Scale: 1:48. A contemporary full hull builder’s model of the passenger steamer ‘Mexican’ (1882) mounted in its original wooden glazed display case. The hull is complete with numerous fittings including a large number of lifeboats rigged from their davits, deck accommodation and ventilation cowlings. It is also fitted with stump masts as the single-screw propeller was as a backup to the sailing rig.

She was built by James Laing & Co., Sunderland, and measured 378 feet in length by 47 feet in the beam and a tonnage of 4668 gross. The single-screw triple-expansion engine was capable of a service speed of 12 knots and when she was commissioned, the ‘Mexican’ was the largest vessel to operate to South Africa, capable of carrying 280 passengers in three classes. In the late-19th century, she carried troops to Honk Kong during the Russian scare in 1885, and later to South Africa in 1899.

On 5 April 1900, the ‘Mexican’ left Cape Town for Southampton with passengers and mail and hit dense fog about 80 miles north. Nearing midnight, she was involved in collision with the SS ‘Winkfield’ and holed. Attempts to repair the damage eventually failed and she sank at noon the next day, becoming her new owners the Union Castle Steamship Company’s first loss, less than a month after the formation of the new company.