SS Mount Stewart (1894)

The SS Mount Stewart was a small British steel screw steamer, built by William Gray & Co. of West Hartlepool. She measured 59.8 metres long, with a 9.2 metre beam and a depth of 3.7 metres, and was registered at 738 gross tons. Owned by the Marquis of Londonderry and registered at Sunderland, she was a practical coastal and short-sea cargo vessel, the kind of hard-working steamer that rarely gets remembered until it ends up on a chart. Humanity’s filing system for maritime history remains, as ever, a mild insult to civilisation.

Her loss came on 24 July 1894, while travelling from Rotterdam to Bilbao in ballast. Lloyd’s casualty returns list her as lost after a collision, about 4 miles south-south-east of Folkestone. Tees Built Ships adds that the other vessel was the SS Trinidad, although another local wreck list appears to name Setubal, so I’d treat the identity of the colliding ship with caution unless you want that rabbit hole on the event page. For divers, this is a compact Victorian steamer wreck in classic Channel territory: no romantic cargo, no glittering treasure chest, but plenty of iron, impact, tide, traffic and story. The sea kept the interesting bit, obviously.