Preussen

Musical instruments in the Sea

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The tale of a harp

Earlier this year Historic England were contacted by the finders of a diverse assemblage of artefacts from the wreck of a steamer off the coast of Sussex, including a metal plate which was all that was left of a harp, its wooden body and catgut strings having long since disappeared. The identity of the wreck was unknown – and colleagues passed on the enquiry to me to see if I could find a potential match for the site among the records on the Historic England shipwreck database.

Curved metal plate with pegs and holes on a wooden table.
Figure 1. Harp plate from the unknown wreck off Sussex. © Mike Rountree

On the whole musical instruments are very rarely represented in the documentary record although they turn up occasionally as archaeological finds. Occasionally they are named in the cargo, from the Charles, wrecked in 1675 off the Lizard with unspecified music instruments from Lisbon, to the Preussen (subject of a recent post), which stranded off Dover in 1910 en route from Hamburg to Valparaiso with a cargo which included pianos.

More often we come across references to musical instruments as personal possessions, and not always on board the wrecked vessel either. During the collision of the Belgian steamer Jan Breydel with the Norwegian steamer Salina near the Goodwin Sands in 1921, the Salina came off worse and sank with loss of life, but those on board the Jan Breydel also feared for their lives. One passenger gave a press interview, saying that: “If our boat had been fifty yards further on, there would have been no interview this morning, for the Salina would have struck just about the point where I was sitting.”

That passenger was the violin virtuoso Jan Kubelik (1880-1940), who also said that his first thought was for his precious Stradivarius, known as the ‘Emperor’ Stradivarius, around which he placed a lifebuoy. (1) That instrument still exists today – so a near-shipwreck was just one of many incidents in its 300-year history. It also reminds us that many high-status instruments have a traceable history. (By contrast, the Wreck of the Week War Diary for June 1918 shows that a young violinist survived, although his violin did not, but as it was not ‘his best’ it was clearly the least of his worries!)

The history of the harp would prove crucial in helping to unlock the possible identity of the ship, together with the context of the cargo. Other finds from the same wreck included a number of ‘teardrop’ or ‘torpedo’ bottles marked “Bradey and Downey, Newry”, “F W Kennedy, Limerick”, and “Bewley, Evans and Company, Mary Street, Dublin”.

Green bottle with moulded lettering reading BEWLEY EVANS AND visible, against a white background.
Figure 2. Torpedo bottle, probably for mineral water, which was part of Bewley Evans and Company’s bottling business. © Mike Rountree

The latter were mineral water bottlers and suppliers with a company history which seems to fizzle out around 1863, (2) suggesting a terminus ante quem for the date of loss, and a voyage beginning in or calling at Ireland. Other finds appeared more likely to be of Continental European origin, such as a large blue and white painted earthenware pot, and are as likely to be interpretable as personal household effects as cargo.

Enter the engraved metal plate from the harp. It was still legible, though much corroded, revealing that it was made by Erard, specialists in prestige harps at their London showroom during the 19th century. The firm had been founded in France, but the French Revolution drove Sébastien Erard out of the country, leaving his brother-in-law to carry on the Paris business.  The London and Paris branches then came to specialise respectively in harps and pianos.

Each of Erard’s harps sold from the London showroom was individually numbered with a ‘patent number’, the ledgers for which survive at the Royal College of Music Museum and Archives. The patent number on this example was extremely difficult to read after so long in the sea, and was initially interpreted as 6331 or 6339. Harp 6331 was sold to a clergyman in 1871 and returned for repair in 1874: he retired on the grounds of ill-health in 1875 and died in London in 1906, and harp 6339 was sold in 1864. Both of these post-date the apparent cessation of Bewley and Evans’ operations in Dublin by 1863, and there were no obvious wrecks that fitted the criteria in terms of location, date, or origin post-dating 1864.

