Coastal Ships, Mariners and Visitors: Cape 19th c 3

THE WRECK OF THE THORNE 1831

Table Bay 1834

On Wednesday 18 May 1831 the 251 ton British brig Thorne, a frequent visitor to the Cape, sailed out of Table Bay destined for London with a cargo of colonial produce. When the vessel was near Robben Island, a sudden, dense fog arose making visibility impossible. Shortly afterwards the Thorne struck a rock on the western side of the island. Boats including the Northwester and Messrs Sinclair’s and others were immediately sent out to assist. The Port Captain was first on board the stricken ship but ‘he found the rudder unhung and the water up to the hold-beams’ and there was no hope of saving her.

The following evening, the boat Northwester took off part of the Thorne’s cargo of beef, hides and skins. Mr Sinclair superintended the landing of goods on Robben Island. The passengers’ baggage was saved, as were the passengers and all members of the crew.

A report on the wreck made the front page of the South African Commercial Advertiser on Saturday 21 May, smugly mentioning that the Cape Underwriters could congratulate themselves ‘on their fortunate escape … not a single policy, either on the Thorne or her cargo, was affected at the Cape. The insurance of both was done in England and Calcutta.

The parties insured, however, will have to wait about 12 months for the settlement of their various claims, a fact which speaks most powerfully in favour of Colonial Underwriting.’

It had been a disastrous year for the Thorne. In June 1830, on her way to Table Bay, she had experienced severe gales which had washed away her bulwarks and caused other damage to the ship, forcing her to put in at Plettenburg Bay. At that time she was commanded by William Johnson (or Johnston). The Thorne was not a coastal vessel, but sailed further afield to India, England and Mauritius as well as the Cape ports, carrying a variety of cargo (on the Mauritius to Cape run she carried sugar, from Knysna she carried timber), passengers and mail.

Johnson was still her captain in January 1831 when she made a voyage from Table Bay to Algoa Bay. However, on 25 March of that year, the Thorne arrived in Table Bay under W Poole who had taken over command when Captain Johnson died during the voyage. The South African Commercial Advertiser announced on Saturday 26 March 1831, the death on 21 March, of Mr William Johnston [sic], master of the bark Thorne, aged 30 years.’

Poole continued as captain of the Thorne for the succeeding months and it was under his command that the brig struck the rocks at Robben Island in May 1831.

The press reported that young Poole was ‘plunged into utmost grief and distress of mind; but from all we can collect, it appears no blame attaches to him – the heavy fog and the darkness of the evening assisted perhaps by the current, being the immediate causes of the misfortune.’

Despite Poole’s youth and inexperience as a master, he probably was not responsible for the loss of the Thorne. Fog was a common cause of shipwreck along South Africa’s coastline, vessels running on to islands or reefs, and sometimes into each other. Early 19th c mariners relied on visibility as well as on charts which might not be entirely accurate. Navigation at night was particularly difficult when instrument readings could not be followed up by clear observation of the area, and depending on date there may not have been lighthouses to help delineate hazards.

The Robben Island lighthouse was not in commission until 1865, thirty-four years after the wreck of the Thorne, though Jan van Riebeeck apparently thought it important enough in 1656 to select personally a suitable site on the Island for making signal fires – this was the highest point on Robben Island, known as the Vuurberg, and the present lighthouse stands on the same site.

Robben Island Lighthouse

Archival records held in the Cape and local newspaper reports allow us to track the Thorne in some detail. In February 1828 she left Bombay bound for London; arrived in Simon’s Bay 3 June, left 8 June; with a cargo of sundries and two passengers. The following year she left the Downs (England) bound for Cape Town, arriving Table Bay 13 August, left 28 September; agents were Thomson and Co.; cargo sundries and 1 passenger; brought mail. On 4 May 1830 Thorne left Mauritius bound for Cape Town; arrived at Table Bay 29 Jan, left 3 March.; agents were still Thomson & Co., cargo sugar & passengers; brought a small mail. The significance of these activities, which were all in a normal day's work for this type of ship in the 19th c, becomes clear as we pursue the Thorne’s story.

In June 1830 the vessel was damaged during severe gales. The following year, in March 1831, her captain, Johnson, died at sea, and two months later the Thorne was wrecked. Superstitious mariners might at that stage have described her as an unlucky ship.

However, for me, as well as for other interested descendants, the Thorne has a redeeming feature: she was responsible for the arrival at the Cape of our ancestor William Bell and the start of his career as a mariner in the coastal waters off South Africa.



