wrecks in 1810

A Tale of Prize and Wreck: Part I

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The Modeste

Modern colour aerial photo of coastline to left of photo, showing beach at bottom left and at upper left the land partially inundated and overflowing onto green fields.
Aerial photograph of the Wainfleet area 20618_006 flown 12 October 2006 © Historic England Archive

Our guest blogger Mike Salter returns with a follow-up from his blog on the Sea Adventure in March 2024 on the Modeste, a ship with an intriguing tale behind her. Our thanks to him for providing such an interesting story!

He writes:

The same “Dreadful Storm” that accounted for the Sea Adventure also wrecked 60 other ships between Whitby and Great Yarmouth, in particular La Modeste, which has a number of intriguing circumstances.

She ran aground on the Main, or strand near Wainfleet on the Lincolnshire coast at 7am on Sunday 11th November 1810 [1]. As with the Sea Adventure, wrecked about 20 miles east, across the Wash on Holbeach Marsh, La Modeste was forced ashore by a powerful ESE wind which also produced an extremely high tide, flooding many miles of low-lying coastal lands and marshes.

Her Name

The majority of newspaper and other reports at the time named her as La Modeste, [2] but later, as we will see, she was referred to as Modeste. However, some newspaper reports from sources published closest to the wreck site named her as La Minerva instead. [3]

Both names were in popular contemporary use, for example the Royal Navy frigates Modeste, operational from 1793-1814, and Minerva, 1805-1815.

Details of the Wreck Event

Lloyd’s List stated on 20 November 1810 that: “A fine new, American-built ship, about 500 tons and pierced for 18 guns; Prize to the Hussar frigate, by whom she had been captured in the Cattegat, went ashore at seven o’clock on Sunday morning (11thNov.) on the Main above Wainfleet, where she bilged (i .e. had serious leaks to the hull after running aground). The name of the wreck was the Modeste. She was captured from the Danes off Kiel.”

The first advertisement for the auction of the ship on 5th Dec. 1810 named her the Modeste and said she was copper-bottomed and about 350 tons. [5] She had cost $25,000 a few months previously ($600,000 today), so was a valuable prize. Most reports say she was a prize to HMS Hussar, a 38-gun frigate built in 1807 which saw significant worldwide service, including the Baltic in 1807 and 1810, and whose commanding officer at the time was Captain Alexander Skene.

At the time of the wreck the Modeste was in the hands of Lieutenant W. MacDougall, suggesting that he had been charged with bringing her to a UK port as a prize. Steel’s Navy Lists at the National Maritime Museum show a Lieutenant J MacDougall who was appointed in 1800, but the ships on which he served are not shown. A Lieutenant Drummond was appointed to the Hussar in November 1810, so it may have been as a replacement for MacDougall if he moved to another ship.

Auctions of the Modeste and Subsequent Events

There were two known auctions associated with the Modeste. The first, as above, was on 7 December 1810 at the farm of a Mr Carrott in Friskney, near Wainfleet. It sought those ‘experienced in getting off or breaking up a vessel; and if there was no sale the farmer would buy it and break it for firewood!

The second advertisement, headed “SHIP STRANDED”, was placed in the Stamford Mercury in April 1811 by Messrs. Barnard and Chapman of Boston who had clearly bought the wreck. They wanted someone to get her off for a fixed sum or part share. The ship was in ballast and they tried to arouse interest by saying “it is supposed to have valuable items on board”.

In June 1812 the same paper reported an Inquest on two men who had drowned after a late-night boat trip to “view the means resorted to for raising the wreck”. Sadly, on leaving their boat, they had waded out to sea in the darkness, instead of towards the shore. [6]

Gold in Ballast?

Edmund Oldfield, a local historian writing in 1829, says there was hope for several years the Modeste would be refloated but this came to naught. The ballast was ”a heavy black ore“ which it was surmised contained gold. This ballast was to be the reward of those who laboured on the wreck and some people were induced to buy the labourers “shares of the booty”. After repeated analyses in London hopes of riches were dashed and it seems that the ballast may well have been copper slag which was beginning to be used at that time. The hull was eventually broken up. (Copper slag does contain gold, but at such a small percentage – a fraction of 1% – as to be worthless.)

Modeste Figurehead

I came across, by chance, a reference in a newspaper article of 1854, to “the figurehead of the Modeste, wrecked off the Lincolnshire coast some years since” which was being displayed in an Exhibition at the Boston (Lincs.) Athenaeum and which had previously been shown in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in the Skirbeck quarter of Boston. [7] This would seem to confirm that the ship wrecked on 11 November 1810 was the Modeste, as also referenced by the Stamford Mercury auction and inquest reports on the two drowned men of 1812, and not La Minerva.

Historic B&W photograph of commercial building surmounted by a triangular pediment. Cars and buses are parked outside and a sign on the building points the way to a public air raid shelter.
A 1942 photograph of the Exchange Buildings, Market Place, Boston, Lincolnshire, near the Athenæum, also in the Market Place. The Athenæum was established in 1851 and by 1854 had taken over the site of the demolished Green Dragon Inn. In turn it would be demolished in the 1960s.
OP19538 Source Historic England Archive

There was also an oblique reference to the Aztec king Montezuma immediately after the reference to the figurehead, the significance of which later became clear, and is addressed later in this article.

Modeste, prize to HMS Hussar

There are prize reports for several ships named [La] Modeste at this time, but none recorded as a prize to HMS Hussar, frigate, in the circumstances described: capture from the Danes in the Cattegat off Kiel.

A schedule of Hussar‘s movements can be reconstructed from various newspaper, Lloyd’s List and Navy List reports, including a stint in the Rear Squadron in the Baltic Fleet Order of Sailing of July 1807. [8] Along the way there were false reports that she had been wrecked, a diplomatic row in January 1810 after on boarding the American ship John Adams, bound for a blockaded Dutch port, [9] before she sailed once more from Yarmouth to join the Baltic fleet on 3 July 1810.

