WILLIAM BARLOW
Shipbuildervessel built by
Hall, Russell & Company, Limited
(Aberdeen, Scotland, 1864 - 1992)
Owner
Admiralty
Date1917
Object NameADMIRALTY TRAWLER
MediumSTEEL
ClassificationsShip
Dimensionslength122 1/3' x breadth 22 1/12' x depth 13 3/12'
Gross Tonnage: 237 tons
NRT: 102 tons
Gross Tonnage: 237 tons
NRT: 102 tons
Object numberABDSHIP002299
Keywords
Yard Number: 606.
Official Number: 144416.
Subsequent Names: BEN ARDNA (1920); DORILEEN (1923)
Fate: Demolished by G. & W. Brunton, Grangemouth, in 1957.
Propulsion: Steam
Description: Strath Class Admiralty Trawler, armament as completed 1 x 1-76/40 QF Mk1, fitted with hydrophones.
Owners:
1917: The Lord Commissioners for the Admiralty. Admiralty no. 3646.
07/1920: Registered at London and sold commercially by the Admiralty (N)
07/1920: Richard Irvin & Sons Ltd., North Shields, registered at Aberdeen, fishing Number A412. Renamed DORILEEN. (CS) (Lloyd's Register LR Supp. 78525 as DORILEEN ex-BEN ARDA ex-WILLIAM BARLOW)
01/1940: Requisitioned by Admiralty as DORILEEN, boom defence vessel. Pennant no. Z.148 (Gerald Toghill (2003), "Royal Navy Trawlers, Part One: Admiralty Trawlers" (Maritime Books, Liskeard), pp. 189-90)
05/1946: Returned to owners. Richard Irvin & Sons Ltd., North Shields. (CS)
25/07/1957: Arrived at Grangemouth for demolition by G & W Brunton. (CS)
General History:
25/04/1917: Launched. Twin launch with the JOHN BRADFORD (N)
16/06/1917: Completed, Armament 1 x 1-76/40 QF Mk1. A. No. 3646. (N)
08/09/1918: BERRY, Edward, Seaman 7391/A, Royal Naval Reserve. Died, illness, Capuccini Naval Cemetery, Malta.
20/11/1956:
'Washed Overboard from Trawler
The Aberdeen trawler Dorileen reported this afternoon that she was searching for a member of her crew who had been washed overboard in heavy seas.
Peterhead lifeboat was launched and a plane assisted in the search covering an area between four miles north-east of Aberdeen and Buchan Ness.
The Dorileen, which left Aberdeen for the fishing grounds this forenoon, is in radio-telephone touch with her owners, Messrs Richard Irvin and Sons, Albert Quay'.
(Evening Express)
21/11/1956:
'Missing From Trawler Then -
"LOST AT SEA" MAN TURNS UP
This is the fantastic story of an Aberdeen trawlerman who walked into his home last night a few hours after having been reported as missing at sea.
Mr John Craig (43), 10 Black's Buildings, left for the Faroes yesterday morning on board the trawler Dorileen. About 2p.m., as he was walking aft from the wheelhouse, a huge wave swept over the ship. Minutes later he was found to be missing. The vessel was then about four miles off Buchan Ness.
Skipper John Watson, Dundee, turned out all hands and searched the trawler. He also called Peterhead lifeboat and asked ships in the vicinity to help him search the sea. Three planes - a Neptune from Kinloss, an Anson from Turnhouse, and a B.E.A. Pionair returning from Orkney - joined the hunt.
SEARCH TILL DARK
The search continued until dark, when the Dorileen returned to Aberdeen to report that Mr Craig had not been found.
Police boarded the vessel and took statements from the crew. Reporters interviewed the skipper.
Mr James Grimshaw, superintendent of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, Aberdeen, immediately went to Mr Craig's home to break the news.
Mrs Craig, mother of five young children and expecting another, was stunned. Mr Grimshaw comforted her and gathered the family round in prayer.
Later in the evening, Mr Grimshaw returned to offer the family further assistance.
But, to his astonishment, he found the "missing" man sitting by the fireside.
Mr Craig seemed dazed and unwell but was able to tell Mr Grimshaw what he believed to have happened.
AMAZING STORY
Shortly afterwards, sitting up in bed awaiting a medical examination, Mr Craig told an "Evening Express" reporter his amazing story.
"I had been speaking to the skipper on the bridge, when we were an hour or two out of Aberdeen. Just after I left the bridge, we were hit by a dollop of water on the starboard side.
"I was swept overboard and remember saying to myself, 'This is cheerio'. I was on my back in the water and managed to get rid of my boots.
"The I was washed back on to the trawler. How, I just don't know. It must have been the angle the ship was lying at. I got jammed right aft beneath the casing supporting the small boat and beside the rudder chain. My arm and side seemed to be stuck.
"I must have passed out, for the next thing I remember was coming to and finding the trawler tied up in port and apparently deserted. I got a lift home in a lorry".
MISSIONARY'S VISIT
Mrs Craig, sitting by her husband's bedside, told of the visit she had received earlier from Mr Grimshaw.
