Edwin Fox

A wooden full-rigged ship built of teak and part saul in 1853 at Sulkeah, Bengali. Dimensions: 144'8"×29'8"×23'6" and tonnage: 836 GRT, 836 NRT and 747 tons under deck.

Later re-rigged as a barque,

1853: Launched at the shipyard of ..., for the Honourable East India Co. Assigned the official British Registration No. 4673 and signal JDMN.
1853 December - 1853 May: In command of Captain William Taylor Salmon, Rochford, Essex.
1853 December 14: Sailed from Calcutta to London via Cape Town.
1853 May - 1853 July: Captain John Duncan was appointed commander but never made any voyages.
1853 July - 1862 September: In command of Captain Joseph Ferguson, Arbroath, Scotland.
c1854: Sold for £ 30.000 and immediately chartered to the British Government to carry troops to Crimea.
1860: LR 1860-61: Owner: Duncan Dunbar, London; Master: Captain J. Ferguson.
1862: Sold to Edward Gellatly, London, for £7600.
1862 September - 1865 August: In command of Captain Francis Freemantle McLean, Fraserburgh.
1865: LR 1865-66: Owner: Gellatly & Co., London; Master: Captain McClean was replaced by Captain A. Morrison.
1865 August - 1867 February: In command of Captain Alexander. J. Molison, Brechin, Scotland. Died ashore in Bombay from Typhoid Fever, on 23 Feb 1867.
1860[?]: LR 1860-61: Owner: Gellatly & Co., London; Master: Captain R. Johnson.
1867 February - 1867 October: In command of Captain Alexander Strachan Molison, Brechin, Stepney.
1867 October - 1871 November: In command of Captain William Black, Yorkshire.
1870: LR 1870-71: Owner: Gellatly & Co., London.
1871 November - 1874 October: In command of Captain John Ellis Johnson, Bebington, Cheshire.
1873: Chartered to Shaw, Savill & Co., London. Employed in the New Zealand emmigrant trade.
1873 January 28: Sailed from London for Lyttleton with 190 emmigrants.
1873 February 2: The rudder was damaged in a gale and the Edwin Fox had to be towed to Brest by the ship Copernicus.
1873 March 5 - June 27: Sailed from Brest to Lyttleton in 114 days with 167 of the original passengers. The balance had left the ship at Brest.
1874 November - 1874 December: In command of Captain Walter Walpole, Great Yarmouth.
1874 November 24: Left London for Wellington but had to return after having lost an anchor in a gale off Deal. On her second try she collided with and sank a collier schooner and drifted onto the rocks at Deal. Had to be towed off the rocks and back to London where she was docked.
1874 December - 1876 November: In command of Captain John S. Davies.
1874 December 23 - April 18: Sailed from London to Wellington with 259 emmigrants.
1876 November - 1882 April: In command of Captain John Phease, Montrose, Scotland.
1878: Reduced to barque rig.
1882 April - 1883 November: In command of Captain William Colville, Montrose, Scotland.
1883 October - 1885 June: Lay in London to be fitted out with a refrigeration machinery.
1885 June - 1885 October: In command of Captain W. Patterson, late Mate of the ship.
1885 June 25 - October 19: Sailed from London to Dunedin where she served as a freeze storage until January 1889.
1889: LR 1889-90: Owner: Shaw, Savill & Albion, London; Master: Captain Wood.
1897: Used as a floating freezing facility at Picton until the shore-based facility was finished.
1905: Used as a coal hulk.
1965: Sold to the Marlborough Committee of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust by the Picton Freezing Works for one shilling. [Annual Dog Watch No. 23 (1966)]
1967: Towed to Shakespeare Bay.
1986: Towed back to Picton.
1999 May 18: Was put into a custom built graving dock at Picton.

References:

Square-rigged ships, general references.
The Edwin Fox Society.
Irrgang, Carl: The Barque Edwin Fox.
Third International Conference on the Technical Aspects of the Preservation of Historic Vessels, San Francisco, CA, 1997.

Updated 2000-02-15 by Lars Bruzelius

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