Shipwrecks, passenger lists and newspapers

While the earlier local press is an invaluable source for material on shipwrecks, as well as for passenger lists (though not always accurate or very detailed) the difficulty in Natal papers is that the originals have not been digitised. 

Some microfilm copies exist e.g. at Killie Campbell Library, but it is extremely hard to search for a chance reference to an event recorded on microfilm as an entire page cannot be scanned by the eye while searching. It is so much easier to tackle the original newspaper pages, especially as one gradually becomes familiar with where the shipping columns, for example, are placed in the paper so one doesn't necessarily have to plough through an entire edition - with all its distracting and irrelevant avenues.

Original Natal newspapers going back to the earliest Natal Witness, Natal Mercury etc are held in the Pietermaritzburg (Msunduzi) Library, previously the Natal Society Library. Serious researchers are allowed to peruse these though obviously you need to know which edition to order up. Some are in poor and fragile condition, though strangely enough the earlier the better as paper quality decreased as the years advanced.

Nevertheless, it would be ideal to preserve the originals whatever their condition and the best method would be to scan them digitally, This is not a priority in the present Natal and one wonders if it ever would become so. Few of the powers-that-be would consider the copying of a lot of colonial newspapers at all important. And so the originals will eventually become unusable and a great resource will be lost. Scanners of the size required are very expensive and whoever is using them needs to know what they're doing. Perhaps the Mormons might look on our plight with favour?

Meanwhile we can only look on in envious awe at online e-newspapers such as the Australian Papers Past or Trove, all free to access, searchable and wonderfully clear to read. It is something to set as a goal for our own newspapers - or is it an impossible dream?

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

Finding more than passenger lists in SA newspapers

Newspapers, always a rewarding source, can provide a surprising amount of information if the family historian is prepared to go the extra mile, extract as much as possible on the topic being investigated, and carefully interpret the details.

An example is the arrival at Natal of the ship Silvery Wave in November 1863. The passenger list, with those of other vessels, appears in The Natal Mercury of 3 November.

Several pieces of information are evident in this report: first that it took the Silvery Wave three months to sail from London. Next, that she was a small vessel and consequently not carrying many passengers. We cannot be precise about the number of those on board, because ‘and family’ – a term used twice in the list – could mean anything from one to a dozen children. Applying a reasonable average, we could hazard a guess at 25 to 30 passengers, divided between ‘first’ and ‘second’ cabin, and an unknown number of crew. Whatever the true total of souls, the size of the ship wouldn’t have been conducive to a comfortable voyage. She was also carrying a general cargo. The passenger list is coy about initials, except in the case of ‘J Hardy’.

It’s possible that more about the passengers could be established by referring to the European Immigration Index at Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository, searching on the surname of your interest among the Silvery Wave’s passengers and then consulting the relevant original passenger register. In the early 1860’s the registers tended not to include as much detail as in later decades.

It would be a mistake to abandon the newspaper search at this stage. Searching forwards and keeping a lookout for further references to the Silvery Wave, the edition of 10 November 1863 offers the following:

Her tonnage is given here as 260. It seems the ship was British-built expressly for the Natal trade and is described as a ‘clipper brig’. To refer to a ship as a clipper meant she had forward-raking bows and aft-raking masts, that is, she was built for speed. Her cabin accommodation was considered ‘superior’ (by her owners, at least). The ship was busy discharging her current cargo and preparing for embarkation on the homeward journey.

Advertisements like this appeared regularly in the press. If you find one for the ship on which your ancestor sailed, it would make an attractive and appropriate illustration for the family history narrative.

Continuing the forward search, on 13 November a more substantial nugget emerges: an account of the voyage of the Silvery Wave ‘by a passenger’. Reports of this type aren't uncommon and are often combined with an expression of thanks to captains as well as ships’ surgeons for their skills in making the voyage as pleasant as possible for all on board. These ‘testimonials’ published in the press were a feature of successful mid-19th century voyages before the increase in sailings, and consequently in captains, made such personal expressions of gratitude obsolete.

To be continued ...

Newspaper shipping reports in family history research

This report of a ship arrival at Table Bay is a good example of the usefulness - as well as the limitations - of this type of source for family history research.

The ship in question is the Abercrombie Robinson, a troop transport, and the year is 1842.

Leaving aside for the moment the dramatic events surrounding this vessel's arrival, the report emphasises the lack of detailed information given by the press about the rank and file of the military on board ships.

True to form, officers are named but NCO's and privates are not. Neither are soldiers' wives and children. Note the difference in terminology between the ladies of the officers and the soldiers' wives of the lower ranks. Class distinction was alive and well on vessels in the mid-19th c.

'454 non-commissioned officers' of the 91st Regiment's Reserve Battalion could hide numerous potential forebears from our view. Ditto the 11 NCOs and privates of the Cape Mounted Rifleman, travelling with '1 woman and 4 children' (no ladies here). 'Two pensioners' remain obscure - as do their families.

A detachment of the 27th Regiment offers 32 unnamed NCOs, with a couple of wives and '1 soldier's child'.
On a personal note, I found it curious that the two Ensigns leading this detachment were DALZELL and HAMILTON - surnames inter-linked in my own family history and an incentive to follow-up the reference.

The report underlines that wives (of all classes) did 'follow the drum', and at no little risk to themselves. Also, it gives an indication of the continual movement of British troops in and out of the Colony, back and forth between Britain and South Africa. The Abercrombie Robinson was intending to make for Algoa Bay to disembark her military passengers and embark members of other units before heading 'home'.

This was not to be: the vessel was wrecked in Table Bay during a north-west gale on 28th August 1842 - two days after the above report appeared in the South African Commercial Advertiser.
More in a future post.

Note also the brief letter below the report, concerning a lighthouse to be built on Cape Agulhas and Cape Receife. A topic to come back to later.