PAGE FOUR
True Historic Story's
by
David Chamberlain
Pictures and Stories are Copyright of Dave Chamberlain unless otherwise stated
Loss of the Flamingo
Human error accounts for many shipwrecks, this; combined with bad weather, often results in total losses. The Flamingo of Lieth, a large steam cargo vessel of 1,852 tons, was beginning her voyage to Colombo and Calcutta. She had loaded-up with general cargo at the docks of London and was heavily laden. As the Flamingo approached the Straits of Dover on Wednesday night, 16th November, 1881, the weather had turned misty.
On the bridge was Captain Brown, who was accompanied with a Trinity House pilot, John Ellison. It was the pilot who had wanted the ship to anchor in the Downs because of the fog, but had misjudged her position. He had guided the ship past the anchorage and without taking soundings put her in the shallow water at St Margaret’s Bay. Almost immediately the Flamingo took the ground and came to an abrupt halt.
At the break of day, tugs from Dover Harbour came and attempted to pull the stricken vessel into deeper water. They could not move the heavily loaded ship and barges arrived to take off some of her cargo. Inevitably, at that time of year, southerly winds increased to gale force and the ship took a pounding. With her holds filling up with sea water, the crew of 30 was taken off the hulk - leaving eight people on board. The following day, seas were breaking over the Flamingo’s deck and the remainder of the crew was rescued by the coastguards using ropes and a breaches buoy,
The ship became a total loss and was a hazard to other vessels as she broke up. In 1883 the 100 ton steam yacht, Queen Mab, ran up on the Flamingo’s exposed boilers and sank within 15 minutes. A similar incident happened 1886, when the Deal galley punt May Flower was holed and also sank.
Dave Chamberlain
Thirteen years later, in January 1894 the 1,400 ton full rigged iron sailing vessel Firth of Cromarty, almost became another victim to the shoreline of St Margret’s. She was bound for Glasgow with a cargo of cement, and had sailed to the Isle of Wight before gale force winds made her captain turn about to head for the safety of the Downs. Captain McKnight and the pilot, John Jordan, had difficulties making out the coastline on that foul evening.
In the rain, and with the gale, they mistook the South Foreland light for stars in the sky. When the pilot steered the Firth of Cromarty out of the way of an oncoming vessel he noticed the surf of the shoreline looming up on the bow. As he swung the wheel hard around the ship did not answer to her helm and just before 7pm, the confused pilot ran the vessel ashore. Within an hour, Chief Officer of the coast guards, Charles Randle, had mustered a hundred men from the village to help with the rescue of the Firth of Cromarty’s crew.
The gale was blowing so hard that the shore helpers were having difficulty in standing and the waves were pounding the distressed vessel so much that they could not get close to her. It took three attempts with the rocket apparatus before they could secure a line to the sailing ship.
Dave Chamberlain
With the ropes made fast between the main and mizzen mast they started to help the 21 crewmen ashore. In those conditions it was extremely difficult with the helpers and the rescued men in a state of shock and hyperthermia. Captain McKnight and two crewmen were incapable of standing when they were landed and had to be carried on the rescuers shoulders to the public house, The Green Man, which was situated on the foreshore.
One young crewman, an apprentice on the Firth of Cromarty, lost his life when a large wave swept him out of the breaches buoy and to his death in the foaming seas. It would be days before his body was washed-up and recovered opposite Walmer Castle. Another crewman narrowly avoided being chocked as the whip line from the breaches buoy caught around his neck and was dragged ashore unconscious. With all of the wreck’s crew accounted for, the coastguards stood down their rescue mission and awaited daybreak.
Dave Chamberlain
Dave Chamberlain
The Firth of Cromarty withstood the pounding and stayed on an even keel, no doubt due to the weight of her cargo. After a period of time the cement was removed and the vessel refloated and towed into Dover Harbour for repairs. She eventually finished her voyage when the cargo had been reinstalled into her holds and the ship towed to her destination, Glasgow.
A special thanks to the St Margaret’s History Society for all their help,
information and permission to use their photographs - Many pictures and stories can be viewed on-line at
St Margaret’s Village History site.
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The north Deal Boatmen’s Reading Rooms
Throughout the 1800s the development of steam ships and the decline of sailing vessels started to whittle away at the Deal boatmen’s livelihoods. With less ships anchoring in the Downs, the many hundreds of men who went afloat and worked the beach found their services were no longer in demand for ship attendance work. To accommodate the vast amount of boatmen waiting for employment, kindly residents created charities where a building could be used for them to gather. Several boatmen’s reading rooms sprung up around Deal and Walmer in the middle to late 19th century.
It was Lucy Hill, the maiden daughter of Admiral Sir John Hill, who gave a subscription of £300 to start a building for the boatmen of north Deal as a memorial to her father. This money was toped-up with a further £713 from the efforts of Lady Granville and Countess Sydney. As Lucy’s father was the last captain of Sandown Castle, apparently much of the Caen stone blocks from the derelict castle were used in the structures foundation. The location of the property was on the corner of Exchange Street and was completed in 1885
Skardons World
The Missions to Seamens Boat and Boatmems Rooms
The aim of this charity was to provide the building with a reading room, tea and coffee facilities and also rooms for destitute sailors. On the evening of the opening ceremony, 75 boatmen were treated to a dinner in the new found building. Shortly after, ‘The Mission to Seamen’ rented the property and installed the Reverend Thomas Stanley Treanor to become the minister.
Reverend Treanor made good use of his new base and installed a small boat on the beach opposite the Mission. With the crew for this vessel, he would visit the ships that were anchored in the Downs. Once aboard, Treanor would hand out books for the sailors to read and endeavor to get them to sign a pledge to become teetotal..
Dave Chamberlain
The Boatmens Rooms Today
The Rev. Stanley Treanor
His efforts must be admired in trying to convert some of the hardest men alive to his, and the Victorian beliefs, of sobriety. He also became the local lifeboat secretary and the stories of their exploits were published in his books. His way with words enthralled and his publications went into many reprints; and the town of Deal became known throughout Britain.
In 1932, ‘The Mission to Seamen’ had to relinquish the property for financial reasons and a year later Deal Borough Council purchased it with public subscriptions. For the sum of £25, which would include the building and contents, the new council run trust and charity was to be called the Boatmen’s Institute. Eventually with the demise of the north Deal boatmen, the Deal Borough Council offered it for sale and it became a private residence.
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AS THICK AS GUTS
‘As thick as guts’ is an expression many seamen use to describe the phenomenon of dense fog. Sea-mists, which turn into fog, are caused by the water temperature clashing with the air temperature. This weather condition can happen at any time – and in the days before radar, it was the dread of every sailor. Unlike a storm, men in ships could not by their own actions weather it or shelter from it. No matter how much sea-room you had there was always going to be a chance that someone else would be on a collision course with your vessel. Fog would mean the loss of man’s greatest sense – that of sight.
Hawksfield & Son was a successful and well known coal merchant of Dover and had the concession to supply coal to the port for the steamers to bunker. It was so successful that the company had their own ships, Peter Hawksfield and Kathleen Hawksfield. These vessels could transport the cargoes of coal from the pits in the north of England directly to their yards at Dover.
Dave Chamberlain
The Wairangi
One such consignment was being ferried from Blythe to Dover when a thick sea mist descended on 24th March, 1938. The Peter Hawksfield was a fairly old ship that had two previous owners since she was built in 1918. The coal merchant had purchased her nine years before and she had been a ‘regular’, unloading coal at Dover docks throughout those years. She was less than a 1,000 gross registered tons and carried a crew of 12, plus the skipper. Being on coastal voyages was of no great hardship for the men and they appreciated not being separated from their families for too long.
The Peter Hawksfield was proceeding through the Downs, off Deal, when she was enveloped in a fog bank. With 6 miles to go, Captain Donald McNab did not fancy the ordeal of navigating through the fog-bound harbour entrance at Dover. He decided to anchor up and wait for it to lift.
Most of the crew occupied themselves in their claustrophobic accommodations; some getting their bags together for disembarkation in a few hours time. Once they were home they could put the tin bath in front of the fire and wash the coal dust from their bodies; read the newspaper, go to the pub or just spend some time with their loved ones before going back to sea again on the next coal run. Around them the fog shrouded the ship, cold and clammy. Apart from their regulation fog signal, the only other sound was the sea washing against the anchored ship’s hull.
