Caithness and the schooner Prairie in Tasmania 1856

References to local Cape mariners like James Ramsay Caithness can frequently be picked up in newspapers from much further afield. In this instance, the topic is Caithness's schooner (or brigantine), the Prairie, stranded near Rocky Cape, Tasmania.

The American built 150 ton schooner had been bound from Cape Town to Melbourne,

laden with wine, oats and raisins. She went on shore on the coast between Rocky Cape and Emu Bay. The schooner lost her foremast off Cape Otway and went on shore at high water. The master of the wrecked vessel was at Circular Head. The vessel is said to be but little injured and might be got off after discharging the cargo.  The crew were encamped on the coast.

Launceston Examiner Tasmania
 Tues 10 June 1856
..................

Loss of the Brigantine Prairie— This vessel, James

Ramsay Caithness master, sailed from the Cape of Good Hope

for Melbourne, on the 23 March last. There were on

board nine passengers and a crew of eleven. The lading

consisted of wine, oats, flour, and raisins, and other Cape produce.

During the voyage she encountered extremely stormy weather,

during which the boats were staved, the bulwarks much

damaged, the water-casks staved and displaced, and the head

rail on one side entirely carried away. After repairing damages

as efficiently as possible, she proceeded on her voyage, but

again encountered a violent gale off Cape Otway, on tbe night

of the 20th May, when she was dismasted, and in imminent

danger. The weather still continuing contrary, and the dis

mantled state of the vessel rendering navigation perilous in

the extrcme, it was necessary in order to save life and property

to run her on shore at Sisters' Creek, which was successfully

effected on the 2nd June. She now lies on the beach where she ran on shore.

The owner, captain and some of the crew, arrived here on Saturday night.

Rocky Cape, Tasmania

More on the Caithness family and this incident at:

molegenealogy.blogspot.co.za/2013/07/coastal-ships-mariners-visitors-cape.html

molegenealogy.blogspot.co.za/2013/09/mariners-caithness-and-prairie.html

Souvenir Saturday: Caithness at Cracknore Hard

James Caithness the Ferryman

Cracknore Hard 1831 (etching by David Charles Read)

A fine view of the ferry station at Cracknore Hard in Southampton estuary on the south bank of the River Test. From here the ferry would take passengers to West Quay, Southampton.

On 20 August 1815 at the baptism of his son James (Ramsey), James Caithness snr’s occupation is given as ‘waterman’ and his place of abode as Cracknore Hard. By 1820 when his daughter Mary Ann is baptized – like her elder brothers James and George (1818) at St Mary’s Church, Eling, Hampshire – James snr is ‘ferryman’. 

The coastal landscape at Cracknore Hard at that time would have looked much as shown in this etching. James was then an experienced mariner having served on various ships before being discharged from the Royal Navy at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Shockingly, he had also been a prisoner of war in France for nine years.

After surviving for nearly a decade enduring dreadful privations, if contemporary accounts are to be believed, James must have found a welcome sanctuary in the expansive, peaceful stretches of the estuary and the comforts of home and family.

Southampton Water   1831 (etching by David Charles Read)

           

A spacious impression of Southampton Water by the same artist. No doubt James Caithness was familiar with this vista. The broad horizon and low-lying land- and waterscape is reminiscent of Holland. It's also similar to the area alongside the Solway Firth, Cumberland, where William Bell (Mary Ann Caithness's husband-to-be) was learning to be a mariner at the beginning of the second decade of the 19th c.

The Book of Trades or Library of Useful Arts 1811 offers the following:

Watermen are such as row in boats and ply for fares on various rivers. A waterman requires but little to enable him to begin his business, viz. a boat, a pair of oars and a long pole with an iron point and hook at the lower end, the whole of which is not more than twenty pounds. The use of the pole is to push off the boat from land; the hook at one end enables him to draw his boat to shore, or close to another boat.

