The Wreck of the Sea Horse in Tramore Bay
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A monument erected in their memories. Because of erosion
their remains had to be moved to a safer place. The monument
is now on the Doneraile Walk, which affords a spectacular
view of Tramore Bay, where many souls lost their lives to
the sea on that dreadful night in 1816. |
BENEATH THIS TOMB ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF
Major
Charles Douglas 29
Lieut. William Gillespie 19
Capt.
James Macgregor 23
Ensign Andrew Ross 19
Lt. & Adj.
Abraham Dent 26
Ensign Rowland F Hill 19
Lieut.
William Veal 21
Surgeon James Hagan 30
Lieutenant
Robert Scott 23
Assistant Surgeon Lambe 26
Lieutenant
James Geddes 21
Qr. Master William Baird 38 |
In the month of January, 1816, the Sea-Horse transport, having on
board the second battalion of the 59th foot, was driven by a raging
tempest into this inhospitable bay (Tramore, Ireland).
The Sea Horse was a sailing transport ship.
It was built in London
in 1784. A vessel of 350 tons, it was constructed of Irish Oak. It
was originally a three deck, three masted, fighting vessel commanded
by Lord Nelson in 1799. (1) On her last voyage from Ramsgate in England
to Cork in Ireland she was commanded by a Captain Gibbs, with an
Irishman, John Sullivan as first mate and a crew of 17 men. On board
were 16 officers, 287 soldiers, 33 women and 38 children.
It
occurred in the day-time; the shore was crowded with people, who
were aware of the inevitable fate of the crew, and had no possible
means of relieving them. As the vessel neared the shore, those on
board were distinctly seen, awaiting in agony the dreadful
catastrophe. Husbands and wives, parents and children, (there were
many women and infants in the ship,) were plainly observed in some
few instances encouraging each other, but for the most part clinging
to the timbers, or folding their arms round those they loved, that
they might die together. Their anticipations were but too well
founded: the vessel struck and went to pieces, when two hundred and
ninety-two men, and seventy-one women and children, perished in
sight of the assembled thousands.
All that courage and the
most devoted gallantry could do, was attempted to save them; and
there are some splendid instances of successful exertion, in which
the preservers nearly shared the fate from which they had rescued
others. The calamity was almost general: only thirty men were
preserved.
A few days after the shipwreck, nearly sixty
corpses, some of them the remains of women and children, were
carried on the country cars from the coast to the burying-ground, at
two miles distance. The wretched survivors accompanied the
melancholy procession, and witnessed their companions and relatives
deposited in one vast grave.
A handsome mausoleum was
ordered to be placed over their remains: the work is now finished,
but the expense of it being still unpaid, it has not yet been
erected. The following inscription is on the stone:
Of His
Majesty's 2d Battalion 59th Foot,
Who perished in the Bay of
Tramore,
On the 30th day of January, 1816,
By the wreck
of the Sea-Horse Transport.
To their revered Memories
This testimonial is erected by
Lieut. Colonel Austin, Lieut.
Colonel Hoysted,
And the other surviving Officers of the
Battalion;
Also a Monument at the Church of Tramore.
Returning
to their native Land,
Where they looked for solace and repose,
After all the toils and dangers they had endured,
For the
security of the British Empire,
And the deliverance of Europe,
Their lives were suddenly cut short
By the awful
dispensation
Of an all-wise but inscrutable Providence:
But
the memory of those gallant achievements,
In which they bore so
distinguished a part,
Under the guidance of the
ILLUSTRIOUS
WELLINGTON,
Will never be forgotten, but shall continue to
illuminate
The historic page, and animate the hearts of Britons
To the most remote period of time.
The following day the transports ‘Lord Melville’, carrying the rest
of the 59th, and ‘Boadicea’, carrying the 82nd Regiment, were also
wrecked near Kinsale with further heavy loss of life. This was the
greatest single disaster in the Regiment’s long history.
The account that follows was written by a descendant of one of the
survivors:
2nd Battalion 59th Foot, now the 2nd Battalion The East Lancashire
Regiment. The 59th, nicknamed "The Lilywhites," from their facings,
served throughout the Peninsular War, and at the end of that hard
and long campaign the 2nd Battalion went to Ireland, from which
country it had come. In those days - called the "good old times" by
people who did not live in them - women and children accompanied
husbands and fathers to the wars, and suffered terribly and perished
miserably, part of their afflictions being passage by transport.
It was thought that the war was ended, and that Napoleon was
safely and finally disposed of in Elba, and the 59th imagined that
they were to enjoy peace and rest in Ireland. But this was not to
be. After the "Hundred Days" they were hastily recalled to England
and sent over to join Wellington for the Waterloo campaign. How the
59th distinguished themselves in that final overthrow of the tyrant
is a matter of history.
Many wives and children had
accompanied the men to England, so as to be on the spot to greet
them when they returned from France, for we must remember that in
those days of sail a voyage to Ireland, especially from a Channel
port, was always something of an adventure, and re-union came much
sooner than if the journey had not been undertaken. The survivors of
the 59th returned, and there were rejoicings when families were
reunited and prepared to sail for Ireland ; but men and women and
children were to meet a fate as terrible as any that could have been
their lot in campaigning.
