Category Archives: Shipping and shipbuilding

New book: Richard Mayou, “The Dyfi Estuary – An Illustrated History”

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I am very excited to have taken receipt today of Richard Mayou’s new book “The Dyfi Estuary – An Illustrated History”, just published by The Machynlleth Tabernacle Trust.  I will report more when I have done more than devour the feast of lovely photographs, but for anyone wanting to secure a copy, it is available from the Machynlleth MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) at https://moma.cymru/en/product-category/books/.  There are two versions of the same book, one in English and one in Welsh.  Here’s the preview from the back cover:

The Dyfi estuary looks peaceful and unchanging, but the book tells
a different and dramatic story.  There have been armies, great estates, a centre
of seaborne trade, a great woollen industry, cattle droving and fishing of
salmon and herring and internationally renowned mines and quarries.
Now its post-industrial landscape is a place of
sheep-farming, conservation and tourism.

I’m chuffed to bits that this blog is listed in the further reading section.

 

 

The Aberdovey schooner Mervinia, launched 1878

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The schooner Mervinia. Source: Lloyd 1996, volume 2, with her copper sheathing showing clearly just above the waterline.

After launching Maglona in 1876 (about which I have posted here), the next ship built by Thomas Richards, one of Aberdovey’s most elite shipbuilders, was Mervinia.

My original intention was to take just one vessel from each shipbuilder in turn before looking at other ships in each shipbuilder’s portfolio, but there are both similarities and differences in the information available for Maglona and Mervinia that made it seem worth describing these vessels consecutively.

Mervinia was launched on February 18th 1878.  She was registered at Aberystwyth, no.3.  She was a two-masted top-sail schooner (with three square sails at the top of her fore mast, but gaff-rigged below, and on her second, main mast).  She had a figurehead in the form of a woman, but it not possible to make it out in the above photograph of the painting.  The name Mervinia was chosen to echo the ancient name of Merioneth.At 96 tons and 84ft long, she was smaller than the 114 ton Maglona.  She had very fine lines, as the painting above demonstrates, and was copper-sheathed below the waterline.  The purpose of copper sheathing was to prevent both fouling of the hull beneath the waterline, damaging the wood and slowing the ship, and the incursion of teredo worm, which burrowed lethally into wooden hulls beneath the waterline like giant marine woodworm.  Copper sheathing was adopted in the Royal Navy during the 18th Century, and became standard on deep sea merchant shipping in the early 19th Century.  By 1816, 18% of British merchant ships had copper sheathing.

As with Maglona, Mervinia had only two owners at launch, Richard Owen (who had been the main share-holder in Maglona), a timber merchant from Machynlleth, with 60 shares.  He was also her managing owner (the person who made the business decisions regarding a vessel’s career).  The other four shares were held by her builder Thomas Richards.  More information about both men can be found on the post about the previous ship built by Richards, Maglona.

Source: The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard, 25th January 1878

The launch of Mervinia on 15th January 1878 was covered in the Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard:  “The event had excited much interest in the village and neighbourhood and, fortunately the weather was most favourable for the interesting proceedings which, owing to the state of the tide, had to take place at an early hour, viz., soon after nine a.m.”  Fortunately the bottle of wine used by Miss M. Marsh of Carno to launch the ship by breaking it against the hull duly smashed – an unbroken bottle was a very bad omen.  The bottle was “gaily decorated with ribbons” of red, white and blue, and must have looked very celebratory.  The crowd cheered as the ship glided into the water.  The newspaper report goes on to say that “the Misses Marsh” contributed books in Welsh and English for the bookcase that had been fitted on the ship, for the use of the captain and crew.

Following his precedent with Maglona, as soon as the ship was launched Owen began to sell his shares for a profit, selling 30 of his 60 shares over a three day period between 18th and 20th February 1878, which provided a more familiar ownership mix, and a highly localized one:

  • John Jones master mariner, Aberdovey – 8 shares
  • Evan Jones, labourer, Aberdovey – 8 shares
  • David Davies, quarryman, Aberdovey – 4 shares
  • Richard Williams, master mariner, Aberdovey –  4 shares
  • John Evans, master mariner, Aberdovey – 4 shares
  • John Roberts, quarryman, Aberdovey –  2 shares

Mervinia’s first destination was reported as the Shetland Islands, but in April she was in South Shields.  Lewis Lloyd follows her various voyages and crew following her launch.  Her first officers were her Master  John “Black Jack” Jones (1850-1899), master mariner of Aberdovey, aged 27, who remained with the ship in various roles until his death in November 1899 and the Mate  David Jones of Aberdovey, aged 23, John Jones’s younger brother.