The same chill Channel mist had crept down around the 12,436 ton Shaw Savill & Albion liner Wairangi as she entered the Downs. The massive three year old ship could carry not only passengers but also vast amounts of cargo.
As the mist turned into thick fog her master realised the destruction that a vessel of this size could do at 17 knots. He hastily reduced his speed down to a minimum and put an extra man on watch in her bow.
The helmsman, busily staring at the compass, did not notice the bow look-outs frantically waving their arms. When the large ship shuddered slightly he looked up and the captain ordered ‘stop engines’.
The bows of the Wairangi had pierced the fragile hull of the Peter Hawksfield on her starboard side just forward of the bridge. Even at slow speed the impact of the passenger ship’s bow penetrated the collier’s hull five or six feet – sufficient to force her deck beams through to the port side of the ship. With the high pitched noise of tearing metal the Peter Hawksfield’s bridge was ripped from the deck and fell into the sea.
Dave Chamberlain
Peter Hawksfield entering Dover Harbour
At a quarter to two, on that dismal Thursday afternoon, all was silent. Shock and astonishment showed on everybody’s face. Thankfully, and miraculously, there had not been any fatal casualties. One of the liner’s officers was the first to order a rope ladder to be cast down onto the mangled deck of the collier. The captain of the Wairangi alerted the North Foreland by radio and they in turn called for the Walmer lifeboat to be put on standby. Thick fog still cloaked the whole area.
The men on the Peter Hawksfield soon collected their wits. They could see their ship was only being kept afloat by the embrace of this enormous liner’s bow. Below the ragged and torn deck they could see the sea – the bow of the liner had almost torn their ship in half. Quickly and without panic they climbed the rope ladder that was hanging from the Wairangi bow. They did not even have time to collect any of their personal belongings.
Suddenly the Peter Hawksfield started to buckle and the noise of ripping steel again filled their ears. As the last man was assisted over the side to safety, the Wairangi slowly pulled astern from the collier – her bow hardly showing any signs of damage. The small ship sounded as if she gave a sigh of relief when the air escaped from her crippled hull, and she slipped beneath the sea in ten fathoms of water. The fog was still ‘as thick as guts’ but now, ten minutes after the collision, it only masked one ship.
Another radio message from the Wairingi went to shore to explain that all hands on the Peter Hawksfield had been saved. The crew of the Walmer lifeboat were gratefully stood down. They were not looking forward to navigating through the thick murk which had not only engulfed the sea but also the lifeboat station and most of the sea front.
A day after the collision, Trinity House sent out three of their vessels to try and locate the wreck. The conditions prevailed, which added to their difficulty, however, they found a wreck and positioned two buoys to mark the site.
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TIP AND RUN
Two hours before midnight on the 26th of October, 1916, twenty-four North Sea herring drifters tended their nets on a cold moonless night. Their dim shapes spread across the English Channel and it was only the occasional glow from a cigarette or pipe that indicated life on board. The twenty-five miles of nets the drifters had set were certainly not for fish, they were made from thin galvanized wire with a mesh of ten to twelve feet, and their expected prey were U-boats. Even with the submerged mine fields, German submarines still managed to get through the Straits of Dover. Their aim was to attack or lay mines, which were successfully sinking allied shipping throughout the British sea routes. The wire drifter’s nets did occasionally trap a submarine and, with the help of the destroyers that dropped depth charges around them, usually made a kill.
Although life for the sailors was busy, as defending the narrow stretch of water day and night was hard work and the enemy seldom sighted, it was also humdrum. It was only boiler cleaning or repairs that kept them in the harbour for any length of time. During the slack water, and between tides, the drifters’ crews had the monotonous task of checking and mending the anti submarine nets which were suspended on small buoys. However, in a few hours time their boredom would come to an abrupt end.
The German ships, on the other hand, did not seem keen to fight, and their vessels were well maintained. Their hulls below the water-line were regularly careened, which gave them maximum speed and their crews were not stale from constant patrols.
