A painting of a ship that was involved in one of the most astonishing sea dramas of the First World War is going under the hammer at an auction in Louth.

The 120-year-old artwork, of an Edwardian passenger steam ship, turned up out of the blue when a house in Lincolnshire was being cleared.

It had been picked up for a song at a local car-boot sale by a former trawler skipper, John Dacombe, who lived in Grimsby.

The painting, to be sold with another, at John Taylors Auction Rooms on Eastgate on Tuesday morning (September 1, 10 am) is only expected to fetch a couple of hundred pounds.

The painting, by Dutch artist Alfred Jansen, of SS Wrexham, which was involved in a dramatic chase, pursued by a German U-boat, during the First World War.

placeholder image — The painting, by Dutch artist Alfred Jansen, of SS Wrexham, which was involved in a dramatic chase, pursued by a German U-boat, during the First World War.

But the amazing back-story of the ship, known as the SS Wrexham, is worth much more to all students of maritime history.

The Wrexham was a Russian-built passenger ship that was bought by the Great Central Railway in 1905 and taken to the Humber for ferry services to the continent.

Four months into the First World War, the Wrexham was moved south to help out with Eastern Railways’ Harwich-to-Rotterdam service, and it was on a run to the continent on March 2 in 1915 when a German submarine surfaced and ordered the ship to stop.

The Wrexham’s captain, James Fryatt, declined the invitation (!) and there then followed an incredible chase in which Fryatt pushed the Wrexham (official top speed of 14 knots) 40 miles across the North Sea at 18 knots, reaching Rotterdam just a few hundred yards ahead of the pursuing U-boat.

The second of Jansen's paintings that is up for auction in Louth. This is of SS Dewsbury, which saw service in both world wars.

The Wrexham and her crew received a heroes’ welcome, but Captain Fryatt became a marked man and the Germans got him only three months later.

With the Wrexham out of action, getting its burnt-out funnels and thrashed engines sorted out, he was given the larger and faster SS Brussels to steer.

But a flotilla of German torpedo boats managed to corner the Brussels and take it in to Zeebrugge in Belgium, where the Germans caused international shock and outrage by putting Fryatt on trial.

Despite his civilian and non-combatant status, he was the subject of a brief court-martial, condemned to death and shot the same day.

Auctioneer James Laverack, of John Taylors in Louth.

The painting of the Wrexham, which is the work of the Dutch marine artist Alfred Jansen (1859-1935), ended up at the home of Dacombe after be bought it at a car-boot.

James Laverack, director of John Taylors, said: “The painting is signed A.J. Jansen and is inscribed Antwerpen ‘06, so it was done very shortly after the Great Central Railway bought the ship and began using it on the North Sea crossings.

"It has been entered into the auction by members of the family of Dacombe, who was one of the leading trawler skippers of the 1960s and 1970s and who, after retirement, became a fan of car-boot sales, going to events all over Lincolnshire.

"The Wrexham painting was one of his finds and it joined a mass of trawler and shipping paintings and photographs with which he adorned the walls of his home.

“Skipper Dacombe died some years ago, but his collection of pictures remained in place until members of the family had to clear the house after the death of his wife last year.”

“The family were unaware of the exploits of the ship depicted in the painting, and they were quite astonished when we briefed them on the story.”

Meanwhile, Dacombe’s collection yielded another railway company steamship painting that is believed to be the work of Jansen -- a portrait of the SS Dewsbury, a vessel built on the Humber, at Earle’s Shipyard in Hull, in 1910.

She was one of four ships ordered for the Great Central Railways’ Grimsby-to-Hamburg and Hull-to-Zeebrugge services.

James went on: “Like the Wrexham, the Dewsbury also had a close shave during the First World War. She was actually berthed in Hamburg when the war broke out but managed to escape and get safely home to the Humber.

“Unlike the Wrexham, which was eventually wrecked in the White Sea in 1918 while on the way from Grimsby to Murmansk in Russia with a cargo of ammunition, the Dewsbury survived that war and the next, in which she served as a military convoy escort vessel and rescue ship

"She even achieved the ripe old age of 50 before being scrapped. Her bell is preserved in the collection of the Science Museum in London.”

As for the likely outcome of the auction, James added: “Jansen’s ship paintings have sold for well over a thousand pounds in the past, but these two are in need of a clean and, in the case of the Wrexham, some restoration work.

"For that reason, they are being sold together as a pair and have been given a modest pre-sale estimate of just £200.”