The Shipwrecked Mariner and the Spanish Ladies 1873

Sturges Bourne Bell was born in Port Natal on 17 July 1852 to Captain William Bell and his wife Mary Ann nee Caithness. Apart from his birth and baptism, records concerning Sturges were scarce.

However, an unusual pair of forenames can be an advantage when tracing an ancestor - especially in that mine of information, contemporary newspapers. So it proved in the case of Sturges Bourne Bell.*

Apparently he stayed with family tradition and became a mariner. In 1873 he turns up as crew member on the collier Beckton sailing from Cardiff to Malta, when on the night of 28 November this screw steamer struck a sunken reef in heavy fog about three miles off the coast of Spain. There was a strong gale whipping up the sea and within minutes it was evident that the ship would soon break up.

The crew launched a lifeboat but it was immediately swamped, with the loss of eleven men. An attempt to launch the jolly-boat also failed. Several seamen including the mate leapt into the waves or were washed off the vessel. Only the captain and Bell were left on deck. Bell managed to get a lifebelt to the captain, who could not swim, but the captain was swept away and Bell then decided to try and make for land, stripping off all his clothing except his shirt.

As he swam he called out for any possible survivors in the water and was answered by the mate, the two men swimming together for some distance. When the mate’s strength began to fail, Bell found him a plank and the mate clung to this but was unable to continue, asking Bell to go and see his wife and five children to tell them how he’d died. Later the mate’s body was washed up, still clasping the plank. The bodies of seven other seamen and that of the ship’s cook followed.

Bell reached the shore alive, though severely bruised and cut from his passage through the reef. He might have bled to death if he hadn’t torn his shirt into strips and bandaged himself as best he could. After four hours in the sea he lay exhausted and helpless on the beach until eventually found by two young women and assisted to the nearest village. The local inhabitants tended his wounds and Bell afterwards spoke warmly of their kindness. When he was sufficiently recovered they sent him on to Corunna where the packet Onward took him on board. Bell was duly landed at Plymouth, the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society offering him a temporary refuge at the Sailor’s Home.

It had been a dramatic wreck, with over 20 lives lost, Bell being the sole survivor. He seems to have acquitted himself well and his actions in assisting others showed some heroism. Accounts were published in several British newspapers, identifying him as Sturges Bourne Bell, aged 20, from Port Natal. He is variously described in the reports as Ordinary Seaman and Able Seaman.

Crew members listed: Central Press 17 Dec 1873

According to one news column, when Bell left Plymouth he headed for London but at that point he drops out of sight. It hasn’t yet been established whether his family in Natal ever saw him again or heard about the shipwreck and his miraculous escape from the deep.

As Sturges Bourne Bell sailed away from the shores of Spain, perhaps he whistled the old Navy refrain:

‘Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish Ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain;
For we've received orders for to sail for old England,
 But we hope in a short time to see you again.’

Spanish ladies: Raquel and Manuela by Sir William Russell Flint

Lloyd's Register entry 1873/74 for the Beckton; here her captain's name
is given as Howley; she was built in Newcastle in 1869, and sailed between
London and Mediterranean ports; it is noted that she was wrecked.

* For more on the origin of his forenames:

molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/09/caithness-and-bell-mystery-solved.html

Acknowlegement

Tom Sheldon 

Reformatory Ancestors

William Caithness Bell and his brother Alfred Douglas Bell, grandsons of Captain William and Mary Ann Bell nee Caithness, are missing from their family’s entry in the 1891 UK Census. Parents James Colquhoun Bell and Sarah nee Clark are at home in Lyndhurst Street, South Shields, with their other children ranging in age from 11 years down to the infant Elizabeth. Where were William and Alfred, then aged 15 and 14 respectively, on Census night, 5/6 April 1891 - perhaps away working, possibly apprenticed to a trade?

These would be reasonable assumptions but the truth is that, unexpectedly, the two boys are listed elsewhere. On that date they were guests of the North Eastern Reformatory, Netherton, near Morpeth, Northumberland.

William Caithness Bell was born when his parents were living in Mile End Old Town, London. 

A photograph of him in a dress (as small boys were before being ‘breeched’) and wearing only one shoe, shows William as bright-eyed and chubby-cheeked. Unusually, there’s a date written on the back of the photograph, 9 November 1876, so William was a year old. Tartan or similar checked fabric was a popular choice for children and there are yards of it in William’s outfit, complete with a large bow, as if he’d been gift-wrapped.

By 1881 William (5) had two younger brothers, Alfred Douglas (4) and James Colquhoun Bell jnr (1). Ten years later the family were in South Shields, probably having moved there due to work opportunities for James snr: he was a ‘Marine Enameller’. Additional children had arrived in the interim and seven are listed in 1891: James jnr (11), Hester, Henry, Ellen, Victor (his full name was Sturgeous Victor), and Frederick.

Local newspapers provide nuggets of information about the absent sons. On 31 December 1890, a brief report appeared in the Shields Daily Gazette:

Today's Police News: Pigeons.—William Caithness Bell (I4) and James (16) [no surname given] were charged with stealing two pigeons, the value 3s, the property of Charles Temple, joiner, 109 Edith Street. James Townsley, pigeon dealer, Mill Dam, said the elder lad brought the birds to his shop and he bought them from him. Fined 5s and costs each.