In January, 1816, some companies of
the 2nd 59th and other troops sailed from Ramsgate for Ireland in
the transports Sea Horse, Lord Melville and Boadicea. Lieutenant
Hartford was in the Sea Horse, which, though a miserable little ship
displacing only 360 tons, carried five companies, consisting of 16
officers and 287 men. There were also 23 women and 38 children, so
that the state of things, even in the best of weather, can be
pictured without taxing the imagination. Conditions in the Navy were
bad enough, even to the officers and men whom usage and necessity
had hardened; but they were infinitely worse in these small crowded
vessels, where there was not, and could not be, ordinary comfort and
decency as we understand them to-day. At best a passage was an
affliction, and it became unendurable when ships ran into such
weather as these transports encountered.
The tragic voyage
began hopefully, for the weather was so calm that after clearing
Ramsgate the Sea Horse anchored for the night. It was a start which
enabled the packed company to settle down a little and get used to
the ship and the sea, though anything like freedom of movement was
impossible. There must be hundreds of thousands
of men to-day
who, because of their own experiences of transports during the Great
War, can visualise the conditions in the Sea Horse, though even the
worst of their own tribulations fall far short of her horrible
reality.
From that placid beginning the voyage developed into
one of the great tragedies of the sea, for in an awful gale which
arose all the three transports were lost. The Lord Melville and the
Boadicea, carrying more than 200 officers and men of the 82nd Foot -
now the 2nd Battalion The Prince of Wales's Volunteers (South
Lancashire) - with wives and children, were lost near Kinsale, with
nearly all on board, and the Sea Horse was wrecked near Tramore Bay,
County Waterford, with a loss of 365 persons, chiefly soldiers of
the 59th, and most of the crew.
It is with the Sea Horse that
I am chiefly concerned, and I will conclude the story of her loss,
as related in the official narrative. In the morning of January 29th
a strong breeze sprang up from south-south-east, and by noon it had
freshened very much ; but there was no reason to expect disaster,
and just at nightfall Ballycotton Island was observed about twelve
miles distant, giving promise of an early finish to the voyage. An
event, however, had occurred during the day which doubtless led in a
great measure to the subsequent misfortune of the hapless souls on
board the Sea Horse. The mate, John Sullivan, who was the only
person in the ship who was acquainted with the coast, met with an
accident in going up the forecastle. He broke both legs and arms,
and never spoke before he died three hours later.
As it now
blew a strong gale and was becoming very dark and hazy Captain Gibbs
hauled his wind for Kinsale Light, intending when he saw it to run
down along the land for the entrance to Cork Harbour ; but not
seeing the light after a run of two hours, while the weather was
growing worse and a tremendous sea was running, he was unwilling to
proceed farther, and therefore close reefed his topsails and hauled
close to the wind, lying west-south-west.
The Sea Horse fell
off at about 8 p.m. and wore round on the other tack, most of the
night lying about south-east, with the wind south-south-west, but
owing to the flood tide setting strong on the shore and a heavy sea
running she drifted very fast on shore. At about five o'clock in the
morning of the 30th Minehead, the south point of Dungarvin Bay,
appeared on the lee beam. The ship was then drifting rapidly to
leeward. At six o'clock the captain let a reef out of the topsail
and set the mainsail.
About half-past ten the foremast went
over the side, and a seaman in the foretop had his back and thigh
broken. The wreckage had been scarcely cleared when the mainsail was
torn to ribbons. The Sea Horse was still drifting fast to leeward,
and though Hook Tower, at the entrance to Waterford Harbour, was
seen under the lee bow, yet she was unable to weather Brown's Town
Head.
There was now nothing to be done except to let go the
anchors. The sails were clewed up and the ship brought up under the
Head in seven fathoms with both anchors and nearly three hundred
fathoms of cable ahead ; and the enormous seas were making breaches
over her from stem to stern.
At noon the anchors dragged, the
wind and sea were growing, and it was clear that the transport was
doomed. In ten minutes she struck in Tramore Bay. She took the
ground not quite a mile from the shore, yet the tide being nearly at
the ebb, and huge seas running, the watchers who lined the shore
could give no help. The doomed company could not help themselves,
for the boats had been washed away, though they could not have been
of any use in such a sea. Most of the then, women and children had
struggled to or been helped on deck, and every sea that came claimed
some of them. The children were the first victims. Those who saved
their lives did so through sheer physical strength and luck, and
these were all men. Not a woman or child was saved, for in addition
to the ship having no life-saving appliances there was no apparatus
of any sort near the spot. Such things as were washed ashore were
looted by the local inhabitants.
Of the 287 men on board only
23 were saved, and of the 16 officers only 4, including the author
of the following letter.
Let me give a few extracts from a
letter which Lieutenant Hartford wrote to his father after the wreck
of the Sea Horse :
My Dear Father,
I lose not a moment
tho' hardly able to write, to acquaint you of our dreadful shipwreck
in this bay yesterday, two o'clock . . . . Since I was born I never
witnessed such a sight, the screams and prayers of all - the sea
beating and washing over the ship, every moment sweeping off numbers
at a time. Picture to yourself our situation - the beach crowded
with people who could render no assistance, no boat could live in
such a sea or put out for the surf. God only knows how I was saved.