On that eventful night and just before the high tide, which coincided with midnight, two divisions of German destroyers left the occupied port of Ostende. Using the extra depth of water from the spring tide they steamed over the anchored minefields. The mission of the twenty-four vessels was to search and destroy anything that got in their way. Their advantage would be surprise, and they knew that any ship that they encountered would be the enemy. As they skirted the Belgian shoals one of the divisions carried on along to the French coast and the other towards Dover
Dave Chamberlain
It was the old British destroyer, Flirt, which was the first to sight them. Unfortunately her officers made the fatal mistake of believing they were friendly vessels returning to the Downs, and let them pass unheeded. Within minutes gunfire was to be heard. The Flirt went to investigate and found a sinking drifter and her crew struggling in the water. The destroyer’s captain lowered a boat with an officer and a rating, to help rescue the survivors. It would be the last time they saw their warship. She was attacked and sunk by six of the German torpedo boat destroyers. After that, the enemy ripped through the drifters, whose only defence was a rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition. Seven were sunk and two more were heavily damaged, along with an armed trawler.
Another division of German destroyers steamed up the Boulogne - Folkestone route and came upon the 1,676 ton transport The Queen. She was unescorted, and fortunately empty of troops. As shots were fired at the 300 foot ex-cross channel ferry, she hastily hove to and the crew quickly made to abandon ship. This was done in an orderly fashion and the only casualty was a cook, who had been badly scalded during the fracas.
The Queen was a fine ship; she had been built by Dennys of Dunbarton thirteen years earlier for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Company. Her previous job was to ply the lucrative short sea routes from Dover to France. Although the competition was great in those days, her three propellers, driven by Parsons steam turbines, drove her at speeds of up to twenty knots, which made the fastest crossings. It was because of her swiftness that she had been hired by the Admiralty as a troop carrier. Almost two years previously, to the day, she had gone alongside the French liner, Admiral Gauteaume, which had been torpedoed and was sinking. This act of bravery had saved the lives of two thousand Belgian refugees. King George V had personally congratulated Captain Carey of The Queen on this achievement.
As the German boarding party tramped along The Queen’s deserted decks some went below and set a fused bomb deep below her water line. The rest went in search for the ships papers and secret orders. The enemy seamen quickly fulfilled their task and left - they would be her last passengers. The two German flotillas of destroyers re-grouped and then attacked and severely damaged another two British destroyers with torpedoes. After the ships lobbed a few rounds towards the shoreline of Dover, they disappeared back to the Belgian port unscathed.
The charges on The Queen ignited; however, she did not sink immediately. This was possibly that the hole they had caused was not large enough, or maybe because of the excellent construction of her bulkheads. On the flood tide she drifted a distance of five miles from the Varne sandbanks to sink, unobserved, close to the South Sand Head of the Goodwin Sands.
This audacious raid had lasted only three hours, but death and destruction lay in the wake of the German ships. Although the allied fleet had done their best in a difficult situation of protecting the Channel, the Admiralty at London felt the whole affair had been handled badly. The Commander in Chief of the Dover Patrol, a practical but outspoken old salt, Vice Admiral Bacon, incited more wraths when he declared the raid as mere ‘tip and run’ and he remarked that he wanted to be left to get on with the job in hand.
Unfortunately the Admiralty saw it differently and after other disagreements relieved him of his post before the war had ended - an act he would never forgive.
Dave Chamberlain
Dave Chamberlain
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THE GULL LIGHTSHIP COLLISION
During the first three months of 1929, fog was a constant menace to shipping throughout the Downs. Some days, in the light airs, it was wispy and others, it was so dense that the crews could not see the bows of their ship. The seven man crew of the Gull lightship always found some relief from these conditions below deck. The old wooden hull groaned with a familiar reassurance as the oil lamps cast shadows about the deck beams. The seamen’s quarters were spotless, the brass fitments burnished bright and their dining table scrubbed white. Upon the stove, which was always alight, was a constant boiling kettle. Each one of the members of the crew supplied their own food for the two month stint on board. This, with a supplement of fresh caught fish, lasted them.
The men, who were mostly ex-fishermen and sailors, got on well together. Their ideals and beliefs were similar and it was only their choice of tobacco that differed. Smoke from pipes and cigarettes lingered below decks. The job was a constant one, as one watch finished, and the men climbed into their bunks, the next was on deck attending to their duties. As the mist became more intense the fog horn was pressurised by a hand pump, and, with the aid of the ship’s chronometer, the signal was blasted out at regular intervals. The sleeping crew-men became used to the monotonous siren, although ear-plugs were issued, none bothered using them.