The way in which Mervinia‘s senior crew members were organized is interesting.  Both master and mate were paid off in April 1878 but rejoined the ship as Boatswain and Able Seaman respectively two weeks later under Captain John Evans  from Bangor, aged 58.  The switch-around in crew is the first of many, and can probably be explained by the ship’s destination to Portuguese ports, Vianna  do Castelo (and other foreign ports en route) in July 1878, and then to Oporto and other ports in September 1878.  In both cases she returned to South Shields.  As soon as the ship returned to coastal waters, John Jones was restored to Master with John Evans as Mate and David Jones retained as Able Seaman.  John Evans was paid off in October 1878, and David Jones resumed his role as Mate.

The site of the yard where Thomas Richards built his schooners, now the memorial park on the edge of Penhelig. Source: D.W. Morgan, Brief Glory (1948), pl.40

The ship now began to operate on new routes, this time out of Newport in Wales, and again the crew was rearranged, presumably to take advantage of experience in foreign waters.  For a trip from Liverpool to Avila in Spain, returning to Newport between 17th May 1879 and 23rd June 1879, the Master was now Charles Dean Cook of Bristol, aged 57 and John Jones was  boatswain and Purser.  David Jones left the ship.  On her next voyage from Newport to Bilbao and back to Newport (9th July 1879 to 16th August 1879)  John Evans returned as Master, with John Jones remaining as boatswain and purser.  The same arrangement was retained for her next trip from Newport to Alicante and then Runcorn (28th August 1879 to 20th November 1879).  For the rest of 1879, Mervinia returned to the coastal trade, John Jones was reinstated as Master and John Evans was Mate.

These changes in role and status were not merely nominal.  The pay that went with each position was allocated on a hierarchical basis, so every time John Jones, David Jones and John Evans were promoted or demoted, their salaries also changed.  It must have been difficult to plan ahead under such circumstances, even when in full-time employ.

The ship’s various voyages are summarized in Lewis Lloyd’s A Real Little Seaport, volume 1, pages 171-176.  Mervinia operated for at least 12 years after Maglona was wrecked, so the records of the ports she visited are much more extensive.  She called into a remarkable number of foreign ports, apparently becoming a specialist in overseas cargo transport, visiting Portugal, various  Mediterranean destinations, Newfoundland ports (mainly St John’s, Fogo and Twillingate), the Baltic and southern Ireland.  British ports that she visited include Glasgow, Greenock, Grangemouth, Gloucester, Port Talbot, Bristol, Hull, Teignmouth, Newport, Liverpool, Cardiff, Swansea, Parr (Cornwall), Dartmouth, Runcorn, Porthmadog and of course Aberdovey.

This photograph, showing a group of schooners, as well as a steamer, apparently includes Mervinia. D.W. Morgan says that she is the one with the copper bottom, but the photograph is so small that even after expanding it, I’m not sure which one he means. I suspect it is the ship in the middle of the photograph, where a colour differentiation can be seen just above the waterline. Source: D.W. Morgan, Brief Glory 1948, pl.41

Unfortunately, the various books do not note what cargo she was carrying.  Some clues can be picked up from Welsh newspaper reports.  On 26th November 1897 the Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard records that Mervinia arrived in Aberdovey with cement for Rhayader.  The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard on 24th February 1899 reports that she arrived carrying potatoes, presumably from Ireland and the Shipping News of 19th September 1899 edition of the Cardigan Bay Visitor records that she loaded slates from Bryneglwys quarries by the wharf.  In 1900 the Welsh Gazette and West Wales Advertiser reported that Mervinia, now registered in Gloucester, was back at Aberdovey at the end of January loading a cargo of slate. In 1901 she arrived in port at Aberdovey from Antwerp with a cargo of cement, reported briefly in the Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard, July 12th 1901.  In spite of this dearth of information, it is likely that she carried various cargoes.  Helpfully, and already noted in the post about Maglona, in Brief Glory, D.W. Morgan says that traditional cargoes when her destination was Newfoundland, were slate from Aberdovey or Porthmadog to Cadiz, sea salt from Cadiz for St John’s, in ballast (with no cargo) to Labrador where she awaited the arrival of cod that was then salted and dried and brought alongside in small boats.  The salted cod was then taken to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.  “The cargo having been sold, iron ore for Mostyn, barrels of olive oil for for Goole, marble for Exmouth as the case might be would be shipped, and the vessel pointed for home.  Usually Aberdovey or Porthmadoc were reached in ballast.”

Captain John Jones died in 1899.  According to D.M. Morgan (in Brief Glory 1948, p.170-172) he had been something of a dark character.  Known as Black Jack along the Newfoundland coast, John Jones “was a s swarthy as a Turk, with white gleaming white teeth, a coal black beard and black gleaming eyes and it was ‘Yo-ho and a Bottle of Rum’ with him, unrestrained in his savagery.  A thimble-full of spirits went to his head, and I have known him on one occasion, when Mervinia was in port, raise the town with his outcry.”  He was Morgan’s cousin, the son of his father’s sister.  Some of the stories, which Morgan describes as “well authenticated” are truly unpleasant.  His one redeeming feature, in the eyes of Morgan, is that he refused to sail on a Sunday.  He died at the Adlard and Co. slate wharf at Dock Head in Bermondsey (London) on November 6th 1899.  As he was walking over the gang-plank from the wharf to the ship he slipped, fell in to the Thames and drowned.  Morgan expresses this with typical panache: “As might have been expected of one of so passionate a nature, Drink and the Devil did for him as it had done for several Aberdovey seamen; they plunged him over a dockside to a muddy doom.”  His body was retrieved and returned to Aberdovey for burial.