In July Hussar captured the Resolution and passed through the Belt (between Sjælland and Fyn, Denmark) to the Baltic with 332 sail. [10] By 3 August she was returning through the Belt with HMS Orion and 120 sail. [11] As an indication of the sailing time, in September 1810 the Hero sailed from the Baltic to England in a mere 6 days, although 2-3 weeks was probably more usual.

On 18 August Hussar captured Julia (no location given), which was auctioned after being condemned in the High Court of Admiralty [12]: distribution of prize money was recorded in the London Gazette of 21 July 1812. This shows the procedure: sending in to a UK port; application for condemnation as prize; sale by auction and later distribution of prize money. This could take some time: two years in this case, but immediate sale could be ordered if there were good reasons.

On 2 October 1810 Hussar was reported to be back in the Yarmouth Roads: “Roebuck, Lord Gardner, Hussar 74 guns [sic] and other warships remain in the Roads.’ Lord Gardner was flag officer on the Roebuck. This report continues: ”Upwards of 20 sail, prizes to the North Sea fleet, have entered this port; the principal part of which are laden with wheat.” [13] In mid-December Hussar arrived at Leith from the Baltic, thence sailing to Portsmouth.

Date of capture of Modeste and conclusions:

From the above voyages of Hussar, it seems Modeste could have been captured, as described in newspaper reports in the Baltic, at any time from mid-August to late October (excluding the visit to Yarmouth in early October if that newspaper report is correct).

No date in July 1810 is given for the capture of the Resolution, while the Julia was captured 18 August 1810, location unknown, so these may /may not have been in the Baltic, although it seems likely.

After Hussar’s return to the Baltic in October there would have been time to send in Modeste to a UK port if she had been captured up to about the third week of that month, which suggests that Lieutenant MacDougall was put in charge of her return late in October, but was then shipwrecked on 11 November, before reaching a port where prize proceedings could be started.

All newspaper reports of the Modeste wreck and the two sales by auction of the wrecked hull state that she had been captured by HMS Hussar, but none that she had been condemned as prize to her. No Notice appears in the London Gazette which did report the capture and condemnation of the Resolution and Julia. [14]

The first auction advertisement for Modeste was on 5 December 1810, taking place two days later at the farm of Mr Carrott in Friskney, less than a month from the date of the wreck. As a local landowner with a large acreage bordering the sea he may have had ‘rights of wreck’, or it was simply a convenient venue.

The appointment of a Lieutenant Drummond to the Hussar in November 1810 may have been as a replacement for MacDougall conveying the prize to England.

It has been an interesting journey, unravelling some events surrounding the loss of a new and valuable ship, captured from the Danes, taken as prize by HMS Hussar, wrecked in Lincolnshire along with many others: speculated over for riches and finally, ignominiously broken up and sold for fence posts or firewood. The dashing HMS Hussar’s exploits in the second Baltic fleet are integral to the story.

Serena writes: There we must end Part I, but Part II will follow in which Mike explores further details of the capture and wreck of Modeste. Very rarely are we able to expose such detail in our understanding of wreck events, particularly at this period, and my thanks go to Mike for his painstaking research.

Footnotes

[1] Topographical Account of Wainfleet and Ingoldmells, Edmund Oldfield, 1829

[2] Edmund Oldfield (op.cit.); Sun (London) 17 Nov 1810; Hull Packet, 20 Nov 1810; Evening Star 5 Dec. 1810; Stamford Mercury 12 April 1811 and 18 June 1812; Lloyd’s List; London Gazette.

[3] Stamford Mercury 16 Nov. 1810; Bury and Norwich Post

[4] Rif Winfield Royal Navy in the Age of Sail 1793-1815

[5] Evening Star (London) 5 Dec. 1810

[6] Stamford Mercury 19 June 1812

[7] Lincolnshire Chronicle 24 March 1854

[8] Morning Post, 5 July 1807

[9] Hampshire Chronicle 1 January 1810; St. James’s Chronicle, 16 January 1810

[10] London Gazette, 21 July 1812; A M Ryan, The Saumarez Papers, Navy Records Society, 1968

[11] Star (London), 12 October 1810

[12] Public Ledger & Daily Advertiser 1 January 1811; London Gazette 21 July 1812

[13] Star (London), 3 October 1810

[14] See note 10 above

Sea Adventure

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Pen and ink drawing of ship with sails flying in billowing waves under the drak promontory with the Abbey drawn in black.
Sailing ship under Whitby Abbey in stormy conditions, Charles George Harper.
Source: Historic England Archive

A Sturdy Whitby Collier in the Storm of November 1810

It is my pleasure to welcome Mike Salter as our guest blogger for this article, which combines the old and new meanings of the word ‘adventure’: the shipwreck adventure of a vessel named the Sea Adventure, highlighted on the 300th anniversary of her build in 1724.

At that time the word ‘adventure’ meant a commercial venture, so a shipowner would ‘adventure’ his capital on the sea (although the modern word ‘venture’ was also commonly used). This naturally led to the meaning of ‘risk’, which has segued into today’s modern meaning, an exciting and/or risky activity or event. These two elements are present in her story, which Mike has researched and compiled into a booklet (details below).

He distils his research into the Sea Adventure‘s life and times below:

Her Life: Whitby and the Collier Trade

Colliers were the workhorses of the Industrial Revolution, bringing millions of tons of coal from the coalfields of the North-East to London and the east coast ports such as (King’s) Lynn, (Great) Yarmouth and Ipswich. Overlooked by many, they nevertheless fuelled British economic growth and overseas expansion.

My interest in the Sea Adventure stemmed from finding out more about the loss of King John’s regalia in the Wash, leading to finding out about a buried medieval bridge in Holbeach [1], Holbeach as a minor port and the wreck of a ship on Holbeach Marsh in November 1810. [2] (It was this research detailing her cargoes, masters, voyages and events during her lifetime that led to the booklet!)