Thanks to Anita Caithness (family historian, friend and archivist for references to Thorne), Sue MacKay (newspaper transcriber and provider of many Bell and Conch references), Harold Williams (the lighthouse man) and Malcolm Turner (the shipwreck man).

Coastal Ships, Mariners and Visitors: Cape 19th c 4

Reference to Conch & William Bell
April 1837; note J Smith & Co, Agents

Although several local newspaper references to William Bell and the Conch came to light from January 1837 onwards, the date of his arrival at the Cape remained obscure. It has now emerged that he was on board the Thorne at the time of her wreck in Table Bay in 1831.

The source of the information describes Bell as ‘2nd Officer’ of the Thorne, but this is uncomfortable terminology for a merchant ship of Thorne’s type and size (251 tons) in the 1830s. Usually such a vessel would have the following crew structure: Master, Mate, 2nd Mate, Carpenter, 6 seamen, 2 Apprentices.

In 1831, the date the Thorne was lost, Bell would have been 24, the right age for either Mate or 2nd Mate. It is a known fact that he had been apprenticed to John Ritson, founder of a large Cumbrian shipbuilding and ship-owning company. During his indentures Bell would learn everything required to build ships as well as handle them and he may have gone to sea as an apprentice for a year or two. After this he would be eligible to be contracted as a fully-fledged seaman, and thus gain further practical experience.

The Thorne sailed to India in 1828 and this was unlikely to have been her only visit there.  Bell would have had the opportunity to observe the use of masulah surf-boats at Indian ports, an idea which he later successfully implemented at Port Natal. That he was well-informed about these boats is explained by Bell’s travels on Thorne.

Masulah Surf-boat, Madras

Also, since the Thorne was a regular visitor at Cape ports, Bell would have gathered experience of the coast and the vagaries of its wind and weather. He was to become closely acquainted with every safe anchorage between Table Bay and Delagoa Bay, including the Bay of Natal, knowledge which would stand him in good stead in the years to follow.

Returning to the reference to Bell’s having been ‘2nd Officer’, it seems that when Thorne’s Captain Johnson died, and command passed to the then Mate, W Poole (aged thirty), someone would take a step up the ladder to fill the vacant place of Mate. This was either Bell, or another unnamed man. In the latter case, Bell may have moved up a rung to 2nd Mate and therefore would have been in that role when the Thorne met her fate on the rocks of Robben Island. He was qualified to perform the duties of either Mate or 2nd Mate at the time.

When a ship was wrecked far from its home port, efforts were usually made to repatriate the surviving crew members. So far it hasn’t been possible to establish whether Bell did go back to England in 1831, returning to the Cape later. An alternative is that he stayed in the Cape after the Thorne wreck and in due course became acquainted with the agent J O Smith who presumably liked the cut of his jib and took him on as a mariner on coastal vessels. Bell proved reliable and by at least 1837, possibly before, acquired command of the schooner Conch. Until he made captain he would have remained invisible in local records.

JOHN OWEN SMITH AND HMS THUNDERBOLT

Information on John Owen Smith wasn’t easy to find, though his name appears often enough as ship’s agent in the Cape papers. Browsing through one of Lawrence Green’s volumes I found an intriguing reference:

Thunderbolt Reef from Cape Recife

In 1847, the man-o’-war H.M.S. Thunderbolt was wrecked on the reef which later bore her name. She was a thousand ton paddle-wheeler and mysteriously ran on to the reef in calm, clear weather. Her captain, Commander Alexander Boyle, R.N., refloated her and beached her on the shores of Algoa Bay, but she broke up.



‘Mr J O Smith, a settler, bought her for 102 pounds and sold the ship’s timbers to people building houses. Smith’s Folly became a profitable business. In the end Smith was ordered to remove the wreck. He did so with a huge charge of gunpowder that shook early Port Elizabeth to its foundations.’

If this story is true, and it is the same J O Smith, he seems to me to have been the type of man who would have appreciated the rugged and eccentric Captain William Bell.



Grateful thanks to Derek Ellwood, friend and maritime historian.

Mariners: The First Rung of the Ladder 2

The Solway with its sand banks and shallow waters was always a difficult stretch of water to navigate. A flag was hoisted when it was safe for sailing vessels to enter port, and in later years steam tugs aided vessels in and out of the harbour and along navigable channels. This is an appropriate analogy for the career of the mariner apprentice, navigating the shoals and hazards as he started out on his voyage and requiring an experienced pilot to guide him through the channel ahead and reach safe anchorage.

