Friday 8 May 2015

LIGHTSHIP CORMORANT / LADY DIXON - Chapter 95



I think it safe to say that Cormorant was not built by ‘The Victoria Shipbuilding Company’. With the help of the Cork City and County Archives I have found Francis Guy’s ‘County and City of Cork Directory 1876-1876’ (Photo 951).   


This records that the company running the Victoria Dockyard at the time was the ‘Cork Harbour Docks and Warehouses Company’.  Their entry in the Directory shows their address as Victoria Docks, Passage West (Photo 952).


    The Directory has no record of any Victoria Shipbuilding Company or any Passage West Shipbuilding Company (probably confusion with the Passage West Docks Company). The Cork Archivist reminded me that another Cormorant was said to have been built in 1855, for the Cork Steamship Company. This was found among the records of the Cork Steam Packet Co Ltd, a successor company. It was certainly not a lightship and apparently it was broken up in 1894.
   Another historical question, on which I am reasonably confident in pronouncing, is the location of the dry docks where Cormorant was built.  They are filled in now of course but back in the late 1880s I reckon they were where I suggested last month (Photo 953). 

 I wish I could find a detailed map of the area dated around 1880 just to confirm that, but I have had no luck in finding one yet.
David

PS:  If Alex Coulter reads this, please get in touch.  My computer crashed earlier this year and I lost all my e-mail addresses!

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