Passengers on the Drummond Castle 1896

As reported in The Cape Times, the following were the passengers who sailed on the Drummond Castle from Cape Town and the coast ports on 28 May, 1896:

Misses Olive
Messrs F W and WW Whipp
Mr and Mrs Rudd (Reed?) and child
Mr Aspinall
Mr and Mrs. Harris
Mr Donaldson
Lieutenant v Geise
Miss Berrick
Mr E W Rich
Mr Drury
Mr and Mrs Ea(r)les and child
Mrs Hughes and child
Mr Bennett
Mr and Mrs Stevens
Messrs
G Almond
J Richardson
J Dalziel
English
A Ryan
Mrs. Lucas and two children
Mr and Mrs Van Mundle
Mr and Mrs Gateman and child
Messrs
Allen
Jacobez
Sago
Schlesinger
H S Cohen
Mrs McLean and four children
Messrs
Hastings
Tulfsen
Ugland
Norris
Graham
Kingstand
Mr and Mrs Kingler
Mr and Mrs Brochein and child
Mrs Hugo and four children
Mrs Mercer and four children
Mrs F Mack
Miss McGee

Messrs

N Tayleur 

Hughes 

T Knight 

A D Buxton 

Mr  Mrs and Miss Rae 

Mr Mrs and Miss Stevens

Mrs H Morris

Mrs Miss and Master Morton

Mrs and Miss Barnett

Mr W Roberts

Mr Mrs Master and Misses (two) Peachey

Mr and Mrs T. Peachey and three children and maid 

Misses (two) Mercer 

Messrs

J Platt 

Morissay

Browning

Schornacheim

Mrs and Miss Willis

Mr and Mrs Powdrell

Mrs and Misses (two) Gethin

Miss Peace and nurse

Mrs McClelland

Mrs Taylor and two children

Mr J Goldman

Mrs Brown-Constable and maid

Mr C Marquardt

As always with such reported lists there are unreliable spellings, errors and omissions. For example, a passenger named John Wallis BLINKHORN (‘late of Adderley Street’) does not appear above because his decision to sail on the Drummond Castle was taken at the last minute, too late for his name to be added to the passenger list. His wife and child had departed for England three months earlier on another steamer but business had detained Mr Blinkhorn at the Cape. 

Several would-be passengers had for various reasons changed their minds about embarking on the Drummond Castle, including a Councillor COX who had booked his passage but did not sail.

There were a number of children on board the ship. Among them were Geraldine and Beatrice OLIVE, aged 15 and 13, daughters of the City Engineer for Cape Town, W T Olive. The girls were being sent to school in England.  Mrs LUCAS, wife of W B Lucas, formerly third officer on the S.S. Warwick Castle, was travelling with her two children, one of them an infant and the other about seven years old.

Charles MARQUARDT, according to some sources, sailed from Natal. He was one of three survivors of the wreck. He spent the night and part of the following day keeping afloat by clinging to a piece of wood, not a scenario he had envisaged when booking his first class ticket. Later he sent a cable from Ushant alerting the Currie Company to the disaster. Joseph Berthele, the retired Breton fisherman who saved Mr. Marquardt, was awarded a silver medal. Various other awards were made to the inhabitants of Molene and Ouessant (Ushant) in connection with the wreck. The Committee of Lloyds of London bestowed the bronze medal of the Society of Lloyds upon the fishermen Francois and Mathieu Masson (who rescued crew members WOOD and GODBOLT) and Berthele as an honorary acknowledgment of their extraordinary exertions in saving life. 

NORRIS and GRAHAM, described in contemporary reports as ‘firework men’, were assistants to the ‘pyrotechnist’ Mr Pain, and were returning to England after a stay of almost a year in South Africa. Both had wives and families who were left without a breadwinner after the wreck.

DALZIEL, ALMOND and RICHARDSON were operators of the Cape Telegraph Department travelling together. J Dalziel was to have been married on his arrival in England. 

CAPTAIN W W PIERCE had for many years been the master of the steamer Courland, trading between Cape Town and Natal. Pierce went down with his ship, the Drummond Castle. Most of his crew were lost, among them First Officer J WAYMAN and Second Officer T W HICKS. Fourth Officer P S ELLIS was buried at Ushant.

LIEUTENANT VON GIESE (or Geise) was an officer in the German army stationed in Damaraland but had been ordered home on sick leave. Unfortunately he was booked on the Drummond Castle. 

TULFSEN and UGLAND were passengers returning to Norway, after a long and perilous journey. They had been wrecked on a Norwegian ship and eventually reached Delagoa Bay in a destitute condition. Afterwards they embarked on the Drummond Castle, and were, therefore, in two wrecks within a few weeks, eventually meeting an apparently inescapable fate.