A view of Ritson's shipyard, showing a ship under construction on a slipway. The town of Maryport progressed as an industrial centre throughout the 19th century. The port developed and shipyards such as Wood's, Peat's and Ritson's yard were established. Ritson's was famous for launching ships broadside into the River Ellen as it wasn't wide enough for ships to be launched in the usual way.  

It is certain that Bell was apprenticed to John Ritson, who was the founder of the Maryport shipbuilding firm of that name, though Ritson had been manager of the John Peat yard before launching his own business. He might have apprenticed Bell whilst still managing Peat’s. Ritson had been a ship’s carpenter and reputedly could handle every tool from the adze to the caulking tool with great skill. It’s quite feasible that Bell served his apprenticeship as a ship’s carpenter, a shipwright, and went to sea as a fully-fledged ‘chippie’. The average ship’s carpenter made his first voyage at 20 years plus (though it's scarcely credible that Bell waited until 1827).

Most Cumbrian shipbuilding firms were also shipowners – either minority shareholders or Managing Owners. Sometimes vessels were built by the yards speculatively in times of no orders, but shipowners they invariably were and also frequently merchants trading on their own behalf: useful hedges against the ups and downs of shipbuilding to order. 

Perhaps Bell was a Ritson employee on a Ritson built and owned vessel trading to the Cape, liked what he saw, engaged with owners who traded more regularly with the Cape, e.g. the owners of the Thorne, and eventually made the break, remaining in the Colony after that ship was wrecked on Robben Island in 1831.*  

How and why young William made the move from his childhood environs to Maryport is a matter for conjecture. There may have been relatives, either there or in Bowness, who had risen to comparative affluence and were in a position to assist him. Another alternative is that his parents were in difficult circumstances, perhaps on Poor Relief, and that William was placed with John Ritson as a Parish Apprentice.

In the early 1820s the area from Bowness to Carlisle was in a depressed state, many of the working people living under harsh conditions. The weather was particularly bad, the waters of the Firth (or Frith in local parlance) rising to a greater height than had been known for years, with widespread flooding. A native of Carlisle wrote:

Unsound barley meal … sold for as much as four shillings a stone; while wheat flour and butchers meat were wholly beyond the reach of the ordinary workman. It was no uncommon thing for our house to be without bread for weeks together; and I cannot remember to have ever seen in my very early years a joint of meat of any kind on my father’s table, oatmeal porridge and potatoes, with an occasional taste of bacon, being our principal food.**

With such deprivation commonplace, it’s likely that Bell’s parents would encourage him to aim higher than labouring as many men did on the planned Carlisle Canal (opened in March 1823). In time, the Canal would bring improved communications, the building of new ships, increased trade and a measure of prosperity but all this was as yet in the unpredictable future. An apprenticeship for William with a reputable shipyard was a much safer bet.

Maryport by William Daniell

Titanic links: Maryport has a strong affiliation with the White Star Line and its most famous ship the Titanic. Thomas Henry Ismay, founder of the White Star Line, was born 7 January 1836 at Ropery House, Ellenborough Place, a short distance from the southern end of Elizabeth Dock. Married at the age of 22, Ismay had then amassed capital of £2,000 and within a decade was worth nearly £½million. When he died in 1899 his estate was worth £1¼million.

*The Wreck of the Thorne

 http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/search?q=wreck+of+thorne

**The Carlisle Navigation Canal: David Ramshaw (P3 Publications) p27

Note: Under the Merchant Seamen, etc, Act 1823 (4 Geo IV c 25) Masters of British merchant ships of 80 tons and over were required to carry a given number of indentured apprentices. These had to be duly enrolled with the local Customs Officer. These provisions were extended by the Merchant Seamen Act 1835 (5 & 6 Wm IV c 19) which provided for the registration of these indentures. In London they were registered with the General Register and Record Office of Seamen and in other ports with the Customs officers who were required to submit quarterly lists to the Registrar General. In 1844 it was provided for copies of the indentures to be sent to the Registrar General, and although compulsory apprenticeship was abolished in 1849 the system of registration was maintained. Under the Merchant Shipping Act 1894 (57 & 58 Vict c 60) a parallel arrangement was introduced for apprentices on fishing boats.