Acknowledgement:
Tom Sheldon 

Caithness, James Ernest (1839-1902) 2

James Ernest Caithness married Eugenie Sarah Henrietta Westmacott on 11 December 1877 in Paddington, London. His father is given as James Ramsey Caithness a Merchant and hers John Guise Westmacott a Surgeon. John Guise was the grandson of the renowned sculptor Richard Westmacott senior (1747-1808) and nephew of the very renowned sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott (1775-1856). James Ernest Caithness had done well for himself.

James Ernest and Eugenie Caithness had nine children. The eldest Hilda was born in Calcutta in 1878. James was up to something in India. In 1882 Sir Rivers Thompson, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, came up with the idea of an exhibition in Calcutta to promote products from the British Empire. The Exhibition was held on 4 December 1883. One bronze medal was received by ‘the honourable J E Caithness member of the General Committee’.

Calcutta International Exhibition 1883-84 bronze medal

Apart from being on the Committee for the Calcutta International Exhibition (1883-84) James Ernest Caithness played a very important part in the early 1880’s as a member of the Legislative Council of Bengal. In 1895 James Ernest Caithness is mentioned as being a ‘past master’ of the ‘Calcutta Trades’ Association’.

James Ernest by 1895 had become the Senior Partner of the firm Cooke & Kelvey. Based at 20 Old Court House Street, Calcutta and also in Simla they are described as being ‘pearl and diamond merchants, jewellers, gold and silversmiths, watch and clock-makers….’  They also had an outlet at 150 Leadenhall Street, London.

Cooke & Kelvey's premises in Calcutta

It may be just a coincidence but during the late 1860’s and onwards diamonds were being discovered in South Africa: on 8 August 1870 the Cape and Natal News mentions a ‘Humansdorp party’ including a Mr Caithness leaving for the diamond fields 70 miles north of Hopetown. In 1873 a Captain Caithness, possibly a relative of James Ernest, donates a ‘collection of stones from the diamond diggings’ to the Library and Museum Committee in Southampton, later to be incorporated into Southampton University.

James Ernest’s uncle, Edward Bear Ridges (1825-1906) was working in Calcutta at the time as a Partner in the firm Dykes & Co (Coach Builders). It was perhaps Edward Bear who helped his nephew get a job at Cooke & Kelvey. Edward’s brother-in-law, Robert Thomas Cooke (1831-1914), was the Co-Founder of the Company. 

One of Cooke & Kelvey's historic Indian timepieces

James Ernest Caithness and his uncle Edward Bear Ridges were also neighbours in Ealing when they were in England - living in very substantial houses called ‘Berriedale’ and ‘Orchard Dene’.

James Ernest Caithness died on the 16^th February 1902 leaving a pregnant widow and eight children. A mariner’s life was definitely not for him and who could blame him? He left his widow £70,000 and I think some of that paid for the hats his daughters wore at the wedding of his second child Ethel in 1905.

The wedding of Ethel Caithness to Walter Sirr Sheldon 25 February 1905

Guest post by Tom Sheldon 2 x g grandson of James Ernest Caithness

Caithness, James Ernest (1839-1902) 1

Is it a mariner’s life for me?

James Ernest Caithness was born at No.7 George Row, Bermondsey (just south of the River Thames) on 17 May 1839. His father James Ramsey Caithness (1815-60), a Master Mariner, and mother Elizabeth Watson nee Ridges (1815-51) had married the previous year in Southampton.  James had been both born & baptised as James Edward but decided he preferred the middle name Ernest at some point during his life.

There was a strong maritime tradition in his family. His grandfather James Caithness had seen action whilst serving in the Royal Navy against the French in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. His father James Ramsey and his uncle George had received their education at the Lower School of the Royal Hospital Greenwich and joined the Merchant Service rather than the Royal Navy.

The Royal Hospital, Greenwich

James Ramsey Caithness decided to settle in South Africa and in the early 1840’s brought his wife and the young son James Ernest out to join him. They were to have five more children, born in either Cape Town or Port Elizabeth, before his wife Elizabeth Watson died in early 1851. He remarried by the end of the year.

