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Official Number
17299 |
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Official Number
17299 |
The Mineral was a schooner owned in the 1850's by the Barrow iron ore merchant and shipbuilder Joseph Rawlinson. She was commanded for a period by Rawlinson's later partner in shipbuilding, Capt. Robert Reay.
The Mineral was lost with a cargo of iron ore in July 1858, sunk on the banks off Southport. Both the Lytham and Southport lifeboats were launched to give assistance to the wrecked vessel. The Southport boat reached her first and took off the crew after their twelve hour ordeal, lashed in the rigging in a full NW gale.
From the Guardian newspaper, 26th July 1858, page 2;
" WRECK ON THE SOUTHPORT COAST.- A schooner, named the Mineral, the crew consisting of Captain John Latham and two men, owner Joseph Rollinson, Dalton-in-Furness, register 56 tons, started from Barrow at ten a.m. on Saturday, laden with 107 tons of iron ore, and bound for Ellesmere Port, near Chester. About four a.m. on Sunday morning, the schooner was driven by stress of weather and loss of canvas upon Ted's Bank, about four miles W.N.W. of Southport, and lay there exposed to the severe gale till about half-past four p.m. on Sunday, when the crew were rescued from their perilous situation by Captain William Rockliff and 11 crew of the Southport lifeboat. The three seamen were brought by Captain Rockliff to the Victoria Hotel at five p.m. and were supplied with refreshments by Mr.Salthouse. The three persons above mentioned make up the total number saved by Captain Rockliff and the crew of the Southport lifeboat since its establishment on this coast to 200 persons. Crowds of persons were assembled at various points on the Southport beach, watching, with painful anxiety, the progress and efforts of the lifeboat, from Southport; and the interest in the case was increased, on perceiving that the lifeboat from Lytham was also pushing forward to the rescue, but in consequence of the greater dsitance of its station, it only arrived near the stranded vessel about five minutes after the Southport boat had safely removed the crew. The crew is reported by her crew to be a hopeless wreck, although not, at the date of this communication, broken to pieces. As the veteran Rockliff marched up the beach with the three sailors whom he had rescued, the visitors, who were assembled in large numbers on the Promenade, and near the Victoria Hotel, greeted them with hearty cheers; and many grateful expressions of thankfulness were uttered by the people, especially the female portion, at the happy and providential deliverance of the crew of the unfortunate schooner."
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