Sea Travel To China

[woofas]

My grandfather was stationed in China from about 1898 in Hong Kong to 1903 in Wei-Hai-Wei.
Can anyone tell me how long the journey would have taken in those days?

[Dee-M-See]

If it is any help, I went to Hong Kong on the Bibby Line vessel Cheshire we sailed from Liverpool on 30th April
1956 and arrived in Hong Kong on June 6th 1956
which would be about 37 days, although in 1903 it would have been somewhat longer

[bookbinder]

Do you mean the journey from England?

[Buenchico]

On this 1914 isochronic map, the journey time to China is shown as '20 to 30 days':
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3339902/What-travel-looked-like-100-years-ago-Map-shows-DAYS-took-travel-abroad-1900s.html
I doubt that there would have been significant changes in journey times over the preceding 15 years. So, putting that together with Dee-M-See's post, a guideline time of 'about a month' might be a reasonable estimate. (The actual journey time would have depended upon the characteristics of the particular class of ship used and other factors too, such as the number of port calls en route to load and unload cargo).

Your grandfather will have got there a lot quicker than his predecessors did though, before the days of steam. 'The Witch of the Wave' (an American clipper) sailed from Canton to Deal in 1852 in what was then regarded as an astoundingly fast journey time of 90 days.

[Dee-M-See]

The Cheshire was a Troop Ship, our first Port of call was
Trincomalee which is in Ceylon the Ship bypassed Gibraltar and Malta also went via the Suez Canal
the next Port of call was Singapore then on to Hong Kong

[woofas]

Thanks for your replies.
As my grandfather was in the Service Corps it is likely that he did not travel on a troop ship in either direction. I know the date he left the UK and when he returned but have not been able to identify the ships he used. I suspect that he was on board ships listed as their first/last port of call rather than final destination/origin.
His father, in the Royal Artillery, was stationed on St Helena - that would have been an interesting journey!

[bobbinwales]

Until the 1950s all the England cricket tours to Australia went by ship and took 20-30 days each way. They must of been stiff and unfit on arrival

[New Judge]

Until 1939 "timeless" Test matches were played. The last of these was England vs South Africa in Durban. It was played over nine playing days spread over twelve. It was abandoned as a draw (theoretically impossible for a timeless Test) but the England team had to catch their boat home.