In 1900 Mervinia was registered in Gloucester, after which the only reference I have found is the above-mentioned arrival from Antwerp with a cargo of cement.  The Aberdovey-built schooner Sarah Davies was in port at the same time.  This was the era when the steamers Dora and Telephone were regular visitors from Liverpool (about which there is more information here), and on one occasion in 1899 Telephone  tried to give Mervinia a tow into port during a heavy easterly wind, but the rope failed and Mervinia sat at sea until conditions improved.   D.W. Morgan says that she was lost near Oporto, but gives no date or other details.

Sources:

Welsh Newspapers Online: https://newspapers.library.wales 

Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard
Cardigan Bay Visitor
Welsh Gazette and West Wales Advertiser

Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 1. ISBN-10 1874786488
Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 2. ISBN-10 1874786496
McCarthy, M. 2005. Ships’ Fastenings: From Sewn Boat to Steamship. Texas A&M University Press
Morgan, D.W. 1948. Brief Glory. The Story of a Quest.  The Brython Press

The Aberdovey schooner Maglona, launched 1876

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Maglona, showing off her very beautiful lines.  Source:  D.M. Morgan. Brief Glory.

The shipbuilder Thomas Richards launched the topsail schooner Maglona at Aberdovey on March 11th 1876.  Maglona was one of the larger Aberdovey schooners, at 114 tons and 87.3ft long.  She had a figurehead in the form of a woman.  She was registered at Aberystwyth, no.6 and was named for a Roman fort that was thought to have existed near Machynlleth.  Topsail schooners combine the usual schooner gaff rig (sails parallel to the hull sides) with two or three square sails, perpendicular to the hull sides), on the fore mast, to take advantage of following winds to pick up additional speed.

Of the 64 shares, timber merchant Richard Owen of Machylleth had 52 shares and ship owner Morgan Owens of Aberystwyth had 12 who became the ship’s managing owner (responsible for all commercial decisions regarding the ship’s career) in May 1876.   Initially, the ship’s builder Thomas Richards did not have any shares in the ship, although he did have shares in other ships that he owned, including his successful 1878 ship Mervinia, in which he held 10 shares from launch.  Almost immediately Richard Owen sold 24 of his shares between 12th May and 19th May 1876, retaining 28, after which the ownership stood as follows (listed by Lewis Lloyd, 1996):

  • Richard Owen of Machynlleth, timber merchant – 28 shares
  • Morgan Owens, Ship Owner and Managing Agent of Maglona – 10 shares
  • David Hughes of Machynlleth, Slate Agent – 4 shares
  • Robert Rees, Machynlleth, Slate Agent – 4 shares
  • Thomas Richards, Aberdovey, Shipbuilder – 4 shares
  • Griffith Griffiths, of Tynhir, Montgomery, Farmer – 4 shares
  • John Jones of New Quay, Cardiganshire, Sailor Retired – 4 shares

It seems a little odd that Thomas Richards only bought shares in his own ship after Richard Owen sold off some of his own shares.

The announcement of her launch in the Cambrian and Merionethshire Standard was both brief and prosaic, suggesting that for Welsh people in general, this was worth noting but was not an extraordinary or unusual event.  Ships were being launched all the time along the Welsh coast.

A fine new schooner was launched on Saturday March 11th, from Mr Thomas Richards’s building yard. The new vessel, named the Maglona,” is of about 200 tons burden, and intended for the foreign and coasting trade. The usual ceremony of christening was performed by Miss Owens, of Machynlleth.

It was probably much more of an occasion in Aberdovey itself.  Buddug Anwylini Pughe (quoted in Lloyd 1996, p.96) wrote a memoir of her life in the village, and in it she says “I quite vividly recollect, young though I was at the time, the intense excitement that pervaded the whole village on the occasion of a launch.”

The site of the yard where Thomas Richards built his schooners, now the memorial park on the edge of Penhelig. Source: D.W. Morgan, Brief Glory (1948), pl.40

Thomas Richards (1819-1880) was brought up locally, attending school in Bryncrug.  Together with John Jones and Roger Lewis, he was a leading shipbuilder in the Aberdovey/Penhelig area.  His shipyard was somewhere near Penhelig, and although his first ship of 1858 was Elizabeth and Margaret, a 44 ton smack (a traditional fishing boat) he specialized in schooners that were big enough to tackle long distance trade, around and above 100 tons burden. Lloyd comments (p.100) “He was soon recognised as a shipbuilder of quite outstanding ability, as an artist.”  D.W. Morgan says (p.126) that  all of his schooners “sailed and looked like yachts.” He built 14 vessels in 22 years, of which only Elizabeth and Margaret and Olive Branch were not schooners His largest vessel was the 204 ton brig Naomi (brigs had two masts, fore and main, both square-rigged, with a gaff-rigged sail on the main mast). Richards was responsible for Aberdovey’s last sea-going vessel, the 99 ton schooner Olive Branch, but died before her completion.  Shipbuilders all had different approaches to the task.  Lloyd says that John Jones often had many ships on the go at a time, but Thomas Richards preferred to concentrate on one at a time, giving full attention to the job at hand.   He did not live to see Maglona wrecked in 1887, dying in 1880.  His obituary in the Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard on January 30th 1880 is a measure of the respect in which he was held as a shipbuilder.

Richard Owen, who was the principal shareholder in Maglona, was a timber merchant based in Machylleth.  I was hoping to find out more about him and his business, but have not found anything so far.  Do get in touch if you have any information.  Timber merchants were responsible for the provision of timber for a variety of trades including the building trade, cabinet making and, of course, shipbuilding, and for each of these trades different types and classes of timber were required, both from British sources and from overseas.  The Baltic, North America and Canada were popular sources of timber for shipbuilding and local timber merchants were also exporting oak and oak bark to other parts of the country.  According to Samuel Lewis in 1833, Derwenlas on the River Dyfi, the furthest navigable port on the river, handled 500 tons of bark, 40,000 ft of oak timber and 150,000 oak poles for collieries.  Timber merchants, often investors in the trades to which they supplied timber, were often very wealthy merchants, and could become people of considerable local influence.

Maglona was initially engaged in local coastal and Baltic trades under Owen Williams of Church Street, Aberdovey and then John Williams of Barmouth, before entering the trans-Atlantic and Mediterranean trades under a Master Mariner David Richards (certificate 97179), who had built up considerable experience in the trans-Atlantic timber trade and, by 1880 was living in a house in Aberdovey called Dovey Villa.  Maglona‘s history seems to be fairly trouble-free until she was wrecked.  The only reference I can find to her on the Welsh Newspapers Online website is in April 1878 when, according to a very brief comment in the South Wales Daily News of 4th April, she arrived at Milford Haven under Captain Owens carrying a cargo of manure, with her foremast mast missing, but there are no further details in this report.  Losing masts was commonplace, if regrettable, and usually occurred in heavy storms.

Her voyages, tabulated from information in Lewis Lloyd’s A Real Little Seaport, are as follows.  I won’t do this for every ship that I talk about, but it seemed worth doing at least one, as it shows  the reach of Aberdovey schooners of this tonnage, the length of individual voyages, the time they took en route between ports, and the time typically spent in each port.  Not all of Maglona‘s home and coastal trips are captured by Lloyd, so more of those were undertaken than are shown here.  I did have a column labelled “cargo,” but the records that were available to Lloyd apparently didn’t record this information, which is a real shame.  D.W. Morgan, however, says that her traditional cargoes when her destination was Newfoundland, was slate from Aberdovey or Portmadoc to Cadiz, sea salt from Cadiz for St John’s, in ballast (with no cargo) to Labrador where she awaited the arrival of cod that was then salted and dried and brought alongside in small boats.  The salted cod was then taken to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.  “The cargo having been sold, iron ore for Mostyn, barrels of olive oil for for Goole, marble for Exmouth as the case might be would be shipped, and the vessel pointed for home.  Usually Aberdovey or Portmadoc were reached in ballast.”

Maglona was wrecked only 11 years after she was built on September 2nd 1887, off the coast of Newfoundland at Mistaken Point, southwest of Cape Race.  Fortunately, the entire crew of five was saved.  D. W. Morgan provides an account of how this may have occurred, “derived from one who was a ‘Boy’ aboard her at the time.”  The vessel had arrived late in Labrador due to the loss of her foretopmast and jib-boom on her way from Cadiz, and it was therefore late in the season when she left Labrador for Newfoundland.

All was going well until a fog, the like of which Capt. Richards had never before experienced, enveloped the ship, marooning her in a padded, unreal world of her own.  In this she lay for four or five days, the captain hoping devoutly that nothing untoward might befall them before the sun shone again to hive him his bearings.

It was not to be howeever, for early on the fifth morning the boy on the watch forrard, cried “Brekers ahead” and even before the echo of his voice had died away land loomed out of hte fog dead ahead and no more than a buscuit toss away.

Fortunately for the crew, although the ship struck the rocks, she became wedged in a narrow gully.  Although she was tossed fiercely by the sea, and began to break up, the crew were able to clamber to safety and were spotted by fishermen who were able to rescue them.  The remains of Maglona were put up for auction, where she fetched £15.

Morgan says that after the death of Thomas Richards, his shipyard furnishings and equipment were sold at auction, including sheds, stove and surplus timber: “they were all knocked down for £19/1-/0;  So much achieved with so little.”

