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Gallina - a general history

Completed October 1878; Official No. 79654: Code Letters WVSH.

Owners: 1878 Porteous & Senier, London; 1886 Avis Steamships Ltd, London; 1893 J. Lily & Co (Albion Chambers) West Hartlepool.

Masters: 1880-82 Lars Olsen Moen (b. 1837 Norway; 1887-88 T Harper; 1891-93 O Olsen; 1893-94 TV Nesbitt; 1895-98 A White; 1899 Frankland.

Gallina left Philadelphia on 16 December 1898 on route for Moss & Christiana with a cargo of maize & rye & a crew of 21. On 28 December she ran into a hurricane in the mid-Atlantic during which the heavy seas swept over & destroyed her deck cabin & boats & caused her cargo to shift. Part of the cargo was jettisoned but she continued to list & was on her beam ends when she was sighted on 3 January 1899 by the Charing Cross, owned by John Cory & Sons & under the master Mills, on route from New York to Bristol. A rescue that night was impossible but the following morning a lifeboat was sent from which a line was passed & four of the crew were taken off in this manner. The lifeboat returned & another two were got off but further efforts were impossible because of the weather. The Charing Cross stood by all night but by morning they could not see Gallina. On 5 January the steamer Kanawha of Newport, Wales, under the master Maxwell, saw the signals of distress from Gallina & managed to take off the master & all the remaining 15 crew but after they were got on board the empty lifeboat had to be abandoned because of the heavy sea. The crews were landed at Cardiff & Liverpool by their rescuers.

The Gallina foundered in the mid-Atlantic in 50N/27W on 5 January 1899.

Crew January 1899;

Carr, John, donkeyman, Cardiff

Dally, Oscar, apprentice, Hartlepool

Davies, Charles, steward, Cardiff

Franklind, Captain

Morgan, Ernest, trimmer, Cardiff

Reynolds, Edward 3rd engineer, Cardiff

Robinson, George, apprentice, Hartlepool

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