Initial reports named her as the Sea Venture, a 100-year-old Whitby collier built in the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14). Both her name and age proved to be incorrect. Sea Adventure was her correct name [3], and a Jarvis Coates built her in his Whitby yard in 1724 under George I. [4] This year of 2024 is therefore the tercentenary of her construction.

George Young in his 1817 History of Whitby wrote, while the ship was still in recent memory:

”The strength and durability of the Whitby ships may be inferred from the great age some of them have attained. The Sea Adventure is a noted instance; that vessel braved the storms of 86 years, having been built in 1724 and lost in 1810; nor did she go to pieces even at the last , but was carried up by the violence of the wind and of the flood tide into the midst of a field, where she was left high and dry, a good way from the sea on the coast of Lincolnshire.”

The construction of Sea Adventure was that of a ‘cat’ collier with round bluff bows, a deep waist and ‘pinked’ or tapering at the stern. The Earl of Pembroke which became Captain Cook’s Endeavour was such a ship, all of which were built more than 40 years after Sea Adventure, in Whitby. To the disgust of some, he chose these ships over sleeker vessels as they were robust, seaworthy and easily repaired on shore, especially in exotic parts. [5]

Historic black & white engraving of a three-masted ship heeled over for repair in the river with people in boats inspecting the ship's bottom, and anchors, casks and ropes visible in the foreground.
Print c.1780 depicting Cook’s Endeavour badly damaged and under repair after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef in June 1770 (his first voyage). © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Whitby was a bustling port in the 18th and 19th centuries [6], building many ships for its shipowners and for those of many other ports. It was the seventh largest ship building port in the UK. Many ships were employed on the North Sea and Baltic routes. These were treacherous, with severe storms, rocks, sandbanks, and the threat of pirates and the press gangs. [7] R Weatherill counted more than 400 ships off Whitby at one time, with many from the north-east. He was also told that up to 800 would arrive in the Thames on one tide if there was a favourable wind.  It is no wonder there were often collisions both in port and on the open sea. [8]

Scan of historic black & white print of a busy harbour scene, with tall sailing ships coming and going, and moored, all along the left of image, small rowing boats criss-crossing the harbour, and to right quayside houses and people promenading along the quay
Whitby Harbour scene, by permission of the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society

In 1794, during the war with France, Whitby was deemed important enough to warrant fortification against attack from seawards . There were also seamen’s strikes in Shields, broken up by the Royal Navy. Some colliers including Sea Adventure, sailed the Baltic routes.

It is interesting to note the fact that the French and Dutch navies were collaborating from 1786 onwards in the fortification of Cherbourg as a port from which to safeguard the Channel, keep a watchful eye on England’s main naval base of Portsmouth, and potentially attack England. [9]

Late 18th century pen and ink plan of the harbour addressed to the Right Honourable Henry Lord Mulgrave, with textual observations to left and a topographical view of the entrance to the harbour below.
Francis Gibson’s plan for the defences of Whitby, c1794, with Board of Ordnance ‘broad arrow’ stamp. A version of this map exists in North Yorkshire archives, with two significant differences: the defences of the Half Moon Battery, unspecified in this version, are shown in the North Yorkshire version, with 12 x 18pdrs en barbette and a ‘bomb-proof’ magazine, while the ships shown here ‘running inshore for shelter’ have grounded for ‘want of tide to carry them into harbour’ in the other version. Both versions show the line of fire afforded to an ‘enemy ship’ approaching Whitby (marked in red here).
MP/WHA0096 Source Historic England Archive

Her (Very Long) Times – the longevity of ships

Sea Adventure was not unique in being lost at 86 years of age as there were several vessels which operated over 100 years.

Perhaps the most famous was Betsy Cains, built in the King’s Yard in 1690 or 1699, but which had become erroneously associated with bringing over William of Orange in 1688. Her actual history was trading with the West Indies, then transfer to the London and Baltic coal routes, followed by hire as a government transport over 1808-10, during the Napoleonic Wars. On 17th February 1827 she was wrecked at around 130 years old on the notorious Black Middens rocks while leaving her home port of Shields, laden with coal for Hamburg. Many people took pieces of her venerable timbers to make snuff boxes and other souvenirs, and Orange Lodges in particular were keen to have a memento, given the mythical association with William of Orange. [10]

Liberty and Property (known in Whitby as Old Liberty and Property) was built in 1752 and sailed the East Coast and Baltic routes, remaining on the Whitby Register until 1840. Later she transferred to Shields and was eventually wrecked in 1856 in Gotland, Sweden – at 104 years old. Her goods were sold for the benefit of the underwriters. She was described as ‘being engaged in the coal, Baltic trade and transport service – a strange old-fashioned looking craft, attracting a good deal of attention in the Thames and other ports she visited.’ [11]

In 1888, the little schooner Lively ended her days wrecked on the Norfolk coast near Cromer. Built at Whitby in 1786, she was more than 100 years old at the time of loss, and was described in an advert for sale as being suitable for beach landings. The Whitby Gazette of 2nd June 1888 carried a full report and a ‘lament’ to the much-loved old ship, the last lines of which read:

When through the bridge away she glides to find her ancient moorings
Old Whitby’s ships and tars have gone, one after one in order
Yet Whitby’s sons are still the same in courage and in valour. AN OLD FRIEND.

There were other ships which may have gone on to reach their century, such as the William and Jane, built Whitby 1717, and transferred to Newcastle in 1789, or the Content’s Increase, built Whitby 1750 and sold to Newcastle in 1835.

Her demise – the wreck of Sea Adventure

‘Dreadful Storm’ is how newspapers described the weather event of 10 November 1810, when raging winds from the ESE forced many ships on shore between Whitby and Great Yarmouth. There was a minimum of 61 shipwrecks that night, with around 40 lost on the east coast. [12]

Modern colour photo of a shipwreck in a lightbulb-shaped bottle with a museum label entitled "Last Adventure"
Model of a ‘shipwreck in a bottle’: the wreck of the Sea Adventure on Holbeach Marsh in a lightbulb some 1.5km over the salt marsh. G Leach, by permission of the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society

That was the night which saw the loss of the Sea Adventure, bound from Shields for London with coal, a southbound voyage with land to the west on the vessel’s starboard side, which, in an ESE storm simply drove her towards shore.

The label on the ‘shipwreck in a bottle’ says the Sea Adventure ‘must have been sailed goose-winged i.e. downwind with the foresails on one side of the vessel and the mainsail on the other, leaving it too late to reduce sail, which the maker recognised from a situation he had seen. Goose- or gull–winged is defined thus: on a fore-and-aft rigged vessel ‘the jib or staysail is boomed out on the opposite side to the mainsail in a following wind to present the largest possible area of sail to the wind’ (Oxford); wing and wing with a ‘sail extended on each side, as with the foresail out on one side and the mainsail on the other’ (Collins), i.e. a 180-degree angle to maximise the area of sail exposed. (This use is seen Kipling’s poem The Coastwise Lights: ‘we greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool’.)

It is interesting that G. Leach (the modeller) says that the same fate befell the Esk, a Whitby whaler wrecked on Redcar Sands in September 1826, while ‘running before a storm’ on her return from a season in Greenland. [13] The Esk had picked up some sailors from the Lively whaler lost in the ice and of the three sailors who survived from the Esk, one was a William Leach, carpenter’s mate (perhaps an ancestor of the model-maker?)

The label to the ‘shipwreck in a bottle’ also picks up something crucial that illustrates the impact of this storm: that the Sea Adventure was not only driven ashore, but driven a long way inshore.

Historic black and white aerial photograph, showing an expanse of marshland at low tide criss-crossed by creek to centre and top of image, with fields of cultivated land to bottom of image.
RAF photograph taken 2 December 1944 at Holbeach, showing the vast expanse of the marshland to the north. Sea Adventure was driven inshore across the fields, possibly towards the bottom left of the present image. RAF_106G_LA_67_RP_3085 Source Historic England Archive

There were comprehensive reports of the loss of Sea Adventure in the London Chronicle of the 15th November, Stamford Mercury of the 16th, Hull Packet of the 20th, and Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 80, Part 2, of ships wrecked or affected by this storm (described by some as a hurricane or a tempest). Of the Sea Adventure it said she was, for the first time, ‘compelled to run for Boston Deeps’ and the crew, having struggled ashore in boats, were ‘denied even the indulgence of a barn as shelter from the pelting rain’.

Her end had come in one of the most severe storms to hit the east coast of England, which centred on nearby Boston itself. The London Chronicle reports that it started raining in Boston at 7am and continued all day. The ESE wind blew hard and from 6-9pm was ‘a perfect hurricane’. This combination of the hurricane force winds with a record height of tide in Boston – some 4 inches (10cm) above any previously seen – created a tidal bore or eagre of huge potency which swept away sea bank defences flooding the low-lying land. A vessel was deposited on the Turnpike Road near Boston town centre at Black Sluice, forced by the tidal surge up the River Witham.

Many sailors and some on land lost their lives, with reports of sailors who lashed themselves to masts as their ships sank, with other ships powerless to help them. Sixteen bodies were interred at Claxby (Stamford Mercury 23rd November), nine were picked up four miles from Lynn, and many, many more drowned with more bodies washed up on every tide (Hull Packet 20th November).

The meteorological explanation for the violence of the storm is discussed in an article [13] on storm-surge flood risk in eastern England:

The third category of surge is driven off the northeast side of a slow moving deep cyclone in the southern North Sea when isobars become concentrated owing to the presence of an anticyclone to the northwest of Scotland.  Strong pressure gradients drive onshore winds directly onto the coasts of eastern England . . .

This report notes that the same climatology was associated with one of the highest ever high water levels reported at Boston, Lincs. on 10 November 1810, consistent with the loss of the Sea Adventure, the vessel deposited on the Turnpike Road at Boston, and other craft.

Extent of the storm – other ships driven ashore

The Hull Packet of 20 November reported that the Retford of Gainsborough, with coals, was driven about a mile up the Marsh near Boston. Drakard’s Stamford News of 16 November reports that on the 10th ‘a barge drifted over the sea bank near the Scalp and may now be seen in the midst of pastures, with sheep grazing around.’

Three vessels were driven up the Fossdyke Washway , towards Spalding with one, the Ann, carried half a mile into the Marsh from the Fossdyke channel.

In the same report: ‘Near Sutton Wash are two vessels thrown upon a very high marsh, so they will not be got off but by cutting to the sea.” Captain Melion of the Amity, which was driven ashore near Lynn and went to pieces (he, his wife and children struggled ashore), reported that a light collier [i.e. in ballast] was left on the ebbing of the tide in the midst of a farmyard (Hull Packet 20 November).

Some sank at sea and at least one became a hazard: a Caution was issued to ‘Masters of Coasting vessels trading to Boston, Lynn and Wisbech, that six to seven miles West by North of the Sutton-on-Sea signal point the Masts of a Brig were above sea level on all but the highest Spring tides.’

Overall, most ships had a lifespan of 20-40 years, but relatively few ships were got off if driven hard into the rocks, sandbanks or shore, and even fewer which were deposited ‘high and dry’, as these ships were. Whatever their age, luck seems to have run out in the end.

After the wreck of Sea Adventure

Confusion over ship’s names, many having the same name, even from the same port, is not surprising and plays its part in the Sea Adventure story. Many ships were called Adventure, others Sea Venture (as Sea Adventure was in some early records) and the storm reports in papers.

But this was compounded by the fact that a ship Adventure, master Bullock, was wrecked on the same day, 10 November 1810, at Ingoldmells, north of Boston. Both ships were sold at auction but one advertisement for the later sale of the Adventure on 28 December, on the shore, referred to the Sea Adventure. Both vessels would have been broken up in situ and it is interesting to note that Sea Adventure carried 17 keels of Tanfield Moor coal (from the Durham coalfield) and was also armed, as guns were sold.

From the mid-18th century merchant ships of any size had been advised to carry arms to deter privateers. These were relatively light armaments, but in 1757 the Ann of Shields, carrying 5 guns and 8 men, saw off a French privateer of 14 guns, after a four-hour engagement. There were many other examples of successful defence; Captain Humble of the Milburn, North Shields, with 4 x 4-pounders and 13 men fought off a French schooner with 14 guns (Sun, London, 6 January 1801).                                      

Then there was La Modeste, lost in the same storm as the Sea Adventure, but this is an interesting story in its own right and is a blog for another day . . .

Modern colour close-up view of 'shipwreck in a bottle' showing the structure of the vessel and the build up of glue creating the waves inside the bottle.
Close-up of ‘shipwreck in a bottle’, with a figure visible on deck. Almost submerged by the waves, the boat can just be seen by the prow. By permission of the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society

With many thanks to Mike for his blog and we look forward to his return with the Modeste in a later blog, and we would also like to thank the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society for all their help and support in creating this blog.

A full description of the life and voyages of the Sea Adventure is in a booklet Sea Adventure: A Sturdy Whitby Collier 1724-1810, by M A W Salter, available from the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society and North Yorks Archives.

Footnotes

[1] Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record MLI123637 Medieval Bridge, Holbeach

[2] Historic England Research Records maritime dataset, Sea Adventure, HOB UID 942792

[3] Sea Adventure ship’s registration 1786 & de novo 1800 (North Yorkshire Archives); Stamford Mercury, 23 November 1810, p3

[4] Cook Museum, Whitby; Gaskin, R 1909: The Old Seaport of Whitby (Whitby: Forth) p234

[5] Gaskin, op.cit.

[6] Smith, K & Keys, R 1998 Black Diamonds by Sea: North-East Sailing Colliers 1780-1880 (Newcastle: Newcastle Libraries & Information Service)

[7] Fraser, S 2023 “Documents Relating to the Official Dutch Naval Visit to Cherbourg, 8-10 September 1786”, The Mariner’s Mirror, 109:4, 461-468, DOI: 10.1080/00253359.2023.2264658

[8] Historic England’s maritime records are full of collisions in major rivers, particularly for the Thames, Humber and Mersey, as well as in the open sea, especially the North Sea, Straits of Dover, and the English Channel.

[9] Winfield, R 2005 British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 (Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing)

[10] Historic England Research Records maritime dataset, Betsy Cains, HOB UID 1031974

[11] Liverpool Mercury 11 October 1856; Weatherill, R 1908 The ancient port of Whitby and its shipping, with some subjects of interest connected therewith. Compiled from various registeres of shipping, periodicals, local newspapers and histories, etc. (Whitby: Horne) p56

[12] Historic England Research Records maritime dataset, 2024

[13] Historic England Research Records maritime dataset, HOB UID 937642

[14] Muir Wood, R, Drayton, M, Berger, A, Burgess, P, and Wright, T, 2005 “Catastrophe loss modelling of storm-surge flood risk in eastern England”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 363: 1407–1422 DOI: http://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2005.1575

Disability History Month 2022

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Shipwrecks: an investigation of disability in shipwrecks

Contemporary black & white print of tavern scene with disabled sailors in the foreground and other sailors in the background

Fig.1 Image caption: etching by Isaac Cruikshank, c.1791, depicting an old sailor with a wooden leg in the foreground, and, to left, an armless man being assisted to drink. (Wellcome Collection 26889i)

This blog post takes a look at shipwrecks in our waters through the stories of disabled sailors and passengers as part of Disability History Month 2022 (16th November – 16th December).

As a maritime historian, the language used in historical maritime records, particularly those of shipwrecks, is fascinating. One phrase that has always jumped out at me is the description of ships as ‘disabled’ by the loss of masts, rigging, anchors or other equipment as a precursor to ultimate loss in a storm: another phrase is ‘distressed’.

We might think of these as very ‘human’ terms, used in an anthropomorphic sense, but these phrases are used in a very technical sense to indicate that the ship is no longer capable of navigation or of avoiding natural hazard, as in this account from a watcher at the Spurn Head light during the Great Storm of 1703:

‘And then Peter Walls observed about six or seven and twenty sail of ships, all driving about the Spurn Head, some having cut, others broke, their cables, but all disabled, and render’d helpless.’ [1]

Seafaring has always been a dangerous profession – and even now the capacity of a ship’s equipment to cause death and life-changing injuries is added to the inherent dangers of the natural hazards of the sea: the potential for shipwreck is ever-present. Records tend to concentrate on the event itself and injuries which presented at the time, so it is difficult to follow up on their lasting impact, but occasionally there are hints of life-changing disabilities and this must have been more common than the documentary record, based primarily on the loss event itself, actually shows, as the lasting impact of injuries did not, generally, make it into the press record.

For example, in 1899 the French brigantine Gazelle went ashore near Boscastle in a storm, two men being rescued from the wreck by being carried with some difficulty up a rope ladder thrown down the cliffs. One man had a broken leg which was in such a ‘precarious condition’ that amputation was considered likely. [2]

Text reads: Loss of a Boulogne Vessel. The brigantine Gazelle of Boulogne was totally wrecked at Boscastle, North Cornwall, in the gale of Friday last week. She was laden with coal, and carried a crew of four hands, two of whom were drowned.