Sources:

Welsh Newspapers Online: https://newspapers.library.wales 

  • Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard
  • South Wales Daily News

Jenkins, J.G.2006.  Welsh Ships and Sailing Men.  Gwasg Carreg Gwalch
Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 1. ISBN-10 1874786488
Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 2. ISBN-10 1874786496
Morgan, D.W. 1948. Brief Glory. The Story of a Quest.  The Brython Press

The auxiliary steamer Aberllefeni Quarrymaid, launched in Aberdovey, 1858

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I have been unable to track down an image of Quarrymaid, but this is Roger Lewis’s shipyard.  Source: D.W. Morgan’s Brief Glory, pl.39

The s.s. Aberllefeni Quarrymaid, unsurprisingly known usually simply as Quarry Maid or Quarrymaid, has two distinctions.  First, she is the only steamer to have been built in Aberdovey, and second, renamed Orcadia, she was the first steamer to serve the North Isles of Orkney.

She was built by Roger Lewis (1815-1906) who Lewis Lloyd describes as a “maverick” and “an outstanding character.” According to Lewis, he came from Llanon in Cardiganshire, “a small but vigorous maritime community” where he was a master mariner (uncertified).  He not only built vessels, but often commanded them, and was a coxswain of the Aberdovey Lifeboat for many years.  Lewis says that whilst he was clearly a skilled seaman and had some experience as a carpenter, he never trained as a shipwright, and his instinctive approach led to results that were not always completely desirable.  In spite of this, or perhaps to reassure other investors, he retained shares in most of his ships.

Roger Lewis had a long-standing shipbuilding business devoted to sailing ships, based on Penhelig beach, just outside the Penhelig Arms (see photograph above).  It is interesting that Lewis went straight from sail to screw propulsion (propellers), bypassing the intermediary paddle steamer stage. Aberllefeni Quarrymaid was named for the three Aberllefenni slate quarries.  According to Wikipedia Aberllefeni was the longest continually operated slate quarry in the world until its closure in 2003.

Quarrymaid was built by Roger Lewis to serve as a coastal vessel.  According to Morgan she had a wooden hull, 83.1ft long, 58 tons.  She was launched in October 1858 and sailed to Caernarfon where she was fitted out with two De Winton 50hp engines and associated machinery at Thomas and De Winton’s Union Foundry.  I have have been unable to find an image, so have no idea about the arrangement of funnel and masts, but she is described in a number of contexts as an auxiliary schooner, presumably with two masts.  Auxiliary ships usually still looked like sailing ships, with the funnel positioned between the two masts, and they could switch between sail and steam as required.  Ships could save fuel when there was wind, but could fire up engines when they were sailing against the wind, in stormy conditions or when conditions were becalmed.  This meant that steamers could stick to a timetable and maintain reliable schedules even when the weather was bad, which was particularly valuable to customers sending perishable goods and livestock and for passengers.  Quarrymaid was registered at Aberystwyth, no.25.

The first shareholders were as follows (listed in Lloyd 1996, Appendix V, p.124-5):

    • Robert Davies Jones, Trefri, Esq – 16 shares
    • Roger Lewis, Aberdyfi, builder and master mariner – 10 shares
    • Robert Gamlen Sweeting, Soutlan, Warwickshire, Gentleman – 8 shares
    • Ann Pughe, Aberdyfi, widow – 4 shares
    • James Webster, Aberdyfi, Gentleman – 4 shares
    • Hugh Jones, Gelligraian, Farmer – 4 shares
    • Evan Anwyl, Llanon, Gentleman – 4 shares
    • Elizabeth Jones, Crosswood, Montogomery, Spinster – 4 shares
    • Joseph Sheppard Draper, Haselbury, near Crewkerne, Somerset, Gentleman – 4 shares
    • George Jonathan Scott, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Gentleman – 4 shares
    • David Jones, Machynlleth, Montgomery, Agent – 2 shares

There are often a diverse set of occupations listed, and widows are frequent shareholders, but what is surprising here is the sheer geographical scope of Quarrymaid‘s shareholders.

Quarrymaid undertook her maiden voyage from Aberdovey to London in April 1859, with several of the owners on board, some of whom disembarked at Aberystwyth.  The Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald had this to say about her maiden voyage on April 20th 1859:

The steamer started on her first voyage to London on Saturday.  Several of the owners and gentlemen were on board.  Also some ladies who went as far as Aberystwyth.  Robert Davies Jones, Esq., Trefi, and Lady R. Webster, Esq., Aberdovey etc, were on board.  The Quarrymaid steamed beautifully out of the harbour and made about nine knots an hour.

9 knots is just over 10mph/16.6kmph.  Steamships did not become commonplace in Aberdovey until the 1860s, so she must have been something of a novelty.

