Isles of Scilly

Railways 200: a maritime perspective, Part Three

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All Aboard!

In the last blog we looked at the 19th century rise in passenger travel and the drive to make the connectivity between trains and ships an ever more seamless experience for both passengers and cargo. But how could that experience be made even more seamless?

Train ferries: the beginnings

The answer: by making it multi-modal! The concept had its origins in Scotland, on boats on the Forth & Clyde Canal onto which railway wagons were loaded from the Monkland & Kirkintilloch Railway from 1833 onwards [1].

As stated in Part Two, the new ‘rail and sail’ technologies were brought into use on existing routes, with trains serving existing ports. In the next – also Scottish – case, this included ferries traversing the Firth of Forth. The passage across from Burntisland to Granton evolved towards a conventional train-ferry-train arrangement, but from 1850 onwards trains were rolled on to the purpose-built paddle steamer Leviathan and rolled off again at the other end. This permitted the carriage of ‘goods, minerals, etc. without breaking bulk’, i.e. without having to be unloaded from the train, loaded on to the ferry, unloaded off the ferry, and once more loaded onto the train. [2]

‘The first experimental trial took place on Wednesday last . . . 12 trucks, laden with coals and general merchandise, were taken on board at Burntisland in about seven minutes. The time occupied by the steamer in crossing was 25 minutes, and the trucks were safely run ashore at Grandon in the course of three minutes afterwards.’ [3]

The train ferry had a 40 year lifespan until the Forth Bridge – still in operation today – effectively replaced it in 1890.

Train ferries: the 20th century

There was a short-lived attempt to run a train ferry to the Isle of Wight between 1884-1888 [4] but it would not be until the First World War that the concept of the train ferry came into its own again in UK waters – more specifically, English waters – meeting a critical need. The Richborough train ferries came into being, with corresponding infrastructure built at Calais and Dunkirk, shuttling war matériel back and forth across the Channel. These were known simply as Train Ferries 1 to 3 (TF1 to TF3). [5]

Historic black and white print of the hull of a vessel propped up by timber props (left of image). The sheer size of the hull casts shadows and dwarfs the tiny figures working underneath (bottom right of image)
Building a Cross-Channel Train-ferry : Underneath the bows (Art.IWM ART 1481) Part of a series by the artist recording shipbuilding on the Clyde, this image is sometimes labelled in other collections as Building a Cross-Channel Ferry. If this is indeed a train ferry, it almost certainly references TF3, which was built on the Clyde by Fairfield, Govan.
Muirhead Bone, Wellington House and Ministry of Information Commission, First World War Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/2634

The then new-fangled medium of film provides extraordinary footage of the train ferry berthing at Dunkirk, a locomotive reversing from landside and coupling up with the wagons, filled with tanks and shells – which also illustrates that the modus operandi was to carry rolling stock only and be re-linked with a locomotive at the other end, not to run a locomotive onto the ferry. Aerial photographs – again a remarkable new hybrid technology facilitated by the war, of camera equipment on board aircraft – of the train ferry making the crossing with wagon-loads of tanks, confirm that locos did not also make the crossing. The film and aerial photos also show that the train ferries were painted in dazzle camouflage – a temporary measure adopted in the latter stages of the war (see our blog on March 1918 for more on dazzle camouflage).

Multi-modal transport here intersects with the temporary – the military train ferries and the ship camouflage regime – in a conjunction of new technologies and new ideas.

Historic black & white photograph of railway wagons on either side of a train ferry, with empty tracks in the middle. The ferry is in port being loaded as the gantry is visible in the background. Wires from the vessel's superstructure criss-cross the foreground.
First World War train ferry
Science Museum Group Collection © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co417786/horwich-collection CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

TF4 was built at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, for the St. Lawrence River in Canada, but was also rendered obsolete three years after delivery by the opening of the Quebec Bridge in 1917. [6] She was navigated back to Britain for the Southampton-Cherbourg train ferry run over 17 days, which, in a transatlantic landscape of war, was no mean feat for a fairly evidently slow vessel that would have proven very vulnerable both to deep-sea waves and any lurking enemy dangers.

TF4’s time on the Southampton-Cherbourg service was also to be brief, ending in 1919, but she was a remarkable vessel which operated differently to the others, with a platform that could be lowered to connect with the landward end, rather than using linkspans to ‘bridge the gap’ as TF1-TF3 did.

Modern photograph of train ferry model in glass case
Model of the Leonard at the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead, where she was built, on showing rolling stock conveyed on the raised platform which could be lowered as required. Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons 3.0

Rolling on into the mid 20th century

It would not be until the early 1920s that the train ferries would once more be put to use for their intended purpose, in a joint Anglo-Belgian enterprise between the Great Eastern Ferry Company Ltd. and the Société Belgo-Anglaise des Ferry Boats, for a service to be run from 1923 onwards between Harwich and Zeebrugge. [7]

The question was how to transport the landside infrastructure at Southampton to Harwich. The proposed solution was to ‘load the bridge on one barge, and the towers and machinery on another’ in tow of the tug Plumgarth in early September. This did not end well. ‘When out in the North Sea the weather became very rough, and the continued heavy rolling motion caused slight damage to the barge with the tower on it, and she started to take in water.’ [8]

The master of the tug tried to reach Harwich, but ‘. . . the waves pounded in between the two barges, causing one to drag on the other in a submerged condition.’ [9] The incident occurred on the 5th of September and by the 12th the wreck sites of the barges and the infrastructure had been marked in a Trinity House Notice to Mariners. [10] By the following week one of the barges had been raised, with salvage works ongoing. [11] By the beginning of October the ferry bridge (or linkspan) had been brought ashore at Harwich, but it was not possible to raise the towers.

History does not record whether the second barge was recovered, but it may have been underneath the towers. The wreckage was cleared by explosives, since it lay in the fairway on the approaches to Harwich, but the site is now uncharted, suggesting that any archaeological remains may, at best, be level with the seabed. [12]

Fortunately the towers from Richborough were still available to mesh with the linkspan from Southampton and the Harwich-Zeebrugge service commenced operations in 1924.

Historic black and white aerial view of Harwich harbour, with the train ferry docked in the foreground, with rails running onto the ship at bottom right. The shoreline is seen at right with other ships berthed or moving about in the harbour.
Trinity Pier and the Train Ferry Berth, Harwich, 1952 EAW043676 © Historic England Archive

The Harwich train ferry continued in operation until 1987, alongside the Night Ferry service between Dover and Dunkirk, introduced in 1936. Both services ceased operations for the duration of the Second World War, while the train ferries once more went to war, and TF3 was lost to a mine off Dieppe in 1945. [13]

A vintage colour poster advertising 'The Night Ferry' train service, featuring a nighttime scene with sleeping cars and train details, over a timetable advertising the nightly service in both directions between London and Paris. The poster has evidence of streaks which look like water or oil damage to the left.
British Railways (Southern Region) Night Ferry poster, Barber, 1953
Science Museum Group Collection © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co231568/the-night-ferry CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Both services resumed post-war, the Dover-Dunkirk service ceasing operations in 1980, but the Harwich-Zeebrugge ferry managing to survive until 1987. The berth at Harwich was listed at Grade II that year. [14]

Modern colour photograph of the 1923 gantry, painted in grey, and rusty dock infrastructure, under a cloudy sky.
View of the gantry towers at Harwich Train Ferry Berth from the south-east, 2014
DP165500© Historic England Archive

Trains on board ship

We have seen that small ships could be carried on trains in kit form, and we have also seen that full trains (minus their locomotives) could be carried on board ship, fusing the two modes of transport together. There were other circumstances in which ships carried trains, including locomotives, and other railway materials – wheels, carriages, sleepers, and so on – primarily for export during the expansion of the railways during the 19th century. At that time these export cargoes were often described by the catch-all term ‘railway iron’.

