Divers have found the wreck of a British steam ship that sank in April 1901 off Tungyin Island, part of modern-day Taiwan, which they think may have been carrying loot from the British army’s Relief of Peking eight months beforehand.

The 7,382-ton SS Sobraon had only been launched in Greenock 14 months previously and was on its way back to London from Shanghai via Hong Kong when she struck rocks off the remote island just after 3am on April 24, 1901.

The 210 crew and passengers managed to take to the lifeboats and get ashore on a night that the Board of Trade inquiry in London said was “very dark and cloudy”, but the SS Sobraon eventually foundered and was declared “a total wreck”.

Today the island is a heavily fortified outpost of Taiwan that is 90 miles northwest of the Taiwanese port of Keelung but only 25 miles from the coast of China. The site of early-warning radar facilities and missile batteries, high security has for decades limited recreational diving off the island.

Given the islands’ position on an important trade route, the loss of the SS Sobraon shocked British maritime authorities so much that London paid for the construction of a lighthouse that still stands on the same site today.

Diving conditions at the site are also challenging, with local tides and weather patterns meaning that underwater searches can only be carried out between June and September, according to Jimmy Fan, a member of the Taiwanese team that located the wreck.

“The tides are very strong and we had to wait for the winds to come from the south, and even when we were in the water the visibility was only 2 feet,” said Mr Fan.

The ship had originally been found by Lin Cheng-yang, of the Taiwan Ocean Security Conserve Association, last year, but artefacts that could identify the vessel could not be recovered.

This year, divers brought up metal taps, part of a hatch cover, railings and the nozzle of a fire hose.

“The ship is at a depth of about 30 metres [98 feet] and is badly broken up,” Mr Fan said. “Many storms in the years since it sank have broken the wreck up, but we were able to see some of the hull plating, we found one of the two masts and one of the two propellers.”

The official inquiry into the loss of the ship, which was owned by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., said the vessel was carrying 800 tons of cargo. Accounts from the time suggest that the majority of the cargo, apart from some silk, was lost.

“We’re interested in finding out what the ship was carrying as it may still be in the wreckage,” said Mr Fan. “This boat was one of the most modern in the world at the time, if had only been built one year earlier, and it had left Shanghai heading for London.”

Mr Fan believes that the ship may have been carrying the spoils of the British military intervention in Beijing to lift the siege of 11 foreign legations during the Boxer Rebellion.

The aftermath of the action has been described as a frenzy of looting, with each of the allied nations accusing the other of being the worst pilferer of priceless items of China’s cultural heritage. The British force reportedly held “loot auctions” at the legation, with the proceeds shared out among the troops.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk