The Wreckers
Page 33
There is also some irony in the fact that the most notorious wreckers were often the bravest sailors. In all cases and all places, the finest prizes went to those who risked their own lives to save both the survivors of shipwreck and their property. From Crooked Jack in the Pentland Firth with his peg leg and his fearsome seamanship, to William Stanton floating halfdrowned above the Goodwin Sands, to Richard Davies and his never-ending commendations, the story is the same. Those men were there on deck rescuing survivors and stealing the captain’s hat not just because they were thieves, but because there wasn’t a soul on this earth who had the skill to follow them. For many wreckers—both past and present—the prospect of loot remained an opportunistic afterthought to be considered only once the crew had been rescued and the ship correctly salved. And though it is comparatively easy to rush to judgement against the foxholes full of grand pianos and single malt whisky, it’s always worth wondering if that isn’t a very small price to pay for the life of a survivor in conditions even the coastguard wouldn’t venture out in.
Like fly-fishermen, every sailor has his own cache of tall tales: the longest storm, the deepest depression, the greatest escape. But, as those who use the sea for a living know (and as the wreck statistics confirm) it is not always the most difficult conditions which prove the most treacherous. When the glass is falling and the gale is at its height, both the skipper and his crew will remain on deck, braced for disaster. It isn’t that difficult to consider calamity when caught in the eye of a roaring Force 12. It is, however, much more difficult to think of things going wrong on a calm day, in a still sea, on a functioning boat—which, of course, is when many casualties do happen. Collisions and groundings occur when the sailor takes their eye off the horizon and their mind off the compass bearing. Out in the middle of the ocean on a fine day in good company, it’s hard for any navigator not to relax and forget the miles of buried wreck below his sunlit decks. In the same way, it’s just as hard for the same sailor not to feel when he approaches shore after many days at sea that he has finally sighted safety again. Whatever that sailor knows is waiting for him on land—comfort, debt, argument, a well-stocked bar—he does at least have the security of knowing that here, at last, he can relax into a solid element.
Sometimes, though, it isn’t out at sea among the reefs and rising sands where the greatest hazards lie. Sometimes there are things just beyond the warm harbour’s glow just as alarming as those at sea. Sometimes the old rumours turn out to be true. And sometimes even the darkest night at sea can be better than the false lights of home.
Bibliography
General
BOOKS
Bernstead, C. R., Shallow Waters (Robert Hale, London, 1957)
Bull, J. W., An Introduction to Safety at Sea (Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, 1981)
Cotton, Sir Evan, The East India Company’s Maritime Service (Batchworth Press, London, 1949)
Davidson, James, Scots and the Sea (Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2003)
Dunn, Douglas, Scotland—An Anthology (Fontana, London, 1991)
Forsberg, Gerald, Salvage from the Sea (Routledge Kegan Paul, London, 1977)
Golden, Frank and Tipton, Michael, Essentials of Sea Survival (Human Kinetics, Illinois, 2002)
Hamilton-Paterson, James, Seven-Tenths (Hutchinson, London, 1992)
Hope, Ronald, A New History of British Shipping (John Murray, London, 1990)
Langton-Jones, Cdr R., Silent Sentinels (Frederick Miller, London, 1944)
Larn, Richard and Lam, Bridget, Shipwreck Index of the British Isles, Vols 1–5 (Lloyd’s Register, London, 1995–2000)
Lockhart, J. G., The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (A & C Black, London, 1893)
