SS Glentworth

History
United Kingdom
Name	SS Glentworth[1]
Owner	Dalgliesh Steam Shipping Co. Ltd., Newcastle-upon-Tyne[2]
Port of registry	Newcastle-upon-Tyne[2]
Builder	Hawthorn Leslie & Co, Newcastle-upon-Tyne[2]
Yard number	490[1]
Launched	15 July 1920
Completed	November 1920[2]
Out of service	1934[1]
Identification	UK official number 144931[2] code letters KHCD[2]
Fate	Sold[1]
Name	SS Box Hill[1]
Namesake	Box Hill, Surrey
Owner	Surrey Hill Steamship Co. Ltd.[3]
Operator	Counties Ship Management Co Ltd, London[1]
Port of registry	London[3]
Acquired	1934[1]
Out of service	31 December 1939[1]
Identification	UK official number 144931[2] Call sign GDWN[3]
Fate	Sunk by mine
General characteristics
Class and type	Cargo ship[1]
Tonnage	5,677 GRT tonnage under deck 5,310 3,510 NRT[2]
Length	450.0 ft (137.2 m)[2] p/p
Beam	55.0 ft (16.8 m)[2]
Draught	25 feet 6+1⁄4 inches (7.78 m)[2]
Depth	26.4 ft (8.0 m)[2]
Installed power	620 NHP (as built);[2] 586 NHP (after 1934)[3]
Propulsion	Hawthorn Leslie reduction-geared turbine (as built);[2] Hawthorn Leslie 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engine (after 1934)[3]
Speed	11 knots (20 km/h)[1]
Crew	20 or 22[1]

SS Glentworth was a shelter deck cargo steamship built in 1920 by Hawthorn Leslie & Co. in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England for R.S. Dalgliesh and Dalgliesh Steam Shipping Co. Ltd., also of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.^[1] After the Great Depression affected UK merchant shipping in the first years of the 1930s, Dalgliesh sold Glentworth to a company controlled by Counties Ship Management (an offshoot of the Rethymnis & Kulukundis shipbroking company of London^[4]) who renamed her SS Box Hill.^[1]

The ship's stokehold had 12 corrugated furnaces with a combined grate area of 214 square feet (20 m²).^[2] They heated three 200 lb_f/in² single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 8,655 square feet (804 m²).^[2][3] She was built as a turbine steamer: two steam turbines with a combined power output of 620 NHP drove the shaft to the single propeller by reduction gearing.^[2] However, when she changed hands in 1934 she was re-engined with a Hawthorn Leslie 586 NHP three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine.^[3] The conversion retained her original boilers, but her furnaces were converted to oil burning.^[3]

The ship was equipped with direction finding equipment and radio.^[2]

Late in 1939 Box Hill sailed from Saint John, New Brunswick bound for Hull with a cargo of 8,452 tons wheat.^[1] On New Year's Eve she was in the North Sea 9 nautical miles (17 km) off the Humber lightship when she struck a German mine.^[1] The explosion broke her back and she sank almost immediately with the loss of over half its crew.^[1]

Box Hill was Counties Ship Management's first loss of the Second World War. CSM's losses continued until just a week before the surrender of Japan in August 1945, by which time the company had lost a total of 13 ships.

Both sections of Box Hill's wreck were a hazard to shipping and showed above the water.^[1] In 1952 the Royal Navy dispersed her remains with high explosive and Admiralty charts now mark her position as a "foul" ground.^[1]

• Sedgwick, Stanley (1993) [1992]. Kinnaird, Mark; O'Donoghue, K.J (eds.). London & Overseas Freighters, 1948–92: A Short History. World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-68-1.
• Sedgwick, Stanley; Sprake, R.F. (1977). London & Overseas Freighters Limited 1949–1977. World Ship Society. ISBN 0905617037.