Bedford, named after the
English county, was
laid down on 19 February 1900 by
Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering at their
Govan shipyard. She was
launched on 31 August 1901, when she was christened by Charlotte Mary Emily Burns, wife of
the Hon. James Cleland Burns, of the
Cunard Line shipping family. In May 1902 she was navigated to
Devonport for completion and trials. The ship was completed on 11 November 1903 and initially assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet.
Bedford was briefly placed in reserve at the
Nore in 1906 before being
recommissioned in February 1907 for service on the China Station. On 20 August 1910, four armoured cruisers of the China Station, under the command of
Vice-Admiral Alfred Winsloe aboard , departed
Wei-Hai-Wei, bound for
Nagasaki, Japan. Winsloe ordered his ships to conduct machinery trials en route, initially at full power before reducing to three-fifths power. As the ships rounded the tip of the
Shandong Peninsula and entered the
Yellow Sea heading southeast,
Bedford was leading the cruisers by at least and each ship was navigating independently. The weather was misty and rainy with
Force 3–5
head winds; there was a
full moon with a
spring tide. One of the other cruisers, , checked her navigation when she spotted Ross Island at 05:00 the following morning and found that she was north and east of her estimated position. Heavy cloud cover had prevented all four ships from using
celestial navigation to fix their position with any certainty;
Kent was the only one that spotted a landmark clearly enough to determine her position.
Bedford got a partial star observation at 04:15, but the
bridge crew was distracted by spotting land off the port side just seven minutes later and did not make the calculations until later. The
navigator was called to the bridge and he assumed that it was Loney Bluff on the southwest side of
Quelpart Island in the
East China Sea. There was nothing else visible eastwards and the position was within of the ship's estimated position. The stellar observation was finally worked out by 04:35 and it gave a position some north of the
dead reckoning position, although it could not be confirmed. At 04:40 land was sighted ahead of the ship and the navigator ordered a turn to
starboard to reverse course at 04:47. About 10 seconds after starting the turn a rock was spotted off the starboard bow and he attempted to reverse his turn, but
Bedford ran aground on Samarang Reef, some north and west of her estimated position. The Japanese salvage ships arrived on 24 August and began removing more equipment and guns and a Royal Navy
naval architect arrived two days later to assess the possibility of refloating
Bedford. He concluded that it was possible if the good weather continued, but it would be very expensive and did not recommend doing so. Winsloe decided to continue salvaging equipment from the wreck, although the Japanese returned home on the 27th, but was forced to abandon it on 31 August when another typhoon was approaching the wreck site. By this time the British and Japanese had salvaged 14 six-inch guns, 13 torpedoes, and much gunnery and fire-control equipment in addition to the items removed earlier. Winsloe contracted with
Mitsubishi to salvage the wreck on 20 August, but they were only able to work seven days on it by 14 October. The wreck was later sold at auction in Hong Kong after the initial auction failed to meet the
£5,000 reserve.
Bedfords
captain,
Captain Edward Fitzherbert and the navigator,
Lieutenant Dixie, were subsequently court-martialled. Although Dixie had accounted for the head sea and wind in his dead reckoning, he failed to account for
currents or tides, expecting them to cancel out. They were both found guilty of "suffering the ship to be stranded" and Dixie was found not guilty of the charge of negligence while Fitzherbert was found guilty. Both were sentenced to be "dismissed their ship" and severely reprimanded. Fitzherbert later retired as a
vice-admiral while Dixie became an instructor in navigation. ==Notes==