In the early hours of the 18th of March, 1929, the watch on the deck of the lightship could hear the thumping of engines from a large steam ship. As they peered through the thick cold fog the massive bows of the 7,844 ton City of York loomed above them. Although she was proceeding at slow speed the ship ploughed into the wooden hull. The crash of the light vessel’s lantern breaking and the splintering of wood echoed through the darkness. As the Gull almost rolled over on her beam ends, she bounced off the liner’s bow. Icy cold water rushed into the gaping hole, extinguishing the oil lamps and galley fire. The five men below, which included the captain, jumped from their bunks dazed. The large hole amidships extended below the waterline of the 103 foot vessel and she quickly started to settle lower in the water.
Although disorientated, the seamen’s natural instinct of survival prevailed as they rushed topsides. They were to be washed into the sea as the lightship sank on an even keel. Fortunately, the two men on deck watch had managed to launch the ship’s boat, which was already slung out on its davits, and rescued the floundering men. In the swirling fog they searched in vain for their captain, David Williams.
When the Ellerman liner hit the small wooden vessel, the captain had promptly ordered her engines ‘full astern’ and then ‘stop’. Without delay he picked up the lightship’s crew from their lifeboat and provided them with hot drinks and dry clothes. At 4a.m. he alerted the authorities ashore, by wireless, of the disaster.
The Ramsgate lifeboat arrived, two hours later, they had steered a compass course to the wreck’s position; only to find the top of the lightship’s mast and cage barely showing above the water. They were also surprised to find that two Deal boats were already there. After a brief conversation with the master of the City of York to ascertain the safety of the light vessels crew, all of the boats departed from the scene.
Harry Meakins boat, Lady Beatie, returned to the wreck after they were hired by Trinity House to act as an emergency lightship. When the 25 foot boat found her way back to the Gull, the six men tied a red flag onto the cage of the sunken vessel. By 8a.m. the small crew, equipped with a hand fog horn and a pocket watch, gave a regulation blast every two minutes. The fog thickened and visibility went down to six yards. Their pangs of hunger, from a missed breakfast, were soon forgotten when a couple of ships using the channel nearly ran into the Lady Beatie. By noon, after the fog had lifted, several vessels confused at not finding the Gull on station, started to wander close to the Goodwins. The small boat’s crew were kept busy by waving and shouting to prevent other accidents happening. Later that day the Trinity House steamer Satellite relieved the tired and hungry men from their vigilance .With relief they motored back to Deal beach.
Within weeks of a replacement lightship being positioned close to the wreck site, divers explored the sunken ship. As they felt their way about the Gull, in only a few inches of visibility, they came across the corpse of Captain Williams. They found him in a standing position, jammed against some woodwork. It was surmised that he must have arisen at the sound of the collision only to be trapped by the moving furniture in his cabin. As the ship sank, his death by drowning would have been horrific. The body was eventually removed from its wooden tomb and brought to the surface.
As the months went by, the Grimsby salvage company, Messer’s Chalton and Co, were employed to recover the wreck. Their divers put wire strops around the sunken hull which were then attached to two lighters. To make the lighters sink several feet they were almost filled with water.
The strops were tightened on the vessels at low tide and then the sea water was pumped out. As the tide rose, so did the barges with their dead weight strung below them. At high tide the Gull was suspended 12 feet from the seabed and the lighters were towed shoreward until the wreck grounded. Every low and high tide this laborious routine was carried out - until the beginning of July when the ever shortening strops held the wreck of the Gull a mere 500 yards off the beach at North Deal.
Dave Chamberlain
Dave Chamberlain
Dave Chamberlain
On the 6th of July she was beached just north of Sandown Castle and crowds of solemn locals inspected the hull. She looked a sorry sight, with her iron fittings rusty and the raffle of the salvage men’s warps on her deck. It took three days for the Grimsby firm to patch up the gaping hole in her side and the hulk was then towed to Ramsgate. When her refit was completed, she was put back into service as the Brake light vessel. However, she was never a popular berth for the lightship men.
Tales of a ghost walking below decks spread amongst the crews. Perhaps it was the lost spirit of the captain, trying to find his way out of the sinking vessel.