MacAlindin, Bob, No Port in a Storm (Wittles Publishing, Caithness, 1998)
Rule, John G., Wrecking and Coastal Plunder, Essay in Albion’s Fatal Tree—Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (Pantheon Books, New York, 1975)
Smith, Gavin D., The Scottish Smuggler (Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2003)
Stevenson, Robert Louis, Records of a Family of Engineers (Wm Heinemann Ltd, Tusitala Edition, 1924)
Warner, Oliver, The Lifeboat Service (Cassell, London, 1974)
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Langewiesche, Wm, ‘Anarchy at Sea’, Atlantic Monthly (September 2003)
Lloyds Register, Casualty Returns (Lloyds Register, London, 1890 to the present day)
Lloyds Register, Wreck Books (Lloyds Register, London, 1892–1940)
Roberts, Dr Stephen, ‘Seafaring—Britain’s Most Dangerous Occupation’, Lancet (August 2002)
‘Select Committee Report on Shipwreck’, 1836
1. False Lights
BOOKS
Aitken, Henry, Salvage Awards in England and Scotland Contrasted, Juridical Review, Vol. XIII (Wm Green & Sons, Edinburgh, 1901)
Court of Session Papers, 416, 169 (Murray & Cochrane, Edinburgh, 1800, 1780–83)
Morrison, Wm Maxwell, The Decisions of the Court of Session, Vol. XXXVII—Wreck (Bell & Bradfute, Edinburgh, 1907)
Newson, Harry, The Law of Salvage, Towage, and Pilotage (Wm Clowes and Sons Ltd, London, 1886)
Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia, The Laws of Scotland, Vol. 21 (Law Society of Scotland, Butterworths, Edinburgh, 1994)
Steel, David W and Rose, Francis, British Shipping Laws, Kennedy’s Law of Salvage (Stevens & Sons, London, 1985)
STATUTES
Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990 (Current Law Statutes, London, 1990)
Malicious Damage Act 1861, Section 47
Merchant Shipping Act 1894 (57 & 58 Vict)
Merchant Shipping Act 1846
Merchant Shipping Act 1894 (57 & 58 Vict)
Merchant Shipping Act 1995 (Part IX—Salvage and Wreck)
Protection of Wrecks Act 1973
Statute of Westminster 1 (3 Edw 1)
Statute de Praerogitava Regis (17 Edw 2, C11): Act 12, Anne c18; Act 26 Geo 2 C19; Act 7 & 8, Geo IV, C30, S11
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Gohre, Sanja, ‘From Shipyard to Graveyard’, ILO Magazine (December 2000)
Griffiths, Ben, Wrecking-A Legal Perspective (Independent legal research, London, September 2003)
Langewiesche, William, ‘The Shipbreaker’s, Atlantic Monthly (August 2000)
WEBSITES
www.encyclopaedia.org—see entry on ‘Wreck’
www.mcagency.org/row/law
www.admiraltylawguide.com/documents/oleron
2. Goodwin Sands
BOOKS
Carter, George Goldsmith, The Goodwin Sands (Constable & Co., London 1953)
Chamberlain, David, The Goodwin Sands Man of War, 1703–2003 (David Chamberlain, Kent, 2002)
Eden, Revd Robert, An Address to the Depredators and Wreckers on the Sea Coast (J. G. F. and J. Rivington, Leigh, 1840)
Gattie, George Byng, Memorials of the Goodwin Sands (London, W. H. Allen, 1890)
Lane, Anthony, Shipwrecks of Kent (Tempus Publishing, Stroud, 1999)
Larn, Richard and Larn, Bridget, Shipwrecks of the Goodwin Sands (Meresborough Books, Kent, 1995)
Major, Alan, The Kentish Lights (S. B. Publications, Seaford, 2000)
Stanton, William, The Journal of a Deal Pilot (Simpkin Marshall Ltd, London, 1929)
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Lloyds Salvage Association, ‘Report on the Subject of Wreck and Salvage on the Coast of Kent’ (A. Williams, London, 1867)
3. Pentland Firth
BOOKS
Baird, R. N., Shipwrecks of the North of Scotland (Birlinn Publishing, Edinburgh, 2003)
Ferguson, D. M., Shipwrecks of Orkney, Shetland and the Pentland Firth (David & Charles, Devon, 1988)
Gibson, W. M., Old Orkney Sea Yarns Vol. 2 (Kirkwall Press, Kirkwall, 1986)
Houston, Anne (ed.), Lest We Forget, The Parish of Canisbay (Congregational Board of Canisbay Parish Church, Caithness, 1996)
Lockhart, J. G., Life of Sir Walter Scott (A & C Black, London, 1893)
