SS Suffolk was a refrigerated cargo steamship that was built in England in 1899 for the Federal Steam Navigation Company.

[2] In 1896 R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Company at Hebburn on the River Tyne launched Cornwall and Devon, a pair of sister ships for Federal Steam,[3] each with 229,960 cubic feet (6,512 m3) of refrigerated cargo space.

Another ship that Hawthorn, Leslie laid down for Federal Steam to the same design was bought on the stocks by Shaw, Savill & Albion Line and launched in 1899 as Karamea.

[11] Suffolk had a steel hull, built on the deep frame principle, with cellular water ballast tanks fore and aft.

[citation needed] J & E Hall supplied her refrigerating equipment, which used compressed "cabonic anhydride" (i.e. carbon dioxide).

There she discharged the steel plate, which was for a water project at Coolgardie; the cable, which was to be laid under the sea between Cottesloe and Rottnest Island; and a large general cargo.

[17] On 24 March she reached Sydney in New South Wales,[22] where she embarked a team of carpenters who were to install fittings on her two upper cargo decks to accommodate 800 horses as she steamed to Queensland and back.

Both her Master and her Chief Engineer praised Cairns as the only port they had visited since Sydney that had a wharf in water deep enough for Suffolk to moor alongside.

On 31 March she reached Broadmount, where she was the first ship to load frozen meat from refrigerator cars brough by rail from Lakes Creek, instead of it being brought downriver by tenders.

A special passenger train ran from Archer Creek railway station to Broadmount to take interested businesspeople to watch the new operation.

[15] On 18 April she reached Newcastle, where she loaded 763 horses for South Africa in less than five and a half hours, and left the next day to return to Sydney.

Suffolk continued on this course until 03:20 hrs on 24 September, when the Second Officer, Charles Stokes, who was on watch, heard breakers and put the helm hard-a-port.

[34] The Elder, Dempster steamship Lake Erie was passing, 4 to 5 nautical miles (7 to 9 km) farther out to sea, and came to investigate.

[34] After consultation, Captain Cuthbert, his officers and men, and the hostlers, abandoned Suffolk at 12:30 hrs and transferred to Lake Erie.

It found that Second Officer Stokes was inexplicably absent from the bridge in the minutes before she grounded; and that Captain Cuthbert should have been supervising her navigation along so hazardous a section of coast.