Fig. 2 News of the wreck made it into the English-language Boulogne Times and Visitors’ List, April 13 1899, p2, which had begun publication in 1898 as a ‘tried and trusted friend’ for English residents and visitors alike.
Boulogne Times and Visitors’ List, April 13, 1899, p2 Source gallica.bnf.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France

In a similar vein, in 1810 the Prussian ship Apries, laden with wheat from Dantzic (now Gdansk) stranded on the Whiting Bank off Suffolk during a gale: the sea was running high and ‘the current drew them’ (and other ships) onto the Whiting. The crew saved themselves while the captain was examining the chart and he found himself ‘abandoned, and the ship going to pieces’, whereupon he ‘got upon the mast, and remained in that perilous situation all night.’ He was rescued by a passing boat the next morning, but ‘one of his hands is so dreadfully bruised, that he will be obliged to have one finger amputated.’ [3]

There are other stories of that ilk among shipwreck accounts around the coastline – sometimes the effects may be amplified through recollection or through secondary sources and it can be difficult to tell what the real consequences were for the individuals concerned. For example, the main source for the wreck of the Norwegian barque Patria, which stranded on Chesil Beach, Dorset, in 1903 appears to be based on personal recollection, but has elements of the ‘seamen’s yarn’ about it, at any rate in the way that the story has been told. One of the crew was stated to have had his leg amputated as a result, but another was said to have ‘run mad’, in the language of the time, and then put in a straitjacket. Newspaper accounts of the wreck mention neither, though both amputation and mental trauma are quite plausible under the extreme stress of a shipwreck event, and this is another good example of how reliance on press reports can obscure the real physical and mental effects of shipwreck. [4]

So sources can be either frustratingly silent or difficult to interpret on the extent of injuries suffered and the permanent effects on survivors are difficult to establish. Given the precarious situations both crew and passengers found themselves in, particularly in winter conditions with prolonged exposure to the elements, there must have been many very serious and debilitating injuries with life-changing impact.

As well as in the usual run of accidents as the ship broke up, with falling debris and splinters, and injuries sustained in scrambling to safety, winter storms carried the additional and very real risk of hypothermia and frostbite, historically known as ‘exposure’ which probably caused the loss of many fingers and toes.

In 1881, the Norwegian brig Hasselø stranded on the Maplin Sand on the approaches to the Thames. They had, ‘at great risk, cut away the masts and rigging, which proved to be a very wise step’ in a ‘blinding snowstorm’, where they were ‘more than knee deep in water’: it took 20 hours for the lifeboat to make the round trip and return after their successful rescue of all the crew, 7 men and a boy. Even the lifeboatmen were suffering from exposure, ‘some of their hands being much swollen’, but the shipwreck victims were in much worse case. [5]

Elsewhere, hospital ships carrying the sick and wounded from naval combat, and conveying soldiers away from sites of terrestrial conflict, have a long history. The earliest known wreck of such a hospital ship in English waters is the San Pedro el Mayor, which came to rest with her passengers of sick and wounded men at Hope Cove, Devon, in 1588, having battled together with the other surviving ships of the Spanish Armada the complete circumnavigation of the British Isles. The English authorities dealing with the wreck called her a ‘Samaritan’, derived from the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, who tended the injuries of a man left for dead – although initially the authorities were rather less well disposed towards their prisoners of war, and were at first considering their execution! [6]

During the First World War hospital ships brought back badly injured men from the Western Front and other theatres of war – the prominent Red Cross painted on these ships should have protected them from attack at sea, in accordance with the Hague Convention (1899), but in practice this was not necessarily the case, and a number of hospital ships and ambulance transports were sunk by enemy action in English waters, leaving disabled men and ‘cot cases’ who were unable to get up independently very vulnerable in the event of attack (for the case study of the Rewa, please see an earlier entry in Wreck of the Week January 1918).

The physical and psychological damage of the First World War was immense, not only in limb loss, sensory trauma (blindness, deafness) and shell shock, but in syndromes such as ‘disordered action of the heart’, which was so common that it was simply named ‘DAH’. DAH was also known as ‘effort syndrome’ or ‘soldier’s heart’, in which stress and fatigue had physiological effects. An English Channel infested with mines and with the ever-present danger of torpedo attack from unseen submarines must have presented an immense psychological barrier for already traumatised, injured and sick soldiers until they set foot ‘back in Blighty’ on the other side of the Channel.

Such injuries must have had a significant impact on a sailor’s ability to earn a living – this was as true of men in the mercantile service as of those who crewed warships.

Like the need for hospital ships, the need to make provision for sailors disabled in the course of their duties was also recognised early on. On the English side of the combatants in the 1588 Armada, the Chatham Chest was an early form of pension fund set up to assist English naval men wounded or disabled in the wars with Spain, paid for by official deductions from their wages.  Greenwich Hospital was founded by Royal Charter in 1694 to support naval men ‘who by reason of age, wounds or other disabilities’ were ‘incapable of further service’ and eventually absorbed the Chatham Chest fund in 1803.

Black and white photograph of colonnaded building with a cupola seen through the columns of a building opposite, and a lamp at top right corner.

Fig.3 Exterior view of the Royal Naval Hospital looking towards the Queen Mary block from the colonnade of the King William block. Eric de Maré AA98/06416 © Historic England Archive

The various wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries saw many troop movements across the seas and numbers of troopship losses, including those of homeward-bound troop transports carrying the sick and wounded. In February of 1776, the year that would see the US Declaration of Independence, the Lion transport ‘made the Island of Scilly in about 21 days from Boston’ homeward bound with ‘invalids and wounded men’. She made landfall there to revictual and repair and was about to resume her onward voyage when ‘a perfect hurricane’ blew up, and she lost her anchors, ‘standing in for a dreadful rock, about 15 yards in height, but suddenly struck upon a hidden one . . . which turned her half round. Thus did Providence, by this unseen rock, save our lives, as the general opinion was we had not half a minute to live.’ [7]

Despite the vulnerabilities of many of those on board, there was no loss of life, but it was still a difficult situation for Captain Pawlett of the 59th Regiment, ‘who lost one of his legs at Boston-Lines by an eighteen-pounder, when commanding a working party of 100 men.’ [8]

Four men load a cannon.

