What is "mersey"

For the River, see River Mersey.

The '' Mersey '' was a ship wrecked in the Torres Strait, Australia about mid-June 1804.

The Mersey was built in Chittagong, Bangladesh in 1801 and registered at Fort William, India. It was 350 tons and carried 10 guns (cannon). It was owned and captained by James Wilson. The ship had been chartered by Governor Philip Gidley King to purchase 250 cows from Bengal and deliver them to Hobart, Tasmania. The Mersey sailed from Port Jackson on 24 May 1804 with a cargo of timber for Bengal. While passing through the Torres Strait, the Mersey was totally wrecked. Only 17 crew and the Captain were saved by sailing in a longboat to Timor; 56 others drowned. After refitting the longboat at Dili they reached Bencoolen from where they sailed to Madras on an Acheen vessel. Captain Wilson arrived in Calcutta 20 September 1804 on board the Margaret, from Madras.

The Mersey was a 1,829 ton iron-hulled sailing ship with a length of , beam of and depth of . She was built by Charles Connell and Company of Glasgow, named after the River Mersey in north-western England and launched on 18 May 1894 for the Nourse Line. Nourse Line used her primarily to transport of Indian indentured labourers to the British colonies. Details of some of these voyages are as follows:

Destination

Date of arrival

Number of passengers

Deaths during voyage

Suriname

10 April 1896

n/a

n/a

Trinidad

20 October 1897

668

11

Suriname

28 January 1902

n/a

n/a

Fiji

13 June 1903

585

n/a

Trinidad

8 February 1906

665

5

In 1908 the Mersey was sold to the White Star Line for use as a training ship for 60 cadets, making six voyages to Australia as a White Star training ship, traveling around the Cape of Good Hope outbound and Cape Horn inbound. In 1910 she became the first sailing ship to be equipped with a radio. She was also the first sailing ship aboard which an operation for appendicitis was performed on a cadet. In 1915 the White Star Line gave up their training scheme due to the war and sold the Mersey to Norwegian owners. She changed hands a number of times and her name was changed to Transatlantic then to Dvergso. She was scrapped in 1923.

Mersey (ship) may refer to:

• Mersey (1805 ship), a ship wrecked off Torres Strait, Australia in 1805
• Mersey (1894 ship), a former Nourse Line and White Star Line vessel; scrapped in 1923

Mersey may refer to:

• River Mersey, in northwest England
• Mersea Island, off the coast of Essex in England (formerly Mersey Island)
• Mersey River (Tasmania) in the Australian state
• Electoral division of Mersey in the state of Tasmania, Australian
• Mersey River (Nova Scotia), in Canada
• Mersey (1801 ship), wrecked off Torres Strait, Australia, in 1805
• Mersey (1894 ship), a Nourse Line and White Star Line vessel scrapped in 1923
• Mersey-class lifeboats are all-weather lifeboats operated by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution
• Robert Mersey (1917–1994), American music arranger and record producer