wrecks in 1842

Wrecks from Odessa

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The Blesk and the Caledonia

This week my guest blogger is Izzy Daone, Maritime Information Officer at Historic England, who is on her way to pastures new. We wish her well, but in the meantime, here is her blog which demonstrates how wrecks illustrate historic connections between places.

Over to Izzy:

My recent travels to Ukraine and the port of Odessa inspired me to examine records we hold for wrecks within our waters with a connection to the city. Odessa’s port was Russia’s main grain exporting centre during the 19th century. Two particular wrecks caught my attention; the first registered to the port of Odessa and an environmental disaster, and the other a Scottish snow which stranded on her passage from Odessa to Gloucester – a well-known trade route.

View of port city, with tree-lined plaza in foreground, looking out to sea over port infrastructure, and a blue sky beyond.
Figure 1: The port of Odessa as it appears in the present day. © Izzy Daone

We begin with the wreck of the Blesk, a 2026 ton oil tanker which stranded on Greystone Ledge, Devon on the 1st of December 1896. She was a Russian ship, as at this time Odessa belonged to Russia rather than Ukraine, and was owned by the Russia Steam Navigation Trading Company.

On her final voyage, she docked at Istanbul carrying 3180 tons of petroleum and took on coal. She then sailed to Gibraltar where she loaded yet more coal. Poor weather conditions and unfortunate human error bought about her wrecking. In stormy conditions, the master of the ship identified what he thought was a French lighthouse. It was however, not the French lighthouse he believed it to be. It was the Eddystone, a large rock topped with a lighthouse approximately 14 miles south of Plymouth. Adjusting the vessels course to the north, the master continued on what he thought was a safe passage into the North Sea.

It was not to be. She struck the Greystone Ledge, near to Ramillies Hole. The crew fired distress rockets and prepared to abandon ship. Despite the rough seas and freezing temperatures, the crew were reached by lifeboats from Hope Cove and Salcombe. All 43 of the crew were saved.

The morning revealed the first occurrence of oil pollution in South Devon, with much of the vessel’s cargo having spread along the coast. The Blesk disaster is one of the earliest oil tanker environmental incidents on record. Interestingly, newspaper articles contemporary with the event fail to mention the environmental impact of the leaking oil which is in stark contrast to how society would react to a similar incident today.

The second of our Odessa wrecks concerns the wreck of the Caledonia, a Scottish snow which stranded en route from Odessa to Gloucester with a cargo of wheat. There is a long established trade link between Gloucester and Ukraine which grew considerably when the Corn Law was repealed in 1846, allowing more foreign exports and causing the enlargement of the dock area. (1)  Indeed, a pub in Tewkesbury is named the ‘Odessa Inn’; the name a possible acknowledgement of this established trade relationship of the 19th century.

The Caledonia had started her journey in Rio de Janeiro and was loaded with coffee, headed for Syria, Smyrna and Constantinople. From here, she docked at Odessa and loaded her cargo of wheat and began her final passage to Gloucester. On the 7th of September 1842 she left Falmouth for the final leg of her journey.  She would never reach her destination.

That night a strong north-north-westerly wind caused the Caledonia to strike upon the rocks at Vicarage Cliffs, Morwenstow. All but one of the crew were lost; evidence names survivor to be Edward De Lain. His eight ship-mates were buried in Morwenstow churchyard, marked by the Caledonia’s figurehead. A replica of the figurehead now serves as a grave marker, the original having been moved to the church for safekeeping.

De Lain is said to have believed the ship was unlucky and claims three ill-omens (in the eyes of 19th century sailors) occurred prior to her wrecking; a black bag brought aboard by the cook, a bucket lost overboard and she had set sail from Rio de Janeiro on a Friday. For our records however, the loss of this 200-ton vessel has been attributed to the poor weather conditions she encountered as she sailed toward the Bristol Channel.

B&W photo of white-painted figurehead in Scottish dress with tam o'shanter, kilt, sword and shield, in churchyard.
The original figurehead of the Caledonia at Morwenstow. © Historic England. AA98/04739

Although both of these wrecks tell very different tales, they both serve as a reminder that things we consider recent phenomena – large scale food and oil imports – actually go back a long way and have left their mark on the landscape. The UK still continues to trade with Ukraine today, with operations continuing at the port of Odessa. Data provided by the Government Statistics Agency of Ukraine shows that in 2015 the UK was their 11th biggest trading partner. (2)

Dockyard with cranes to left, sea to right, against a blue sky with fluffy clouds.
Figure 2: Odessa is an important industrial centre for Ukraine today. © Izzy Daone

(1) ‘Gloucester, 1835-1985: Economic development to 1914’, in A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 4, the City of Gloucester, ed. N M Herbert (London, 1988), pp. 170-183. British History Online  http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol4/pp170-183 [accessed 19 September 2018].

(2) Trade in goods and services between Ukraine and the United Kingdom, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (2018). https://uk.mfa.gov.ua/en/ukraine-uk/trade [accessed 26 September 2018].