Young James Ernest was to witness the harsh realities of a mariner’s life. His father James Ramsey had his fair share of accidents – through no fault of his own. The worst incident perhaps was in 1855 when one of James Ernest’s brothers, likely to have been Alfred Douglas, was killed during a fire on board the ‘Flying Dragon’ whilst his father was in command (the same ship had also caught fire the previous year under Captain Carter off Simon’s Bay).  James Ramsey Caithness himself died in 1860 ‘after a long and painful illness’ aged 44.

Family oral tradition mentions that James Ernest tried his hand at sheep farming in South Africa. Life at home was apparently hard. His mother and father had died and his widowed step-mother had five step-children and three of her own children to support. James Ernest Caithness disappears for a while and next shows up at his wedding in London in 1877. His life has taken a new direction – Eureka!

Guest Post by Tom Sheldon, 2 x great grandson of James Ernest Caithness

Photo portrait by kind permission of June B-R

Mariners: Caithness and the Prairie

Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope: Thomas Bowler

In March 1856 the brigantine (sometimes called schooner) Prairie, 150 tons, American-built, sailed from the Cape of Good Hope bound for Melbourne, with James Ramsey Caithness as master. The vessel was carrying Cape produce including wine, oats, flour and raisins; her crew numbered eleven and there were nine passengers on board. Weather during the voyage was stormy: the boats and watercasks staved, the bulwarks much damaged and the head rail on one side carried away.* 

Running repairs were made by the mariners as best they could but on proceeding to her destination the Prairie met a violent gale off Cape Otway on 26 May, when she was dismasted. This was a perilous situation, making headway impossible, and to save all on board as well as the cargo, Caithness ran the ship ashore at Sisters' Creek - between Rocky Cape and Emu Bay - on 2 June. Although some reports stated the ship was 'little injured' and might be refloated after her cargo had been discharged, this proved over-optimistic. James and some of the crew, who had had to resort to camping on the beach, were taken from the site of the wreck by the Titania and there would have been time to reflect bitterly on another lost ship and the costs thereof. The stranded cargo on the beach near Rocky Cape would be sold at public auction.

The voyage had taken over three months. Meanwhile, back home at the Cape, Eliza Caithness was soldiering on, caring for five boys aged ten and under. Two of these were Eliza and James's sons: Douglas Sturges was nearly a year old and Charles Chance, 4 years. Frederick James (6), Edward Harry (8) and George William (10) were children of James's first marriage. Then there was their older sister, Emily Mary Anne. James jnr, the eldest, by then about 17, had either left home or was thinking about doing so. It can't have been easy for Eliza and the family with the head of the household gone for three months at a time, nor for them to hear the news that the most recent trip had ended badly. 

Events of the preceding few years, particularly the death of his son Alfred in the Flying Dragon debacle, would take their toll on James's well-being. Though he couldn't have known it, at the time of the wreck of the Prairie he had only a brief future ahead of him. In 1858 a daughter, Kate Elizabeth, was added to the household: she was not quite two when her father died. James Ramsey Caithness would sail the seas no more.

Death Notice of James Ramsey Caithness
August 1860 (Cape Archives)

Acknowledgement:
Tom Sheldon

*Loss of the Prairie report in People's Advocate, Launceston, 16 June 1856

Mariners: Caithness Ships and Family

Ships in Stormy Seas

James Ramsey Caithness emerges in these pages as an unlucky mariner: six of the ships he was associated with came to grief in dramatic style. In 1844 it was the schooner Mary in Algoa Bay, in 1848 the brig Lady Leith on Thunderbolt Reef, in 1851 the Diadem at Plettenberg Bay; in 1854 the Sea Gull in Table Bay and in April 1855 the tragic Flying Dragon, ‘consumed by fire’. 

There was one more disaster in 1856, not in South African waters but off Melbourne, when James was in command of the brigantine Prairie - further evidence that he undertook several voyages to Australia.

It was a hazardous business, going down to the sea in ships. The Cape’s deep waters and bays were particularly dangerous, the wind and weather unpredictable. James was fully aware of all the risks yet probably gave no thought to changing his occupation. He was a mariner born and bred.

