3-066-151 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Union Company's screw steam-ship Teuton, wrecked at Quoin Point, near Cape Agulhas, 1881. 'A terrible disaster...one of the fine mail steam-ships of the Union Steam-Ship Company, employed on the line from Southampton to the Cape of Good Hope and South Africa, with the loss of 236 lives...[She] struck upon a rock off Quoin Point...as the water came in rapidly, in spite of pumping, the boats were got ready and provisioned...At ten o'clock the ship was stopped to lower the boats, the first of which was filled with women and children, accompanied by only two sailors. While the second boat was getting off, the ship very suddenly sank; it is supposed that this was caused by the bursting of a bulkhead, letting the water into the engine-room from the forward compartments, which were already full of water...it now appears that the whole number drowned is greater than was originally expected, some twenty-five coolies having joined the steamer at Cape Town for East London...The Teuton...was an iron steamer of 2309 tons, built at Southampton in 1869, and classed 100 A 1 at Lloyd's. She was brig-rigged, and had seven bulkheads. Her engines were built by Messrs. S. Clark and Co., Newcastle, and were recently overhauled and put in thorough repair'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.