Initially, Quarrymaid‘s standard route was between Aberdovey and London, averaging a round trip per fortnight, stopping at Barmouth, Aberystwyth and Aberaeron as well.  An advert was placed in  The Aberystwyth Observer on the 23rd April 1859 just after she was built, announcing her first commercial voyage on 25th April 1859.   D.W. Morgan says that at one point her engineer was Tom Hughes of Gogarth, who had been an officer on the fabulous London tea clipper Cutty Sark and that at some stage she was lengthened by Roger Lewis.  Her first master was also her builder, Roger Lewis, and she was managed by David Jones and Rowland Evans of Machynlleth.

Pickle Herring Wharf, Bermondsey, in 1899 by Joseph Pennell. Source: Frontispiece.

Pickle Herring Wharf, Quarrymaid‘s destination in London, was in Bermondsey, part of a vast complex of wharves that lined both sides of the Thames.  The etching on the left, by well known artist Joseph Pennell, shows how the warehouses were linked to the waterside wharves across the cobbled road.  Where it once stood is now the section of Thames Path in front of the HMS Belfast.  However, it looks like a clone of the contemporary Butler’s Wharf, which survives today as a major tourist destination just upriver from where Tower Bridge (built 1886 -1894) is now located.  The warehouses were great terraced blocks of multi-storey buildings, and for the general public and watermen to reach the river, staircases were provided, the watermen’s stairs.  Those that ran down to the river were just behind this image, to the left, and were marked on contemporary maps as the Pickle Herring Stairs.

Pickle Herring Wharf from the river, by J.A.M.Whistler. Source: Art Institute of Chicago

Later, Quarrymaid switched routes at some stage before 1862, running between Aberdovey and Liverpool.   Although it is not explicitly stated anywhere what her cargo may have been, it seems likely that she was carrying slate, at least when she was running into London, but may have switched to perishables when she switched to Liverpool.  Steamers were comparatively expensive to run, costs being accrued both in fuel and additional crew requirements. Their cargo carrying prices were therefore higher, meaning that they were often used mainly for time-sensitive cargoes, when the risk of spoilage merited the extra cost of reliable steamers. that were far more predictable to scale, and arrived to schedule.

Lewis Lloyd gives details of the Crew Agreement for the Aberdovey to Liverpool half year ending 30th June 1862.  He says that it is the only one that was available at the Dolgellau Record Office, from which he derived the following information:

    • Captain:  David Lloyd of Cardigan, aged 24
    • Mate:  Richard Davies of Merioneth, aged 25
    • Engineman:  William Davies of Anglesey, aged 30
    • Stoker: Griffith Evans of Merioneth, aged 28
    • Able Seaman: Thomas Jones of Merioneth, aged 30
    • Able Seaman: John Griffith of Merioneth, aged 23
    • Cook: Evan Lloyd of Cardigan, aged 13 (possibly the younger brother of the captain)

Lloyd says that during the period covered by this contract, Quarrymaid made 13 voyages between Aberdovey and Liverpool, about one per fortnight.

In 1860 it was reported in the North Wales Advertiser and Chronicle of 15th December, that the captain of the Quarrymaid was pursuing a case against a deserter, more to make a point than to pursue any heart-felt grievance:

James Webster, Esq., the princi- pal owner of the steamer Quarrymaid,” plying between Aberdovey and London, preferred a complaint against a lad named Jonas Jonas, (who did not appear) for leaving the steamer on the 3rd ult., just as she was ready for sea, and thereby causing a delay of two days before another lad could be procured. He did not wish to press the case but for example’s sake he wished to bring the case before their Worships, to know whether these sort of things were to be carried on with impunity.

On February 9th 1861, Quarrymaid collided with the Ann Jones from Porthmadog, the cause apparently being a particularly strong tide.  The Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald reported that both ships were damaged, the Quarrymaid losing her jibboom and the Ann Jones losing ropes and the gaff, which fell on deck, striking the mate.  There were no fatalities but there were two casualties, one on each ship, both taken away for medical care. Later in the same year, the 14th September edition of the North Wales Advertiser and Chronicle‘s review of the Petty Sessions of Friday September 6th contained this fascinating and amusing story about the second mate stealing bottles of wine from a hamper that had been loaded in Liverpool for one Miss Griffiths of Trefri, although perhaps not so amusing for the accused, who was sentenced to two months imprisonment with hard labour:

Stealing Wine.—Mr. D. Pughe appeared for the prosecution. Roger Lewis, captain of the steamer Quarrymaid, of Aberdovey, preferred a charge of felony against the second mate Hugh Davies. It appears that a hamper of wine, consigned to Miss Griffiths, of Trefri, had been put on board in Liverpool, on the 20th of May last. It was a two dozen hamper.  The captain stated that he stove it away himself in the hold, in Clarence Basin Dock, and that on his arrival at Aberdovey it had disappeared. The prisoner’s berth was in the forecastle, and there was an access from there to the hold without coming on deck. The vessel was not full at the time. The hamper was put on the starboard side, and was approachable for any one. Thomas Morgan, a sharp lad, about 17 years of age, who had evidently imbibed some strong potations previous to coming into court, stated that he was on board the Quarrymaid, but never recollected seeing the hamper stowed away. Remembers seeing Hugh Davies, the prisoner, coming up out of the hold one day with four bo-tles before they left Liverpool. We were about half laden at the time. We were the only two on board at that time. The Captain and others had gone ashore. I saw him tap one of the bottles; and as he had no cork screw he did it with his finger and thumb. He gave me some of the wine, but I did not know then that he had stolen it. I thought perhaps he had some of his own, until he said “mind and don’t split,” then I smelt a rat. He gave some to Daniel Davies, and told him it was teetotal stuff, and Dan drank some then. I saw four bottles on his bed at supper time, but had no more of it after I left Liverpool. John Richards swore having seen eight bottles on Hugh Davies’s bed the day the vessel sailed. Thos. Smith, fireman, recollected having something to drink out of a bottle at Aberdovey from Hugh Davies, but could not say whether it was wine or not, for he never accustomed himself to drink it. He could manage porter as well as any man. (Laughter.) Cross-examined—Can’t say it was wine; knew it was not porter, nor gin, nor brandy, nor physic, nor ink. Could not say what it was; it went down very nice. Daniel Davies swore that he saw bottles on the bed of the prisoner. Had tasted the wine because he told him it was teetotal stuff. After reaching Aberdovey the Captain went to Machynlleth, when the prisoner said it was a good chance to dispose of the hamper; he said, what hamper; and he answered, the wine hamper, he would throw it overboard. Believe prisoner cut the hamper with his knife. P.C. Roberts deposed that he apprehended the prisoner on Thursday. Told him the charge. He asked what imprisonment he was likely to get, and acknowledged he had done it. Prisoner was then asked whether he was guilty, which he owned, and was sentenced to two months imprisonment with hard labour.

On one occasion, very late in her life, she was chartered for a pleasure cruise to Aberystwyth and back, as reported in the North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser:

ABERDOVEY.—On Thursday the Steamer Quarrymaid from Aberdovey took a trip as far as Aberystwyth and back. The weather was beautifully fine, and a rich treat was thus afforded. About eighty from Towyn and Aberdovey, visitors, &c., availed themselves of a trip, H. Webster, Esq,, of Aberdovey bore the expenses of the excursion, to whom great praise is due for his kindness and liberality at all times in Aberdovey and vicinity. During the passage, singing was kept up with spirit. After spending about six hours in Aberystwyth, the Quarrymaid steamed off at about nine knots an hour, and Aberdovey was reached in good time. Three hearty good cheers for Mr. Webster was given on board, which was joined in by the multitude on shore, who greeted the company on their return. A private company was entertained by the same gentleman at the Hotel, and a pleasant evening spent.

In 1865 she was sold, renamed Orcadia, and entered service in the Northern Isles of Orkney on March 29th 1865, remaining in service until 1868, when she was replaced by a larger steamer.

There is no record of where or when she was broken up or lost.  Perhaps she was scrapped after going out of service in 1868, but the above story about her taking a group of people on a jolly to Aberystwyth is dated 3rd September 1869, so perhaps she returned to Aberdovey to be be broken up, and this was the party to commemorate the event.  A guess.

If anyone knows of an image of her, please get in touch!

Update:  Thanks to  Dai Williams for the information that an earlier and bigger Quarrymaid was built at Pwlleli by William Jones.  Just to avoid confusion, here are a few details about the earlier ship.  She was a sailing schooner built in 1840, was 116 tons, and foundered in 1866 off Flamborough Head.  Jones built another ship, Quarryman, in the same year (source:  rhiw.com).


Sources:

Welsh Newspapers Online: https://newspapers.library.wales 

Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald
North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser
The Aberystwyth Observer

Deayton, A. 2015.  Steamers and Ferries of the Northern Isles.  Amberley Publishing Ltd
Hague, D.B. 1984.  A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Mid-Wales.
Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 1. ISBN-10 1874786488
Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 2. ISBN-10 1874786496
Morgan, D.W. 1948. Brief Glory. The Story of a Quest.  The Brython Press
Richards, J. 2007.  Maritime Wales.  Tempus

The Loss of the 1857 Aberdovey Schooner Frances Poole

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There are a lot of newspaper reports about groundings, collisions and total losses in 19th Century newspapers centred on north and mid Wales.  I stumbled across this story about the loss of the Aberdovey-built schooner Frances Poole whilst looking for something else, and it was less the loss of the ship and crew that startled me than the remarkable brevity of the report.  The story was published in the 27th March 1869 edition of the Cambrian News.  It is a nod at a total loss, and in its very brevity is a comment on how regularly coastal ships foundered with partial or total fatalities.  Ship accidents and tragedies were a dreadfully common occurrence.