A considerable family depended on him. He and his first wife, Elizabeth Watson Ridges, had five sons and a daughter. The last-born, Frederick James Ramsey, arrived in August 1850. This boy would never remember his mother who was dead and buried (in ‘Scorey’s Vault’ at St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town) by January 1851. James Ramsey Caithness is described in the burial register as Captain of the brig Diadem; in December of that year this ship was wrecked.  

Within months of Elizabeth’s death, James married again. This was a sensible option for a seafaring widower with a large family, the youngest just a year old. His second wife, Eliza Noyle, brought him a further three children – two sons and a daughter - between 1853 and 1858.

Port Elizabeth (Algoa Bay) in the 1850s was still in its early days though becoming an important town. An indication of the increase in its population – and consequently the amount of mail received – had been the establishment of a proper Post Office in a building for that purpose, with an official postmaster in charge. This structure deserves our attention, for ‘when the Post Office was moved across the Market Square, the [original] building became the abode of Mr Caithness and his sons.’* 

The [first] Post Office was a two-storeyed house which stood in a plot enclosed by a low fence at the foot of Castle Hill ... It was built in the early settler style with whitewashed walls and red-tiled roof flanked by two squat chimneys, whilst at the rear of the building were the usual out-houses and stables ... the rooms downstairs served as the Post Office. On the right hand side of the house was the old tumbled-down jail.

In the intriguing picture below, the main buildings of interest are identified by number:

1850 View of Castle Hill taken from the Market Square. No 2 in this pic is the first Post Office in Port Elizabeth, later the house of Mr Caithness. It is recognizable in the picture below dated 1864. Key: 1. Jail; 2. Post Office; 3. Richards and Impey; 4. Mrs Philips; 5. Mr Heugh; 6. Caesar Andrews; 7. Jailer Sterley's cottages; 8. Rev. F McClelland; 9. Mr Ashkettle; 10. The public well with people drawing up water.

1864 View of the Town Hall (with pillared portico and hatted gentlemen standing at foot of steps), the Obelisk at right; to right of Town Hall is the Market Bell and, beyond that, the 2-storeyed house of Mr Caithness, formerly the Post Office. It has three windows looking out over the Square. Note the absence of houses on the hill behind. The shape of the Caithness house with some minor alterations such as addition of a lean-to verandah (slanting roof with poles holding it up) remains much the same as the building was during its time as a Post Office.

* Port Elizabeth in Bygone Days, J J Redgrave (Wynberg: Rustica Press 1947)

Acknowledgement:
Tom Sheldon for details of Elizabeth Caithness's burial, also on the shipwrecks of Diadem and Prairie.

  

Mariners: Caithness and the Sea Gull

It was 1854 and nothing much had changed for Cape coastal mariners despite the historic decision recently taken by Queen Victoria to grant the Colony Responsible Government. 

The opening of the First Parliament was a ceremonial affair held at Tuynhuis, the residence of Governor Grey, who presided. The power of the Cape Parliament was limited: the Governor, appointed by the Queen and the Home Parliament, still called the shots.

More pressing concerns than the newly drawn-up constitution occupied the maritime community. On 15 July 1854 at Table Bay there was a violent gale, said to be one of the most severe in many years, causing havoc when several ships, riding very heavily on an increasing sea, parted their anchors. The barque Canopus, carrying cargo, went ashore at the Castle, and not long after the Wild Sea Mew under Captain Grainger collided with the Sea Gull, commanded by Captain Caithness.

The story was dramatic enough for the overseas press to pick it up and run with it for a few days, though there were differences of opinion as to the precise date of the gale and the name of the Wild Sea Mew (given as White Sea Mew in some accounts). From the London Daily News:

The following is an extract of a log kept at the port-office, giving the particulars of the gale in Table Bay … At 12.10 p.m. the Canopus parted from her remaining bower chain when she immediately slipped the remainder of it and ran ashore a little to the southward of the Castle Ditch. The life-boat was immediately dispatched in charge of Mr Wilson, the assistant port captain, who succeeded in landing the crew in safety…  At 1.45 the schooner Wave Spirit parted her bower cable … At 4 p.m. the ship White Sea Mew parted both her bower cables during a heavy squall from the northward, fouling and taking with her the brig Sea Gull, both of which immediately slipped the remainder of their chains and ran on shore near the Castle Ditch, close to the Canopus [Captain Crosby]. Part of the female passengers and children of the brig [Sea Gull] were landed in the life-boat shortly after she struck, but in doing so the life-boat got stove* and seeing that the remainder of the passengers and the crews of both vessels were perfectly safe in continuing on board, all other efforts to land them that night were given up. 

