Mariners: Caithness and the Flying Dragon 3

W and J Pile Shipbuilders of Monkwearmouth:
The Flying Dragon was built at this yard

The reports of Flying Dragon’s disastrous fire at the end of July 1854 were still fresh in public memory when she was again in the news. 

Incredibly, within a matter of months the vessel was involved in a second fire. The headline, ‘Loss of the Flying Dragon’, would have given readers a sense of déjà vu as they perused their papers over breakfast.

An account in the Graham’s Town Journal was repeated in the Hobart Town Daily Courier on 16 July 1855 after the usual colonial time lag: 

Loss of the Flying Dragon: This vessel, which put into Simon’s Bay some months ago [July 1854], having a fire smouldering on board, was entirely consumed by the same destructive element on Tuesday last, when a youth, the son of the master, Captain Caithness, unfortunately lost his life. She had been surveyed and was expected to put to sea on Tuesday next. The unfortunate youth who perished on the occasion had previously encountered another narrow escape. He was on board the Sea Gull when she ran ashore in Table Bay, and by a miracle escaped being knocked overboard when another vessel came in collision with her on that occasion.

The Liverpool Daily Post of 12 June 1855 offers a precise date: ‘Cape of Good Hope, April 19, The Flying Dragon, Caithness, in ballast*, was burnt to the water’s edge in Simon’s Bay yesterday. Crew, except captain’s son, saved.’

It seems the second fire took place on the night of 18 April 1855. The use of the same phrase as in reports of the first fire – ‘burnt to the water’s edge’ - adds to a measure of confusion arising from the vessel’s two similar but separate tragedies. Initially it was stated that the Flying Dragon had been scuttled after the damage sustained in the events of July 1854. How then could she have been about to put to sea again in April 1855?

Subsequent to the first fire, an enterprising Cape businessman by the name of Suffert had purchased the Flying Dragon’s hull and instituted extensive repairs on the vessel. The considerable sum outlaid for this work would be covered as Suffert confidently expected to make handsome profits employing the Flying Dragon in taking settlers to Australia, with James Caithness as Master.

The second fire put an end to the plan and cost the life of Caithness’s son. Although the latter is not named in contemporary accounts, this was in all likelihood Alfred Douglas Caithness, at twelve old enough to be learning the ropes crewing aboard his father’s ship. The boy had been involved in the Sea Gull wreck the previous July but had emerged unscathed. Now James endured the loss of a child in awful circumstances as well as the bitter disappointment of losing another ship. It’s not impossible that this double blow hastened James’s own early death, at the age of forty-five, five years later.** 

Suffert apparently continued his interests in ocean transport: in 1858 he sent the Colonial Office a tender for conveying emigrants to Melbourne.***

The Flying Dragon press reports dispel any doubts that it was James Caithness who was captain of the Sea Gull in July 1854 and there is a hint that James’s acquaintance with Suffert may well have been linked to the Sea Gull’s carrying passengers to Australia, though the gale prevented that particular voyage. 

Reference to the death of Captain Caithness’s son in the second Flying Dragon fire, the presence of the same boy in the Sea Gull incident, together with the absence of a burial record for Alfred Caithness are all strong pieces of evidence underpinning this chapter of the Caithness story.

Scrimshaw Flying Dragon

*      i.e.  with no cargo loaded

**    it is a guess that the boy was Alfred, but it's significant that no records of Alfred’s burial have been found;
       James jnr (christened James Edward) was the eldest son, then aged 16, but he did not die young.
***  Messrs H and E Suffert of Cape Town; the Suffert brothers were in partnership

Mariners: Caithness and the Flying Dragon 2

St George's Cathedral, Cape Town 1850
 by Thomas Bowler

Captain James Ramsey Caithness had buried his first wife - the mother of his first six children, Elizabeth Watson b Ridges - in ‘Scorey’s Vault’ at St. George’s, Cape Town, on 23 January 1851. He was based there from that date until at least January 1855 when his second child by his second wife, Eliza Noyle, was born in January 1855. 

This establishes that James was in the area at the time of the Sea Gull incident during the gale of July 1854. According to press reports at that date he was captain of the Sea Gull and about to depart for Australia with emigrants on board. The gale put paid to that voyage, and though the Sea Gull was refloated, the damage she had sustained being found to be less than initially imagined, she was eventually condemned. This meant James was, temporarily, a mariner without a ship and with a wife and eight children depending on him: stressful times.

As we’ve seen, the clipper Flying Dragon was launched with much fanfare on the Australia run, completing her first passage from the Downs to Melbourne in 76 days (some say less), ‘thus fully bearing out the character published of her’. So speedy was this barque that an unknown lady was moved to express her admiration in verse, comparing the Flying Dragon with an American rival clipper, the Sovereign of the Seas.*

How much greater, then, the general shock and horror when it was announced in the Illustrated London News (and other papers) that on 31 July 1854, en route from Ceylon to London, the vessel caught fire at midnight, 200 miles off the Cape of Good Hope and ran into Simon’s Bay near Cape Town in August, ‘burnt to the water’s edge where she was scuttled’.

The ILN eulogized thus: 

The Flying Dragon was built for the Australian trade by Mr J Pyle [sic,] of North Sand, Monkwearmouth, the builder of the Spirit of the Age and other vessels … celebrated for their superior sailing qualities, for Robert Smith, Esq., of Manchester; and made on her  passage out one of the fastest voyages on record … She was classed A 1 at Lloyd’s … built of East India teak … and one of the most perfect advanced models of beauty in ship-building that ever left this country. 

Fire at sea – in this case, 200 miles from shore – is one of the greatest calamities to be visited on any ship and on those who sail in her. It was nothing short of miraculous that there was anything left of the Flying Dragon to be brought into Simon’s Bay and even more astounding that the crew survived to accomplish that feat. However, that is far from the end of the story.

