Court Line - the company and its ships

Aldington Court (2)

 

The name Aldington Court was used for two ships:

 

· Aldington Court (1) - a cargo ship launched in 1929

· Aldington Court (2) - a cargo ship launched in 1944 as Empire Lord

 

Aldington Court (2) was in service from 1944 until she was abandoned as a total loss in 1970 so had a working life of 26 years.

Basic Data

Type: Cargo ship

Registered owners,managers and operators:

Built for Ministry of War Transport

Managers Runciman and Co. Ltd.

Builders: William Doxford & Sons

Yard: Pallion, Sunderland

Country: UK

Yard number: 711

Registry: London

Official number: 180130

Signal letters: GBTW

Call sign: N/K

Classification society: Lloyd’s Register

Gross tonnage: 7,359

Net tonnage: 5,109

Deadweight: 10,025

Length: 433 ft

Breadth: 56.5 ft

Depth: 35.5 ft

Draught: 27ft 4.75in

Engines: 3 cylinder S.C.S.A oil engine

Engine builders: William Doxford & Sons

Works: Sunderland

Country: UK

Power: 2,500 bhp

Propulsion: Single screw

Speed: 10.5 knots

Cargo capacity: Grain 567,000cu ft; bale 514,000cuft

Crew: N/K

Notes on Career Highlights

 

I am grateful to Roger Jordan for the following comments based on investigation of Lloyd’s Register entries:

 

The maiden voyage of this vessel was in March 1944, but presumably your annotation of July 1945 relates to maiden voyage for Court Line.

 

With regard to change of management from Runciman to Haldin, this occurred prior to departure on the 21-month voyage of 1945-47. As far as I can determine, Runciman was manager up to at least May 1945 and Haldin took over soon after that. It would appear that she renamed from Empire Lord to Aldington Court  after her arrival at Durban on 22.4.46, having lost an anchor and chain. After replacement of the hardware, she went to Buenos Aires and as far as I can make out she arrived at BA as Aldington Court.

 

Participation in WW2

 

There is no record of Aldington Court (2) being engaged in WW2 convoys held in the Arnold Hague database Ext. Ref. #5.

 

However, according to Ext. Ref. #7, she sailed as Empire Lord from Swansea on 12 Jul 1945 on a 21 month voyage during which she was purchased by Court Line and renamed Aldington Court.

 

It states that her itinerary was:

 

Swansea, Cornerbrook, Montreal (Manz Line charter), Panama, Auckland, Wellington,, Auckland (grain), Colombo, Bompay, Port Louis (sugar), Durban to Plate with coal returning with grain on repeated basis, Plate (grain), Durban (bunkers), Madras, Colombo (dry-dock), Adelaide, Port Pirie (grain), Port Lincoln (grain), Port Lincoln (grain), Calicut & Vizagapatnam (Manganese ore), Calcutta (general), Colombo,  Port Said, Azores (engine repairs), St John, Baltimore, Newport News, Norfolk Virginia, New York (Cunard charter), London, Tyne - arrived 3 April 1947 for dry dock.

Loss

 

No further information has been found other than that she sprang a leak off Las Palmas and was abandoned as a total loss after being beached 2 miles west of Cape Garraway. It is not known whether there were any casualties.

Images

 

1. Image #1 from the Webmaster’s collection of photos and postcards

2. Image #2 from the collection of Stuart Smith with his permission

3. Image #3 from the Webmaster’s collection of photos and postcards

 

Image 1

Service Post WW2

 

No information is currently available other than there were multiple changes of owners and name.

Image 2

Image 3