Our earliest example of such a wreck is the Ann, lost in 1844 off Whitby with a locomotive consigned from Newcastle for one of the south coast railways. [15] Even though Britain’s railways were booming, there was no other way to get stock to its intended destination on a network that was not yet fully joined up.

Thereafter losses of ships carrying railway components occurred with some regularity, and underline the truly international nature of Britain’s railway exports. The English brigantine Spartan stranded in Cornwall during a storm in 1846, with ‘railway iron’ from Cardiff for Livorno, for example. [16]

In 1849 the Archelaus of New Orleans foundered at her anchors off Lundy Island, again bound from Cardiff with ‘railway iron’ but for New York. ‘Railway bars’ were regularly brought up from the wreck over the course of the ensuing six months by a number of local vessels engaged in the salvage operation. [17]

Occasionally the wrecks would involve three countries: Britain as the manufacturer and exporter of the railway components, the destination country to which they were consigned, conveyed by a ship belonging to a third country. A good example is the Dutch galliot Jonge Wirther, which again stranded on the Cornish coast en route from Cardiff to Stettin (now Szczecin) in 1846. [18]

The export trade in British railway technology was truly global. The American full-rigged ship Cornelia likewise foundered off the Isles of Scilly while bound from Greenock for Santos in Brazil with rolling stock and railway components in 1861. The Palala was wrecked on Kimmeridge Ledge, Dorset, in 1886 while bound for Durban with a general cargo including wines, candles, tins of paint, and eight railway carriages. [19]

A modern colour 3D scan of a shipwreck showing railway wheels and machinery, covered in sediment.
Perspective view of the Brackenholme and her export cargo of rolling stock components for Denmark lost off St. Catherine’s Point, Isle of Wight, following a collision in 1865 with HMS Supply.
Maritime Archaeology Trust

Such exports continued into the 20th century, including railway carriages consigned for France in the First World War: see our blogs for the Africa, 1915, and St. Chamond, 1918, which also makes a comparison with the Fort Massac, lost in the Thames Estuary with a loco from Darlington consigned for South Africa in 1946.

One story that comes up over and over again with consignments of ‘railway iron’ is its propensity for the cargo to shift, with predictably disastrous results. This happened to the full-rigged ship Ganges in 1881, stranding on the Goodwin Sands en route from Middlesbrough for Calcutta; the clipper South Australian, which foundered off Lundy in 1889 while bound from Cardiff to Rosario (and now a Scheduled Ancient Monument). [19]

Possibly our most extraordinary story of an unfortunate railway cargo concerns the English schooner Georgiana, bound from London for Cork with railway sleepers in 1881. She ran aground near the Manacles and ‘signals of distress were made by pouring paraffin on an old sail and lighting it.’ Though this was successful in alerting rescuers to the crew, it was disastrous as it ‘ignited some of the creosoted railway sleepers’ and burnt the vessel to the waterline. [20]

Coming full circle: the last rail & steamship experience

And finally . . . no blog linking the sea with the railways is complete without referring to the Southend Pier Railway running for most of the length of the Grade II-listed pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world. The pier head is approximately 1 and a third miles out to sea on a stretch of mud flat shoreline in which the sea can recede up to a mile at low tide. Since the pier head therefore stands in deep water, the pier thus served a practical purpose in enabling vessels to draw alongside to take trips out into the Thames Estuary.

This tradition continues today with the regular visits to the pier by paddle steamer Waverley, the last sea-going steamer still operating in the world, to pick up passengers for pleasure cruises in the Thames. Part of the experience is taking the train out to sea! And so we come full circle, for the Waverley was built for the London and North-Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1947, just before the railways were nationalised in 1948.

Historic black and white aerial view of the Southend Pier Railway stretching over water from top left to lower right: the railway is seen in operation with a train towards lower right
A train near Middle Landing on Southend Pier, 1928 EPW024886 Source: Historic England Archive

We hope you’ve enjoyed your voyage on the high seas and the connections we’ve made between trains and ships!

With many thanks to Andrew Wyngard, railway consultant for this blog.

Logo celebrating 200 years of train travel since 1825, featuring stylized numbers and a train graphic.

Footnotes

[1] Hennessey R 2016 ‘The Train Ferries: Part One’ Backtrack (30:11 661-667); ‘The Train Ferries: Part Two’ Backtrack (30:12, 742-747)

[2] ‘Melancholy Accident at Burntisland’, The Scotsman, 30 January 1850, No.3,137, p3

[3] ‘The Floating Railway across the Forth’, Bell’s Life in London & Sporting Chronicle 10 February 1850, p2 [issue not numbered]

[4] Hennessey 2016; Burns R 2023 ‘Train Ferries’, Maritime Archaeology Trust online

[5] ibid. ; Batchelor, S 2014 Port of Richborough and the birth of the cross-Channel train ferry Railway Museum online

[6] Hennessey 2016. She was converted post-war into the oil tanker Limax, and was broken up at Kobe, Japan, in 1932 (Report of Total Loss, Casualty &c. for Limax, 26 January 1932, LRF-PUN-W639-0101-W)

[7] ‘The Harwich Train Ferries’, Harwich and Dovercourt: a time gone by, online (nd); National Heritage List for England, Harwich Train Ferry Berth, official list entry 1187897, first listed 1987

[8] ‘250-ton Ferry Bridge Lost: Lighters founder six miles from port’, Lancashire Daily Post, 6 September 1923, No.11,307, p4

[9] ibid.

[10] Notice to Mariners No.64 of 1923 Liverpool Journal of Commerce, 15 September 1923, No.30,232, p6

[11] ‘The Sunken Train-Ferry Bridge’, Staffordshire Sentinel, 18 September 1923, p3

[12] Shields Daily News, 4 October 1923, No.20,150, p6; ‘The Harwich Train Ferries’, Harwich and Dovercourt: a time gone by, online (nd); examination of UKHO data in and around the position quoted in [10] above

[13] The Loss of the Train Ferry HMS Daffodil Maritime Archaeology Trust, online

[14] National Heritage List for England, Harwich Train Ferry Berth, official list entry 1187897, first listed 1987

[15] Historic England NMHR records

[16] Historic England NMHR records

[17] Historic England NMHR records

[18] Historic England NMHR records

[19] Historic England NMHR records

[20] Historic England NMHR records; Royal Cornwall Gazette, 25 February 1881, p6

Happy 200th Birthday RNLI!

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Modern photograph of blue and white rowing boat with name Tyne painted in blue letters on white background, under a canopy with pillars in similar colours
Lifeboat Tyne, built 1833, which, together with its protective canopy, is Grade II Listed.
The master of the Norwegian brig Olaf Kyrre wrote in to a local newspaper to express his thanks to the crew of the Tyne for coming to their rescue in 1882.
© Mr A Hubbard. Source: Historic England Archive IOE01/00865/08

Today (4th March 2024) sees the 200th anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, founded as the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck.

That original name outlines the purpose of the institution: far too many people were being lost to shipwrecks. It was an occupational hazard of seafaring, as old as time, and our records show both that many ships went aground several times, getting off again, before finally being lost, and that individuals could likewise be shipwrecked several times in their careers with the same ship or across several ships.

The RNLI was much needed, and its foundation timely. We know that in English waters alone 220 losses were reported in 1820, 434 in 1821, 191 in 1822, 281 in 1823, and 287 in 1824. Two-thirds of those in 1824 were accounted for by two devastating storms in October and November that year, and they covered everything from small local vessels to large ocean-going ships and everything in between. Numbers of shipping losses fell back towards 171 in 1825. [1]

It’s important to say that the loss of ships and the loss of life isn’t always correlated and the purpose of the Institution was to save lives, not ships, and their foundation took place against an increasingly globalised trade which saw growing numbers of ships in English waters, in turn escalating the potential for wreck events to occur.

