judgment that delayed
sufficient efforts being taken to provide for the safety of the
lives in jeopardy, the deplorable loss of which the Court cannot
but attribute to this cause alone, namely, either the failure to
take, or the failure to see the necessity of taking, steps that
were available for this paramount object.
The Court finds that the ship most probably foundered at about
10 minutes to 11 p.m. 30th August 1881, between N.W. and S.W.
from Danger Point, and most probably between five to eight miles
from that Point.
Finally, the Court finds that the steamship "Teuton" was lost on
the night of the 30th August 1881 through default of her
captain, and acquits Mr. Robert Diver, third officer of the
ship, who was in temporary charge of the deck when she struck.
19th September 1881.
(Signed)
JOHN CAMPBELL, R.M.
D. MAY, R.N.
T. H. PENFOLD, R.N.R.
Approved and confirmed.
(Signed)
HERCULES ROBINSON, Governor.
Government House, Cape Town, 27th September 1881.