Albinia (1813 ship)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Albinia was a British sailing ship built by William Smith & Co. in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and launched on 25 March 1813. She was about 430 tons and carried eight 18-pounder carronades.

She began her career sailing to India under a license from the British East India Company after the company’s monopoly ended in 1813. One voyage brought her master into a dispute with the Post Office over carrying mail. After that, she mainly sailed between London and Demerara.

Albinia appeared in Lloyd’s Register in 1813, though some details about her origin and tonnage were corrected in later volumes. During this era, the Post Office tried to require mail to be carried on ships sailing to India and the Cape, leading to several confrontations with shipmasters. Captain Robert Wetherall, one of the early captains in these disputes, refused to take a mail bag for the Cape at Gravesend.

Notable incidents in her career:
- 18 February 1823: Albinia, under Captain Shadforth, lost her bowsprit and foretopmast in Sea Breach near Gravesend.
- 24 September 1838: She ran aground on the Kent Sand in the Bay of Fundy while on a Demerara–St. Andrews voyage; she was refloated, but later collided with Hebe of St Andrews, costing her royal mast and rigging.
- 25 March 1842: Albinia, then 430 tons, commanded by Captain Logic, was lost off the coast of Ireland. She was carrying about 600 tons of coal from Newcastle to Jamaica when a gale drove her 50 nautical miles northwest of Tory Island. Two crew members drowned at once; two more died after the lifeboat was launched. Fifteen survivors reached Ballyherman strand, Donegal. Lloyd’s Register notes for 1841 show the vessel as “Foundered.”