There are certainly events where the total loss of a ship also entails the loss of all hands – particularly where the vessel founders at sea, or gets into a very difficult position at the base of a cliff or upon dangerous rocks which make rescue nearly impossible. Sometimes, though, a vessel might go to pieces but all hands be saved. The inbound liner Suevic was wrecked off the Lizard in 1907 and to this day remains the RNLI’s biggest rescue, with over 500 crew and passengers successfully rescued, no-one being left behind. Her aft section was salvaged in the end, and rebuilt with a new bow, but the remains of her original bow still lie on the rocks from which the lifeboatmen rescued all hands over a hundred years ago.

Historic black & white photo of library on board ship, with heavy wooden chairs and desks and lit from above by a skylight cut into the deck above.
Reading Room, SS Suevic, photographed in 1901, 6 years before the RNLI attended the wreck in 1907.
Bedford Lemere BL 16481/003 Source: Historic England Archive

Conversely, a ship might remain intact but all the crew are lost, for example, swept overboard.

The RNLI and their volunteers helped sailors and passengers beat those odds, and they built on past efforts to improve the lot of the seafarer: from the lighthouses and light vessels operated by Trinity House that either warned ‘keep away, keep away’ or signalled ‘here is the safe light that guides you in’ [Our blog on Trinity House’s 500th anniversary in 2014] to the efforts of local communities and individuals. Services for coastal defence – the coastguard, the preventive and revenue men who made up the anti-smuggling forces, and the sea fencibles (coastal forces for home defence) – would often go to the assistance of vessels in distress where needed.

The impulse was always to help. It was traditional for ships to assist one another in distress where they possibly could as it was always recognised that they themselves might be in need another time. In the event of a collision, the colliding ship not stopping to assist the crew of the collidee, which would normally bear the brunt of the impact, was as strongly deprecated as a hit and run would be on today’s roads.

There were local boatmen who would always go to the assistance of others in various places, sometimes as a result of pilotage work, such as the Scillonian gigs and the Deal boatmen, a difficult and dangerous job: half the crew of a Scillonian gig were drowned going to the rescue of the Mary in distress in 1816, while in 1809 with the sea ‘dashing over them mountains high’ the crews of several wrecks, including the Admiral Gardner (now a protected wreck) driven onto the Goodwin Sands ‘were all collected on the poops waiting for that relief which the Deal boatmen seemed anxious to afford them.’ [2]

Elsewhere there might be local charitable organisations: we read in 1797 that the sole survivor of the John’s Adventure was brought ashore at Bamburgh, Northumberland, ‘much swelled’, having ‘nearly lost the use of his speech, sight and limbs, but by the care of the Dispensers of Lord Crewe’s noble charity, he is happily restored’. [3]

There were also technological innovations that arose out of particular tragedies. One tragedy at the mouth of the Tyne inspired a competition to build the first self-righting lifeboat that could be kept permanently on station wherever needed. In 1789 collier Adventure was returning to her home port at Shields from London, but a northerly gale prevented her from coming into port and despite her crew’s valiant efforts to weather the storm and keep trying ‘in a most tempestuous sea’ they were unsuccessful, ‘the sea making a free passage over her’ and she was wrecked with loss of life in full view of the local population on the notorious Herd Sand. [4]

The same conditions that made it so difficult for her to come in made it equally difficult for vessels to go to the rescue: ‘ . . . the waves ran so high that no boats durst venture to the assistance of the crew . . . ‘. This became a common theme of many later rescues by the RNLI: they often made they way to stricken vessels against almost insuperable odds.

In a similar vein, Captain Manby was inspired by other wreck events to develop his rocket apparatus, which fired a line establishing a means of communication with the stricken ship close inshore, to which a thicker rope could be attached to afford a means of escape. ‘His invention of throwing a rope to a ship stranded on a lee shore [i.e. with wind and tide flowing towards the land making it very difficult to get off again] proved the certainty of its never-failing success on the Elizabeth of Plymouth’ at Great Yarmouth in 1808. [5]

Each of these individual and collective efforts incrementally aided the safety of life at sea but they were all disparate efforts, either with specific purposes or locally focused. The establishment of the RNLI turned lifesaving into a nationally cohesive effort with specialist resources, harnessing that will to help others seen over the centuries and making it possible for members of the public to contribute to their work, as they still do today. They have always worked with local resources, crews and boats and other organisations, historical and modern, in what we today would call inter-agency working, their boats crewed by sailors who had intimate knowledge of local conditions and hazards, and whose efforts were always recognised on a national basis.

The records in the Historic England database of wrecks therefore include over 1,500 wrecks attended by the RNLI since 1824. [6] Without doubt the death toll in all cases would have risen but for their involvement. For example, we learn in October 1824 that the schooner Reuben, of and for Grangemouth, from the Baltic with oats, stranded at Cheswick Sands and went to pieces. The local preventive boatman and fishermen who came to the rescue were awarded £2 each by the Institution – not everyone on board could be saved, but their attendance prevented a loss with all hands. [7]

In peace and in war the RNLI has come out to rescue crew and passengers, and over the history of this blog we have covered a variety of events they have attended. For example, the perils of the sea, of hidden dangers and high winds, were exacerbated during the two World Wars both for the rescuers and the rescued, amongst minefields and under aerial bombardment. We have twice paid tribute to the ‘greatest lifeboatman of them all’ Henry Blogg, in his rescue of the crew of the Fernebo in 1917 and the wreck of the Monte Nevoso in 1932.

It is always worth reiterating that the conditions that see ships coming to grief are the very same conditions lifeboat crews have to battle, sometimes from the opposite direction, making rescue operations extra arduous. A lee shore or high seas – or both – could mean that local lifeboats had great difficulty putting out, and it was always a race against time before a ship broke up or sank.

Sadly the rescuers could also become victims, such as in the Mexico disaster of 1886 off Southport, in which all the crew were ultimately rescued (and the ship recovered to be wrecked once more as the Valhalla) by the Lytham lifeboat, the Southport and St. Annes lifeboats having been lost while attending the same wreck.

Historic England’s records of shipwrecks have enabled us to appreciate not only the activities of the RNLI in and of themselves, but also the documentary record they have left behind.

A very typical characteristic of wreck reports over the centuries is that they vary enormously between sources, literally between viewpoints. The view of events from witnesses on land is very different from those at sea, and we frequently reconcile reports that come in from different coastal settlements that will describe the same location of loss very differently: 2 miles east of one, 3 miles west of another, for example. Conflicting testimonies are often given in Board of Trade inquiries into wreck events, particularly in the event of collision, where each side will seek to blame the other. Ships in convoy will each have a different understanding of what is going on during a convoy battle or naval engagement, each holding their own while rendering assistance to another, while unable to see the whole, widely-dispersed battlefield and individuals on those ships will similarly have a different understanding of what is happening according to their rank, station, activity and location. All of this can be exacerbated by literal fog or the ‘fog of war’.

The perceptions of rescuer and rescued will also naturally vary, but this is where the records of the RNLI come into their own for the purposes of shipwreck documentary research (as well as human and historic interest) and greatly increase our understanding of events, of timelines, weather conditions, and the disintegration of the vessel, recorded in great detail.

For example, in our recent blog on the Solstad in January 1944, it is the RNLI’s record of attendance that sheds more light on the event than official convoy records, and as these events slip out of living memory, the documentary resource they represent becomes ever more important in our understanding of archaeological remains.

The rich heritage of lifeboats can be found everywhere on the English coast – from listed lifeboat stations to memorials to those lost in ships and from lifeboats, and the archaeological remains of ships which were attended by the RNLI. Why not go to the Heritage List for England and Historic England archives using the keyword lifeboat to discover that heritage in our listed buildings, protected wrecks and photographic records, or visit the RNLI’s History pages?

Happy Birthday RNLI!

