The wreck of a large iron steamship lies four miles south-south west of St Alban's Head on the Dorset coast; the wreck site being well known but not regularly visited. Those who have been there may know it by various names and popular dive guides refer to it as Start or Hartburn. It is unlikely that the wreck in this position is either of those vessels. Using information gathered from both the current day wreck site and referring back to original documentation numerous other possible candidates have been identified and eliminated. This leads to the conclusion that the identity for this shipwreck is Netley Abbey sunk by collision with HMS Surprise in 1899.
The popular guide to dive sites along the Dorset Coast ‘Dive Dorset’ [1] has a site under the name ‘Hartburn’ in which it describes a large iron steamship and asks for feedback as to cargo to help identify the site correctly. The cargo is coal and the Hartburn was carrying railway trucks, therefore not correctly identified. Following a trail of original documents and testing theories by targeting dives to specific features on the shipwreck draw the conclusion that the correct name is the SS Netley Abbey.
There are many places where information of historical events may lie, generated over the decades by the UK beaurocracy that sits in various record offices throughout the country; added to that the newspapers which were not turned into fish & chip wrappers but preserved by the British Library. Taking a starting point of the Dorset Sites & Monuments Record and following the trail, it becomes easy to eliminate many ships which sank off the Dorset coast and gather enough information about the Netley Abbey to investigate underwater to confirm her identity.
The wreck has been ‘identified’ as a number of vessels including the ‘Start’ and the ‘Hartburn’, but these have proved not to be her true identity. Extensive research over 10 years both diving the site and searching original documentation identified a number of other candidates, the evidence was examined, and most were eliminated, before coming to the conclusion that she is the ‘ SS Netley Abbey’.
When Netley Abbey left Cardiff in August 1899 her crew and passenger thought they were going to Krondstatt with a cargo of coal. Instead they returned to Cardiff via Portsmouth with a story to tell but no papers or posessions.
Reading the reports of the aftermath of the accident during the research process one can see how, over 100 years later, some things do not change. There is always the search for blame, different sides in the press close ranks, and reporting is not always accurate.