Mil
ler, James, A Wild and Open Sea (Orkney Press, Kirkwall, 1994)
Townsey, Kate (ed.), Orkney and the Sea, An Oral History (Orkney Heritage, Kirkwall, 2002)
Tulloch, Peter, A Window on North Ronaldsay (Kirkwall Press, Kirkwall, 1995)
Wood, Lawson, The Bull and the Barriers (Tempus Publishing, Stroud, 2000)
Young, Donald (ed.), Stroma (North of Scotland Newspapers, Wick, 1992)
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Aitken, Margaret, The Island of Stroma (Northern Printers, Thurso, undated)
Brown, John R., ‘The Wreck of the Johanna Thorden’ (Orcadian, 24 September, 1 October and 8 October 1931; 29 August and 12 September 1935)
—‘The Wreck of the Svecia’ (Orcadian, 20 November 1980)
Ferguson, David, ‘Orkney Crime in the Latter Part of the 17th Century’, Orkney View (Kirkwall, May 1997)
Fraser, John, Three Years of Shipwreck (Proceedings of the Orkney Antiquarian Society, Vol. XIV, 1936–37)
Manson, Sutherland, ‘Some Wartime Memories of Stroma’, Orkney View (Kirkwall, June 1990)
—‘No Rest for the Navigator’, Orkney View (Kirkwall, Sept 1999)
Pottinger, Morris, ‘Stroma’, Orkney View (Kirkwall, Feb/Mar 1993)
‘Report of the Deputy Receiver of Wreck’, South Ronaldsay District, 27 August, 1931
Towrie, Sigurd, ‘The Wreck of the Johanna Thorden’ (Orcadian, 13 January 2000)
WEBSITES
www.caithness.org/history/articles/sailingdirections.htm
www.caithness.org/history/historyofcaithness/chapter 1
www.caithness.org/history/articles/wrecksofpentlandfirth.htm
4. Scilly Isles
BOOKS
Austin, Keith, The Victorian Titanic, The Loss of the SS Schiller in 1875 (Halsgrove, Tiverton, 2001)
Beattie, John, Lifeboats to the Rescue (David & Charles, Vermont, 1980)
Boyle, Martin, Bishop Rock (B & T Publications, Southampton, 1997)
Chaplins, W. R., The Story of St Agnes Lighthouse in the Scilly Isles (Unpublished manuscript in possession of Trinity House, no date)
Cowan, Rex, A Century of Images—Photographs of the Gibson Family (Andre Deutsch Ltd, London 1997)
Larn, Richard and McBride, David, The Cita—Scilly’s Own ‘Whisky Galore’ Wreck (Shipwreck and Marine, Cornwall, 1997)
Larn, Richard, Shipwrecks of the Isles of Scilly (Troutbeck Press, Cornwall, 1999)
Lethbridge, Richard, Behind the Eyebrows (Arden Craig Publications, Plymouth, 1999)
McBride, Peter and Larn, Richard, Admiral Shovell’s Treasure (Troutbeck Press, Cornwall, 1999)
Stammers, M. K, Ships’ Figureheads (Shire Publications Ltd, Buckinghamshire, 1983)
WEBSITES
www.lloydslist.com/lloydscasualty.com (16 October 1997)
www.divernet.com/wrecks/cita997
5. West Coast
BOOKS
Campbell, J. L. (ed.), The Book of Barra (Acair, Stornoway, 1998)
Hutchinson, Roger, Polly—The True Story Behind Whisky Galore (Mainstream, Edinburgh, 1990)
Johnson, Samuel and Boswell, James, A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland (Yale University Press, Avon, 1993)
Lawrence, Martin, The Yachtsman’s Pilot to the Western Isles (Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson Ltd, Huntingdon, 1996)
———The Yachtsman’s Pilot to Skye and Northwest Scotland (Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson Ltd, Huntingdon, 1997)
———The Yachtsman’s Pilot to the Isle of Mull and Adjacent Coasts (Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson Ltd, Huntingdon, 1999)
Linklater, Andro, Compton Mackenzie (Chatto & Windus, London, 1987)
Mackenzie, Compton, Whisky Galore (Penguin, London, 1947)
Maclean, Alasdair, Night Falls on Ardnamurchan (Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2001)
Martin, Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh, 1999)
Michael, Chris, The Wrecks of Liverpool Bay (Liverpool Marine Press, Merseyside, 1994)
Smith, Noel, Almost An Island—The Story of Wallasey (Self published, Wallasey, 1998)
Stevenson, Alan, Account of the Skerryvore Lighthouse (A & C Black, Edinburgh, 1848)
