Descendants of John and Theodocia (nee John) NICHOLAS of Bletherston

First Name : Thomas J. Last Name : Nicholas Nationality : Wales, Welsh Date of Arrival : January 19th, 1895 Age at Arrival : 19y Gender : Male Ship of Travel : Lucania Port of Departure : Liverpool & Queenstown Manifest Line Number : 0024

About the Ship - SS Lucania Built by Armstrong, Mitchell & Company, Newcastle, England, 1891. 5,140 gross tons; 421 (bp) feet long; 48 feet wide. Steam Triple Expansion engines, twin screw. Service speed 13.5 knots. 1,116 passengers (84 first class, 32 second class, 1000 third class). Three masts and one funnel. Steel hull. Laid down as the LUCANIA.

Ship History

Built for British owners, British flag, in 1891 and intended to be the Lucania.

Sold to North German Lloyd, German flag, in 1892 and renamed H.H. Meier. Bremen to Baltimore then Bremen to New York service.

Sold to Compania Transatlantica Line, Spanish flag, in 1901 and renamed Manuel Calvo. Barcelona-New York-Caribbean service. Damaged by a mine off Turkey; later repaired and resumed service .

Laid up Spanish owners, in 1952 and renamed Drago.

Scrapped in Spain in 1959.

The modern era started when the American engineer Bradley[clarification needed] finally developed a method of working low grade oxidised copper ores. In 1910 he approached the lawyer and industrialist Albert C Burrage who sent engineers to examine Chuquicamata. It was the start of copper mining by the Chile Exploration Company of the Guggenheim Group. Their reports were good and in April 1911 he started to buy up mines and claims, mainly from the larger mining companies, in association with Duncan Fox y Cia., an English entrepreneur.[1][2]

Since Burrage did not have the capital to develop a mine, he approached the Guggenheim Brothers. They examined his claims and estimated reserves at 690 million tonnes grading 2.58% copper.[12] The Guggenheims also had a process for treating the low grade ores developed by Elias Anton Cappelen Smith[13] and were immediately interested, organised the Chile Exploration Company (Chilex) in January 1912 and eventually bought out Burrage for US$25 million (or $649 million today) in Chilex stock. E. A. Cappelen Smith, consulting metallurgist for M. Guggenheim's Sons, worked out the first process for the treatment of Chuquicamata copper oxide ore about 1913, and directed a staff of engineers operating a pilot plant at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, on three shifts for an entire year.[14][15]

Chilex then went ahead with the development and construction of a mine on the eastern section of the Chuquicamata field. (It acquired the remainder of the field gradually over the next 15 years). The 10,000 tons per day leaching plant was planned to produce 50,000 tons of electrolytic copper annually. Amongst the equipment purchased were steam shovels from the Panama Canal.[2][16] A port and an oil-fired power plant were built at Tocopilla, 140 km (90 mi) to the west and an aqueduct was constructed to bring water in from the Andes.[17] Production started on May 18, 1915. Actual production rose from 4,345 tonnes in the first year to 50,400 tonnes in 1920 and 135,890 tonnes in 1929 before the Depression hit and demand fell.[18]

The Guggenheims sold the mine to Anaconda Copper in 1923. (wikipedia -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuquicamata)

Phelps Dodge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phelps_Dodge