Swartenhondt ship's bell

Fri, 01/31/2025 - 16:41

At St. Stephens School in Stanley I saw a bell from the ship "Swartenhondt". The bell was given to the school. Does anybody know more about this "handover" of the bell to the school ? Thank you so much and Kung Hei Fat Choi. Daniel

Date picture taken

unknown

Comments

MS Swartenhondt

A quick search in the internet revealed the following:

s.s. Swartenhondt, 1924, Built as NSM, Amsterdam. Ship owned by the Royal Interocean Line/KPM

In 1942 she entered a BMWT charter and was subsequently handed over to the US WSA which prepared her to serve as a trooptransport until 12/1945 when she was “seized” by the Dutch Government until 1/1947 when she returned to KPM.

In Jan. of 1959 she was delivered at the breakers in Hong Kong.

SS Swartenhondt

Interesting to see the ship's bell was saved from the wreckers in Hong Kong. Unfortunately I cannot read the text below the bell. Any chance for an enlargement?

Just use the zoom button…

Just use the zoom button above the photo for enlargement.

Swartenhondt - built 1922

Some websites state the Swartenhondt was built in 1924, however, the early annual Lloyds Register of Ships consistently records the build date as 1922. For some unexplained reason this was ( post-war) recorded as 1924, ( perhaps a clerical error)
The ship incidentally, was originally built for the Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij company which is the equivalent for ( Dutch) Royal Packet Navigation Company . This company was the dominant inter-island shipping line for the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia ) in the last half-century of the colonial era and the Swartenhondt, registered in Batavia ( today’s Jakarta) regularly came through Hong Kong.