Footnotes

[1] Information from Historic England’s wreck database, 2024

[2] Widely reported in the press in these words, for example London Packet and Lloyd’s Evening Post, Friday January 27 to Monday January 30, 1809, No.6400, p2

[3] Newcastle Courant, 11 February 1797, No.6,297, p4

[4] Newcastle Advertiser, 21 March 1789, No.21, p2

[5] British Gazette and Berwick Advertiser, 12 March 1808, No.11, p3

[6] Information from Historic England’s wreck database, 2024

[7] British Gazette and Berwick Advertiser, 4 December 1824, No.884, p4

50 Years of Protecting Shipwrecks

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CGI image of 'ship-shape' outline on a sandy seabed with scattered guns inside, and turquoise sea overhead
Still from dive trail of the protected wreck of the Stirling Castle (1703) on the Goodwin Sands
© Trendive

For this blog we welcome our Historic England colleague, Hefin Meara, National Listing Adviser – Marine, who takes us on a voyage from the beginnings of the Protection of Wrecks Act in 1973 to Historic England’s work in protecting shipwrecks today.

The origins of the Protection of Wrecks Act

July 2023 sees the 50th anniversary of the Protection of Wrecks Act. The Act was brought into effect in order to prevent damage and destruction of historic shipwrecks as a result of indiscriminate salvage that was taking place, causing public outcry. The late 1960s and early 1970s had seen a great increase in the use of diving equipment, with scuba diving becoming an affordable and accessible pastime. This meant that the large amount of historic shipwrecks that were in relatively easily accessible, shallow depth were suddenly open to access. Several high-profile incidents in the early years encouraged the development of the Act, which was put forward as a private members’ bill.

It was envisioned that only a small number of sites would need to be designated, and that they would be de-designated fairly soon after any significant threat was removed, following the successful completion of any work being undertaken.

One of the key incidents involved in the development of the Act was the salvage on one of England’s most significant shipwrecks, HMS Association (1707), lost among the Isles of Scilly in an unparalleled naval disaster which led to the Longitude Act of 1714. Large quantities of material were removed from this site by competing groups of salvors, which meant that information about the site was lost, as they were not recorded archaeologically.

The first site to be designated under the Act was a 16th century wreck in the Cattewater estuary, Plymouth. This wreck is still designated to this day and is being investigated by Licensee Martin Read. A substantial portion of structure and a large assemblage of finds were recovered in the 1970s. Current research being undertaken by Licensee Martin Read has been reassessing the finds assemblage, and researching potential candidates for the identity of the wreck.  (See Martin’s blog on this site about Cattewater celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Act.)

Since then a wide variety of sites have been designated, forming a representative sample of the broad range of vessels that would have been seen off the English coast over the centuries. These range from Late Bronze Age cargo scatters to the remains of early 20th century submarines and a near complete steam trawler of the First World War era. The most recently designated sites include two wrecks located on the Shingles Bank off the Isle of Wight discovered by Martin Pritchard, and a 13th century wreck in Poole Bay, discovered by charter boat skipper Trevor Small.

Diver to centre right shining a light on a grave slab on the seabed with intact foliate decoration in relief even after 8 centuries underwater.
Decorated 13th century gravestone which helped to date the protected wreck in Poole Bay, and shed new light on the production and transport of grave slabs. © Bournemouth University

Why not explore all of these on the Heritage List for England? Go straight to Advanced Search and turn off all filters except Protected Wreck Site to explore all 57 of the designated wreck sites in English waters.

Location map of 57 wreck sites in England, concentrated along the south coast, with legend 'Protected Wreck sites under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973' at bottom right; Historic England logo at top left
Location map of the 57 wrecks designated in English waters under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973

Access to shipwrecks designated under Act is by a licence, which is administered by Historic England on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The role of the Licensee has played a vital part in the ongoing management of sites designated under the Act, with Licensees operating as the custodians for these nationally important archaeological sites. In recent years there have been over 200 Licensees and team members active on England’s Protected Wreck sites. We would like to say a huge thank you to all licensees past and present for their hard work and dedication in monitoring and investigating the Protected Wrecks.

Changes over the last 50 years

Circumstances have changed considerably since the Act first came into effect 50 years ago. In practice designation is permanent, rather than temporary, for example. Sites which were once considered inaccessible, due to their depth, are now fairly easy to access as a result of developments in diving technology. Furthermore, the leaps and bounds which have been made in the development of geophysical survey technology allow for the discovery and investigation of many new shipwrecks.

Seabed development is currently proceeding at a pace which has never been seen before, with a massive increase in offshore renewable capacity. For example, the production of electricity from offshore wind has risen from an operational capacity of under 700MW in 2009 to more than 10,000MW by the end of 2020. Proposals for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy to meet net zero target by 2050 includes 50GW of offshore wind delivery by 2030.[1] In addition, approximately 21 million tonnes of aggregate were extracted from the seabed last year across multiple different licence areas.[2] As a result many more shipwreck sites are discovered each year.

The management of shipwrecks designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act became the responsibility of Historic England following the National Heritage Act 2002, which modified functions to include securing the preservation of, and promoting the public’s enjoyment of, ancient monuments in, on, or under the seabed. The Act also transferred the administrative functions relating to the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 to Historic England, and provided the ability to grant-aid projects in relation to Protected Wreck sites.

It is our role to ensure that all activities on protected wreck sites are undertaken to the highest standards, which includes for example, being in line with the rules of the Annex to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, which the UK government has adopted as best practice.

How our role has changed

How has our role in the care of these sites changed in the 20-plus years since we took on responsibility for their management?

Diver exploring a seaweed-encrusted cannon nearly upright on the seabed in murky conditions with heavy seaweed cover.
Colossus Dive Trail © CISMAS
Physical dive trails like these, allowing visitors the experience of exploring protected wreck sites, are now being supplemented by virtual trails reaching wider audiences.

We have worked hard to ensure that protected wreck sites are accessible to all. We’ve encouraged responsible access to the wrecks on the seabed through the commissioning of physical dive trails on the seabed. Mindful that not everyone can dive, we’ve also developed a programme of virtual dive trails which allows those that can’t dive to access the sites without getting wet. To date there are 18 virtual dive trails accessible from the Historic England website, with plans for new ones in the pipeline. These can all be seen in our StoryMap.

As well as managing the licensing of access to protected wreck sites on behalf of DCMS, and providing grant funding for several projects being undertaken on these sites, we are also looking towards the future of heritage protection at sea. We have commissioned several projects with partner agencies and contractors which will improve the protection of heritage assets offshore and secure their preservation for the future.

One of the ways that we’re working to ensure that sites are better protected is through a project being undertaken by MSDS Marine on the development of a product for the forensic marking of material on protected wreck sites. This is similar to the kind of material used to mark lead on the church roofs at risk of theft. The product has been in development for some time, and will be deployed on several wrecks this summer. The marker will be a deterrent to those looking to lift material from sites, and will also allow for investigation and prosecution, should the worst happen and material be taken from the sites. We’ll have more information to reveal about this project later this year. 

We’ve also commissioned a project from the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (MAST) and OceanMind, who have developed the Maritime Observatory. This project will use a combination of satellite data, artificial and human intelligence, to detect patterns of behaviour from vessels around protected wreck sites, in a pilot focused on Poole Bay and the Goodwin Sands. This will aim to detect any unauthorised activity, such as unlicensed diving, as well as potential threats to the sites from other activities. This project will be reporting back later this summer.   

It is not just Historic England working to monitor and care for Protected Wrecks offshore: we work closely with partner organisations who also have the resources and capacity to investigate and monitor these sites. These include the Receiver of Wreck at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCGA), the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), as well as heritage crime officers in various police forces. In order to strengthen this partnership working, we’ve commissioned Plymouth University to produce the Common Enforcement Manual for Heritage Crime at Sea. This will enable improved cooperation and inter-agency working.

Marking 50 years of the Act

In order to mark the 50th year of the Act, we’ve commissioned several projects. These include a broad range of projects which celebrate exciting discoveries, research projects and investigations relating to Protected Wrecks, engage the public and reach new audiences and participants. We’re also reflecting on how the Act has shaped the heritage sector and considering the implications for sector resilience in future, and drawing lessons from the last 50 years that can inform the next 50 years of protecting marine heritage.

