The general cargo screw steamer Stamfordham was built for T. & W. Smith of Newcastle by Wood, Skinner & Co. of the same city in 1898. Registered at 921 tons gross (523 net & 697 under-deck), she measured 210 feet in length with a 30 foot beam and was powered by a 3-cylinder triple-expansion engine manufactured by the N.E. Marine Engine Co., also of Newcastle. Designed for bulk cargoes, usually coal or metal ores, she had a single deck and a well-deck and operated successfully for almost twenty years before becoming a casualty of war on 4^th August 1916. Owned by Harries Bros. of Swansea since before the outbreak of the Great War, she was on passage from Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, to Seaham Harbour (Sussex) in ballast when she was captured and then sunk by the German submarine UB-39 in the North Sea about 8 miles south-west of the Longstone Lighthouse.