This was a relatively minor brush with the law, but there had been at least one previous misdemeanour in October 1890 and William was soon to be in the news again. In February 1891 he and Alfred were charged with three separate incidents of breaking and entering. The Bell brothers were duly sentenced and served two weeks in prison after which they were sent to the North-Eastern Reformatory for four years.

South Shields Gazette and Shipping Telegraph
Tuesday 24 February 1891

It seems a harsh punishment, though in an earlier era they might have been transported or worse. As the 19^th c neared its close, there was a slightly more enlightened view. Juvenile offenders, especially those who had appeared before the court more than once, could be placed in Reformatories and hopefully redirected onto the straight and narrow path. These institutions weren't holiday homes, as entries in the Punishment Book for 1891 reveal, and the cane was frequently used:

Reformatory punishments for 1891 include
 '6 stripes on hand with cane ... for repeatedly talking during religious instruction';
 '3 days cell, low diet, 8 stripes on hand ... for striking boy' **

The North-Eastern Reformatory School for Boys was founded in the mid-1850s, moving to a site at Netherton near Morpeth in 1859. By William’s and Alfred’s time there would have been 210 boys at the Reformatory. From 1933 the establishment became the Netherton Training Approved School.

Alfred Douglas Bell’s further adventures remain unknown but William Caithness Bell emerged apparently unscathed after his four year stint, marrying a Durham girl, Elizabeth Mankin, in May 1900 and settling down to raise a family. William was ‘in work’ at the shipyard. By 1911 they had a daughter Victoria Josephine and a son named James Colquhoun Bell (the third in that line), evidence that William valued family tradition and that his life was back on track.

For more on James Colquhoun Bell snr and family see:
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/06/souvenir-saturday-james-colquhoun-bells.html

* Photo by H Turner, Bedford House, 245 Commercial Road, E. Inscription on reverse: 'William Caithness Bell, aged 12 months, with love to his Great Grandma A. Caithness. Taken on his first Birthday 9/11/76.' Acknowledgement: Don Gaff, Peter Hay.

**See zoomed pages:  http://communities.northumberland.gov.uk/008669FS.htm

Souvenir Saturday: Miss Bell

Of all the most tantalising items there can be nothing to beat an unidentified, or mis-identified, photograph. A handwritten note on the back of the above photo claims that the winsome young lady is Miss Bell, 'a sister of Captain William Bell'. 

This is hardly likely, as her costume tells us she is of a much later generation than Captain Bell's (he was born in 1807). There is, however, some family resemblance, reinforced by a companion photograph showing a Mr Bell who certainly could be a close relative of the Captain, though again of a later date.

For the moment, Miss Bell remains a mystery lady. The 1871 Census for Drumburgh, Bowness-on-Solway, shows Thomas Bell (the Captain's father), a widower aged 87, and blind. The other occupants of the house are Elizabeth, granddaughter, aged 38, unmarried, and a grandson, John. It was tempting to consider this Elizabeth as a contender for the Miss Bell in the photo portrait, but the date and age simply do not fit. Back to the drawing board ...

Mariners: First Rung of the Ladder 3

Considering Bell’s Narrative of Conch, admittedly written much later in life, his level of general education is evidently good. Some historians have questioned whether he could have related the story to someone else to write down, but I don’t subscribe to that view. 

Bell's signature on a Port Office document, Natal 1861

As a merchant master having dealings with crew and cargo, he had responsibilities: he would have had some commercial grasp of proceedings. 

When Bell became Port Captain at Natal he had to write and sign passenger lists and other port documents; he made written reports on harbour matters, shipwrecks and survey expeditions along the coast. His handwriting on original documents dating to the 1850s and 60s is well-formed and there are many examples of his vigorous signature.

He was certainly literate and more than merely that. This isn’t quite what one might expect of the son of a labourer. Could he have attended school while he was working his indenture at Maryport? There’s no way of knowing whether Ritson was sufficiently motivated to nurture young mariners and craftsmen but he may well have been forward-looking and encouraged them to pursue their studies during apprenticeship. William had an enterprising nature and no doubt took opportunities for self-education.

There’s the possibility that he went to a nautical school. Such establishments provided training in aspects of seamanship and could be state-aided, or private charitable institutions often endowed by wealthy philanthropists. Whitehaven, not a million miles from Maryport, offers an example in this regard.

Whitehaven ca 1854

Matthew Piper, a Quaker, lived frugally and was thus able when he died at the age of 91 to leave a generous bequest for the founding of a school ‘for the education of sixty poor boys resident in the town of Whitehaven, or the neighbourhood, in reading, writing, arithmetic, gauging, navigation and book-keeping.’ The school, in the High Street, was built in 1818 and opened in 1822. Before being admitted every boy had to be able to read the New Testament and be above eight years of age, none being allowed to remain more than five years.

‘Although this school is intended to convey such nautical instruction as shall qualify its pupils to act as mates and masters of vessels, they are not placed under any obligation to go to sea, as the name of the institution may be supposed to imply.’