Fig. 4 Re-enactors dressed in American uniforms of the Revolutionary War load an 18-pdr siege cannon at Yorktown National Park. Yorktown (1781), which resulted in the surrender of the British troops under Lord Cornwallis, was the decisive battle of the American Revolutionary War (United States National Park Service: Wikimedia Commons)

As we have seen from other accounts of shipwrecks, the newspapers are silent on his ordeal in the immediate aftermath of the wreck, although he was presented to King George III and later in 1776 he was made the captain of an Independent Company of Invalids at Jersey, a post in the gift of the King. [9] Such companies were made up of wounded and disabled military men, who were thus enabled to continue home service. 

Only Pawlett’s obituary (a mere five years later in 1781) gives us a hint that the safe evacuation of the man with the missing leg might have been less than straightforward: ‘On his return to England he was ship-wrecked on the Isle of Scilly, and preserved with great difficulty.’ [10]

It is the only example we have so far found of the experiences of someone already disabled managing to survive shipwreck in English waters, but there must surely have been others. Zoom in to the terrifying experience of escaping from a similar wreck in The Wreck of a Transport Ship by J M W Turner, c.1810, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon on Google Arts and Culture.

Warfare at sea is another cause of life-changing injuries. It was the most ‘egalitarian’ of all industrial disabilities in the sense that it was equally likely to affect all ranks – i.e. the officer ranks were not removed from the cause of injury (as, say, a factory owner might have been from the industrial injuries on the shop floor of a mill). [11] Horatio Nelson is perhaps the most famous example: the sight in his right eye was impaired by action at Corsica (1794) and his right arm shattered by a musket ball at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1797) and amputated as a result.

As the case of Captain Pawlett demonstrates, cannon had enormous power to cause death and disability. During the age of sail their terror lay not only in direct contact but also on their terrifying impact on a ship’s hull, sending massive splinters of timber flying to kill and maim human beings as collateral damage.

One stanza in a Victorian poem looks back to the First Battle of Copenhagen (1801) and describes both this leading cause of disability in naval engagements, and a famous, if probably apocryphal, incident of Nelson literally turning a blind eye to a signal to retreat, turning it to his advantage and that of the fleet. Disability ties together the ordinary sailor and the most famous of British admirals:

Splinters were flying above, below,
           When Nelson sailed the Sound:
 “Mark you, I wouldn’t be elsewhere now,”
           Said he, “for a thousand pound!”
 The Admiral’s signal bade him fly
         But he wickedly wagged his head:
 He clapped the glass to his sightless eye,
        And “I’m damned if I see it!” he said.

(Admirals All, Henry Newbolt, 1897)

Black and white photo close up view of statue of Nelson, atop the capital of the column with ornamental leaf design

Fig. 5. Horatio Nelson at the top of Nelson’s Column, Trafalgar Square, 1933. Arthur James Mason Collection, AA64/00493 © Historic England Archive.

If historical sources use the language of disability and distress to describe wrecks, disabled seamen could also liken their physical condition to wrecked vessels. A song, The Greenwich Pensioner, by Charles Dibdin (1791) makes this connection with a pun upon the tiers of ships (rows of ships at a mooring in a river, particularly the Thames and Tyne) and the location of the Hospital. (The song was accompanied in print by the Cruikshank caricature illustrating the beginning of the article.)

Yet still am I enabled
     To bring up in life’s rear
 Altho’ I’m quite disabled
    And lie in Greenwich tier.

These tiers of ships could be subject to damaging incidents and mass wreckings. We read of wrecks to these tiers of ships, for example in 1752 ‘during a gale of wind, a tier of ships at Limehouse broke loose, and the Wiltshire . . . being the outside ship, ran aground on the opposite shore, and lighting on a ledge, she overset and is entirely lost’, with a similar mass stranding in 1773, also at Limehouse. [12]

Dibdin’s folk song is thus full of psychological insight, grounded in the everyday reality of the nautical idiom, suggesting that disabled seamen felt a certain vulnerability, despite the shelter of Greenwich and the company of their peers. This everyday reality leaves frustratingly little trace in shipwreck accounts, yet it must have been very common: what seems much clearer is that the language of shipwreck gave seamen a language with which to articulate their own disabilities.

Footnotes:

[1] Defoe, D, 1704 The Storm; or, a Collection of the most remarkable casualties and disasters which happen’d in the late dreadful tempest, both by sea and land (London: G Sawbridge)

[2] Royal Cornwall Gazette, 13 April 1899, No.4,994, p3

[3] Suffolk Chronicle, 20 October 1810, No.25, p4

[4] Shipwreck Index of the British Isles Vol.1: Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset Section 6, Dorset (AJ), based principally on Rasmussen, A H 1952 Sea Fever (London: Constable); a recording of Albert Henry Rasmussen singing sea shanties and mentioning the Patria in passing can be accessed via the British Library online

[5] Essex Standard, 22 January 1881, No.2,615, p8

[6] Dasent, J R (ed) 1897 Acts of the Privy Council of England Volume 16, 1588 (London: HMSO) p328-330 British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/acts-privy-council/vol16 [accessed 12 December 2022]; Knox Laughton, J 1894 State Papers relating to the defeat of the Spanish Armada Vol. II (London: Navy Records Society) p289-296

[7] Derby Mercury, Friday 23 February to Friday 1 March 1776, No.2,289

[8] Norfolk Chronicle, 2 March 1776, Vol.VII, No.361, p2

[9] Reception by the King: Northampton Mercury, 4 March 1776, Vol.LVI, No.51, p1; Hibernian Journal, 13 March 1776, Vol.3 No.33, p4; preferment: Kentish Gazette, Wednesday October 9 to Saturday October 12, 1776, No.880, p2

[10] Norfolk Chronicle, 8 December 1781, No.653

[11] I am grateful to my colleague Ken Hamilton for sharing his thoughts on this subject.

[12] 1752: Lloyd’s List, 14 November 1752, No.1,769; Norwich Mercury, 11 November to 18 November 1752; 1773: Lloyd’s List, 26 February 1773, No.410; Kentish Gazette, 27 February to 3 March 1773, No.501

20. Genuinely Wreck of this Week!

~ Serena ~ Leave a comment

I answer PastScape enquiries if they have a maritime flavour, and earlier this week, a member of the public with an interest in maritime history got in touch via the PastScape comments log to tell us that our record for the Ann in 1802 had the incorrect master’s name and that she had more information.