Further examination of the patent number in a higher-resolution photograph kindly provided by the finders, and comparison with the lettering of other surviving Erard harps in online collections at the V&A and National Trust suggested that the number could well be 5331, which was the suggestion I put forward to the finders. (Figure 3) The numerals are engraved just to the right of the word ‘Patent’, at the point where the plate begins to curve downwards, (Figure 4) so that each numeral is smaller than its predecessors (compare the two 3s). They are set in an ornamental cartouche of engraved curlicues which have provided a matrix for the further pitting of the metal around the digits.  The semi-circular feature between the tops of the second ‘3’ and ‘1’ was especially ambiguous.

Detail view of corroded and pitted metal in which the numbers 5 3 3 1 are just legible.
Figure 3. Detail view of number on the recovered harp plate. © Mike Rountree
Detail view of top of harp, showing strings and pegs with engraved lettering on a metal plate underneath.
Figure 4. Detail view of harp made by S&P Erard in 1858, now belonging to the V&A. © Victoria and Albert Museum

The record for 5331 also survives in the ledgers, noted as built in 1839 and sold to a Mr S J Pigott of 112 Grafton Street, Dublin, on September 30, 1840. He was very heavily involved in Dublin musical society, with showrooms for the sale or hire of harps and pianos at those exact premises – including Erard harps. (3)

A key selling point highlighted in his advertisements was that the instruments were sourced from London, so clearly regular buying trips were made. It is unclear what happened next in the case of this particular harp: whether it was for sale in his shop following its import from London, or whether it was intended for his personal use. If the former, the customer is also likely to have lived in Ireland; if the latter, it may have either remained within the family or have been sold after his death. This part of the story so far remains untraced.

It seems clear that the harp is likely to have been a personal possession on its final voyage, reinforced by the presence of what are likely to be other domestic effects aboard; that its voyage is likely to have originated in Ireland, given the bottles from Dublin, Limerick and Newry as cargo; that the vessel was a steamer from the site as observed; and that the wreck took place before 1863 as the date by which one of the bottling firms seems to have fizzled out; and somewhere on the coast of Sussex.

The candidate that most closely matches the criteria is the steamer Ondine of Waterford, which sank on 19 February 1860 following a collision off Beachy Head with the schooner Heroine of Bideford. The position of loss as reported does not quite tally with the position of the site as located, but this is not at all uncommon, since wreck remains are often identified some distance from the reported place of loss. This would not, therefore, necessarily exclude the Ondine from consideration, particularly as she otherwise matches the criteria so closely.  Additionally, while steamers were common at this date, they had not yet ousted the sailing vessel, which significantly restricted the pool of potential candidates for the wreck site.

Ondine was a regular visitor to London and left Dublin as usual on 15 February with passengers and a general cargo, calling at Falmouth, Plymouth and Southampton en route. Her profile fits well with the finds on site as she was carrying both passengers, providing the context for the movement of personal effects, and cargo, which would fit with the bottles as found. At each port some passengers disembarked and others came on board, so the total number of passengers is difficult to ascertain, but a ‘good many faces’ were looking down at the survivors in one boat as they got away. (4)

It seems that three boats got away, one led by the captain, one the mate, Edward West, and one the second mate, Richard Burke, with a fourth boat being smashed. The captain’s boat was swamped, and all presumably drowned; the mate managed to save 20 persons, who were seen straight away by the Heroine, which picked them up. Of those who got into the third boat with the second mate, only two passengers survived, one of whom, one Marsh, had been on holiday to his wife’s family. His wife and two children got away with him in the same boat, but he suffered the agony of seeing them perish one by one from exposure or drowning, one child in his arms. The mate and the other survivors were very near the end of their resources, with their boat badly damaged and only saved from sinking by its cork lining, when discovered by the Thetis steamer, who sent a boat to pick them up.

One strange circumstance was the presence of an unnamed lady passenger. Richard Burke recalled in his testimony that the captain most particularly adjured him to look after this lady as she got into his boat. Unfortunately, along with the chief stewardess, she was one of the first to perish from his boat. Was, she, perhaps, the harp’s owner?

Further research on the wreck site and in documentary sources will help to confirm whether the wreck is indeed the Ondine, but no other candidates in the historical record appear to fit the archaeological discoveries so well. It’s very common for a maker’s plate to confirm the identity of a wreck, but who would have thought that a maker’s plate for a harp could put a candidate for a wreck’s identity in the frame? There is more research to be done on both the wreck site and in documentary records before this possible identification can be confirmed or discarded in favour of another, but it is a fascinating story that demonstrates the depth of detective work involved in putting a name to a wreck.