The PEACHEY family (Cornish settlers to S.A.) - the South Africa Magazine reported as follows:

In Durban … Messrs. Donald Currie and Co.’s offices were besieged by people asking for news of the disaster and the names of the missing. Well-known people belonging to Natal among the passengers are Mr. Peachey and family, of Tongaat, ten in all. They had decided to go by direct liner, but at the last moment changed their minds and booked by the Drummond (an intermediate steamer). Mrs. Peachey, senior, was paying a visit to England after an absence of forty-six years.
All the flags in town and on shipping at the Point were half-masted on receipt of the news. The Prime Minister of Natal cabled to Sir Donald Currie expressing sympathy with those bereaved by the foundering of the Drummond Castle. The Mayor of Pietermaritzburg has invited subscriptions to a relief fund.

[above extract transcribed from South Africa Magazine by Ellen Stanton]

The extent of the tragedy is difficult to comprehend even 117 years later. Some passengers drowned in their cabins. Those who managed to reach the deck perhaps fared worse. Of the bodies washed up on the beaches of Ushant and Molene, many were still wearing pyjamas. The islanders dressed them in their own ceremonial costumes kept for solemn rituals, and hundreds of people attended services and burials by the parish priest. Queen Victoria was moved by the care taken in recovering the bodies and the reverence with which the dead were treated.

Memorial Inscription at Goudhurst to Herbert Hinds, lost in the wreck of the
Drummond Castle off Ushant France 16 June 1896 and buried on the island of Molene.
His name does not appear on the passenger list given above:
Hinds may have been a crew member.

Has anyone sourced a crew list for the final voyage of the Drummond Castle? 

If so, please alert Mole via the Comments facility on this blog.

Wreck of the Drummond Castle June 1896

On 28 May 1896 Donald Currie’s Company’s intermediate steamer Drummond Castle, on her way home from Delagoa Bay to England, left Cape Town on what was to be her final journey. A fortnight later she called at Teneriffe. A concert was held in the saloon on the evening of 16 June, most of the passengers going to their cabins afterwards as the deck wasn’t inviting – the sea was calm, but there was a drizzle and poor visibility in the hazy weather.

The ship was approaching Ushant, a locality known to mariners as among the most dangerous in the world, due to strong currents. Nevertheless, the Captain (Pierce) had not reduced speed and neither had soundings been taken. As a result, nobody realised the ship was caught in the treacherous currents and was being pulled in eastward. She struck the reef known as the Pierres Vertes between Ushant and an island to the south. Within a few minutes she had gone to the bottom.

Her sinking was so speedy that accounts of the disaster give little information. A passenger (the only passenger to survive) stated that the Captain believed the ship to be wedged on the rocks and had hesitated about lowering the boats. The Chief Engineer, however, in a heroic decision, raced below to prevent the boilers bursting. Horrified passengers rushed on deck but there was no hope for them or for the stricken ship. Four minutes after the vessel struck she was a mass of floating wreckage.

The following morning, fishermen saw two men clinging to some flotsam – Quartermaster Wood and a seaman, Godbolt – and these were taken on board the fishing vessel and landed on the island of Molene. A passenger, Charles Marquardt, also picked up by fishermen in the vicinity, was landed at Ushant.

These three people were the only survivors of the 243 souls on board the Drummond Castle. Those lost included Captain Pierce and his officers and crew numbering 101 and 142 passengers.

For several days, bodies continued to be washed up on the islands near the scene of the wreck. Many of the victims were buried at once in common graves as there wasn’t enough wood available for so many coffins.

Marquardt had cabled the Currie Company and as soon as the news broke, crowds flocked to the Castle offices in Fenchurch Street, London. Relatives of some of those on board travelled out to the islands near Ushant but all hope of finding further survivors was quickly abandoned.

The South African public was stunned by the news, which impacted directly on almost every town in the country. At the Cape, Parliament adjourned as a mark of respect to those lost in the calamity. Few wrecks have been as appallingly sudden as that of the Drummond Castle.

Unsuccessful attempts were made in 1929 to salvage part of the ship’s cargo. A huge rent in the hull was found where the Pierres Verte had ripped open the vessel’s side.

To be continued …passengers on the Drummond Castle 

Aliwal Shoal

This submerged reef off the southern Natal coast has caused the wreck of many ships, but, contrary to popular misconception, not that of the barque Aliwal, after which it was named.

The reason for the shoal bearing the name Aliwal is that it was from this vessel that the mass of rock was first sighted.

