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CS EDWARD WILSHAW
CS Edward Wilshaw, the largest
of the cable repair fleet owned by Cable & Wireless, setting
out on her maiden voyage on 28 July 1949 from Surrey Commercial
Docks to Mombasa, via Plymouth, Gibraltar and Suez. |
Built in 1949 by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson
Ltd.
Length 313 ft 2 in.
Breadth 41ft 2 in.
Draught 19 ft.
Gross tonnage 2522
Built for Cable and Wireless for cable repair duties. Three tanks were fitted, No 1, 27 ft by 13 ft; No’s 2 & 3, 28 ft by 13 ft, giving a capacity of 18,850 cubic feet of cable.
Three bow sheaves of 3 ft 6 in. diameter were fitted, but no stern sheaves. The bow sheaves were later replaced with ones 6 ft diameter. The cable machinery was fitted on the main deck.
Based at Mombasa, Kenya, during the 1950s. 1965-70 based at Gibraltar, 1970-7 covered Australasian waters, the Pacific Ocean and the West Coast of America.
The Wilshaw was scrapped in 1979.
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| CABLE STORIES |
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| Barry Waterhouse |
| Barry Waterhouse, whose memories of the cable industry may be seen on the Recorder (3) page, joined the Edward Wilshaw in 1955 at Aden, the ship's station being Mombasa at that time, and stayed with her until November 1956 when he returned to the UK. |
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| Peter Edwards |
Pete Edwards' father, Peter Anthony John Edwards, served on the Edward Wilshaw in 1953 as First Mate, and Pete sends this weather reports map from the Wilshaw drawn by his father:
Image courtesy of and copyright © 2006 Pete Edwards |
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| John G. Wells |
Tim Wells' grandfather, John G. Wells, joined Cable & Wireless at about age 20 and spent many years living and working in Africa as a cable engineer. He eventually returned to the UK, where he died in 2003 aged 97.
Tim's father, Michael Wells, was a commercial artist and creative director of a highly successful advertising agency, and in 1959 he painted this watercolour of the Edward Wilshaw in dry dock at Durban:
CS Edward Wilshaw in dry dock, Durban, South Africa, 1959
Watercolour by Michael Wells
Image courtesy of and copyright © 2011 Tim Wells |
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