Lot 318
318
A very fine and detailed builder's model of the screw steamer Indian Prince, built to the order of the Prince Line Ltd Newcastle on Tyne by John Redhead & Sons Ltd South Shields, 1910 with masts, derricks and rigging with scale ivorine and brass blocks, most with sheaves, and deck details inluding anchors, winches, fairleads, bollards, ventilators, deck rails, companionways, hatches, deck winches, superstructure with bridge and open and wing bridge over with helm and binnacle, deck and engine room lights, stayed funnel with safety extension pipe, siren and horn, lockers, aft steering position (detatched), awning staunchions, four ship's boats in davits with bottom boards and thwarts and much other detailing. The hull, with four blade propellor and rudder is finished in red, pink, grey, white and varnish with gold plated fittings and mounted on four turned metal columns -- 12 x 43½in. (30.5 x 110.5cm.). Original mahogany glazed case See illustration

Details
A very fine and detailed builder's model of the screw steamer Indian Prince, built to the order of the Prince Line Ltd Newcastle on Tyne by John Redhead & Sons Ltd South Shields, 1910 with masts, derricks and rigging with scale ivorine and brass blocks, most with sheaves, and deck details inluding anchors, winches, fairleads, bollards, ventilators, deck rails, companionways, hatches, deck winches, superstructure with bridge and open and wing bridge over with helm and binnacle, deck and engine room lights, stayed funnel with safety extension pipe, siren and horn, lockers, aft steering position (detatched), awning staunchions, four ship's boats in davits with bottom boards and thwarts and much other detailing. The hull, with four blade propellor and rudder is finished in red, pink, grey, white and varnish with gold plated fittings and mounted on four turned metal columns -- 12 x 43½in. (30.5 x 110.5cm.). Original mahogany glazed case See illustration
Further details
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Lot Essay

The steel screw steamer Indian Prince was built on the Tyne by John Redhead & Sons of South Shields for the rapidly expanding Prince Line in 1910. Completed in July, she was registered at 2,846 tons gross (1,775 net) and measured 340½ feet in length with a 46 foot beam. Coal fired and powered by one of Redhead's own triple-expansion engines producing 389 n.h.p., she could make 11 knots at full steam and proved a reliable addition to the Prince fleet during four years of peacetime service.
The outbreak of the great War on 4 August 1914 immediately thrust the British Merchant Marine into a position of vital importance and in addition to the obvious threat from the German Navy, there was tthe added menace of the enemy's Armed Merchant Cruisers. One such was their large and fast North Atlantic passenger liner Kronprinz Wilhelm. In the opening weeks of the War she was prowling the sealanes off the Atlantic coast of both North and South America and, on 4 September 1914, sighted the Indian Prince two days out of Bahia en route from Rio de Janiero to New York carrying general cargo. Captain Thierfelder of the Kronprinz Wilhelm ordered her to heave to, took off her passengers and crew and then ordered her to steam south south-east to confuse any possible pursuers. Finally, at 9.00am on 9 September, Indian Prince was scuttled using explosives about two hundred miles north-west of the Brazilian Ilha da Trindade, the twentieth British merchant victim of the War (excluding fishing vessels)

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