The wreck sits upright on the seabed. The stern and aft section lies slightly out of alignment with the remainder of the vessel. The fore and aft decks around the holds have collapsed. The propellor shaft is visible in the bottom of the hold leading to the stern. The stern remains substantially intact. The ship's bell marked CHELFORD has been recovered and reported to the Receiver of Wreck.

Event and Historical Information:
The CHELFORD was built by W Gray & Co Ltd, West Hartlepool, in 1906. Technical and configuration specifications are given as 2995gt, 1907nt; 300ft 7in length x 46ft 1in breadth x 21ft 9in depth, steel-hulled; screw propulsion powered by twin steam boilers linked to a triple expansion engine producing 280hp; machinery supplied by Central Marine Engineering Works, West Hartlepool, official number 119891, International Code Letters HFLP. The CHELFORD was one of 200 vessels built by Gray's between 1900 and 1914 (the yard had 11 shipbuilding berths and employed some 3000 men). At time of loss, the CHELFORD was owned by F Yeoman and registered at West Hartlepool. Francis Yeoman started out as a clerk in the firm of his uncle, Sherinton Foster, who, as well as being a shipbroker and shipowner was also a master mariner. Francis eventually became a partner and the company became Foster & Yeoman. On his uncle's death he took over the business and formed a partnership Joseph Murrell in 1881. Francis Yeoman's obituary in Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, Wednesday 29 April 1914, notes that he suffered a seizure on Hartlepool golf links at around the time of the CHELFORD's loss, dying at this home, Gainford House, Hartlepool, on 28 April 1914. It also notes Francis Yeoman had been elected secretary of the Hartlepools Shipowners? Society in 1866 and was the district secretary of the Shipping Federation in 1902. He was one of Hartlepools best known and most respected citizens, having also been a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Town Council. The Mercantile Navy List of 1915 gives the name of the managing owner as Harry Yeoman, 133 Exchange Buildings, Cardiff. The CHELFORD was on passage from Glasgow to Barry roads (in ballast) on 14 April 1918 when it was torpedoed by UB-73 between Bardsey Island and St Georges Channel. The crew managed to escape with no loss of life before the ship sank. The wreck was located by HMS FAWN in May 1981. The ship was included in the multi-beam surveys undertaken by Bangor University in 2018, as part of the Royal Commission's HLF funded Partnership Project - 'Commemorating the Forgotten U-Boat War around the Welsh Coast 1914-18'.

Sources include:

Chelford, Hartlepool History Then and Now
Chelford, U-Boat Project: Commemorating the War at Sea
Chelford, uboat.net
HMSO, 1988, British Vessels Lost at Sea 1914-18 and 1939-45, p.86
Larn and Larn shipwreck database 2002
Lloyd's Register Casualty Returns, 1 April - 30 June 1918, p.9 (i)
Receiver of Wreck Droits Database 2007, RCIM6/2/5
SS Chelford, Wreck Site EU
UB 73, uboat.net
UK Hydrographic Office Wrecks and Obstructions Database. ? Crown Copyright and database rights. Reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office and the UK Hydrographic Office (www.ukho.gov.uk).

Maritime Officer, RCAHMW, March 2019.

This record was enhanced in 2020 with funding from Lloyd's Register Foundation as part of the project ‘Making the Link: Lloyd's Register and the National Monuments Record of Wales’. Visit Lloyd’s Register Foundation Heritage and Education Centre for more resources.