''Archibald Russell'' was a tall ship built in 1905 by

Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, often referred to simply as Scotts, was a Scottish shipbuilding company based in Greenock on the River Clyde. In its time in Greenock, Scotts built over 1,250 ships. History John Scott fo ...

, Greenock, for John Hardie & Son, Glasgow. She was a four-masted steel

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, b ...

, equipped with two 120' long

bilge keel A bilge keel is a nautical device used to reduce a ship's tendency to roll. Bilge keels are employed in pairs (one for each side of the ship). A ship may have more than one bilge keel per side, but this is rare. Bilge keels increase hydrodynamic r ...

s, and rigged with royal sails over double top-gallant sails. The ''Archibald Russell'' sailed the world delivering a variety of cargo (including timber, grain, nitrate, and coal) to various ports in the UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, Brazil and other countries. In 1923 she was sold for £5500 to

Gustaf Erikson Gustaf Adolf Mauritz Erikson (1872, Lemland – 1947) was a ship-owner from Mariehamn, in the Åland islands. He was famous for the fleet of windjammers he operated to the end of his life, mainly on the grain trade from Australia to Europe. Eri ...

, who was famous for the fleet of

windjammer A windjammer is a commercial sailing ship with multiple masts that may be square rigged, or fore-and-aft rigged, or a combination of the two. The informal term "windjammer" arose during the transition from the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam ...

s he operated, mainly on the grain trade from Australia to Europe. A crewman on the vessel in 1929 was Australian journalist Ken Attiwill on a voyage from Melbourne to Ireland. He later wrote a book about the voyage. The ship kept sailing for Erikson until outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1939. At one point prior to the outbreak of war in 1939 the

Honourable Company of Master Mariners The Honourable Company of Master Mariners is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. While the other Livery Companies are entitled to the style '' Worshipful'', the Master Mariners are styled ''Honourable'', King George V having gran ...

considered purchasing the ship to use as a floating livery hall, after it became apparent that the possibility of building a hall in the City of London had been rendered very remote. This idea was ultimately abandoned; however they later acquired and converted HMS ''Wellington'' to use for this purpose. In June 1941 ''Archibald Russell'' was detained by the British government, after Finland joined the war on the German side. During the rest of the war, the ship was used as a store ship at

Goole Goole is a port town and civil parish on the River Ouse in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The town's historic county is the West Riding of Yorkshire. According to the 2011 UK census, Goole parish had a population of 19,518, an increa ...

. After the war the ship was returned to its Finnish owner (in 1948), but soon after was sold to the British Iron & Steel Corporation in 1949, and broken up later that year by J.J. King & Co., of Gateshead-on-Tyne.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Archibald Russell (ship, 1905)
''Archibald Russell'' at www.bruzelius.info
1905 ships

See also

References

External links