Career
07.04.1841: Name chosen, after the wife of Charles Wood, Secretary to the Admiralty (later Sir Charles and then the 1st Viscount Halifax).
16.09.1841: Launched.
19.01.1842: Registered as Lady Mary Wood for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company at a cost of £21,700.
02.02.1842: Maiden voyage Falmouth/Peninsula.
1842: Damaged on the rocks off Cape Tourinan in northern Spain; Captain Cooper attempted to cover up the incident, was suspended, warned and then reinstated.
1844: Narrowly avoided being run down at night by an unlit sailing ship, though she herself was carrying lights as had always been P&O practice even in the absence of legal compulsion.
1844: The first of the three ships used by the satirist William Makepeace Thackeray when making his celebrated ‘Mediterranean cruise’ - he travelled in her to Gibraltar, then on to Constantinople by Tagus and to the Holy Land in Iberia.
27.11.1844: Left Southampton for Calcutta to open the Galle/Hong Kong mail service.
27.07.1845: Left Galle for Penang, Singapore and Hong Kong (arrived 13th August).
13.08.1845: Arrived in Hong Kong.
07.1848: At Galle when a local revolt broke out. The speed with which she was able to reach Madras and return to Trincomalee with half a British battalion and a complete native regiment was a prime factor in containing the unrest.
11.03.1850: Opened an experimental Hong Kong/Amoy/Shanghai service, only to be met by Customs arrangements and lawsuits ‘rigged’ by sailingshop operators fearful of the new competition. Fined $200 for
loading silk (a ‘planted’ consignment) at Woosung, where sailingships loaded, but outside Shanghai harbour jurisdiction. Matterswere sorted out in P&O’s favour in the Hong Kong Supreme Court.
02.1851: Withdrawn from the run, which was closed until March 1852.
15.03.1851: Laid up at Calcutta.
06.11.1851: Opened Calcutta/Hong Kong service.
26.03.1852: Carried troops and stores Calcutta/Rangoon.
14.10.1854: Sent with party of Royal Navy seamen and Marines to search (unsuccessfully) for a French lady abducted by pirates after the barque Caldera was wrecked south of Macao.
1857: Gross tonnage re-stated as 553 grt.
12.1858: Sold to E C Wermuth, C S Van Heeckeren & Co., Samarang.
03.02.1859: Sailed from Hong Kong for Samarang where she was renamed Oenarang. Ran briefly between China and the Dutch East Indies
1862: Sold to W C de Vries, Batavia.
02.1866: Engines removed at Surabaya and she was reduced to a hulk.
1867: Broken up at Batavia
(opm: ontvangen mei 2021 van de site P&O Ship Fact Sheet)