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Dunn, Bill, ‘Gulf of Corrievreckan Swim’, The Canoe Camper, No. 171, Ardfern (Winter 1981–2)
Farrer, T. H., ‘Wrecking in the Hebrides—Report to Board of Trade’ (PRO, Edinburgh, 1867)
‘First Report of the Commission Appointed to Inquire as to the Best Means of Establishing an Efficient Constabulary Force in the Counties of England and Wales’ (Charles Knight, London, 1839)
Place, Geoffrey W., ‘The Fate of the Charming Jenny’, Mariner’s Mirror, Society for Nautical Research, Vol. 76 (1990, No. 2)
Rodgers, N. A. M., ‘Legends About Wreckers’, Mariner’s Mirror, Society for Nautical Research, Vol. 71 (1985, No. 2)
Scott, Sigurd, Private letter to the author, January 2003
6. Royal Fish—London
BOOKS
Colquhoun, Patrick, A Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames (Patterson Smith, New Jersey, 1969, reprinted from the London 1800 edition)
Jeffries, Bob, A River Thames Guide, Woolwich to Battersea (private publication, undated)
Martin, Frank, Rogues’ River (Ian Henry Publications, Essex, 1983)
Mayhew, Henry, London Labour and the London Poor (Penguin Classics, London, 1985, reprinted from 1865 edition)
Minois, Georges, The History of Suicide—Voluntary Death in Western Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1999)
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Marriott, John, ‘Sweep Them off the Streets’, History Today (August 2000)
Redman, Nicholas, ‘Whalebones in Orkney’, Orkney View, Kirkwall (January 1995)
Sabin, Richard, Bendrey, Robin, and Riddler, Ian, ‘12th Century Porpoise Remains from Dover and Canterbury’, The Archaeological Journal, Royal Archaeological Journal, Vol. 156 (1999)
WEBSITES
www.historyonline.chadwyck.co.uk/pfto
www.nhm.ack.uk/zoology/stranding/history.html
www.beachcombers.org
7. Cornwall
BOOKS
Brendon, Piers, Hawker of Morwenstow, Portrait of a Victorian Eccentric (Jonathan Cape, London, 1975)
Baring-Gould, Sabine, Cornish Characters and Strange Events (Bodley Head, London, undated)
Cobb, James F., The Watchers on the Longships (Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. Ltd, Surrey, 1948)
Carter, Clive, Cornish Shipwrecks—The North Coast (Pan Books, London, 1978)
Du Maurier, Daphne, Jamaica Inn (Arrow Books, London, 1992)
—Vanishing Cornwall (Penguin, London, 1967)
Hague, D. and Christie, R., Lighthouses—their Architecture, History and Archaeology (Gomer Press, Wales, 1975)
Hamilton-Jenkin, A. K., Cornwall and its People (Augustus M Kelley, New York, 1970)
Langmaid, Kenneth, The Sea, Thine Enemy (Jarrolds, London, 1966)
Larn, Richard, and Carter, Christie, Cornish Shipwrecks—Vols 1, 2 and 3 (David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1971)
Mudd, David, The Cruel Cornish Sea (Bossiney Books, Bodmin, 1981)
Noall, Cyril, Cornish Lights and Shipwrecks (D. Bradford Barton Ltd, Truro, 1968)
Parker, Derek, The West Country and the Sea (Longman Group, London, 1980)
Smith, Revd G. C., The Wreckers; or A Tour of Benevolence from St Michael’s Mount to the Lizard Point (J. Hill, London, undated)
Vivian, John, Tales of the Cornish Wreckers (Tor Mark Press, Penryn, 1989)
Waugh, Mary, Smuggling in Devon and Cornwall 1700–1850 (Countryside Books, Cornwall, 1999)
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Place, Geoffrey W., ‘The Fate of the Charming Jenny’, Mariner’s Mirror, Society for Nautical Research, Vol. 76 (1990, No. 2)
WEBSITES
www.historyonline.chadwyck.co.uk/pfto (22 September 1818)
8. East Coast
BOOKS
Benham,
Hervey, The Salvagers (Essex County Newspapers Ltd, Colchester, 1980)
Cameron, Ian, Riders on the Storm—The Story of the RNLI (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 2002)
Ferguson, David M., Shipwrecks of North-East Scotland 1444–1990 (Mercat Press, Edinburgh, 1991)
Higgins, David, The Beachmen (Terence Dalton Ltd, Lavenham, 1987)