With many thanks to Mike and Sue Rountree and to Guy Freeman for sharing their story and photographs of the discovery, and to Dr Anna Maria Barry at the Royal College of Music Museum, who says: ‘The RCM Museum and Library team are delighted to have helped with the identification of this wreck. We are lucky enough to look after the Erard ledgers, and have answered many enquiries about serial numbers – but this is by far the strangest request we’ve had! The story of the shipwrecked harp demonstrates the way in which musical instruments can offer a unique insight into our social history.’ The RCM Museum have also blogged about the wreck: http://www.rcm.ac.uk/about/news/all/2018-05-21museumblogharp.aspx

(1) Shields Daily News, 24 September 1921, No.19,522, p3

(2) British Newspaper Archive searches: no advertisements for the firm later than 1863, supported by (undated) material from Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History

(3) Erard harp ledgers, Royal College of Music Museum. Samuel Pigott announced his move to premises at 112 Grafton Street, advertising Erard and other harps and pianos, in the Dublin Evening Packet and Correspondent, 4 November 1837, No.1,513, p1. The company continued to sell harps and pianos from the same premises even after Samuel’s death in 1853 (British Newspaper Archive searches). In fact the business continues today as McCullough Pigott in Dublin.

(4) Liverpool Mercury, 23 February 1860, No.3,752, p3

A Detective Story

~ Serena ~ 2 Comments

The Flying-P liners

Over the summer there will be a few wreck features with a German theme, inspired by my recent holidays on Germany’s northern seaboard with its strong maritime heritage – a shared history across the North Sea.

Not long ago a colleague in the Historic England Archives showed me a set of recently-acquired negatives, depicting a wrecked sailing vessel against some white cliffs with a very tiny lighthouse visible in the far distance. Those details, and a possible date of circa 1900 on technical grounds, were all we had to go on. No proper location, no real date, no identity for the vessel, no name for the photographer – and white cliffs aren’t unique to Dover.

Off I went to inspect the negatives on a lightbox, prepared for a patient elimination of white cliff and lighthouse combinations to identify the location, before then narrowing it down to a specific ship – but the ship herself proved to be extremely obliging and we struck lucky virtually at once.

At first glance the words ‘possible Flying-P liner’ came to mind, as she was clearly a very large vessel of steel-hulled construction – not unique to the ‘Flying-Ps’, which were, however, among the most celebrated sailing vessels of their day, the ‘windjammers’.

These windjammers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries made use of contemporary iron and steel technology to develop large cargo-carrying sailing ships which were predominantly or wholly square-rigged to take full advantage of the wind. Hence not only the collective name ‘windjammer’, but also the ‘Flying’ Reederei F Laeisz fleet, whose ships all began with ‘P’. The windjammers arguably extended the sailing vessel era until well into the 20th century, although, even as they were being developed from the 1880s onwards, steam had already overtaken sail as the principal means of propulsion.

Then I counted the masts in the negatives – five – and with that the ship yielded her secrets.  Those white cliffs were indeed at Dover and the ship was indeed a ‘Flying-P’, the Preussen, the only five-masted full-rigged ship ever built. (1) She broke tow following a collision and stranded in Fan Bay, Dover, on 6 November 1910, en route from Hamburg on a typical windjammer run to Valparaiso, Chile, with a cargo which included pianos.

Historic B&W photo of shipwreck against cliffs, seen from seaward, sea filling the lower third of the image.
Wreck of the Preussen, Fan Bay, Dover. From this angle the masts seem to tower above the cliffs – a dramatic shot that suggests a photographer with an eye for composition.

So who was the photographer? Someone with the skills to take a photograph at sea from a moving object, namely another vessel. The image, sea conditions, the wreck itself, and the cliffs are all clearly defined, demonstrating continuing interest in the deteriorating condition of the vessel after the wreck event.

