Cable ship Faraday.

A tweeter has put out today a picture of Cable Ship Faraday off Charlton  https://twitter.com/thamesfacing/status/543343835511009280/photo/1

I promised to put out more information - and I am sorry - this is direct quotations from books rather than something original written. 

First of all - Stewart says:

 

"There were two cable ships named Faraday both owned by Siemens Brothers, the picture shows this vessel moored off the Siemens Brothers factory in Charlton.  This two funnelled ship is Faraday (1), Faraday (2) only had one funnel. Your enthusiast’s picture must be pre 1924

There is quite a bit about her in Haigh pages 67-69  (K.R.Haigh  Cableships and Submarine Cables. STC 1968)   This says

 

Built in 1874 by C Mitchell and Company Ltd, Newcastle.  Length = 360ft Breadth = 52ft Height Overall = 40ft Gross tonnage = 5,052.  She was one of the first vessels to be fitted with  twin screws driven by a compound steam engine.  She also had a fairly unique bow rudder for increase manoeuvrability at slow speed.  Both of this innovations were conceived by William Siemens.  She had 3 cable tanks that could carry  400 + 800 + 800nm of cable, a total lift capability of 2,000nm (3,710km). n 1909 she underwent major reconstruction work and in 1924 she was sold for scrap but her one inch iron plates proved too tough for the breakers to deal with and she was sold on as a coal hulk in Algiers where she was known as Analcoal and owned by the Anglo-Algiers Coaling Company.  In 1931 she was towed to Gibraltar to continue her role as a coal hulk and in 1941 she was moved to Sierra Leone where she did service as a naval stores ship.  Finally she was towed back to a South Wales breakers in 1950".

................ and Bill (in America) says:

I see Stewart has provided some good information while I was asleep!
But it's always worth checking my site if you need a quick answer:

http://atlantic-cable.com/Cableships/Faraday/

http://atlantic-cable.com/Cableships/Faraday(2)/

The search box at the top of the main page and the bottom of most other
pages is the fastest way to find anything.

 

.................... I also found a history of Siemens with quite a bit in it about Faraday 1 (J.D.Scott  Siemens Brothers 1856-1958 Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1958).

 

"In 1874 there was launched the firms own cable laying ship, the Faraday, a vessel especially designed for cable laying by William Siemens himself in collaboration with his friend William Froude, the great pioneer in design of ships' hulls.The Faraday was a vessel with a gross tonnage of 4,908 a length of 360 feet, a beam of 52 feet  and a depth of 35 feet. She was built upon the principle of a whale boat; that is to say that she had bows at each end, and was thus particularly well adapted for the close manoaeuvering required in laying cables. Also, in aid oc manoeuvrability she had twin screws, a very early example of a ship so built. She was in fact 'built round the cable' in every way.  In order to give a large deck space her two funnels were abreast of one another and in order to cut down rolloing, 'Mr Froude suggested that there should be two enormous bilge keels instead of an ordinary keel  ... in fact she was remarkably successful ..throughout her long life she had the reputation of being a lucky ship.  The Faraday excited great interest and there are many descriptions of her. See Trans.Inst. Nav. Arch. Vo XVII 1876 Bright C. op cit pp 162-3 and the newspapers of the period.

 

can probably find more.

 

I