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Thomas M. M. Hemy
datapages
01,
02
&
03 are now on site. Plus all
of the other image pages, accessible though the index on page
05.  PRIOR PAGE / NEXT PAGE
And, if you want to make a comment? A site guestbook is here.
Test.
This is page 2 on the subject of 'And Every Soul Was Saved' or 'Every Soul Was Saved'.
The first page about this work & subject is available here:
10.
And a third is here: 12.
To search for specific text on this page:- Enter your search
term & 'Submit'. To repeatedly search the page, press 'ALT S' again & again as
many times as may be required. But beware, once it reaches the bottom of the
page, it starts all over again at the top.
If anyone
can help me in my search for data about the artist,
I would welcome your writing to me.
What I next provide is
the cover of the Wednesday, Jul. 3, 1889 edition of the 'Christian Herald and
Signs of Our Times', showing the presentation ceremony at the Mansion House in
London, England, on May 25, 1889 when the efforts of Captain Hamilton Murrell
and the crew of the Missouri were honoured. The magazine did have had a related
article, of 1 1/3 pages, and I hope to have that on site soon.
I was able to find data on the WWW about
the wreck and the rescue. An extensive series of articles from the New
York Times in 1889, can be found here. In the text you can find there, the Danmark is described as follows:
'The Danmark is an iron vessel of tonnage of 3,414 tons gross and 2,547 tons net.
She is 340 feet long, of 40 feet beam, and of 26 feet depth of hold, She was
built at Newcastle, England, in 1880, by C. Mitchell and Co., for the White
Cross Line and was first called the Jan Breydel. She was a three master, with
three decks and an awning deck, and had five water-tight bulkheads. Her engines
were the old compound cylinder engines, with a piston stroke of 48 inches. She
was regarded as a first-class seaworthy vessel, and is ranked in British Lloyds
as 100 A1--the highest rating.'
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A description of the 'Danmark'
& (lower on page) an article about the wreck can be found
here ~ a page from the 'Norway Heritage'
website
& the source of the image of
the 'Danmark' at left.
The article was located & submitted by Kristin Brue whose
great-grandmother was among the passengers rescued from the sinking ship in 1889. |
A fine
page at 'Norway Heritage' advises the text of an
extensive article from 'The Press' of Apr. 23, 1889 - transcribed in 2005 by Mike Nelson.
'The Press' was, I presume, a newspaper then published in the city of
Philadelphia.
The above data contains very little information about
the Missouri. Though there is a reference in the New York Times extracts to her
being a rather slow vessel! But now, thanks to Brien Doran, of Dublin, California, U.S.A., I learn that the
Missouri has a
most interesting history, quite apart from
its heroic involvement with the Danmark.
Brien tells me that the
Missouri,
a freighter built in very early 1889 for
Atlantic Transport Line in West Hartlepool, England, "continued on
her errands of mercy by carrying cargoes of flour and corn to the starving
Russians during the famines of 1891 and 1892. Later she rescued the steamship
Delaware and towed her to Halifax. And also towed the foundering Bertha to Barry, England."
(Webmaster's comment: The Barry referred to is surely 'Barry' in Wales,
located just west of Cardiff, and not a 'Barry' located in England.) She was,
I believe in
1898,
Missouri (1),
(but that link says 1899), 'offered to the Surgeon General of the Army by her owner B.
N. Baker of Baltimore for use in the Spanish American conflict and in that
conflict she went to Manila via the Suez canal.'
(Bernard N. (Nadal) Baker was the owner of Atlantic Transport Line). And apparently became a U.S. Army Hospital Ship with the name
unchanged. 'She was readily
accepted. When the British colors where hauled down, the officers who were
mostly British, applied for American citizenship and the Stars and Stripes were
raised. Following the example of Mr. Baker, patriotic societies such as the Red
Cross, Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial Dames and Women's National Relief Association, donated
such items as refrigeration plants, steam laundries, motor launches, etc. All
these plus the stocking of the library with 10,000 books and magazines by Wall
Street capitalists, made the Missouri even more effective as a floating hospital.'
Before we continue the history, let me show you a modest image of the
Missouri while engaged in the Russian relief effort in 1892. It is a 6 1/4" x 7 3/4" 'vintage
magazine' print entitled "Millers' Russian Relief Movement - Steamship
Missouri in Libau Harbor 1892" (Libau is the English name for
Liepaja, an ice-free Latvian port on the Baltic Sea). The painting
(source) is by British painter Neville Sotheby Pitcher (1889-1959) who painted both landscapes and seascapes.
