Bronze Age Gold from Wales

¾ Starboard bow view of M.V. DEVON CITY at Cardiff Docks.

Reardon Smith Line acquired motor vessels as early as 1928, though this example, the 4,928 gross ton Devon City was built for the firm at Haverton Hill in 1933. The firm certainly had value for money from her, for she was owned by Reardon Smith for twenty-five years before she was sold to Liberian owners in 1958! She was eventually wrecked off the mouth of the Orange River, South Africa, on 28 August 1967. (Source: Shipping at Cardiff: Photographs from the Hansen Collection 1920-1975 by David Jenkins, 1993.)

M.V. DEVON CITY (2) (4928 gt). Built 1933 by Furness Shipbuilding Co., Middlesbrough (with a Doxford diesel engine) for the Reardon Smith Line. 1958 - Sold to Maritime & Industrial Corp., Monrovia nad renamed CINDERELLA. 1965 - Sold to Cia. Cheyenne Naviera SA, Panama (but registered in Monrovia). She ran aground 35 miles north of the Orange River on 28th August 1967 while en route from Phillipines to Rottererdam with a load of copra, and broke in two on the 30th.