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Manchester Commerce - final voyage

Masters: 1900-02 J Baxter: 1904 JR Foale: 1905 WP Couch: 1907 WJ Parry: 1909-11 WP Couch: 1914 Charles William Bloom Payne.

On a voyage from Manchester for Montreal, Quebec with a crew of 44 Manchester Commerce ran into a minefield laid by the North German Lloyd liner Bremen& sank 20 miles NE of Tory Island on 26 October 1914. One lifeboat was launched but there was no time to launch a second & those left on board had to jump into the sea with some making it to the launched lifeboat. A Fleetwood trawler, City of London, picked up the 30 survivors. This was the first vessel of World War 1 to be mined. 14 lives lost including master.

Lives lost 26 October 1914: Ali Musa, fireman/trimmer, India; Burgess, Daniel, storekeeper, 30, Pendleton, Lancashire; Burke, John, fireman/trimmer, 43, b. Cork; Dennett, Frederick W, boatswain, 48, b. Kent; Denny, F, 2nd steward, 20, b. Gorton, Manchester 1918; Everest, Cecil H, 4th mate, 20, Liverpool; Hughes, John Thomas, boy, 22, b. Salford, resided Patricroft, Lancashire; McMahon, J, able seaman, 50, b. Liverpool; Moller, Charles, donkeyman, 36, b. West Hartlepool; Payne, Charles William Bloom, master, 41, Hull; Rae, Robert, fireman/trimmer, 38, b. Maryport; Spears, Robert, chief steward, 35, b. Manchester; Sudell, Harold, wireless operator, 18, Liverpool; Warren, Arthur Herbert, 2nd engineer, 32, b. Macclesfield.

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