There is a small amount of biographical information about him
here
but I believe that his date of birth is incorrectly listed there as being 1907. And you can
read even more 'Pitcher' bio data here
and see a fine 1910 work entitled 'Close Hauled' for
both of which we sincerely thank Bonhams of New Bond Street, London.
That work, I read, sold for £12,000 plus premium & tax. And two (used to be three perhaps) of his WW1 works
can be seen via this page. And another lower on this
very page by 'Lieut.
N. Sotherby Pitcher, R.N.V.R.'
I probably should try to add such biographical data as I have located about the artist somewhere
on this or another page. A project for another day, perhaps. Rosemary Pearson of
Lincoln Joyce Fine Art,
of 40 Church Road, Great Bookham, Surrey, has been in touch to indicate that
the artist was, she believes, actually born on Oct. 16, 1892. And was a
member of the 'Wappers', an artist group started in 1947, who painted the tidal part of the Thames and its environs. 'The group was always restricted to 25 people and they
still meet today, which must make them one of the oldest artists' societies which
paint en plein aire.' The name 'Wappers' originates from a public house named 'The Prospect of Whitby', at Wapping,
(on the N. bank of the Thames E. of 'The City' at the Lower Pool, Port of London) where the group would meet after an afternoon's painting to compare
pictures & to give each other encouragement. Thank you, Rosemary for that interesting data.
But we now have more data! In recent months I have become aware of the amazing
shipping resource offered by
'Miramar Ship Index' out of Wellington, New Zealand. They list hundreds of
thousands of vessels & they have a listing about Missouri! Available
here.
Missouri was built in 1889 by Sir William Gray of West Hartlepool. Launched on
Dec. 4, 1888. ON 95524. 2903 tons, signal letters LBGH, 274 HP engines by
Central Marine Engine Works of West Hartlepool. Built for Chesapeake S. S. Co. Ltd.
of London with Alfred S. Williams or Williams, Torrey & Field, I believe
the managers. I am not sure, as I update this page, how that relates to
'Atlantic Transport Line' as is stated above to be the initial owner. A passenger & cargo ship of
320.0 ft. (97.54 metres) in length. It had a number of names in its lifetime - Egbert in 1898 when it became the property of the U.S. Army, Stanley Dollar in 1902,
when acquired by The Dollar Steamship Company. It would seem to have been
renamed Missouri again in 1904 and Stanley Dollar again
in 1905, in both cases it would seem, without a change of ownership. On Sep. 6, 1905 the vessel was wrecked at Katsuura, Japan.
Some of that data is already recorded a few paragraphs below.
Thanks to Mr. Keith Mills I can
now also advise you that on
Feb. 29, 1896, the S.S. Missouri, then berthed
in the 'East Dock' at Swansea, Wales, suffered a serious and apparently quite catastrophic fire.
She partially capsized & rested on the dock floor, with a portion of her
starboard side going under water. Keith, lives in Swansea, hence his knowledge of such a
matter. Keith we thank you.
It would further seem that
the hospital ship Missouri later became the regular transport ship 'Egbert' of the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, was later
sold by the U.S. Government to the Dollar
Steamship Co., for $50,000, to be used as a freighter on San Francisco to China
run. And was then renamed the 'Stanley Dollar'. And again Brien Doran comes to my rescue.
'The Dollar Steamship Company', he advises me, 'was founded by
Robert Dollar
(1844-1932) of San Francisco. And
Stanley was
the name of one of his sons if not the only son.' (In fact, I now
read, he had 4 children - Melville, R. Stanley, J.
Harold &
Grace). The company eventually became American President
Lines (when the U.S. Government assumed control in Aug. 1938), which was recently
purchased by Chinese owners, with ships named after American Presidents &
registered in Panama or Liberia.
Brien now adds what he has since
learned about the Missouri mainly from Lloyd's Register for 1889-1890: It was 320' 0" in length, 40' 0" in breadth and 20' 2"
in draft, a screw steamer, built in January 1889 by W. Gray & Co. of West Hartlepool, England. Owned by Chesapeake SS Co. and managed
by Williams Torrey & Feild. Perhaps Chesapeake SS Co. (a new name) was related
to Atlantic Transport Line?
"So glad to know all of that! The original source, is
mainly,
I understand, an article by Milt Riske (could this
be the
correct Milt Riske?) on the subject of Hospital Ships, that comes, I understand, from the Mar. 1973 edition of
'Sea Classics' magazine. Supplemented by visits to the U.S. Maritime Museum
Library in San Francisco. Brien, we thank you so much!
