A general view of the stern section of the passenger/cargo liner Suevic (1900) which had been detached from the bow and, under its own steam, made its way backwards to the Harland and Wolff Ship Repair Yard at Southampton. The photographer is standing on the dry dock side of Trafalgar Dock (No. 6 Dock) looking into the ship from the starboard side. The hull is held in position with wooden props from the dock side. There is water in the dry dock. A dockyard worker is on deck in front of the foremast superstructure and looking down at the forward hatch, which is where the ship was blown apart, leaving a tangle of metal and collapsed decking.

The negative has been altered with masking fluid on the glass side and graphite on the emulsion side to emphasise the dark areas of the sky and ship's outline. This is a glass copy negative from an original print.

The Suevic was on passage from Melbourne to Liverpool with 382 passengers, 141 crew members and a nearly-full cargo, including thousands of sheep carcasses worth £400,000. Due to a navigational error the ship was closer in shore and further ahead of their assumed position. Suevic ran aground on the Maenheere Reef below The Lizard at full speed on 17 March 1907 and despite attempts to get her off using full stern the ship was stuck. The passengers and crew were removed by RNLI boats from four stations, taking 16 hours. As the bow was stuck on the rocks and lightening the ship did not refloat it, White Star decided to take the advice of their salvage contractors and had the stern section detached using small charges of dynamite on 2 April 1907. The stern section then steamed in reverse under its own power to Southampton where it was drydocked on 6 April 1907, while a new bow section was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.