"He asked if my husband had sailed in the morning and then said he had news for me. I couldn't believe the news. He was most kind and helpful. Mrs Robertson, a neighbour, called. She and her husband took me and the children to her house.
"I was sitting there when another neighbour rushed in to say that my husband was back. It was wonderful".
Mr Craig, who has worked on trawlers about sixteen years, was making his first trip on the Dorileen. His elder brother, Donald, was lost off a trawler some years ago.
DOCTOR'S VERDICT
Mr Craig wanted to go to sea to-day with Dorileen, but his doctor's verdict was that he should stay in bed as he was suffering from shock and exposure.
An official of Richard Irvin and Sons, Ltd., owners of the trawler, said: "He wanted to go on board, but we thought he had better not".
(Evening Express)
Notes:
Named for William Barlow, Private, Marine, HMS Victory.
Registration certificate of particulars in AMM collection, Acc. No. ABDMS025052.142
Engine Details: Steam by screw, inverted, surface condensing, triple expansion, 12” x 20” x 34” with 24” stroke, 57 r.h.p., 492 i.h.p.
Boiler: By Messrs G. Clark Ltd, Sunderland - to their own design
(12’- 9” x 10’- 9” in pencil) Lloyds: - 3 plain furnaces, 1429 ft2 heating surface, 180 p.s.i.
Propeller: Diameter: 8' 4"
Type: Solid cast iron - By Abernethy, Ferryhill Foundry.
Cost & Extras (£): £11,279.10.0
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Note: Considerable confusion is possible between the WILLIAM BARLOW (HR 606), Official No. 144416 and the JOHN BRADFORD (HR 607), Official No. 144415. One reason can be found in the Lloyds supplementary records which shows both vessels as having been named BEN ARDNA.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? The three BEN ARDNAs.
Does anyone know if there is a hill called Ben Ardna?
The first BEN ARDNA was a steam trawler, launched by Hall, Russell & Co. Ltd. at Aberdeen on the 9th December 1912. She was built at a cost of £5,950 for one of Aberdeen’s leading trawlowning firms, Richard Irvin and Sons Ltd. of Albert Quay, and was registered in Aberdeen with the number A 517 on Boxing Day 1912.
She did not have a long career in fishing, as in August 1914, along with another twenty-seven of Richard Irvin’s fleet, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and put to work as a minesweeper with the Dover Patrol.
As with her fishing career, her naval career was also short lived. On the 8th August 1915, off the Elbow Buoy at the mouth of the River Tay, she suffered the fate of many other trawlers engaged in minesweeping, and detonated a mine which had been laid by the German submarine UC.1.
She sank with the loss of two of her Royal Naval Reserve crew: -
William Harwood Brown, a Second Hand aged 35, the son of Mrs Mary Duck of Scarborough.
and
Henry Herbert Morris, a Deckhand and husband of Mrs Helen Taylor of Aberdeen.
The second and third BEN ARDNAs were both wartime “Strath” class trawlers.
These standard trawlers were built in large numbers during WWI throughout the U.K. and by various shipyards, but all were based on a standard design for both the hull and machinery produced by Hall, Russell, who took the lead in their production. At the end of the war, the Admiralty had no use for these large numbers of basic minesweepers and in the early 1920s they were sold off for commercial use as either trawlers or small cargo vessels.
In 1920, Richard Irvin bought two of these vessels to replace the company’s war losses, the WILLIAM BARLOW and the JOHN BRADFORD. These were exact sister ships, built by Hall, Russell and launched on the same day, the 15th July 1917, as Yard Nos 606 and 607.
The Strath Class were all named after members of the crew of either H.M.S. Victory or Royal Sovereign at the Battle of Trafalgar, and both William Barlow and John Bradford were Privates in the Marines on H.M.S. Victory.
The William Barlow was first registered by the Admiralty at London, with the Official Number 144416, but when she was bought by Richard Irvin, they registered her in Aberdeen under the ownership of R. Irvin & Sons Ltd, North Shields. The Lloyds Register Supplement entry (78525) for 1920 lists her as being named the DORILEEN, ex BEN ARDNA, ex WILLIAM BARLOW. This vessel remained in the Irvin fleet until she was broken up in 1957.
The John Bradford was also registered by the Admiralty at London, with the Official Number 144415, and bought by Richard Irvin. Her entry in the Lloyds Register Supplement for 1920 (77709) records her being named BEN ARDNA, ex DORILEEN, ex JOHN BRADFORD. She to was registered at Aberdeen, with the fishing number A412 and remained in Irvin’s fleet until requisitioned as an examination vessel in WWII. She sank in 1942 after a collision on the Tyne, fortunately without loss of life.
Thus, both vessels were, according to Lloyds, named BEN ARDNA, but they changed names. Why, in the case of the DORILEEN, Irvin departed from their usual practice of naming all their ships with the prefix BEN, or who, what or where the name Dorileen came from, is not recorded and remains a mystery.
Article from G.W.
See also:
History (CS): - http://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?year_built=&builder=&ref=51965&vessel=WILLIAM+BARLOW
History (N): - http://www.navypedia.org/ships/uk/brit_o_esc_strath.htm
Seaman overboard (TB): - http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19561122&id=z7ZOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wAAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5170,2198583
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