Template:Featured article/October 2013

The Mystery of Shanghai

This dramatic photograph shows the Yangtze River steamer Shanghai, built at Hongkong & Whampoa Dockyard’s (“HWD”) Kowloon Dock, and launched by Lady William Meigh Goodman, wife of the Chief Justice, on 14th July 1904. At the time, Shanghai was the largest vessel ever built in Hong Kong  – a proud day indeed for CNCo and for HWD.

The only problem is that so far as CNCo’s records are concerned, this vessel never existed: the only Shanghai to join the CNCo fleet was a paddlesteamer built in Glasgow in 1873 – so what on earth became of her 1904 namesake? Click here for more...