Josephine
Samuel Owen was born in 1774 in Norton in Hales, a small English village. In 1800, he was hired as a mechanic at a company that manufactured steam engines. When Abraham Edelcrantz bought four steam engines from the company, he requested that one of their mechanics accompany him to Sweden to be in charge of installing the engines.
Owen then went back to his homeland, but returned in 1806 to settle in Stockholm. He was employed as a foreman at Bergsund’s foundry. Owen bought premises on Kungsholmen in Stockholm and opened his mechanical workshop, where he experimented with steam engines for boats.
His first boat with a steam engine was a Roslag hoy with a steam engine called Stockholmshäxan, the Stockholm Witch. After that, he built several steamboats including Experiment and Amphitrite. The latter became Sweden’s first steamboat in regular passenger service.
In 1825, Owen had five steamships in regular passenger service in Stockholm, one of which was named Josephine. The ship was launched in 1824 and was, according to the tonnage measurement documents, about 34 m long and 7 m wide. The ship could carry 600–700 passengers and had an 80-horsepower steam engine.
Late in the autumn of 1827, Josephine was travelling from Strängnäs when she caught fire shortly after her departure. In an attempt to save the ship, the commander steered towards land. Boats despatched to the scene were able to rescue everyone on board, but the ship was completely destroyed.
Today the remains of the ship lie close to the beach at Djupvik, about 3.5 km east of Strängnäs. Investigations at the site in 1974 revealed that only a part of the ship’s bottom is preserved deep down in the bottom sediment, 15 m from the shore. The rest of the ship had been destroyed in the fierce fire.
Facts
Deep
Build
1824
Length
Cirka 34 metres
Width
Cirka 7 metres
Shipwreck
1827
Ship type
Ångfartyg