Compare this view of the same shipwreck immediately after she struck, by local resident and female photographer, Annette Evelyn Darwall, which was already in the Historic England collection. This, too, is a skilled photograph, including a section of cliff at left foreground for a sense of place and sense of scale which makes us realise that the viewpoint is everything.

B&W photograph of shipwreck of five-masted vessel seen from cliffs above, the tide receding away from the dark rocky shore to left.
The Preussen aground at low tide, seen from the cliffs above, photographed shortly after the wreck event in November 1910.

Returning to our ‘unknown’ collection, a further extraordinary photograph demonstrates the technical competence of our mystery photographer, in turn showing how photography advanced the recording of shipwrecks.

Traditional shipwreck paintings were largely creations after the event. During the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century Willem van de Velde the Elder would sketch ships lost in action from his position aboard a galliot embedded in the Dutch fleet, but these scenes would later be formally worked up onto canvas. Paintings of tragic wreck events such as the Raft of the Medusa (Théodore Géricault, 1819, Louvre, Paris) or Disaster at Sea (Turner, c.1835, Tate, London) are highly-emotive reconstructions based on survivors’ accounts. In all of these paintings we are looking towards the shipwreck, though some artists concentrated on scenes of pathos within as passengers awaited their fate (Wreck of the Halsewell, Thomas Stothard, 1786, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich) but again these were retrospective ‘artists’ impressions’ based on first-hand accounts.

Photographers such as Frank Meadow Sutcliffe at Whitby or Gibsons of Scilly exploited the dramatic possibilities of artistic composition, placing the shipwreck firmly in its context as an alteration to the natural landscape, often broadside on, with the power of the waves captured naturalistically in real time.

Photographers soon began to record other aspects of shipwrecks such as daytrippers’ visits (in one Gibson photo of 1895 we’re looking at sightseers in Cornwall looking at a wreck from much the same sort of clifftop viewpoint that attracted Annette Evelyn Darwall to photograph the Preussen near Dover). It then became possible to record rescue in real time. Yet these photographs still frame shipwrecks in a landscape context, albeit as temporary alterations to the local environment (and all the more attractive as a subject for that reason).

The early years of the 20th century changed all that. It became possible to record shipwrecks from new perspectives as they were actually happening, which would come to the fore just before and during the First World War – from other vessels in company (HMHS Anglia post, 1915), or aerial photographs from the then new-fangled aircraft, or from within the wreck itself (Ballarat post, 1915).

As our mystery photographer demonstrates, it was also possible for an intrepid visitor to climb aboard a wreck and illustrate the wrecking process from within.

B&W photo of shipwreck showing amidships structure and masts to left, deck awash with water from the sea to the right, cliffs in background.
View looking astern on board the Preussen, awash amidships, c.1910. Note the sharpness and technical competence of the image aboard an unstable platform being pounded by the sea.

There seems to have been quite a trade in postcards of the event, not surprising at a time when wreck sites could become temporary seaside attractions. A quick Google gave me three possible photographers’ names so once more I prepared to research them, and once more the first hit seems to have been the correct one. A postcard from amidships in the opposite direction looking south towards the bows suggested the same photographer, named on the front as ‘Russell Jewry, Photo. Deal.’

I felt sure then that we had our man – the same modus operandi, and as a commercial photographer he would have had access to up-to-date professional equipment to stabilise his camera on board the wreck, and as a local man someone with the contacts to obtain access.

It’s likely that he was able to board her in conjunction with a survey or assessment visit, such as one noted in Lloyd’s List from 9 November, with a German lighter due in to begin offloading the cargo that afternoon.  Further reports showed that the vessel continued to deteriorate following winter gales in December, finally breaking in two in January, while the salvagers themselves ran the risk of wreck. It looks as if the photographs were taken in winter conditions, probably in early December – so Russell Jewry took significant risks to obtain a commercial scoop. (2)

If only all archive mysteries were as easy as this! What a pleasure though to go from a completely unidentified image to one with a location, a subject, a photographer, and a date in one go!