The Aliwal was a Byrne settler ship of 425 tons, commanded by Captain Anderson, which carried 117 emigrants from London to Natal, arriving safely on 14 December 1849 (some sources give 10 December). While at anchor at Port Natal, the Aliwal survived two easterly gales without sustaining any damage.

A letter to the editor of the Natal Witness, 14 January 1850, quotes a letter written by Anderson as follows:

'I think you would like to know that about 30 miles to the S.W. from Natal, and distant from the land about 2 miles, I observed a very large and dangerous reef, or shoal, with heavy breakers.'

Prior to Anderson's sighting of the shoal, it had not been alluded to in any shipping directories.

In response to the above letter in the Natal Witness the missionary, JC Bryant, then living at the Ifumi mission station, commented in February 1850:

'To the Editor of the Natal Witness
Sir,
In the Natal Witness of Jan 18th is an extract of a letter from Captain Anderson of the Barque Aliwal, giving information of a shoal or rock near the coast about 30 miles SW of Natal. From my own observations I can testify to the correctness of Capt. A's statement, as I have often seen from my residence at Ifumi, a line of heavy breakers apparently a mile in length, and about two miles from the shore. I cannot give the locality of the rock or shoal better than by saying it appears from the land to be 3 or 4 miles SW of the Umkomazi River. The breakers, however, are not always seen, in nine days out of ten, or perhaps in nineteen out of twenty, the sea appears smooth, and a vessel might pass near the place and no one on board suspect the danger. The breakers commonly appear after a strong southerly wind, and perhaps they may also be affected more of less by the state of the tide.
Yours truly,
JC Bryant.
Feb 12th, 1850.

In his book 'Southern Lights', Harold Williams mentions that the shoal is approximately 4 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide.

'The sharp northern peak is barely covered by water and, on the rare occasion, the sea breaks over it. When this occurs the white foam is clearly seen from the shore. The centre of the Aliwal Shoal is approximately 5 kilometres from the coast and Admiralty charts indicate that a natural current of about 3 knots flows from south to north between shore and shoal. Some ships' masters set courses, when travelling up the coast to Durban, which take them through this narrow channel, but the slightest miscalculation or drift can result in disaster.'

Among relatively recent ships lost on the Aliwal Shoal were the Aimee Lykes and the SA Pioneer. The British steamer SS Nebo, while on a voyage from Sunderland to Natal, struck the shoal on 20 May 1884 and sank immediately; she still lies there intact.

The reef is today a mecca for divers.

Aliwal was a place in the Punjab in India, where Sir Harry Smith (Governor of the Cape) gained a decisive victory over the Sikhs on 28 January 1846. Aliwal Street, Durban, may commemorate this battle and the visit to Natal by Sir Harry Smith in 1847, or alternatively may be another memorial to the ship the Aliwal.

Finding passengers UK-SA after 1890

If you believe your ancestor travelled to South Africa by ship during or after 1890, your best bet for further information is to search findmypast.co.uk Passenger Lists under the Travel and Migration section of the site.

Not only can you search by surname, but also browse by name of ship. This may be the answer to a recent blog visitor’s query re the Grantully Castle’s movements in 1896. The Grantully Castle made three voyages between England and SA in that year, departing from Southampton in March, May and October. Further exploration – under passengers’ names - on findmypast should prove rewarding.

This ship was the first Grantully Castle, 3454 tons, built in 1880 and a sister ship to the first Kinfauns Castle. In December 1896 Grantully Castle ceased her work in the Cape service and was taken over by the Booth Line, with her name changed to Augustine, which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. However, she traded between Liverpool and South America until 1912 before ending up in the breakers’ yard. Grantully Castle (2), 7617 tons, was built in 1910 – by Barclay Curle, Glasgow, as was the case with Grantully Castle (1).

Passengers travelling from England to South Africa in the early days of the Union and Castle Lines had various options as to port of departure. Union HQ was at Southampton, from where the steamer would leave for the Cape, with a stop at Plymouth for the mails. The Plymouth call ended in September 1888, ships then calling at Lisbon instead where late mails, sent overland via Paris, were taken on. A sleeping-car service was arranged between Paris and Lisbon. The arrangement for the mails at Lisbon came to end in 1891.

Currie Liners, based on London, made a stop for some hours at Dartmouth after leaving the Thames. This route was more popular than that of the Union Line because it provided a pleasant visit to the beautiful estuary of the River Dart. The fortnightly departure of the Donald Currie Steamer from Dartmouth was an event, bringing business to the small port – shore-visiting passengers from London as well as arrivals by rail who were to join the ship at the river.