Incidentally, this one was one researched and put on the system in the first instance, as she does not appear in the Shipwreck Index of the British Isles.

Quite why we have the wrong master’s name turned out to be quite clear in one way, but a bit of a mystery in another way. It’s not uncommon, if a ship is wrecked on her first voyage with a new master, for the earlier master’s name to be quoted in contemporary newspaper reports, particularly if it is a vessel with a quick turnaround on a regular route, as was the case with the Ann.

This lovely correspondent kindly typed up some further background information from copies of original documents she had obtained from the National Maritime Museum for me: it turned out that on this voyage the master was Bittleston, not Grant, she was 243 tons, and owned by a man who specialised in the east coast coal trade, so the Ann was most likely a dedicated collier. She is utterly typical of ships in that trade, a brig, and about the usual tonnage for a smaller brig of c.250 tons. Not unusually for a collier brig, she was lost off Great Yarmouth by getting on the Scroby Sand.

What was interesting was the level of detail after the ship struck the Scroby. The master’s attempts to get the vessel off continued until the planks started, when it became clear she wasn’t going to come off; the salvors were circling like vultures to start stripping the hull, and a bill was presented to W D Palmer, shipwreck agents at Great Yarmouth, for efforts to attend the ship. According to my correspondent, apparently some of the sails which were supposed to have been salved were stolen.

In these cases, the vessel was normally stripped of all her materials, which were advertised for sale by auction in situ, or taken back within 2-6 weeks, to be sold by auction at her home port, depending on how quickly the materials and stores could be salved and the availability of a suitable vessel to take the materials back. The wrecks of Shields colliers were often sold back at Shields in this way. For example a ship appeared in the arrivals list at Shields with “wrecked materials” from Saltfleet, following the loss of a vessel at Saltfleet in 1810.

The tide times in the contemporary sources don’t stack up. I had a look on Admiralty Easytide and high water on 14 September 1802 at Great Yarmouth itself was at 9.29 so two hours after high tide would have been circa 11.30. As the Scroby is not that far offshore, the discrepancy is surely too great to be owing to the location? There are other things which are slightly odd. Mrs Thompson told me that the mate had been arrested on the previous voyage by the Customs on arrival at Shields, but was bailed, and two days after the wreck he wrote to the former captain: My Dr. Friend That you were not Master of the Ann when this Misfortune came upon us I heartily rejoice.

Curiouser and curiouser. It was suggested that there was some “pong” about the whole thing. Was there a reason the master was replaced, so that the original master had an alibi?

The thought of insurance fraud did cross my mind, but against that is the whole issue of a spike in 1802 of ships lost on the Scroby with 4 ships lost that year, one only a couple of weeks previously. Interestingly, the weather conditions are not mentioned at all in any of those four cases, suggesting that they were unremarkable, so the weather was probably not particularly a factor in the case of the Ann, i.e. not driving her onto the sand. As with most sandbanks, there are fairly discernible patterns where the numbers of wrecks rise in a particular year which must be owing to sand movement. The vessel struck at 9pm on the 13th in company with another vessel, near enough to high tide at 9.30pm, according to Admiralty Easytide, This suggests that the two ships were expecting a clear navigable channel around the Scroby. The other ship was more fortunate in getting off, perhaps because she might have been nearer the edge of the sand and able to float off more quickly as the tide reached its height. The number of Scroby losses in that year without ascribing any responsibility to the weather suggests that perhaps the sand was encroaching unexpectedly on the navigable channel, which was therefore narrower than usual.

Does anyone else have anything to add or any other suggestions? In the meantime, however, this is a really good example of a record which is hugely improved following collaboration with a PastScape visitor.

11. Wrecks on Christmas Day

~ Serena ~ Leave a comment

Wrecks on Christmas Day are somewhat inevitable when the prime ‘wrecking season’ is between October and March in our northern hemisphere. There are numerous instances of such wrecks, so here are a few representative examples – there are far more in our records than I can possibly include here. However, it does show that it is possible to mine the database for the same day regardless of year, as well as a specific date.

Plymouth in particular seemed really rather dangerous on the 25th December in the late 17th century: on 25th December 1675 the George  and Spread Eagle, both from Bordeaux with wine, were lost west of the Citadel, as was a Dutch ship, the St. Job of Naarden. On 25th December 1689 a similar event happened, resulting in the loss of the Centurion,  Henrietta, Blade of Wheat, Dover Prize, Eendracht  and two unknown French prizes which had been sent into Plymouth. However, accounts are probably skewed by Plymouth’s status as a naval base and importance as a port, making it one of the premier ‘reporting ports’ for the few newspapers at this time.

In 1810 a gale on Christmas Day accounted for four wrecks in various locations, two of them in Liverpool. The wind conditions on that day were reported at Deal as ‘West, blows hard, a tremendous gale in the morning.’ On the same day a year later, the crew of the Giertru Chrestiane from Drammen in Norway were picked up in their boats after striking the Leman and Ower off Norfolk on Christmas Eve.

On 25th December 1814, the Valette schooner went to pieces off Warkworth, Northumberland, with what sounds like a very Dickensian cargo of toys and clocks from Rotterdam. In 1830, the German brig Anna, bound for her home port of Hamburg with coal, came ashore at Mundesley, Norfolk, on Christmas night at 9pm in a ‘strong gale and a very severe frost’.

One hundred years later, the crew of the Norwegian collier Eli,  bound from Blyth for Rouen with coal, had a most un-festive shock when their ship was mined on 25th December 1914 off Scarborough – a reminder that while the Christmas truce was holding across much of the Western Front, mines could strike at random.

Happily all the crew were saved, hopefully to enjoy the remainder of their Christmas!