George & Mary

Official Number
16672

The schooner George & Mary was built at Berwick by A.B.Gowan and Son, and was the first of the many schooners built by that shipyard for Barrow's James Fisher. She was owned by Fisher from her launch in 1857 until her loss in 1881.

Crew Agreements show that her first master was Capt.George Preston Anyon, who joined her from the Furness Miner on the 24th March. The vessel sailed in ballast from Berwick to Newcastle on the 12th April 1857, and there took aboard her first cargo of coal, leaving for Dundalk on the 30th April. She sailed to Barrow light, and inevitably her first Barrow cargo was iron ore, which she took to Newport on the 3rd June. Capt.Anyon remained with the vessel until his death in May 1861.

The George & Mary parted her chains and was stranded on Goodwick Sands (off Fishguard, Pembrokeshire) in a NNE Force 9 (gale) on the 11th February 1881. She was bound from Ardrossan to Newport with a cargo of pig iron. Capt.J.Watkinson and all the crew were saved by the RNLI lifeboat Helen of Foxley.
 
Name
Year Built
Gross Tons
Length (feet)
Breadth (feet)
Depth (feet)
Masts
Figurehead
Stern
Lloyd's Classn.
George & Mary
1857 
104
 
 
 
2 
 
 
8 years A1, Special Survey 

Sources :

  1. Research by Derek Blackhurst
  2. Berwick Shipyard - Build List 1841-1878 - indicates that the George & Mary was the 1st of 26 vessels built by Gowan for James Fisher.
  3. Crew agreements for the Port of Lancaster 1845 - citing from BT 98/6585 and 98/4952 at the Public Record Office, Kew (research by Mr.Len Barnett, genealogical researcher.)
  4. Mercantile Navy List 1868: George and Mary, 105 tons, official number 16672, registered at Lancaster, owned by James Fisher, of Barrow.
  5. Mercantile Navy List 1876: George and Mary, schooner, 95 tons, built at Berwick in 1857, official number 16672, signal letters MCLK, registered at Lancaster, owned by Joseph Fisher, of Barrow.
  6. Lloyd's Register of Shipping 1880-1: George & Mary, schooner, 105 grt, 95 nrt, built by Gowan at Berwick in 1857, official number 16672, signal letters MCLK, belonging to the port of Barrow, owned by J.Hunter, master Capt.J.Davies.
  7. Wreck details from the Lancaster Gazette newspaper, Wednesday, 16th February 1881.
  8. Loss reported in "Shipwreck Index of the British Isles" Vol.5. by Bridget & Richard Larn (pub.2000) - states 5 crew and 1 passenger saved.