Both vessels came well up on the beach and remained firmly imbedded [sic] in the sand. Midnight. Still blowing a very heavy gale and tremendous sea setting in on the bay. The officers and crew of the port office establishment with life-boats and all other apparatus in attendance, opposite the vessels, all night. After the White Sea Mew came in contact with the Sea Gull she then fouled the John Knox taking her bowsprit out and doing her other serious damage.**

Further ships caught in the debacle were the Margaret Milne, the Empress, the Euphrosyne, the American barque Silver Cloud, the schooners Prairie and Rachel and the Gitana. Apparently the barometer had given no prior indication that such a severe gale was in the offing. By the following morning it had abated but over 30 cargo and other ships had been sunk and otherwise destroyed. 

The question remains: was Captain Caithness of the Sea Gull James Ramsey Caithness? Reports mention that this brig was bound for Australia with passengers who were already on board when the gale struck. Would James Caithness have been undertaking this type of voyage at this date? More investigation is required before this Master’s identity can be established beyond doubt. 

Ship in a gale

*  stove in, i.e. holed
**  London Daily News 8 September 1854 The Gale in Table Bay. Other reports appeared in the Morning Post 5 September 1854 and the London Daily News 7 September 1854

The Zuid Africaan reported in July 1854: 'For Australia. The Sea Gull Captain Caithness leaves this port today. She takes a full cargo and the following passengers: Cabin: Messrs Harris, Melle, and West and 2 boys; Mesdames Harris and child, Burke and 5 children; Mrs Steuart, Miss Vipond, Miss West, and 40 steerage passengers.' [This was relayed in The Sydney Morning Herald 19 Sept 1854, some time after the event; the planned voyage did not take place as the Sea Gull, though refloated, was later condemned.]

Ships and Mariners: 19th c Cape and Natal 12 Bell Caithness

At the Cape two children had been added to the Bell family: a daughter, Ellen Harriet, born in May 1846 and named for the child lost two years before, and a son James Colquhoun born in Cape Town on 28 December 1847. The celebrations were scarcely over when James Ramsey Caithness’s brig the Lady Leith was wrecked on Thunderbolt Reef on 27 February 1848. Her remains were sold at auction.*

In September 1847 and February 1849 Bell appears as Master of the schooner Louisa, previously one of the ships sailed by H G Caithness, the disappearing mariner husband of Pamela Halt Okes. 

May 1848 and August 1849 saw Bell commanding the brig Workington: at this stage he was taking whatever voyages were offered by the ship agent. He may even have been the W Bell listed as master of the Bucephalus on a voyage from Calcutta to Table Bay arriving on 9 March 1848.

His services rendered in 1842 weren’t entirely forgotten, though the authorities needed a push in the right direction. They received it towards the end of 1847 when the inhabitants of Port Natal petitioned the Lieutenant Governor for Bell’s reinstatement ‘in the full enjoyment of his former office and Emolument’.

The signatories, who included the Cato brothers, Richard King and other prominent citizens, expressed their ‘strong conviction of what is due by them to Captain Bell, as a worthy, faithful and meritorious Public Servant against whom … no charge of any dereliction of duty, or of any inferiority for the perfect fulfillment of the hazardous and responsible functions of his office has been preferred’. They acknowledged the ‘deep obligation’ they owed to Captain Bell ‘for the preservation of their life and liberty, while adhering to the Standard of their Queen and Country’.

These views were forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who subsequently considered that Bell had a fair claim to employment by the Natal Government.

William Bell must have felt indebted to his corps of supporters at Port Natal. It would not be the last time that George Cato stepped into the breach on behalf of his friend. 

Sextant 19th c

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