Ship afire

*Lines on The Flying Dragon by a Lady

'From the English Downs to Philip's Port, in seventy-one days she ran,
Whilst the Sovereign took from Liverpool just eighty days and one.
The Sovereign can no longer boast the empire of the sea,
Since the beauteous Flying Dragon has eclipsed her Sovereignty'

Acknowlegement:

Tom Sheldon for his research and assistance 

Coastal Ships, Mariners & Visitors: Cape 19th c 6

JAMES RAMSEY CAITHNESS

Overview St Mary's Cemetery: eGGSA

In St Mary’s Cemetery, Port Elizabeth, lies Captain James Ramsey Caithness: his gravestone, despite much weathering, reminds us that he died in August 1860* ‘after a painful illness’. He is not the only mariner buried in this cemetery, nor is his the only Caithness grave. Another is to Douglas Sturgess Caithness (1855-1883), a son of James Ramsey's second marriage.

http://www.eggsa.org/library/main.php?g2_itemId=1060012

Although J R Caithness did not die at sea, the seafaring life eventually took its toll and he had had his share of misfortune particularly during the 1840s.

WRECKS AT ALGOA IN THE 1840s

Algoa Bay was well-known to Portuguese navigators who put in there on their voyages round the Cape: they called it Alagoa, which means lagoon. Either their visits were made in good weather or they were referring to some other feature of the landscape, because ‘lagoon’ conjures up a calm and peaceful vision. Algoa Bay was anything but calm and peaceful when the seasons were changing and the wind was in the south-east.

Surf-boat at Algoa Bay; Illustrated London News

The 1840s were disastrous for ships at Algoa Bay as local newspapers testify. In 1843 a British snow (similar to a brig) Laura, under Captain Crockley, was wrecked on 25 August during a typical south-easterly gale. It became a double drama because the larger brig, Sea Gull, under Captain J Murray, drifting after her cables parted, struck the jetty and cannoned into the Laura. There were five drowned. The Sea Gull had been built in 1841, the Laura in 1824.**

1844 saw the wreck of the schooner Trek Boer at Algoa on her way back from Ceylon, carrying a cargo of rope; a boy was drowned. Her captain, T Cobern, had commanded the Conch in the days before Bell took her circa 1836-7. Trek Boer was an old acquaintance of Bell’s friend George Cato. Colonial maritime circles were an extended family with press reports keeping everyone abreast of who was sailing which vessel, where and for whom – and were they still afloat? One can almost hear the gossipy chats over coffee with the latest edition’s news.

In March of the same year, 1844, Captain James Ramsey Caithness had lost his schooner Mary at Algoa on the way back from Mauritius and four years later the brig Lady Leith then under his command fell victim to Thunderbolt Reef. Such were the vicissitudes of a mariner’s existence. A descendant asks if Caithness was 'accident prone': perhaps that would be a little harsh. The stretch of coast between the Cape and Natal was positively malevolent (the 15th c Portuguese  would  agree). Algoa Bay could be a death trap when the seasons were changing and the south easterlies blowing. Caithness was unlucky but certainly not the only mariner to come to grief. Twice in a lifetime does seem unfair.

Update 12 Oct 2013: further research has since shown that James Caithness lost a total of six ships during his career. See http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/09/mariners-caithness-ships-and-family.html 

http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/06/wreck-of-lady-leith-1848.html

The notorious south-easterly gales brought a flurry of wrecks to Algoa Bay in 1846: the Susan, in March (Captain H Ager) - one body washed up, grimly, a fortnight later; the Mona (Captain P Sayers) on 28 October, the same day as the Palestine (Captain Collier) whose crew members were ill; the following day, 29 October, both the barque Resolution (Captain Clark) and the Sophia, a schooner (Capt Sillands). Reports on these wrecks appeared in the Eastern Province Herald.

BELL

William Bell would have been all too aware of these outward manifestations of the risks taken daily by his colleagues and their ships, not to mention by their passengers. In 1842 the Grahamstown Journal, on the topic of immigration, referred in passing to a wreck which had taken place at Mouille Point on 4 September 1841. The vessel was the British barque Prince Rupert under Captain Ramage. She had been bound for New Zealand from London carrying cargo.

'We direct the careful attention of those interested in the subject of Immigration etc.... The following additions have been made to our population this year by immigrants or discharged soldiers: per Conch, the wrecked passengers ex Prince Rupert, 28 [in number].’

Presumably the passengers were grateful to be conveyed by Bell after their escape from shipwreck. History doesn’t relate who paid him for their passage on Conch. Bell, with a wife and growing family, had to earn a living but recompense for his services was not foremost in his mind when the schooner Conch, after a voyage from Table Bay, lay at anchor in Algoa Bay at the beginning of June 1842. Captain William Bell was about to have his moment of glory and to write his name in the history books.

*Caithness, James Ramsey Death Notice
 KAB MOOC Vol No 6/9/92 Ref 8138 (1860) 

** Grahamstown Journal: Thursday September 14 1843: 'This morning the body of the unfortunate nephew of Capt. Crockley (late of the 'Laura') was picked up and will be buried this afternoon. This makes the fourth body recovered, namely the mate of the 'Laura', one seaman and ?. Also the carpenter of the 'Sea Gull'.
http://www.eggsa.org/newspapers/index.php/grahamstown-journal/71-gj-1843-jul-sep

To read the entire series on Coastal Ships, Mariners and Visitors: Cape 19th c start at the first post:
http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/06/coastal-ships-mariners-and-visitors.html
and continue in sequence. You could also click on June in the Blog Archive at right and select each separate post in the series.

Thank you for reading! This series has been very popular and there is more to come.