I stuck to the wreck until she went to pieces and then took hold
of a plank which was washed from me four or five times and I by
great good luck got hold of others. All I recollect was being
completely exhausted and from the cold could hold the plank no
longer and was then washed on shore and taken up apparently dead.
I don't know how I recovered, but when I did I found myself
before a large fire which for a long time I fancied was a ship on
fire. Every bit of our baggage is lost.
I know, my dear
father, how happy my dear family will feel at my escape.
Your
ever dutiful son,
HENRY.
Thomas Redding, a survivor, tells this version of the tale, in which
he names the ship Sea Horse, No. 2, Transport:
She was a ship
of about 280 tons; her Captain’s name, Gibbs; the Chief mate’s,
Sullivan, by whom I was shipped, and that of the second mate,
Wilson. We were in all a crew of 18 hands. After some delay we
sailed for Ramsgate, and in about a couple of days received on board
the skeleton of the 59th foot, just returned from France, where
their numbers had been greatly reduced by the destructive carnage of
the ever memorable battle of Waterloo. We received 384 rank and
file, 30 women, and 40 children. The regiment was under the
immediate command of Major Douglas, Colonel Halstead being happily
on leave of absence.
---
The main stay sail was then bent and
set, but the sheets, stay sail, and all were carried away like so
much paper. Afterwards we set the main sail, but that shared the
fate of the stay sail. Several other expedients were resorted to,
but in vain; and the only probable means of saving the vessel now
appeared that of up-helming and bearing away for Tremore Bay, the
entrance of which we at length reached, and let go an anchor, but
the ship dragged, and a second was equally ineffectual to bring her
up, she having struck abaft, knocking her sternpost in. Major
Douglas then advised the Captain to cut away the mizzenmast, which
was accordingly done. The vessel was now filling, and it was about
10 o’clock in the morning. At the time she struck, the soldiers
rushed into the quarter-boats, determined on securing the first
chance of saving themselves. Whilst the mizzenmast was being cut
away, they were advised to leave the boats, which could no longer
afford them protection, as they were rigged to the mizzenmast head,
and must go over-board, to the imminent danger to those by whom they
were occupied. This command, however, they refused to obey.
---
Major Douglas, (whose wife, daughter of about sixteen, and son
somewhat younger, were on board) came out of the cabin, and walking
the deck with his hands in his trouser pockets, coolly advanced to
the larboard side of the quarter deck, pulled out an elegant gold
watch, and hitching the chain and seals round a belaying-pin, called
out “This is for any man who lives to get on shore.” Without
changing a feature, he descended into the cabin, and rejoined his
wife and family. They perished together.
Notes:
1. This statement appears in a number of
versions, but is unlikely to be true as Nelson
served, as a Midshipman, I think, on the Seahorse,
(built 1748, 519 tons burthen) between October 1773 and March 1776
in the East Indies, which was not the same ship. In 1799, he was a
Rear Admiral and was probably mostly ashore in what is now Italy.
The ships design and date of construction are also disputed. It is
reported that she was of '350 tons burthen'. The Seahorse built in
1794 was 999 tons burthen.
I am informed that The Seahorse I
am seeking was not a Frigate as some modern writers have indicated.
She was/had:
280 tons (Thomas Redding, a crew member)
360
tons (Lieutenant Henry Hartford, army officer, a survivor)
350
tons (Lieutenant A McPherson, army officer, a survivor)
350
tons (Colonel McGregor, brother of an officer who perished)
3
masts, foremast, main mast and a mizzen mast (therefore, a barque
and not a brig (a 2 mast vessel)
Quarter deck
Quarter
deck boats, attached to the mizzen mast.
There is mention
of “between decks” so she had probably two, if not three decks.
She
must have been between 110 and 150 feet in length to accommodate
nearly 400 people though they were in cramped conditions.
2. Major Douglas, a distinguished young officer, who
was a relative of the Fortescue family, with great calmness, changed
his coat for one less cumbersome, then exclaimed, “All is over!" and
taking out his gold watch, offered it to any person who saw a
probability of escaping. He then took his station in the shrouds,
from whence a wave soon washed him overboard, and he quickly
disappeared.'
The entry in the Caledonian Mercury, Thursday February 15 1816
states he was the son of Captain William Douglas, late of the 11th
Foot. However, Johnston's Heraldry of the Douglases has him as son
William Douglas, Captain 103rd Regiment, who married Henrietta
Nicholson, himself the son of Charles Douglas, who was the third son
of William Douglas of Fingland.
3. The Captain of the Seahorse in 1811 was John Stewart, the
second son, who died in 1811, in the 36th year of his age, and is
buried in Westminster Abbey. His mother was Euphemia Mackenzie, had
a sister, Agnes Ann, who married J.
Boleyn Douglas.
See also:
Holmhill
Any contributions will be
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