Bylands Gallery

Completed October 1899: Official No. 112409: Code Letters RJNK.

Owners: 1899 Bylands SS Co, (JF Wilson & Co) West Hartlepool; 1904 Wilson Shipping Co Ltd (JF Wilson & Co) West Hartlepool.

Masters: 1900-04 Walter Horace Dormand (b. 1866 Hartlepool C.N. 18379 Sunderland 1890); 1906 L St J Clare; 1907-11 ER Williams; 1913 T Spink; 1918 T Gunn.

This section will, in time, contain the stories of more than 450 merchant ships built or owned in the Hartlepools, and which were lost during the First World War. As an illustration of the truly global nature of shipbuilding, these ships were owned by companies from 22 different countries, including more than 30 sailing under the German flag at the outbreak of war.

J.F. Wilson formed his own company when his partnership with Robert Hardy was dissolved on June 30th, 1894, and the company of Hardy, Wilson & Co., ceased trading.

From 1894 J.F. Wilson & Co., owned 15 ships until the company ceased trading in 1919.

In 1904 the company became Wilson Shipping Co. Ltd

Family History:

Joseph Forster Wilson was born in 1853 at Stockton-on-Tees to parents William and Ann (nee Forster). He was married in 1876 to Emily Tassell who was born in Seaton Carew. By 1881 they were living at 139 Station Lane, Seaton Carew with two sons and a daughter and by 1891 the family had moved to Craiglands, Stranton and had a third son. By 1901 they were living at Pangbourne, West Hartlepool. Joseph was Mayor of Hartlepool in 1896.

Joseph died aged 60 at Pangbourne on 14 July 1914 leaving assets of £56,516.