Reference: BT 150       

Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Index of Apprentices

Description:

This series comprises an index, compiled by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen and its predecessor, of apprentices indentured in the merchant navy.

The index relates to the copy indentures in BT 151 and BT 152

Date:

1824-1953

Held by:

The National Archives, Kew

Acknowledgement:

Derek Ellwood

Wreck of the brig Thorne 18 May 1831 South African Commercial Advertiser

Transcribed below for easier reading:

On Wednesday last the Brig Thorne sailed out of Table Bay, bound to London, with a cargo of Colonial Produce. When near Robben Island a fog so sudden and dense arose, that the captain could not see beyond the length of the vessel, and she shortly afterwards struck on a rock at the western side of the island. As soon as this distressing accident became known to the Agents, Messrs. Thomson, Watson & Co., they promptly rendered every assistance available: the Northwester, and Messrs. Sinclairs’ and other boats were sent to the vessel.

The Port Captain, also, with his usual vigilance, got on board before any other boat from Cape Town, but as he found the rudder unhung, and the water up to the hold-beams, not the least hope remained of saving the vessel.  The Northwester returned from the wreck on Thursday evening, with a full cargo of beef, hides and skins; and should the weather continue moderate, they expect to save the greater part of the cargo.  Mr. Sinclair superintends the landing of the goods on Robben Island; and we are glad to learn that the Passengers’ baggage was saved.

The master, a young man who succeeded to the command after the recent death of Capt. Johnstone, is plunged into the utmost grief and distress of mind; but from all we can collect, it appears that no blame attaches to him – the heavy fog, and the darkness of the evening, assisted perhaps by the current, being the immediate causes of the misfortune.

The Cape Underwriters may congratulate themselves on their fortunate escape in the present case.  Not a single policy, either on the Thorne or her cargo, was effected at the Cape.  The Insurance of both was done in England and Culcutta, we believe.  The parties insured, however, will thus have to wait about twelve months for the settlement of their several claims, a fact which speaks powerfully in favour of Colonial Underwriting.

Robben Island

Acknowledgement to veteran researcher Sue McKay for all her photography and transcription work, of which I was one grateful recipient.

The brig Thorne and the American Ship Panther at Plettenberg Bay, July 1831

South African Commercial Advertiser 7 July 1831

Note that the brig Thorne was reportedly the ship on which Captain William Bell was serving in the capacity of '2nd Officer’ according to one source, but this is uncomfortable terminology for a merchant ship of Thorne’s type and size (251 tons) in the 1830s. Usually such a vessel would have the following crew structure: Master, Mate, 2nd Mate, Carpenter, 6 seamen, 2 Apprentices. Nevertheless it appears that Bell was on board the Thorne in 1834 i.e. at the time of her wreck and that this was when he decided to remain at the Cape. 

See molegenealogy.blogspot.co.za/2013/06/coastal-ships-mariners-and-visitors_28.html

Francis Farewell's wife

Was Francis Farewell married? - asks a reader of this blog. Yes, he certainly was. Shelagh Spencer gives the details (Vol 6 of British Settlers in Natal) as follows:

1822 Aug 17 - Farewell married Elizabeth Schmidt, daughter of Ludwig Wilhelm Schmidt ... and his wife Carolina Petronella Wolhuter, aunt of F M Wolhuter* who in later years was a prominent Pietermaritzburg resident. 

Schmidt had come to the Cape as a soldier, and afterwards had farmed at Stellenbosch. He died when Elizabeth was a child, and her mother then married Johann Ludwig Petersen, of Magdeburg, who had also been a soldier. He and Carolina had a boarding house in Cape Town, at which Farewell had been resident, hence his encountering Elizabeth. ... Under their marriage contract Farewell settled 3 000 pounds on Elizabeth.

For much more on this fascinating topic, as well as information on Farewell's rarely discussed earlier naval career, see the above source.

*F M Wolhuter is of particular interest to Mole as he claimed to have known Captain William Bell when the latter was serving on the vessel Thorne at the date of her wreck in 1831.

Mrs Farewell as she might have looked when out of doors at the encampment at Port Natal in 1826. She wears a simple muslin dress, the waist a little higher than normal,  and the sleeves with high puffs. These had been popular since the beginning of the decade. The typical long sleeves have cuffs which fall over the wrists and one wonders how the daily tasks were carried out with this extraordinary impediment. Mrs Farewell wears a Cape-made plaited straw bonnet over her white cornette cap. [Drawing by Daphne Strutt.]