We’ve been particularly keen to ensure that we’re not just sharing our stories with the same traditional audiences. We’ve often taken stands to coastal locations while fieldwork is under way, such as the open days in relation to the Rooswijk project in Ramsgate. This year we’re heading inland to bring the story of protected wrecks to people in landlocked counties, with multiple events across locations in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, reaching new audiences and exploring links between these locations and the sea. Check out the calendar of events (until 1 October 2023).

Visitors of all ages explore shells, bones and artefacts from the sea with a helper from MSDS Marine: a Protected Wreck Roadshow banner is in the background
Visitors exploring maritime archaeology finds at one of the ‘Landlocked & Looking Out’ #PWA50 roadshows, 2023 © MSDS Marine

Our work has also often focused on the south coast, so this year we’ve commissioned a project from Tees Archaeology to examine and promote the Seaton Carew protected wreck, engaging with a new audience on the north-east coast.

The timbers of a wreck on a shingle beach fill up with water as the tide comes in, under heavy cloud cover.
Seaton Carew protected wreck, © P Grainger

As part of the call for projects, we were eager to engage with groups we’ve not worked with previously. Therefore we were delighted to receive an application from the volunteer-run Teign Heritage Centre, which holds material related to the late 16th century Church Rocks protected wreck. The centre will use the funding to enhance the museum display, and to enable the deposition of the site archive with the Archaeology Data Service, including dive logs, site drawings, reports and photographs.

We’ve commissioned Cornwall Archaeological Unit to undertake a project looking at the links between protected shipwrecks and the wider landscape. This project includes drone survey of wreck salvage activity in the vicinity of Gunwalloe, and a GPR survey of a mound site, potentially covering a wreck burial or a barrow which was formerly a coastal mark, or perhaps the location of a lost coastal settlement coeval with the nearby wreck of the St Anthony lost in 1527. This project will conclude with an open event for providing identification of beach finds and the sharing of local knowledge.

As mentioned earlier, the contribution of volunteer licensees is vital for the care and monitoring of protected wreck sites. We’ve commissioned the Nautical Archaeology Society to produce a series of bite-sized online training session to assist current and prospective licensees. These cover a variety of topics, including how to apply for a licence, how to help reduce heritage crime, how to apply for funding, and many others. These sessions are recorded and will be made available online in perpetuity – check out the playlist so far.

We’re also eager to ensure that new people come forward to become licensees. We’re conscious that the demographic has been largely male throughout the years. As a result we commissioned the Maritime Archaeology Trust to undertake a project to investigate the engagement of women with protected wreck sites, through a combination of desk-based research, interviews, and an online survey, which is still open for further responses (July 2023).

The history of those involved with protected wreck sites is fascinating and MSDS Marine will be working with underwater cameraman Michael Pitts to create a short film to communicate this important work on protected wreck sites. The film will celebrate the role of volunteers in the management of wreck sites over the years, reflect on the contribution to knowledge made by the investigation of protected wreck sites, and emphasise the need for new volunteers to become involved in future.

Finally we’ve commissioned the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) to undertake a critical analysis of the Protection of Wrecks Act, and to facilitate a discussion of how things can be improved. This will include a seminar to reflect on what has been achieved and how we can seek to update and improve policy and practice in future. The seminar will take place in November, and there is an online survey that you can complete in advance to inform the discussion on the day.

Conclusion

As you can see, this is a busy year for work in relation to protected wrecks at Historic England. We’ve many projects and events looking at long term legacy, engaging the public, sharing the successes and looking critically at how we can do things better. This is all as well as our continuing programme of work relating to assessing sites for protection, monitoring existing sites, and developing new ways to protect sites from unauthorised activities.

From Bronze Age scatters to 20th century conflict archaeology via the Mary Rose, here’s how to discover protected wrecks in more detail . . .

Learn more

NEW! Our colleague Angela Middleton, Senior Archaeological Conservator, explains conservation of the finds from the protected wreck of the Rooswijk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytaNnO9aTzE

What are protected wreck sites? Further information and links to guidance

Explore the Dive Trails – your chance to explore 18 of the protected wreck sites without getting your feet wet!

Search the List – discover all 57 protected wreck sites (uncheck all Heritage Categories except Protected Wreck Sites)

Check out our past blogs for the Act’s 45th anniversary:

Footnotes

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1167856/offshore-wind-investment-roadmap.pdf

[2] https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/media-and-insights/news/the-crown-estate-and-bmapa-release-annual-area-involved-report-and-2022-aggregates-review/  

From Woolwich to Paglesham via the Galapagos

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HMS Beagle

Designation news: 

The remains of a rare 19th-century dock, a mud berth on the River Roach near Paglesham, Essex, built to accommodate a coastguard watch vessel, are now protected as a nationally important site, designated as a scheduled monument by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England.

Mud Docks: 

Mud docks like these were once a common feature of river life, but are now rare and little-known, with only a handful recorded anywhere in England. Characteristic features included shoring to stabilise the sides, stocks to support the ship, and a brick hard. All these features are depicted in a painting by John Constable, depicting a barge being built near his father’s mill at Flatford on the River Stour, which forms the Essex-Suffolk boundary.

Historic oil painting with the barge under construction the central feature of a rural landscape on a flat river plain.
Boat-building near Flatford Mill, John Constable, 1815. © Victoria & Albert Museum An associated dock was excavated and restored at Flatford c.1988.

Coastguard Watch Vessels: 

Similarly, little is known about the history of coastguard watch vessels, which once played a prominent role along from 1822 in the long-running battle against smuggling: before 1822, the Preventive Service and ‘revenue men’ had taken on that role. They used ‘revenue cutters’, fast, small ships capable of intercepting the typically small vessels which brought in contraband and which could negotiate the often difficult waters the smugglers chose to exploit. The Essex coastline with its mud flats was one such area. (1) 

Occasionally these vessels crop up in the record as wrecks in their area of operation, for example, the revenue cutters Felicity, which stranded on a rock among the Isles of Scilly in 1790 after seizing significant quantities of contraband from a smuggling cutter, or the Fox, which stranded in 1824 near Bridport, not far from the Chesil Beach locale which inspired John Meade Falkner’s classic 1898 tale of smuggling, Moonfleet. (2) 

These were, of course, seagoing vessels, but the coastguard also made use of static watch vessels. Static service in one form or another was typical for obsolete naval vessels which nevertheless still had a useful part to play and assignment to a coastguard role was fairly typical: there is a long heritage of such vessels, which have been the subject of previous blogs examining the uses to which they were put, from the 17th century Vogelstruis to Fisgard II in 1914.

A station on the river Roach at Paglesham no doubt provided a commanding position in the flat Essex land- and sea-scape for the coastguard watch vessel. The former HMS Kangaroo, an Acorn-class brig-sloop of 1852, similarly ended up in the Essex marshes from 1870 at nearby Burnham-on-Crouch, and gives a good idea of the appearance of a 19th century coastguard watch vessel and how the Paglesham vessel must once have looked.

Dickens’ Great Expectations of 1861, exactly contemporary with the coastguard watch vessel at Paglesham, describes a similar conversion to a prison hulk (without masts or sails) on the Thames marshes as a ‘black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore’ and a ‘ghostly pirate calling out to me’.

The Paglesham coastguard watch vessel saw a long period in service over a quarter of a century from 1845 to 1870, before being sold to be broken up in situ in the dock. The lower portion of the vessel is believed to have settled into the mud, and therefore potentially survives, and thus there is a history not only of the dock but of the vessel which occupied it for so long.