By June 1891 the Currie steamers changed their route, departing from Southampton instead of Dartmouth, thus ending the latter port's golden era.  It was only after the amalgamation of the Union and Castle Lines in 1900 that all mail steamers were finally based on Southampton.

Award for Cape Family Research Forum

The Cape Family Research Forum (CFRF) on Monday evening received the Western Cape Cultural Affairs' Award for their Contribution to Marketing Archival Services and Resources in 2012 at a ceremony that took place at the Cape Town City Hall.


The CFRF was part of the St Helena Island Heritage exhibition in 2012, resulting in the forum being nominated by Merle Martin , the heritage activist for St Helena Island Roots. "Thus the archival heritage fraternity bestowed this public recognition on the CFRF for its 10 years of endeavours of community outreach and transfer of archival research skills," said the forum's PRO, Mogamat Kamedien.

Read more at:

http://www.vocfm.co.za:80/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=8281:cfrf-efforts-awarded&Itemid=131

Passengers to Natal: Dunkeld July 1880

The Dunkeld's arrival on July 23 1880 was reported in the Natal Witness July 27 1880 as follows:

Arrived
July 23, Dunkeld, C.R.M.S. of London, 1157 tons, Broadfoot, from Cape Town and intermediate ports. Cargo general.

PASSENGERS

From England:
Messrs
Kehrmann and Saddy
Mrs Gilded and maid
Mr Shortrade
Lieut. Bailey
Lieut Peel
Messrs
Faircell
Michaelson
Isaacs
Mackinnon
Charlesworth
Mrs James and son
Mrs Goldberge
Wolfenden
Ericson and family
Mr and Mrs Mathieson
Messrs
Mellwrich and McKenzie
Mrs Lemon
Mrs Cleighorn
Mrs Field
Mrs Kirkness
Mr Dunningham

From Cape Town:
Mr Short
Col. Gildes
Master Lamport
Sergt. Wall
Mr Dahigg
Mr Jones
Mr Lilo

From Algoa Bay:
Mrs Kettle
Mr Baxter
Mr Ebbage
Mr Gerr

- DC Andrew, agent.

Crossing the Bar at Natal

The Bluff and entrance channel at Durban.
In the foreground the remains of Milne's North Pier.

‘What is this bar you keep talking about?’ asks a perplexed blog visitor.
Well, it’s not the Three Anchors pub down by the docks, me hearty.

If I’ve been less than clear in previous posts about Durban harbour, the Bar refers to the sandbank across the entrance channel to the port. Someone of more technical ability than myself describes this phenomenon (by no means limited to Durban, see below) as follows:

A harbour bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at a harbour entrance by the deposition of sediment or the action of waves on the sea floor or adjacent beaches. A bar can form a dangerous obstacle to shipping, preventing access to the harbour in unfavourable weather conditions or at some states of the tide.

The mouth of the Buffalo River, which forms the harbour of East London, also had a bar across the entrance. Retaining walls were constructed to narrow the channel and increase the tidal scour. A breakwater was run out in the form of an arm to prevent the sea checking the river's flow and driving the sand back upon the bar. Also, the use of dredgers enabled clearance of the river channel so that vessels of large draught would be able to enter.

Much the same procedure was followed at Durban, over many years, to try and solve the problem of the bar. For more on the history of this aspect of the port, read Allan Jackson’s article, the Battle of the Bar, at http://www.fad.co.za/Resources/dhew/bar.htm

From the family historian’s point of view, the difficulties posed by the bar had a direct impact on ancestors arriving by ship. At Port Natal, the settler ships of the Byrne era (late 1840s and 1850s), though of shallow draught in comparison with later giants of the steam age, usually had to anchor out in the roadstead several miles from shore. This in turn led to several shipwrecks – including that of the Minerva, during which all the immigrants’ possessions were lost. A more bleak start to life in the new Colony can scarcely be imagined. Such events inevitably affected the fortunes and futures of our ancestors.

Read more at http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/search?q=minerva+wreck

Even in later years, shipping columns repeatedly show that at the end of a voyage passengers had to resign themselves to delays, waiting outside the port until wind and weather made it possible for them to be transferred (by basket) to a tug or other harbour craft to carry them to land. We may find that an ancestor arrived at Natal on 26 February – but that he actually set foot on shore on 1 March: which do we choose as his date of arrival?

At Durban, by 1904 as a result of continued dredging operations 33 million tons of sand had been shifted. On 26 June 1904 the Armadale Castle was the first mailship to cross the Bar and enter the harbour. She was the flagship of the Union Castle Line (Union Line and Castle Line having amalgamated in 1900) weighing in at nearly 13 000 tons and with a draught of 7, 6 metres.

