SS Antoine Fraissinet
Maker
Unknown
Production date
1903
Description
View of a cargo ship with an island bridge and funnel. She is flying what is probably the French flag for her stern.
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Public comments
The SS Antoine Fraissinet was built in Grangemouth for the Fraissinet Shipping Company based in Marseilles. My great-grandfather Frank Charles Sinclair, who lived in Dunfermline, was the marine engineer who designed and installed the ship's engines. He sailed with the ship on her maiden voyage in 1903 as the guarantee engineer to snag the new engines. The ship was bound from Marseilles to South Africa when she was struck by a tropical storm at Cape las Palmas at Liberia on the west coast of Africa. Most of the crew, including Frank managed to get ashore before the ship sank, apart from one crew member in the engine room. According to our family history, my grandfather was picked up on the beach by two nuns from a local mission who got him to the local hospital. He was recovering from his ordeal, but unfortunately contracted malaria from which he died two months later after returning to Marseilles. He left behind Jessie and four children, one of whom was my grandfather William Sinclair. Frank was probably chosen to do the engineering work on the SS Antoine because he was a fluent French speaker having excelled in the language at Dundee Academy, winning a gold medal. My great grandfather's family came from Glendevon in southern Perthshire, and his brother William was a cattle dealer in the glen in 1903. William had been keen for Frank to join him as a partner on the farm and he was seriously considering the offer before he died aged 34.
- Robert Sinclair posted 10 months ago.