Modern manipulated colour image of mud and vegetation with the outline of Beagle picked out by a red line.
Multispectral UAV survey involved flying a UAV (drone) fitted with a specialist camera, which captures red, green, infrared, near-infrared light, to create a Neutral Density Vegetation Index (NDVI). This has created a clear outline within the dataset of the original mud dock where HMS Beagle was most likely dismantled, confirming its location. © Wessex Archaeology

However, this is not only a story of a mud dock and the vessel for which it was built, but that vessel’s illustrious antecedents. Its identity was no less than HMS Beagle, famed both for three survey voyages and, above all, an association with one of the key figures of the 19th century. Charles Darwin took part in her second voyage from 1831 to 1836, as a naturalist, a voyage which would prove key in developing one of the scientific milestones of the 19th century and its public fame assured by the publication of Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle in 1839.

Background to the Beagle:

Two hundred years ago this month HMS Beagle was launched at Woolwich in May 1820, as one of the numerous and long-lived Cherokee-class brig-sloops, which began to enter the Royal Navy from 1808 onwards. According to the memoirs of John Lort Stokes, a hydrographic surveyor who served aboard Beagle, and who knew Darwin on that second voyage, she stood out from the rest of her class:

The reader will be surprised to learn that she belongs to that much-abused class, the ’10-gun brigs’—COFFINS as they are not infrequently designated in the service; notwithstanding which, she has proved herself, under every possible variety of trial, in all kinds of weather, an excellent sea boat. (3)  

A number of Beagle‘s sister Cherokee-class brig-sloops were certainly wrecked around the English coastline, (4) for example  HMS Jasper (built 1808) which stranded under Mount Batten, Plymouth, in 1817 with significant loss of life in a ‘tremendous gale of wind’, while HMS Fairy (built 1826) capsized and sank with all hands off Kessingland, Suffolk, in 1840.

By contrast, HMS Skylark (built 1826) struck on Kimmeridge Ledge, Dorset in fog with no loss of life in 1845, thanks in great part to the efforts of the local coastguard, a story which also underlines not only a secondary function of the coastguard but also of their importance in the 19th century.

The voyages of the Beagle: 

After some time laid up out of service (‘in ordinary’ in the parlance of the time) in 1825 HMS Beagle was commissioned into the Hydrographic Service as a surveying vessel, her first voyage to Tierra del Fuego taking place between 1826 and 1830.

Historic black & white print of HMS Beagle in profile view against a backdrop of mountains with native inhabitants looking on from small canoes
HMS Beagle in the Straits of Magellan: frontispiece from the 1890 edition of Charles Darwin’s Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle (London: John Murray)

The Beagle was refitted and set out for her second and most famous voyage in 1831, returning to South America, this time with Charles Darwin on board as a naturalist: such survey expeditions were an opportunity to add to the body of scientific knowledge concerning regions little known to Europeans at that time, as well as to undertake chart-making surveys. This was the voyage which visited the Galapagos Islands and led to Darwin beginning to evolve his principles of natural selection, published as On the Origin of Species in 1859.

Beagle returned once more to England in 1836 and set out again the following year, this time on a survey of Australia which would last until 1843. It was after these three arduous voyages that Beagle was demoted to a coastguard watch vessel, until sold for breaking. Breaking in situ was again typical for vessels which were no longer suitable for any service, as was abandonment after a partial breaking, which then became a secondary stage of a wreck process in itself, as seems to have been the case with the Beagle.

While the Beagle, his former home for five years, was literally sinking into obscurity among the mud-flats of Essex, by contrast Darwin’s fame continued to grow. He settled at Down House, Kent, in 1842, where he led a life of active scientific research and publication against no little controversy surrounding his theories of evolution, before his death in 1882. Each layer of significance in the history of the mud dock at Paglesham is fascinating in its own right, and is all the more special for its association with the remains of a very special vessel.

Modern colour photo of historic Victorian desk with shelf and drawer files and scientific instruments.
Detail view of the Old Study of Charles Darwin’s home at Down House DP053644 © Historic England Archive

References: 

(1) Benham, H. 1986. The Smugglers’ Century: the story of smuggling on the Essex coast, 1730-1830 (Chelmsford: Essex Record Office Publications)

(2) Information derived from Historic England’s National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) database

(3) Stokes, J. 1846. Discoveries in Australia; with an account of the coasts and rivers explored and surveyed during the voyage of HMS Beagle, in the years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43 by Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Vol. 1. (London: T and W Boone)

(4) Information derived from Historic England’s National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) database

A miraculous rescue

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The Brig Nérina

In the autumn of 1840 two French brigs left their mark on history in very different ways. One was witness to a key historical moment, the other an unusual tale of survival against all odds. The brig was, in many ways, the characteristic vessel type of the 19th century, sturdy, strong, and adaptable, and accounts for some 7% of our shipwreck records.

The first was the naval brig L’Oreste, detached from the French Levant (Mediterranean) squadron for St. Helena, where she witnessed the translation of the mortal remains of Napoleon Bonaparte aboard La Belle Poule. L’Oreste then accompanied La Belle Poule and La Favorite out of St. Helena on 18 October 1840, and as she set her course for the Mediterranean, La Belle Poule and La Favorite continued north for Cherbourg with the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte, to be translated to Les Invalides, Paris, where they have lain ever since.

Victorian sepia photograph of ship seen from afar all alone on a calm sea, sunlight striking the sea to the right of the ship from among the clouds.,
The Brig, 1856, by the French photographer Gustave Le Gray. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 67995

The other vessel was the commercial brig Nérina which left Dunkirk for Marseille on 30 October 1840 with a crew of 7, including the captain’s teenage nephew, and a cargo of oil and canvas. What happened next was an incredible feat of survival. The English correspondent assured his readers that it was no ‘Yankee story’ but, as a local resident, had seen the people and events described with his own eyes. (1) In a similar vein, his French counterpart stated that he had both met with the survivors and had obtained a souvenir account of the event printed under the auspices of Richard Pearce, vice-consul at Penzance, as an aide-memoire ‘lest my story be ridiculed’. (2) [The story can be followed in French here.]

The wind was set fair for her voyage with a favourable breeze, but in the English Channel a typical autumn squall set in, as the wind suddenly backed to the south-east. Thereafter the Nérina beat up Channel with extreme difficulty against contrary winds, taking 15 days to reach the Lizard. The wind increased, and the exhausted crew viewed with dismay the fierce Atlantic breakers crashing onto the shore as they passed Land’s End.

They had reached a position some 12 nautical miles south-west of the ‘Sorlingues’ [the French name for the Isles of Scilly] when a heavy sea struck their vessel, which capsized suddenly, sweeping one man off the deck, never to be seen again. ‘The vessel in a moment turned completely over, not allowing time for the water to run into her, by which means the internal air kept the water out.’ (3) This describes what we would now know today as an air pocket.

Three seamen were in the forecastle, of whom one was drowned as he lost his grip, while the other two managed to keep their heads above the rising water and wriggle through a gap, making their way towards voices in the stern cabin, where the master, his nephew, and the mate had been when the ship capsized. The mate had managed to open a hatch into a watertight space and clear away some stores, then helped the master and the boy through the gap. The other two men from the forecastle followed them, and there the five managed to survive for the ensuing three days and nights, with no sustenance or space to stand up, and the air beginning to run out in that confined space. They gained some idea of the passage of time through seeing daylight striking upon the sea being reflected up through the cabin skylight, which, of course, was now below them, and then through the hatchway.

South-west of the Isles of Scilly, they were on course to drift out into the Atlantic, where they must inevitably have perished. They were completely unaware of what happened next, and, as a French journalist wrote, perhaps it was as well that it was so, or they would have suffered even greater agonies of alternating hope and despair than they were already experiencing, although the captain tried his best to maintain their morale. In the meantime the resourceful mate was trying to carve out a hole in the hull in an effort to gain some more air, but his knife broke before he was able to break through (very fortunately, or the water would have rushed in).