To this day tall ships remain tourist attractions, and even at the time the windjammers were something of an anachronism. As we’ve shown in the War Diary, sailing ship numbers were drastically reduced during the First World War, and by the 1930s, even at the height of the long-distance grain races on which they remained commercially viable, they were positively old-fashioned and somewhat under-resourced – even before this time books had been written on the ‘last of the windjammers’! Aboard the Winterhude in 1934, an English sailor recorded that his ship was circled in mid-Atlantic by an American liner which diverted out of her course to allow her passengers to take in the sight, something of a novelty in its turn for the captain of the Winterhude! (3)

The Preussen‘s fellow Flying-P, Pamir, passed through many adventures, including two World Wars and changes of ownership. Before the Second World War she was owned by Finn Gustav Erikson of Mariehamn, who bought up many of these old sailing barques. In Wellington, New Zealand, in 1941, however, she was seized by the New Zealand government as a prize of war, and sailed under their flag for the duration.

Post-war she was something of a celebrity as one of the very last of the commercial sailing vessels. Her return to London in 1947 excited considerable interest, sailing back to New Zealand in 1948, when she was formally rendered back to Erikson. Later the same year she left once more for Australia to pick up grain in what was billed as the last grain race from Australia to England, together with her ‘sister’, Passat. Their final landfall in England in 1949 again made headline news. (4) Sadly, Pamir would founder at sea in mid-Atlantic in 1957. Following the loss of Pamir, Passat was taken out of service, but survives today as a museum ship at Travemünde, Germany.

B&W photo of a dockside receding to show dockside cranes. To left a tall ship whose masts reach above the dock cranes.
Pamir in 1947-8 at Royal Victoria Dock, London. The neighbouring cranes give a sense of scale. Photographer: S W Rawlings

Whether as shipwrecks in 1910, a sight worth a diversion in mid-Atlantic in the 1930s, or as museum ships today, these grandes dames of the sea have always commanded attention, and never more so than in 1910 for a Deal photographer prepared to take risks for an outstanding shot.

Modern colour photograph of four-masted museum ship with four bare masts and a crane beyond at left, against a grey sky.
Passat as a museum ship at Priwall, Germany, June 2018, seen from the Travemuende bank. By coincidence, this tourist photograph echoes the crane in the Pamir shot (1947) and the slightly deceptive sense of scale of the Preussen against Dover’s White Cliffs in 1910! Photograph courtesy of Andrew Wyngaard.

 

(1) Other five-masted vessels and above were available, so to speak, but they were never as common as three- and four-masted vessels, and seem to have been particularly in vogue around the early years of the 20th century. Wreck of the Week has previously covered the unique 7-masted Thomas W Lawson (1902-1907), lost off the Isles of Scilly. One of Preussen’s ‘Flying-P’ precursors was the five-masted barque Potosi (1894-1925). TheFrance II (1911-1922), and R C Rickmers (1906-1917) were also five-masted barques built with auxiliary engines, while there were a number of American five-masted schooners such as the wooden-hulled Paul Palmer (1902-1913) and Prescott Palmer (1911-1914). The SS Great Britain steamer (1843), is now displayed as originally fitted out, with six masts, one square-rigged, the others rigged fore-and-aft, but she was the reverse of the France II and R C Rickmers, with sail auxiliary to steam.

(2) Lloyd’s List 9 November 1910, No.22,815, p9, and 19 December 1910, No.22,849, p9; Dundee Evening Telegraph, 12 January 1911, No.10,593, p1, and Dover Express, 13 January 1911, No.2,741, p5

(3) Geoffrey Sykes Robertshaw, Before the Mast: in the Grain Races of the 1930s, Blue Elvan Books, Truro, 2008. For further reading on the windjammers: Basil Lubbock, The Last of the Windjammers, Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, 2 vols., 1927-1929; Eric Newby, Learning the Ropes, John Murray, London, 1999

(4) See, for example, the eager reporting of Pamir‘s arrival in London in time for Christmas, December 1947, Western Morning News, 22 December 1947, No.27,430,  footage of the then Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visiting the Pamir in London in March 1948, and on the vessels’ return in 1949, Hull Daily Mail, 1 October 1949, No.19,926, p3; North Devon Journal, 6 October 1949, No.6,705, p7.