Yet
They Never Lived to Spend it.............
During the Australian Gold Rush in
the 1850’s, vast fortunes were made. The discovery of gold and the
quantity recovered was second only to the
Californian Gold Rush of the same period. In Victoria where it was
based, the miners gleaned over three million ounces of gold. In the
ten years covered by the gold rush, the population of Australia almost tripled.
Many of the miners were from England but also included many
Irishmen who had come to England to escape the Great Famine in their
homeland. Many struck it rich and with their newfound
wealth began the homeward journey and the dream of future
happiness. For many that dream was to turn into a tragic
nightmare and instead of spending their riches, they and it were to end up at
the bottom of the Irish
Sea.
In 1855 on the River Dee, at Sandycroft, North Wales,
a new type of ship was launched. She was steel hulled and
along with her clipper style masts and sail, she was equipped with auxiliary
steam engines for use in calm weather. She was commissioned
primarily for the voyage to and from Australia. There
was room for 600 passengers on board with a crew of around
112. There was luxury accommodation for the rich and basic
quarters for the poor. There was limited room for some
cargo. She was one of the fastest ships on the route and the
company’s advertising boldly claimed that she was capable of completing the
journey in‘Under 60 days’. This boast probably lead to the
disaster that I will relate.......
She was named The Royal Charter.
In September 1859, she sailed
from Melbourne
Australia with the aim of reaching her home port of Liverpool within the sixty
days as advertised. She had about 371 passengers on board with
a crew of 112 together with some company employees. Many of
the passengers were successful gold miners who had large amounts of gold in
their possession. A large consignment of gold was also carried
as cargo – it was insured
for £322,000 (a
vast amount of money in those days). Many of
the passengers had placed their wealth in the ships safe but equally, many of
the miners who did not trust anyone, carried large amounts of gold
strapped to their bodies.
Late October, 1859 she entered
the home stretch from the Atlantic and
on the night of 25/26 October, as she passed Anglesey
on the west coast of Wales, she was about 400 miles from Liverpool, her home port and
destination The barometer was rapidly dropping signalling a
severe storm. Some claim that the Captain of the Charter was
advised to take shelter in Holyhead
Harbour and to sit out the storm. However, Captain Thomas Taylor decided
to stay on course in order to protect his 60 day boast.
As they passed the safe
harbourage of Holyhead, the wind had increased to storm force 10 with signs that the
weather was yet to worsen. During the night, the wind
did in fact increase to
force 12 – ‘hurricane force’. The night’s storm was
later to become known as ‘the
Royal Charter Gale’. As they continued
to slowly make their way towards Liverpool, the wind changed direction forcing
the ship towards the coast of Anglesey.
At 11pm they anchored at sea,
the Captain now deciding to ride out the storm in open
water. However, and tragically, at 1.20am the port anchor
chain snapped quickly followed by the starboard chain doing
likewise. They were being forced towards the
coastline. In desperation, Captain Taylor ordered that the masts
be cut in order to reduce drag but it was to be of no
avail. The steam engines were unable to fight against the
atrocious wind. The
ship struck a sandbank and held firm......
Later that morning the wind
forced her free, if one can use such a word, for having done so, she was forced
onto the rocks just north of a fishing seaside town of Moelfre. The
100 mph winds continued to batter her and she quickly broke up.
An extreme act of bravery by
one of the crew, Joseph
Rogers, was performed when he swam ashore with a lifeline tied to
his body which resulted in a few people being saved. Most of
the remaining passengers and crew were actually killed by being dashed against
the rocks rather than by drowning. Many of the gold-miners,
weighed down by their gold strapped to their bodies, sank to the bottom and
drowned.
Out of the initial estimated
crew and passengers of almost five hundred people, over four hundred and fifty
perished. 21 passengers and 18 crew members
survived. No
women or children were saved..............
Before the wrecking of the
Royal Charter, the fishing village of Moelfre
was a poor community. Almost immediately they became wealthy
beyond their wildest dreams. Fabulous new houses were built – many
say by means of the gold that was washed up along the
shore. Occasionally small items, including gold coins are
still to this day washed up on the nearby coast.
Two final facts about the
disaster are:
1. In October
1959, almost a century later, another ship struck the rocks almost at the same
place in a gale. This time however all hands were saved by
incidentally, the Moelfre lifeboat.
2. The
celebrated writer, Charles
Dickens visited the scene shortly after the
disaster. He wrote about it in The Uncommercial Traveller and
describes the night from witnesses’ statements thus: ‘So tremendous had the force of the
sea been when it broke the ship, that it had beaten one great ingot of gold,
deep into a strong and heavy piece of her solid iron-work: in which also
several loose sovereigns that the ingot had swept in before
it, had been found, as firmly embedded as though the iron had been liquid when
they were forced there’.
I find it ironic that many of
the men who drowned that night had spent many years of hard labour in the
goldfields of Australia and having travelled half-way around the world to
return home and an expected life of luxury, died that night unable to give up
the gold strapped to their bodies – a fact which might well have saved their
lives.
------Mike------
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