Aerial view of the Isles of Scilly, standing green above a calm blue sea, against a blue sky with light white clouds.
The Isles of Scilly looking SW. 23893/12 SV9217/1 © Historic England

Two fishing vessels returning to St. Mary’s spotted crowds of birds gathering over a dark whale-like shape in the water off St. Agnes, and decided to investigate. They found it to be an upturned hull and attempted to take it in tow, but the tow rope broke, and they were forced to abandon the attempt as the weather worsened, not having the least idea that there was anyone on board the derelict.

The attempted tow had, however, taken the vessel out of the currents carrying her inexorably into the Atlantic. In the middle of the night the vessel bumped bows on to the rocks at Porthellick, St. Mary’s, was clawed back by the tide, and again flung onto the rocks, each time more violently. The five survivors were forced to crawl forward as best they could to avoid the rising water, although one man fell lost his footing and drowned. The other four continued on to the ship’s side, where they were able to peer through a hole in the side.

At daybreak a fisherman was out on the beach, and like his fellow fishermen off St. Agnes, he was attracted to the dark shape on the rocks which he could only dimly discern. He clambered down the rocks to investigate, and, spotting the hole, put his arm into it. He received what must have been the shock of his life when the captain eagerly gripped his arm, and hurriedly pulled clear, but as they cried out to him, he grasped the situation and ran back to get help.

Soon the four survivors were pulled out by willing hands and restored with a breakfast and a sound sleep. The dead man, entangled in the shrouds when he was washed out of the vessel, was interred in a simple service, attended by his compatriots: this is most likely to have taken place at St. Mary’s Old Church, Old Town, St. Mary’s, which had until 1838 been the principal parish church of the island and was closest to where the ship had fetched up (now Grade II* listed). The hull broke up almost immediately, as the tide returned, but 50 barrels of oil are recorded as having been saved. (4) The survivors were later waved off from St. Mary’s to begin their journey home via Penzance, thanks to the good offices of Pearce as vice-consul.

The various accounts contain minor discrepancies, not at all unusual for shipwreck reports, gleaned from traumatised survivors and compounded by language difficulties, but the level of detail which made it into the English press suggests that it had been possible to relay the story via an interpreter – again suggesting Richard Pearce’s possible involvement.

In over 20 years’ recording our shipwrecks and reading extraordinary stories of survival and rescue on the coast of England, this is the only air pocket survival I have encountered. A story that seemed almost incredible in the Victorian era has at least two modern parallels, the well-documented rescues of Tony Bullimore in the Southern Ocean in 1997 and Harrison Okene off Nigeria in 2013.

(1) Morning Post, 4 December 1840, No.21,806, and widely reproduced in other UK newspapers

(2) F R de la Trémonnais, “Naufrage de la Nérina“, Revue de la presse: la gazette des familles, Vol.1, 1840, pp408-16

(3) Evening Standard, 14 Decemer 1840, No.5,144, p3, and other UK newspapers

(4) Ibid.

 

 

Diary of the War: October 1917

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The Annie F Conlon

This war diary has almost taken on a life of its own: all the events selected for the diary have been chosen for their intrinsic interest, but when it comes to writing each post, a theme linking consecutive posts sometimes reveals itself.

So it is this month: last month I wrote of how the First World War contributed to the demise of the schooner as Merseyside and Deeside schooners took on the task of running coal to France for the war effort. This month’s wreck is also a schooner, the Annie F Conlon of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She left New York on August 27, also for France:  her cargo of lubricating oil suggests that it too might have been destined for the front.

Black and white photograph of two ships in harbour, with water and reflections on the ripples in the foreground, and the black shapes of two ships and their masts without sails in the centre of the image: the one in the foreground is two-masted, with a three-masted ship in the background. The masts are silhouetted against the sky.
Two schooners in harbour: the Jesse Hart lies in the foreground, while in the centre background is the Annie F Conlon. PK5195, courtesy of the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VA

It had therefore taken her just over a month to reach a point 12 to 15 miles south-east of St. Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, by 3 October 1917. On that day she was stopped and shelled by UC-47, under the command of Paul Hundius, a prolific U-boat commander who sank many vessels in English waters in UB-16, UC-47 and UB-103.

The Annie F. Conlon was attacked by Hundius on  his last patrol in command of UC-47, since Guenther Wigankow assumed command on 9 October. (Wigankow and his crew would all be lost when UC-47 was rammed by a patrol vessel on 18 November 1917 off Flamborough Head.)

From Hundius’ point of view, that was the end of the matter, and he left Annie F Conlon to sink. She did not sink immediately, however, but was towed a couple of days later into Crow Sound, between St. Mary’s and the Eastern Isles of Scilly. She collapsed onto her beam ends near Guther’s Island, where she was salvaged, then moved to Lower Town, St. Martin’s, then was finally beached where she now lies, 130 metres west of West Broad Ledge, on the western side of St. Martin’s, where further salvage took place. She was then abandoned as a constructive total loss.

It is probably partly for this reason, as well as wartime censorship, that the Annie F Conlon did not make any ripples in British newspapers of the time – because she did not meet a dramatic end as such. Perhaps, too, another American schooner had stolen the limelight – British newspapers were making much of the dramatic arrival in an open boat at Samoa of the master of another American schooner, the C Slade. His ship had been sunk by the commerce raider Seeadler, but he brought the no doubt welcome news to the Allies that the Seeadler had herself been wrecked (although her crew simply seized other vessels to carry out further attacks on shipping).

The first account of the Annie F Conlon in a regional British newspaper actually appears some 20 years after the event, giving details of a lecture at Plymouth by the then American consul at Falmouth on the work of his predecessors. The wartime incumbent was a Cornish-born naturalised American citizen, Joseph G Stephens, who was ‘kept busy repatriating shipwrecked sailors, attending to the burials of sailors, and administering relief to “stranded” Americans’, including those of the Annie F Conlon. (2)

The Annie F Conlon also turns up in a legal journal of 1926, detailing the successful claim of shipowners against the German government. The owners of the Annie F Conlon were awarded $41,514.29. (3)

However, the American press in 1917 did offer some sparse details over the wreck: confirming the general location of the Isles of Scilly, the name of the master and number of the crew, and that all hands had been safely landed – so at least on this occasion Consul Stephens had not had to bury anyone!

Each schooner which was attacked hastened the demise not only of the sailing vessel in general and of a way of life, but also of the schooner particular vessel type. Yet each sinking also reveals another story of the profound social change triggered worldwide by the First World War.

The news of the Annie F Conlon shared the front page of Der Deutsche Correspondent of Baltimore, Maryland, with a banner above its masthead proclaiming: “THIS IS AN AMERICAN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHED IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE: Its function is to acquaint the immigrated Germans with the social and political conditions in the United States, and to familiarize them with their duties toward their adopted country and with the rights conferred upon them by the Constitution.” (4)

In this case the long heritage of German-language newspapers in the United States was also under threat: by the end of the war the Deutsche Correspondent had folded, after 77 years of publication. I never know where this blog will end up – not only do I find links between wrecks which I had chosen months earlier for the blog, but I also discover something new about the global effects of the war through the prism of a single shipwreck in English waters.

Black and white photograph of ships with masts and furled sails in harbour. three vessels are discernible in the lower centre of the photograph, with their masts standing talll against the roofs of two buildings, with a grey sky over.
Albert S Stearns, Charles E Balch, and Annie F Conlon in 1892. PK1950, courtesy of the Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA.

