Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Distant view of the Devonia leaving Ilfracombe, 1900s

The P.S. DEVONIA was launched on 22 March 1905 by John Brown at Clydebank. Engines - Compound diagonal 34.5 and 71 in x 60 in. Dimensions : 245 ft x 29 ft. Gross Registered Tonnes 641. She was built for the Barry Railway Co. Ltd. She was bought by P. & A. Campbell in 1911, after they had succeeded in forcing the rival Barry company out of business. During the First World War she became H.M.S. DEVONIA and served as a minesweeper on the East Coast. She was assigned to the South Coast when Campbells returned to that station in 1923, remaining there until 1932. She then served on the Bristol Channel until being laid up in 1939, when she was reconditioned for use as a minesweeper and sent to eastern Scotland. Attended the Dunkirk evacuation, but was abandoned on the French coast on 31 May 1940 under heavy fire from enemy aircraft, though unfounded rumours persisted for many years that she had been salvaged and put into service on the River Elbe.