Thomas Burrow

Official Number
none

The Thomas Burrow was a snow built by Thomas Worthington & Co., at Skerton, Lancaster and launched on Tuesday, 26th November 1822. She was coppered and copper-fastened, and had been built for Messrs.Burrow and Nottage, Lancaster merchants, and was intended for the trade to St.Thomas and Tortola. She made her first voyage from Liverpool, departing on the 28th January 1823 under the command of Capt.Dawson, and returned to Lancaster on the 26th July, with a cargo of sugar, cotton, mahogany, tamarinds and arrow root.

The Thomas Burrow spent her entire career in the trade to Tortola and St.Thomas, under the command of Capt.Thomas Dawson. Both were lost on Friday, 30th August 1833, within sight of their home port. The brig grounded on a sand bank a few miles below Sunderland Point, whilst trying to enter the Lune in a gale, on a voyage returning from Tortola. The rudder was unshipped by the collision, so the anchor was let go, but the cable broke and the ship was repeatedly knocked against the banks until the keel failed and the hull filled with water. Capt.Dawson went down to his cabin to secure the ship's papers, but was drowned when the vessel capsized, the only casualty of the wreck. Nine crew abandoned the wreck in the brig's boat, and the rest of the crew went into the rigging and were saved from there. It was Capt.Dawson's 55th transatlantic voyage. He was buried a few days after the wreck, his coffin borne into the St.Mary's Church, Lancaster, by his crew. Nothing of the cargo, which was principally sugar, was saved from the wreck.

Name
Year Built
Gross Tons
Length (feet)
Breadth (feet)
Depth (feet)
Masts
Figurehead
Stern
Lloyd's Classn.
Thomas Burrow
1822
225 
 
 
 
2
 
Square 
 

Sources :

  1. Launch reported in the Lancaster Gazette, Saturday, 30th November 1822. Details of voyages in 1823 from the same newspaper.
  2. Lancaster Shipping Register ref.SS5/2 (at Lancashire Record Office, Preston) - vessel described as a snow.
  3. Lloyd's Register of Shipping (Underwriters' Green Book) 1822-3 (Supplement): Thomas Borrow, snow, 225 tons, coppered in 1822, owned by Borrow & Co., master Capt.T.Dawson, voyage Liverpool - Tortola.
  4. Lloyd's Register of Shipping (Underwriters' Green Book) 1832-3: Thomas Burrow, snow, 225 tons, coppered in 1830, owned by Burrows & Co., master Capt.T.Dawson, voyage Liverpool - St.Thomas.
  5. Wreck reported in the Lancaster Gazette, 31st August and 7th September 1833.
  6. Wreck also reported in Preston Chronicle, 7th September 1833.