 

(1) Manchester Evening News, 5 October 1917, No.15,138, p2

(2) Western Morning News, 5 March 1937, No.24,082, p6

(3) American Journal of International Law, Vol. 20, Issue 4, October 1926, p794

(4) Der Deutsche Correspondent, 5 October 1917, Vol. 77, No.278, p1

Diary of the War: January 1917

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Henry Blogg and the Fernebo

On the stormy winter morning of 9 January 1917, a distress signal brought out the lifeboatmen of Cromer in their lifeboat Louisa Heartwell, which launched into heavy seas to reach the Greek steamer Pyrin, drifting two miles out at sea. Since all men of fighting age were away at war, the lifeboat crew were all either middle-aged or elderly men, and were led by coxswain Henry Blogg, who had joined the crew in 1894, and a relative youngster at the age of 40. It took a party of 40 men, including soldiers, to launch the lifeboat, and over two hours for the crew to reach the wreck and successfully rescue and land 18 survivors.

henry-blogg-modified-photo-1
Henry Blogg. RNLI

In the middle of this force 9 gale, another ship got into difficulties. The Swedish Fernebo, en route from Gavle for London with timber, was in distress, lurching in the sea with one crew member injured – and was even further out to sea, between 3 and 4 miles offshore.

The very wildness of the weather meant that none of the other local lifeboats could put out to the rescue the crew of the Fernebo in the stead of the Cromer lifeboat. The Louisa Heartwell was the nearest and the only suitable craft, being larger and heavier than other local lifeboats, but several attempts to launch her failed, even with all the willing helpers from the town.

A party of men aboard Fernebo saw their chances of rescue slipping away and took matters into their own hands, launching one of the ship’s boats. Almost at the shoreline the vessel capsized and it took a party of onlookers, led by Private Stewart Holmes, one of the soldiers stationed locally, to rescue them by forming a human chain at the risk of their own lives. By this means all six men were rescued from their little boat, which had somehow made it all the way to shore despite the storm.

In the meantime further disaster had literally struck the Fernebo, in the form of a mine laid by UC-19, which had been caught and depth-charged off the Isles of Scilly in the previous month, leaving behind a deadly legacy of sown mines. The explosion split the steamer in two, but her timber cargo kept both halves afloat: fortunately all the crew were in one half, rather than drifting apart on two different wrecks.

The storm drove the stricken Fernebo closer inshore, where, around 5pm, both parts struck Cromer beach, but in different locations. The aft section of the Fernebo came ashore near the groyne at the Doctor’s Steps, Cromer. Once more it was clear that only the Cromer lifeboat and her crew stood between the Swedish sailors and death: with the help of army searchlights trained on the beach and the wreck, further attempts were made to launch. Once launched, several oars were wrenched from the lifeboatmen’s hands and others broken by the violence of the sea, so the crew had to put back then, then return with fresh oars.

At last – success! The crew managed to reach the survivors, safely bringing off eleven men, eleven people who would have died had it not been for the ‘great intrepidity, splendid tenacity, and endurance’ quoted in the citation for the RNLI’s gallantry award to the Louisa Heartwell‘s crew. (1)  This was the occasion on which Henry Blogg, the ‘greatest lifeboatman of them all’, received his first RNLI gold medal, but the entire crew also received awards, with another being made to Pte. Holmes, leader of the shore party which rescued the six men from the boat.

Black and white photograph of two rows of en, seated in front, standing at the back, in front of the open doorway through which the bows of a lifeboat can be seen.
The crew of the Cromer lifeboat, wearing the medals awarded for this rescue. RNLI

But for the courage of the Cromer lifeboatmen, the Fernebo‘s crew would all have shared in the fate of their injured colleague, who was killed when they struck the mine. This was certainly a rescue against all the odds, when human endurance overcame the power of nature and the violence of war.

Colour photograph of ribs of wreck, partly covered in seaweed, in the foreground of the image, on a beach, which stretches to the background of the image. The top sixth of the image is taken up by a flat band of blue sky and sea.
The wreck of the Fernebo as she now lies at Cromer. RNLI

Over 5,000 lives were saved by the RNLI during the First World War: their work is showcased in an RNLI travelling exhibition Hope in the Great War, which is touring the country for the duration of the centenary. It features the Fernebo, and another rescue we have already featured in the War Diary, the Rohilla. Do go and see it – check for a venue near you.

(1) Widely reported in a nationwide press release, for example in the Newcastle Journal,  13 February 1917, No.22,371, p3

No. 95 Thomas W Lawson

~ Serena ~ 2 Comments

In the first part of a special Christmas double bill, it is my pleasure to . introduce my guest blogger John Hicks, who, as a descendant of those involved in the rescue, has recently written a book on the wreck of the Thomas W Lawson.

Lawson.jacket
Cover of the book, depicting the largest sailing ship in the world  as a sad wreck among the Isles of Scilly.

He writes:

The Isles of Scilly, off the south-west tip of Great Britain, have been the scene of innumerable wrecks (over 900 have been recorded by name), of which probably the best known are those of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s flagship HMS Association and three other vessels from his homecoming fleet in 1707, with the loss of the Admiral and an estimated 1,400 to 2,000 others, and of the Schiller, a 3,421 ton German transatlantic liner, in 1875, with the loss of most of her crew and passengers, to a total of 335.

The name of the Thomas W Lawson, while not so notorious among the general public, is well known locally, and among many others with an interest in wrecks. Towards sunset on Friday, 13 December 1907 she reached the mouth of  the English Channel after a stormy first transatlantic crossing and with another gale brewing. Thinking themselves well clear of any land, the crew realised, too late, that they were among the rocks and shoals of the islands and hurriedly anchored. She was attended by the St Agnes and St Mary’s lifeboats, but for different reasons each had to return to its station.  In the night there was a violent storm, and by the small hours of the following  morning the Lawson was a wreck.  At daylight a six-oared island gig was launched into a still high sea to search for survivors, and by the end of the day, after three perilous trips among the rocks, had rescued the only three, one of whom died within hours of his injuries.

That brief narrative omits many dramatic, intriguing or disputed details, but in addition to the fascination of the immediate story there are at least three other features of great interest in the vessel and personnel involved.

As to the vessel, she was a seven-masted schooner of 5,218 registered tons, the largest fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel of all time, at the time of her loss the largest sailing vessel of any rig afloat, and still the largest vessel propelled purely by sail throughout her life which has yet existed.

Black and white photograph of five-masted sailing ship aground in shallow water off a rocky coastline in the foreground.
Besides the seven-masted Thomas W Lawson lost off the Isles of Scilly in 1907, there was also the wreck of the five-masted ship Preussen off Kent in 1912, photographed here by a local resident. BB052702 Reproduced by permission of Historic England.

As to the personnel, there was first the man after whom she was named: one of the moving spirits behind her conception and creation and a major participant in her financing and ownership.  Thomas W Lawson was a buccaneering and intensely superstitious Boston stockbroker who started work as a fatherless, penniless boy of 12, made and lost several fortunes, was reputedly worth at his zenith some $30 to $50 million (the equivalent of something like $750 million to $1.25 billion now) but died in poverty.

And finally – there was the tiny, isolated, close-knit island community into which the schooner irrupted.  Of the 17 men from St Agnes who went out in their lifeboat to the Lawson on the 13th or in their gig to search the rocks on the  14th or who (in four cases) were involved in both ventures, all but one were related and 13 bore the same surname.  One of them was aboard her as pilot when she went down, and was drowned.

There have been many accounts of the wreck of the Thomas W Lawson, but it is now the subject of a full-length investigation into all these features and their interrelation.  It is entitled An Absolute Wreck and its author is a great-nephew of the dead pilot and related to all but one of the St Agnes men involved.

Serena adds: the Isles of Scilly gig was an adaptable craft, often a salvage and rescue vessel at need, and involved in other incidents. Wrecks sometimes caused other wrecks of those that went to their aid: we know of two gigs that were lost respectively in a rescue attempt in 1816 and in salvage work in 1839, underlining the courage of those who crewed them.

Publication details of An Absolute Wreck: the loss of the Thomas W Lawson are as follows:

Title:  An Absolute Wreck – the loss of the Thomas W Lawson

Author: John Hicks

Publisher: Scotforth Books, on behalf of the author

ISBN: 978-1-9098 17-25-8

Date: 2015

Price: £15.00, including postage within the UK (in USA $25.00 plus postage from UK)

Obtainable from the author at john.hicks@montagusquare.net