HMT Bonar Law – FY1223 (1915)

HMT Bonar Law was a Hull-registered steam trawler, fishing number H437, built in 1912 by Cochrane & Sons Ltd for Pickering & Haldane’s Steam Trawling Co. Ltd. She was a compact but sturdy vessel of about 284 to 285 gross tons, powered by a screw-driven triple-expansion engine built by C. D. Holmes & Co. Ltd of Hull. In February 1915 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty as hired trawler No. 1223, armed with a 3-pounder gun, and sent into minesweeping service with the Dover Patrol. A fishing boat turned warship, in other words, because the First World War had a habit of handing impossible jobs to small vessels with big hearts.

On 27 October 1915, Bonar Law sank on the South Goodwins after a collision, with sources specifically placing her loss after contact with the South Goodwin Light Vessel. She had been patrolling and minesweeping in one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the Dover Strait, where shoals, mines, traffic and weather all queued up to ruin someone’s day. For divers, this is a classic Dover Patrol wreck: small, purposeful, historically loaded, and tied directly to the hard, often overlooked work of the hired trawler crews who kept the Channel routes open. No grand liner glamour here, thank heavens. This is tougher stuff.