Lord Downshire

A four-masted steel ship built in 1882 by Harland & Wolff, Belfast, as hull no. 148. Her dimensions were 91,33×12,54×7,51 meters [299'8"×41'2"×24'8"] and tonnage 2322 GRT and 2263 NRT. Rigged with double top- and topgallant sails.
1882 April 29
Launched at the shipyard of Harland & Wolff, Belfast.
1882 May 31
Delivered to T. Dixon & Sons, Belfast.
1894
Lost off Pernambuco from Caleta Buena with a cargo of nitrate.







The loss of the Lord Downshire in 1895


In the case of the Lord Downshire, there are gravestones in several different burial grounds recording the deaths of those who perished in this shipwreck.
The Lord Downshire was a four-masted barque of 2,262 tons, owned by Thomas Dixon & Sons, timber merchants of Belfast and first registered in Belfast in 1882 It had sailed from Newport, Monmouthshire, on 15 October 1894 with a crew of twenty-five seamen and eight apprentices who had signed on for three years On its last voyage it was returning from Caleta Buena, near Iquique, Chile, to Hamburg, and collided off the coast of Brazil with the Prince Oscar, sinking with all hands on 12 July 1895 The 'Lord' fleet of ships from Belfast, was part of a large and flourishing company and most of the crew had sailed on other ships of this line.
The crew list indicates that twenty-five men came from counties Antrim or Down, three from elsewhere in Ireland and five from England The master and three of the crew were from Island Magee and three of the four were recorded on headstones in the parish.
In Ballykeel graveyard, Island Magee, a headstone commemorates Robert Gray who was ‘lost at sea in the foundering of the ship Lord Downshire on her voyage from Iquique to Hamburg 14 July 1895’. Gray was the ship’s second mate. The ship’s master, John Gibson McMurtry lies buried in Islandmagee Church of Ireland graveyard as does Samuel Purdy, able seaman.
In Dromore Church of Ireland cathedral graveyard, Co. Down, is a memorial to Reginald Theodore Harrison ‘who died at sea with all his ship mates on board Lord Downshire’, on 14 July 1895. Harrison was an apprentice who was born in Belfast in 1875 and indentured in 1890. Another apprentice Robert Towel(l), born in Ballycarry in 1878 and indentured on 22 July 1893, is commemorated in Templecorran graveyard, Co. Antrim.