This historic crossing marked the end of the basket-landing era. Passengers would be able to disembark by gangplank directly from ship to shore.

And now, a moment of self-indulgence: Tennyson’s poem ‘Crossing the Bar’, extracts of which appear on numerous mariners’ headstones:

Sunset and evening star,

  And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

  When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

    Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

    Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

    When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

    The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

    When I have crost the bar.

Passengers to Natal: arrival of the Norman Feb 1863

Travelling on the R.M.S. Norman was A Noon - Noon's Sugar Estate, owned by Messrs A H and A N Noon, was a 300 acre estate on the Isipingo River, in existence from about 1860 to at least 1863.

PASSENGERS

Mr and Mrs Walford
Mr Newton
Mrs Hellett
Mrs Becker and children and servant
Miss (? Meney) (?King)
Mrs Kennedy
Mr (?SG or ST) Hope
Mr Telford Smith
Mr Osborne
Lieut Malcolm
Messrs Glynn (2)
Mr A Noon
Rev FT Biccard
Mr Blackburn
Mr Lister
Mr AW Murray
Rev M Meering
Second Class
Mrs James and infant
Mrs Walker
From Port Elizabeth
Cabin
Mr and Mrs Cook
Mr and Mrs Scheepers
Mr Galt
Mr Wrench
Second Class
Mr L Dixon
Mr and Mrs Francis
Miss Francis
Mr J Appel
Mr and Mrs Breens
Mr and Mrs Shuttleworth and seven in family
Mr, Mrs and Miss Shuter

Passenger arrivals: the Arab Oct 1880

The Natal Witness Oct 16 1880 reports on the arrival at the Cape of Union R.M.S. Arab*

The "Times" on Basutoland
A Land-slip at Bengal.
Death of Grace, The Cricketer
(Per Webster's Agency)

Cape Town, Oct 15, 11.13 a.m.
The Arab arrived this morning.

The London Times considers the position in Basutoland very grave, and adds: - "It is of course morally impossible that were Cape forces unable to quell a serious rising we could tolerate the serious blow to our prestige of allowing any sort of victory to the Basutos, and were the war protracted and expensive a burden would be imposed on the English Treasury. No pressure that can properly be put upon the Cape Government in the cause of moderation will be deemed unduly strong."

A land-slip has occurred at Nainatal, Bengal, carrying away several houses, and killing and injuring a large number of Europeans.

Nothing important from Afghanistan, General Roberts is at Quetta.

Mr G.F. Grace, the cricketer, is dead.

PASSENGERS for Natal per Arab:
Messrs
Hall
Griffin
Crossley
Cottam
Beningfield
Jester
Driver
Moffat
Simpson
Dean
Leyland
Sink
Pratt
Wotherspoon (error for Witherspoon?)
Wotherspoon junior
Miles
Lloyd
Fitz-Harris
Bijdawell
Diehl
Samtam
Peck
Rossier
Nedley
Jurnan
Aitken
Mistresses
Griffin and family
Brierley
Beningfield
Driver
Moffat and family
Pratt
Bijdawell
Master Bijdawell
the Misses
Brierley
Pratt
Lloyd

Conway Castle expected to-morrow.
PASSENGERS for Natal:
Messrs
Sewell
Iken
Dilner
Glover
Colonel Winsloe
Messrs
Williamson
White
Wotherspoon
Laing
Kynock
Phillips
Alexander
Hackland
Wylie
Flett
Clark
Spence
Potts
King
Harlow
Fluckell
Price
Robinson
Lewis
Kensman
Campbell
Mistresses
Cerets
Broome
Flete
Clark
Robinson and family
Lewis and family
Kensman and family
the Misses
Leathern (2)
Risely
Yorke
Flower

*The Arab, built 1879 by J and G Thompson, Glasgow, 3192 t, had only three years in the mail service; in 1882 she became a troop carrier for campaign against Arabi Pasha; in 1885 after General Gordon's death she went on the expedition to Suakin, and became HQ ship for the Naval Transport Staff. At the conclusion of the Sudanese War, the Arab returned to Sydney Australia troops of the volunteer expeditionary force. In December 1891 she inaugurated the Union Company's service from the Cape to Mauritius, continuing to run as an intermediate steamer until the end of the century. Early in 1900 she went to the shipbreakers.

News from Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository

The Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository is finally returning to its home at 231 Pietermaritz Street.

The Repository is closed today - 31 January - but will re-open on Friday 1 February.

Archival holdings will take several months to be returned from off-site storage, where they have been kept for approximately 3 years.

In the interim it will still be necessary to order archivalia from off-site storage and will take at least 2 working days to be made available.