 

No.84 A family concern

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This week’s post approaches wrecks from the viewpoint of family history and local heritage, which are often closely intertwined: today’s case study concerns a number of wrecks which all belonged to the same family with a very distinctive name, the Isemongers of Littlehampton, Sussex.

They seem to have been specialists in the coal trade between Sunderland and Littlehampton, with four collier brigs that we know of, associated with the family and lost within a 30-year timespan.

In 1842, the Economy struck near her home port ‘between Rustington Mills and the Hot Baths’ of the nearby resort, while waiting for a suitable tide to come in. The initial report that the crew had all drowned was later reported as false, and the very specific location described above, in a version in which all the crew survived, lends credence to the report of their survival. She was owned by one Thomas Iremonger (sic), and captained by his brother.

The Peacock of Arundel was lost on the coal route at Caister-on-Sea, Norfolk, on the 12th. On the 25th the Oswy of Littlehampton was beached to discharge her cargo of coal, at Worthing, as was common on the shores of Sussex, and was wrecked when the wind shifted and the weather became stormy – a fairly common manner of loss locally, too.

The Oswy was among the effects of ‘R & P Isemonger’ advertised in a bankruptcy sale in 1851, but the Admiralty Register of Wrecks of 1852-3 attributes her ownership to an Isemonger: did they manage to retain her after all, or buy her back, or was she bought by a relative? (1)

It is 1872 before we hear again of a collier brig owned by an Isemonger of Arundel in another loss incident. The Russell was driven ashore at Hauxley Point, Northumberland, in wind conditions SE force 9. She illustrates another typical manner of loss, for she was outbound from Sunderland for Littlehampton with coal. A severe SE gale could force vessels leaving, or making for, the east coast ports of Shields and Sunderland off course, driving them north to be wrecked along the Northumberland coast.

Patterns of family history are often revealed through wrecks, typically through the names of masters and owners, whose names are those most often recorded in the sources used to tell the story of wrecks. (We do sometimes receive information from people who have traced ancestors as crew members, but that is another post for another day!) There must once have been many families like this, based in coastal towns or villages, who owned a number of ships, usually specialising in a particular trade, and they would have been hit hard by the loss of any one ship. Their story ripples out beyond family and local heritage to become a microcosm of a ‘typical’ 19th century trade route, illustrating characteristic loss patterns at both ends of the voyages they undertook.

(1) Brighton Gazette, 4 December 1851, No.1,597, p1; Admiralty Register of Wrecks, 1852-3, in Parliamentary Papers, Vol.61, pp194-195(197)

Wreck of the Week No.30: The Staff of Life

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Our Daily Bread

Recently a colleague challenged me to name wrecks with an obscure cargo, thinking that bread would be too difficult to find. Off the top of my head – as we were in a respectable hostelry at the time! – I mentioned a number of local ships I knew of, laden with provisions to take to market, some of which must surely have involved bakery goods as well as groceries and livestock. However, back in the office, I thought I’d better do some digging.

One good example is a wreck that has come down to us only as “Owner Owen’s Trow“, belonging to Gloucester, which sank after colliding with a larger vessel in the Severn in 1751, “which greatly damaged her cargo” of “grocery”. Local papers at this time seem generally to refer to Severn trows by owner rather than by any name the vessel may or may not have had.  For an image of what a trow looked like, have a look at the signboard of the Llandoger Trow pub in Bristol.

I suggested also the raw material of wheat, for example the wreck of the Caledonia in 1842, again inbound to Gloucester with wheat from the ‘bread basket of Russia’ at Odessa. Keeping with the pub theme, to this day there is an Odessa Inn at Tewkesbury, which is on the Severn and must refer to this trade.

Well, as they say, an army marches on its stomach. Virtually every time I found a mention of bread or provisions, it was in relation to victualling a campaign or a fleet. We have a number of such records from the Middle Ages, the earliest being in 1296 at Lytham, “with goods and victuals for the castles in North Wales”. This one was followed in 1302 by another victualler feeding Edward I’s army, lost off Hartlepool, while in 1305 another ship was lost off Cumbria, laden with corn and other provisions for “the maintenance of the king’s subjects in the war” in Scotland.

We only have three specific mentions of bread. One was the Rebecca, exporting bread from Stockton-on-Tees for Barbados, lost at Boulmer, Northumberland, in 1691. The Charming Sally was outward-bound to victual the English army at Quiberon Bay in 1760, when she was lost in the Cattewater, just as she was leaving Plymouth. This shows the support for one of the most famous British campaigns of the 18th century, one of those that shaped modern Canadian history.

Likewise the Swift victualler was lost in convoy off Portland, similarly bound for Canada, in 1776, laden with what every sailor needed: rum and bread. “Oh! dreadful sight!” wrote a witness, as she was consumed by fire.

The long distances involved in all three cases shows us that in all likelihood we are probably looking at the famous hard tack or ship’s biscuit. Have a look at one here.

5. Our Four-Legged Friends

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Dogs in Shipwrecks [Post updated August 2020]

Today’s records are in a slightly lighter vein . . . dogs associated with wrecks.