It would seem that the Mr. Baker referred to above
is surely
Mr. B. N. (Nadal) Baker, in 1889 the President of the
Baltimore Storage and Lighterage Company. He, on Jun. 22, 1889, presented on
behalf of the Life-Saving Benevolent Association of New York a gold medal to
Captain Murrell. It would further seem that the first, second & third officers
of the Missouri (Officers Gates, Forsyth & Lucas) were similarly honoured.
That means I presume that they also were awarded gold medals.
It interested me to learn that Bernard Nadal Baker
authored a book entitled 'Ships'. Assisted by J. Frederick Essary & with a Foreword
by James Cardinal Gibbons. 199 pages, small 8vo, published in 1916. Red
leather-like covers.
Published by John Murphy Company of Baltimore, MD, for private distribution only.
A Limited Edition of 1,000 Copies. While the volume
probably did not contain any info about the Hemy work, the engraving was the frontispiece. The book advanced the author's advocacy of
a strong merchant marine & naval force.
I did write to the winning bidder, when it
sold for U.S. $10.07 in Nov. 2006,
but received no reply.
Now I have no images, yet, of the
Missouri/Egbert/Stanley Dollar. So all I can show you is a composite image about the Dollar Line. I think that the
individual images are largely self-explanatory, however the left image is from a
1927 'round the world' trip passenger list, while the coat button at right would
have been worn by the captain or a ship's officer of a Dollar ship. And in the
middle is an undated postcard which shows a Dollar shipping route to the Far
East.
It would also
appear that Thomas Hemy was not the only artist
to paint the Danmark/Missouri rescue. A painting of the rescue by
Lewis Muller, was presented to Captain Murrell
in appreciation for his efforts ~ a gift from Danish residents of Baltimore & Washington. Another painting to try to
locate for these
pages!
It is possible that the inscribed plaque which next follows was from that Lewis Muller work.
The plaque only since it is no longer attached to the framed painting. Hopefully more on the subject
in the future. As to how it comes to be on this page & hopefully confirmation of
its identity.
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Also, it would seem that a 1980 magazine (name
of publication unstated)
contained a 7 page article, written by Tim Clark, entitled 'Am Sinking - Take off my people', on the
Danmark rescue.
And it contained an artwork that I have not seen before, with,
alas, the name of the artist not indicated. And the Hemy work was included also.
I show,
at left, most of the new artwork as it was listed on e-Bay in Dec. 2006. The item did not sell.
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Does anyone know the names of the artist & the publication?
Tom Broome tells us (thanks again Tom!) that the above painting is the Meuller
(or Muller?) painting. The article was in a 1980 issue of 'Yankee' magazine.
I cannot tell you which particular issue, but it seems not to have been
in the issues of May, August, September & December, 1980.
More about the above works when I have more to
tell you!
Other pages on this general subject are available here:
10
&
12.
Thomas M. M. Hemy
datapages
01,
02
&
03 are now on site. Plus all
of the other image pages, accessible though the index on page
05. PRIOR PAGE / NEXT PAGE
To MV Danmark Slider Puzzle
page
& to the
Special Pages Index.
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THE GUEST BOOK - GO
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SOURCE OF THE MISSOURI PRINT ABOVE
I would like to be able to better advise the source of the above image of
Missouri. But the data available data to the webmaster is most limited. The print was cut, trimmed
close on each edge, from an unknown 'vintage magazine'. The paper is of good quality indeed. There is printed text on the
rear which refers to a relief effort 23 years prior 'in behalf of the destitute
peasants of Russia', i.e. the Russian famine. Most of the text relates to a
similar relief effort to help the 'destitute Belgians', I believe in 1915. The editor of
'The
Northwestern Miller', which editor is unnamed in the text I have available,
visited every miller in Minneapolis to secure donations of flour for the Belgian relief effort. To be
mainly carried, per my limited text, to Belgium aboard a
vessel entitled Northwestern Miller, then being completed on the Tyne.
That would surely have been 1915. It would seem, that the
unnamed editor had acted similarly 23 years
earlier re the Russian relief effort. The editor's name was most likely W. C. Edgar, as per references you can find on this
page.
ANOTHER
WORK BY N. SOTHERBY PITCHER
This next image is of a work by the artist entitled 'A Breeze in the Bay'.
It appeared in black & white in 'Rule Brittania' by Cecil King, published in 1941, the image being 'By courtesy of "Sea Pie."). The
caption reads 'Ships of a British battle fleet, in line ahead, steaming through a heavy sea. These huge vessels are normally so steady
that they push their way through the seas, taking little notice of them.'
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