However, many did become mariners on completion of their time at Piper’s Marine School. As well as the school Piper also left a £1000 bequest, from which the £50 interest created a fund used to provide soup twice per week (from the soup kitchen in Mill Street) to many families in dire need of such nourishment; this continued for over 150 years.

Pipers Court, Whitehaven, on the site of Matthew Piper's Marine School

There were probably similar nautical schools in other Cumbrian ports such as Workington and Maryport. William Bell may have been the beneficiary of a Charitable Trust like Piper's.

With the large-scale opening up of the seas for imperial trade, merchant mariners required a higher level of education in navigation, nautical astronomy and associated subjects. A coastal mariner could scrape by with slightly less formal training. It wasn’t until 1845 that a system of examination for Competency and Service was introduced for all mariners.

By then Ritson, Bell’s mentor, was dead: ‘…1844, John Ritson Esq., late ship builder, after several years’ affliction of paralysis, which he bore with great resignation, aged 67 years.’*

Ship approaching Whitehaven harbour 1847
 by Robert Salmon

* http://www.cumberlandarchives.co.uk/content/view/159/30/

Note: Merchant seamen service records from 1835 to 1857 are available to view online at findmypast.co.uk

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

Mariners: The First Rung of the Ladder

Map showing Bowness-on-Solway, Glasson, Easton and Drumburgh:
places along the shores of the Solway Firth associated with William Bell and family

Merchant mariners of the 19^th c often had the sea in their blood, i.e. they came of seafaring communities and families. This was not an invariable rule, of course. William Bell’s father wasn’t a mariner but a labourer, still working as such in the Bowness-on-Solway area of Cumberland in 1841.

The mouth of the Annan and Solway Firth, Skiddaw in the Distance:
engraving by Wm Miller after C Stanfield

Bell family information, an unreliable source, would have it that William ‘ran away to sea at an early age’. There was no need for him to do so. The sea was ever-present throughout his childhood; the salty tang pervaded the low-lying shores of the Solway Firth and church registers recorded documentary evidence of maritime occupations for the majority of the neighbourhood’s breadwinners – many of whom had the surname Bell.

Solway Firth, Cumberland

Bell’s parents may not have had the wherewithal required to start William off on the first rung of the maritime ladder but it’s likely that some family member or contact was either in shipbuilding or shipowning or both in some degree (there was an extremely successful shipbuilder named William Bell operating in Bowness at the time though his relationship to young William hasn’t been established) and would be able to put in a good word for the boy when it came time for him to be apprenticed – in William’s case probably around 1820.

For this is how most mariners began their career: being indentured like any other apprentice to a trade, contracted to work for a period of seven years usually starting at the age of 12 to 15 and emerging qualified to earn a living as a seaman. During that time the apprentice would live, eat and sleep anything and everything to do with ships, including building them and sailing them, in theory and in practice – ‘learning the ropes’ has come down to us as an expression from this world and for the seafaring apprentice it covered much more than its literal meaning.

Becoming a mariner was a hands-on process: one learned by experience and had hard knocks along the way. Training was much the same for future masters as it was for the average AB (Able Seaman). The sea was a great leveller as a man, regardless of his origins, could ascend through the ranks based on his own practical ability and intelligence. 

In the early 19^th c, then, apprenticeship was an accepted form of maritime education; later, the numbers dropped. We’ve seen that this route was taken by William Falconer and he provides an example of a boy apprenticed to his father who was a master mariner.* Such an arrangement frequently would have been informal, with no indenture papers kept. Despite intensive searches, no apprenticeship record has emerged for William Bell, who was indentured to Ritson of Ritson’s shipbuilding company, Maryport. This fact is known purely by accident – a brief but welcome reference in a Cumberland newspaper.**

Maryport Pier as Bell might have known it:
perhaps he stood watching from the sea wall much like the boys in this picture

A well-known maritime researcher working regularly at The National Archives, UK, states that though the impression is given that there are 10% of indenture records surviving, the actual proportion is much smaller. 

In any case, if your mariner’s career pre-dates 1835, records are scarce because the government wasn’t particularly concerned with individual merchant seafarers. There are sources of various kinds, mostly kept for reasons other than the mariners’ activities per se, e.g. customs books, port books, High Court of Admiralty records etc, but these are diffuse, not easy to research and often not that useful for family historians. Occasionally a rewarding nugget comes to light.

*  http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/search?q=william+falconer

**  spotted by Marion Abbott

Acknowledgement:

Derek Ellwood

Souvenir Saturday: Bell/Caithness/Scorey

Mary Ann Bell nee Caithness (1820-1899) ca 1860s

Mary Ann Caithness, daughter of James Ramsey Caithness and Ann Scorey, was born at Marchwood, Hampshire, 20 March 1820. She married William Bell at Port Elizabeth 29 June 1838. Their children were Mary Ann Elizabeth Pamela, Douglas William, Ellen Selwyn Sophia (d in infancy), Ellen Harriet, James Colquhoun, Sarah Scott, Sturges Bourne, Eliza Ann, Jessie MacGregor, George John Head, Alfred Thomas Payne, and Alice Millican Bell.