Dogs may not be able to talk, but sometimes they can bear witness to a wreck, as in this case when a dog arrived home at St. Ives, the first indication that anything was amiss with the Charles, lost off Portreath in November 1807, the sole survivor and the sole witness. If only they could talk . . .

For a dog to be a sole survivor of a wreck event was not uncommon. Unsurprisingly Newfoundlands featured quite regularly in such accounts, such as those who swam ashore from the wrecks of the Cameleon transport on the Manacles in 1811, while bringing home soldiers from the Peninsular War, or the Edouard in 1842 off Kimmeridge in Dorset.

Another dog also became the sole survivor of the steamer Prince, wrecked in 1876 off the Tyne.

Thomas Bewick, in his 1790 General History of Quadrupeds, illustrated the Newfoundland not only with one of his celebrated woodcuts but also with an anecdote which seems to relate to the story of the Shields collier brig John, lost in 1789 near Great Yarmouth. From that ship, lost with all hands, a log book came ashore. How it came ashore was evidently part of a tale circulating in Shields and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where Bewick lived and worked and had his books published:

‘ . . . a Newfoundland dog alone escaped to shore, bringing in his mouth the captain’s pocket-book . . .’ According to Bewick, the ‘sagacious animal’ refused to drop his ‘charge, which in all probability was delivered to him by his perishing master’ until he saw a man whom he liked the look of, and he gave him the book before returning to the shore. He then ‘watched with great attention for everything that came from the wrecked vessel, seizing them, and endeavouring to bring them to land.’ (1)

Black and white engraving of a large dog against a rural landscape
‘The drawing for this dog was taken from a very fine one, at Eslington in the county of Northumberland’ Thomas Bewick, A General History of Quadrupeds (1790) Wikimedia Commons: public domain

Though several other records also report the sole survivor as being canine, more happily, there were other accounts where some or all of the members of the crew, human and canine, were rescued. In 1869 a two-year old Newfoundland was rescued from the Highland Chief barque on the Goodwin Sands, having stayed behind on the wreck with 12 humans, waiting for the Deal boatmen to come to them (the five men who trusted to the ship’s boat were never seen again).

The crew of the Reaper of Guernsey were taken off by breeches buoy in 1881, in another rescue off the Tyne, including a somewhat vocal animal: ‘Above the shouts of the men could be distinctly heard the yells of a fine terrier dog’ reported a local newspaper. When the Wandsworth  also struck off the Tyne in 1897 another dog, also rescued by breeches buoy, ‘gave token of being exceedingly thankful for its rescue’.

We wonder if the rescuers were licked to death!

In 1868 a ‘very fine retriever dog’ kept calm in an emergency and doggy-paddled off to save itself from a wreck. It knew where to go, and, ‘no doubt attracted by the brilliant Gull light’ swam up to the Gull lightvessel off the Goodwin Sands after the collision between the Lena and Superior, which sank the latter. The dog had swum for nearly a mile before reaching the lightvessel, and seems to have been made quite a fuss of, being called a ‘sagacious animal’ and ‘noble creature’.

In 1858, a ‘much exhausted’ black Newfoundland was picked up at sea ‘half a league from the pier head’ at Mullion the morning after two ships in harbour were driven out to sea and smashed onto the shore west of Mullion.

Somewhat more famous was Monte, the St. Bernard plucked to safety by the greatest lifeboatman of all time, Cox’n Henry Blogg, from the Monte Nevoso aground on Haisbro’ Sand in 1932. Monte is the star of the RNLI Henry Blogg museum where a photograph of Monte can be seen with his rescuer and owner (shown in the link). A pet dog also made the news when rescued from the wreck of the Terukuni Maru, mined in the Thames in 1939.

Dogs could also be the rescuer rather than the rescued and it is no surprise that a Newfoundland was involved in the following incident in 1815. The breed became famous for its lifesaving capabilities and instincts, a reputation which persists to this day.  The ‘sagacious canine perseverance’ of one Newfoundland who doggedly (sorry . . . ) swam ashore with a lead line resulted in a successful rescue operation from the Durham Packet off Cley-next-the-Sea, Norfolk.

From this we have learnt not only of the part that dogs, especially Newfoundlands, have played in our wreck heritage, but also that the word of choice was ‘sagacious’!

Oil painting of a dog lying on a quayside against an evening sky, with seagulls wheeling in the air to the right.
A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, exhibited 1838, Sir Edwin Landseer, bequeathed by Newman Smith, 1887. Photo © Tate. In this painting another dog stood in for the elusive ‘Bob’, who was said to have survived a shipwreck off the east coast of England, and subsequently famous for his rescues, and an honorary member of the Humane Society. The tale may have grown in the telling but Landseer depicted several Newfoundlands associated with shipwreck and lifesaving, particularly black and white Newfoundlands, which have since become known as the ‘Landseer’ type.

Footnote:

(1) Bewick, T. 1790 A General History of Quadrupeds (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Hodgson, Beilby & Bewick)