Volume Two - The Era of Optimism, Investment & Development - The demise of H.M.S. Exmouth at Penarth Dock - 1905 . . .

At 243 feet (74m) long x just over 62 feet (18.4m) beam, she was was of 3,080 tons loaded, displaced 4,382 tons and was manned with a compliment of 830 officers and men.

H.M.S. Exmouth was lent to the Metropolitan Asylum Board from 1877 onwards to provide training for boys from the age of 12 years. The boys were taught seamanship and life skills and provided with scholarly training; the objective being to provide pauper boys with a career with mutual benefit for them and their country and in an economic manner.

This continued until April 1905 when T.S. Exmouth was sold at auction. Here we have an anomaly in that the buyer was Mr George Cohen according to some accounts but contrary to this, the local newspaper report on the previous page names Mr. Norris of Cowbridge-road, Cardiff as the buyer.

Who bought the Exmouth at auction?

		Exmouth wasn't the only 'wooden wall' broken locally during 1905. On the 11th of January 1905 the Cardiff Times reported that at Portsmouth Dockyard the hulk of a former 22 gun sailing corvette, used as an industrial school, 'partially embedded in the ground fronting Penarth-road, Cardiff' was sold at auction to Mr. Norris of Cowbridge-road, Canton, Cardiff for the sum of £1,030. Fuller Horsey & Co. were the auctioneers and the other principal bidder was Mr T. Andrews, also of Cardiff. That ship was the Havannah.
'Havannah' [019]

Further the Evening Express reported on the demise of another ship from the era:-

Endymion To Be Broken Up - 'The wooden walls of England are fast falling to pieces. The Havannah industrial home for Cardiff boys is being broken up, and now the report comes to hand that Mr. H. Norris, who purchased the Havannah, has possession for the sum of between £3,000 and £4,000 of the old hulk Endymion, which was built by the Admiralty in 1858, and is now moored in Penarth harbour. Mr. Norris purchased the ship in London for breaking-up purposes, and the work will be taken in hand shortly.' Evening Express [135] [361] 6th February 1905.