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Official Number
15397 |
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Official Number
15397 |
| The Lancastria was a barque built at Pallion, River Wear, by
R.Wilkinson and launched on the 20th May 1856.
The Lancastria was registered at Liverpool as new in June of that year, and given the Official No. 15397. Her dimensions were given as: length 143 ft and 3 tenths; beam 25 ft. and 7 tenths; with a registered tonnage of 335.54. She was wood framed and carvel built, had one deck with a break, and had three masts that were barque-rigged. The figurehead was a “three-quarter woman”; and the stern was elliptic, with a mock gallery. Her Marryat code, pictured flying from her mizzen mast, was 2035 with the Third Distinguishing Pendant. CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE IN NEW WINDOW |
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The succession of her owners, over the following 25 years, was convoluted. Her original registered owners were John Longton, merchant of Liverpool, who owned 60/64ths; with the remaining four shares in the hands of a John Flood, master mariner, who may then have been her master. In June 1858 she was transferred to Maryport in Cumberland when she was acquired by John Seymour, of Rockferry, Liverpool, and she remained in his total ownership until October of 1870 when she was transferred back again to Liverpool. It was at this latter time that she had some major repairs, on becoming the property of George Gray MacAndrew, ship owner of Old Church Yard, and a Joseph Ledser, master mariner, who owned four of the 64 shares. MacAndrew transferred four of his shares to a Hugh Hughes of Liverpool in February 1871, followed by his remaining 56 shares to a Robert MacAndrew in August 1877. Hughes transferred his four shares to Henry Lathom in October 1877; and in September 1879 Robert MacAndrew tranferred his 56 shares, in discharge of a mortgage, back to George Gray MacAndrew. MacAndrew, Lesder, and Lathom then transferred 56, 4, and 4 shares, respectively, to William Grove of Swansea in November 1879. This sealed her fate, and just over a year later she was to be wrecked off the South African coast.
The American Registers of American and Foreign Shipping provide us with a little extra information, such as the names of her captains when she was surveyed both at home and American ports between 1861 and 1879. Her master’s name was Edmonson in 1861 and 1864; Lorryman in 1868 and early 1870; and J. Taylor in late 1870 and 1874. Captain Naile occurs in 1877 and early 1879; and Trush in late 1879.
The Registers, together with the reports of shipping news printed in The Times of London, also give us a regular if fragmented account of Lancastria’s activities. In September 1858, another ship encountered her at latitude 50 North, longitude 39, in the North Atlantic, to the east of Newfoundland. By early November 1858 she was noted among other vessels as being at Pernambuco (now Recife, in Brazil), out from Liverpool; and she arrived back in her home port on the 4th December following. On the 31st May 1859 she was said to have arrived at Rio de Janeiro; and in May 1861 she was surveyed at New York. On the 10th June 1862 she docked at Liverpool after a voyage from Valparaiso in Chile, presumably after having rounded the Horn. She was again surveyed at New York in May 1864, at Liverpool in September 1868, and again at New York during the winter of 1869/70. Major repairs appear to have taken place at Liverpool in December 1870; and her arrival there from San Francisco was noted in May 1873. She was surveyed again at Liverpool in October 1873, and at Philadelphia in January 1874. She arrived home from Demerara in January 1875, and from Antigua in July 1876, and was again surveyed at Liverpool in February 1877.
The Lancastria set sail again for Antigua in June of 1878, arriving back in Liverpool in early October. It was however while she lay at anchor in Antigua harbour in February 1879 that an incident occurred that was reported to the Royal Humane Society in London. This was on the occasion of a medal being presented to a Charles William Scott, for the heroic rescue from drowning of a fellow shipmate. The report read as follows:
" On the 18th of last February Thomas H. Botham, of the barque Lancastria, which was then lying in Antigua Harbour, was conveying some hogsheads of sugar in a boat from the ship to the shore, accompanied by Scott, when the former by some means got capsized into the water. He was unable to swim, and must inevitably have been drowned had not Scott, who had much difficulty in extricating himself from a dangerous position between the hogsheads and the side of the boat, after receiving severe injuries, gone to his assistance. With the aid of one of the oars he succeeded in obtaining a hold of the drowning man, and then, supporting him, swam to the shore where both were picked up much exhausted. "It was at the end of 1879 that Lancastria changed hands for the last time to a new owner, William Grove of Swansea, and during 1880 she appears to have been carrying coal, on her final voyage sailing from Sunderland. This ended with her wreck in Table Bay, off Matroos Point, north of Robben Island, on the last day of December 1880. The wreck report of the Board of Trade, printed in February 1881, succinctly records what took place, established before a Court of Inquiry held at Cape Town before a resident magistrate, and a nautical assessor:
" … the vessel arrived in Table Bay at 3 p.m. on the 30th December 1880, during a strong south-east wind, amounting to half a gale; that she was anchored with 60 fathoms of starboard chain, and 30 on port, at a distance of about a mile and a half N.E. of the Breakwater; that the starboard chain parted, and the stream anchor was let go with tow-line bent on, which also parted; that from the time the sails were furled and chain given on the port anchor for the last time, nothing was done until noon of the following day to get the ship to sea, or endeavour made to place her in a safe position, but the vessel was allowed to drift at the mercy of the elements from 3 p.m. till (according to the master’s statement) 6 a.m. on the morning of the 31st, when the vessel had drifted a distance from 13 to 14 miles; that had ordinary precaution been taken, and any exertion made, the cable might have been slipped, fore and aft sail made, and the ship got under control. There was nothing to prevent the master getting his ship safely clear of the land for the night and returning with a light N.W. wind that blew on the morning of the 31st; the excuse offered, that he was waiting for a steam-tug, does not exonerate him, as no master should allow his vessel to get in a dangerous position when, by any exertion of himself and crew, the danger could be avoided. The final act of running the vessel on shore to save life (when no other alternative presented itself) was right; but the fact that the vessel had to be sacrificed to do so, we hold was entirely owing to the master’s default in not having taken necessary steps when in his power to do so, i.e., when he had the sea room and wind to work his ship.After twenty-five years of service, this was the ignominious end of Lancastria; her registry was closed in March of 1881.Under all these circumstances, we are of the opinion that the barque “Lancastria,” of Liverpool, was lost by default of the master, James McIntosh, and we adjudge his certificate to be suspended for twelve months from date hereof. "
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