I went back through various sources to find out more about the ship, her background and her crew.  The Frances Poole was built in Aberdovey and her senior officers lived in Aberdovey.  There is nothing that particularly stands out about the ship.  She was an average cargo carrying ship going about here daily tasks when she fell foul of a gale on the Cornish coastline when she was just 12 years old.  A reliable ship that made several voyages to eastern Spain, she was well-built, admired for her speed and generally well thought of.

The John Jones schooner Catherine. Source: Lloyd 1996, volume II

Frances Poole was a, 84-ton schooner built in Aberdovey in 1857 by John Jones.  She was 75ft long with a 20ft beam, fitted with the figurehead of a woman.  Sadly there is no known picture of her, or of her builder John Jones.  The photograph to the left is another John Jones schooner, the Catherine Jones, 76 tons (8 tons lighter than Frances Poole and built 12 years later), but gives an idea of the type of schooners that John Jones built.

John Jones, “Jac y Taeth” was the most prolific of the Aberdovey shipbuilders.  He probably settled in Aberdovey in the 1840s, having been born in Llanfihangel-y-Traethau in around 1816, and was accompanied by his wife Catherine with whom he had seven children.  Lewis Lloyd  suggests that John Jones had probably served an apprenticeship in Porthmadog as a ship carpenter.  All his ships were built on the river Dyfi, most at Aberdovey and some at Llyn Bwtri near Pennal and at Derwenlas.  He often had more than one vessel on the go at once, and Lloyd says that he laid 16 keels between 1857 and 1864, and some 29 throughout his shipbuilding career, specializing in schooners.  Of these the smallest of his schooners was c.45 tons and the largest were Sarah 106 tons and Eliza Jane, 131 tons, which seems to have been converted into a schooner.  He also built a small smack, Morben 28 tons, a 209 ton brigantine Rebecca, and the 258 barque Mary Evans, amongst others.  He was clearly a man who could put his skills to whatever type of sailing ship was needed, small or large.  Two of his sons, Robert and Evan, also entered the business.  As shipbuilding declined he seems to have shifted from building ships to repairing them instead, a common solution for former shipbuilders faced with the difficulties of the shipbuilding industry towards the end of the 19th Century.

Frances Poole was registered in Aberystwyth, no.17350.  Her managing owner, the agent for the shareholders and responsible for overseeing it as a business venture, was David Jones, resident in Machynlleth. The first shareholders for the ship (listed in Lloyd 1996, p.143) are as follows:

  • 16 shares – Griffith Jones, Farmer, County of Merioneth
  • 8 shares – Master William Lewis, Master Mariner (no certificate), Aberdovey
  • 8 shares – John Lewis, Master Mariner, Aberdovey
  • 6 shares – Mary Brees, spinster and shopkeeper (owned shares in a number of ships), Machynlleth
  • 4 shares – David Jones, clerk and managing owner of the Frances Poole, Machynlleth
  • 4 shares – Edward Morgans, farmer, County Merioneth
  • 4 shares – William Jones, coal merchant, Machynlleth
  • 4 shares – Robert Williams, grocer, Aberdovey
  • 4 shares – John Jones, flour dealer, Machynlleth
  • 4 shares – Thomas Edwards, farmer, Cardigan
  • 2 shares – Thomas Llywelyn, clerk, Machynlleth

As Lloyd points out, the large number of shareholders from Machynlleth is an indication of how important the commercial ties between Machynlleth and Aberdovey were.  It is notable that John Jones, the builder, is not amongst the shareholders.  Unlike many shipbuilders, he never owned shares in the ships that he built.

The Frances Poole‘s master since the date of her launch was one of her owners, Captain William Lewis (1827-1863), who was born in Borth in 1827 but had moved to Aberdovey.  She was built partly to meet the needs of the slate trade.  Slate was an important material in rapidly expanding industrial areas, and neighbouring Tywyn and, further afield, Corris, had an excellent supply.  The slate was transported to Aberdovey’s wharf, and was loaded onto small coastal ships, offloaded at suitable ports for carriage inland.  Having dropped off her slate, often in London, Frances Poole then loaded cargoes at those ports for other destinations before returning to Aberdovey.  When she was unable to source an ongoing cargo, she headed to the next port that offered the best potential for a return cargo, known as being “in ballast.”  Although she was initially destined for coast-hugging work, after a decade of coastal work, she began to engage in the Spanish and French trades, suggesting that she was a very robust vessel.

Crew records sourced by Alan Jones (2010, p.52-68) for the year 24th July 1861-17th July 1862 provide a useful insight into the sort of distances that the Frances Poole covered:

The destinations of the Frances Poole in 1861-1862. Source: My Welsh Ancestry, John Jenkins.

  • July 1861, Aberdovey to London with slate
  • London to St Valery at the mouth of the river Somme, unknown cargo
  • In ballast (meaning no cargo loaded) back to Newport
  • Newport to Aberdovey, probably with coal
  • Aberdovey to London with slate
  • London to Penzance, unknown cargo
  • Penzance to Newport, in ballast
  • Newport to Aberdovey, arriving December 1861
  • 11 February 1862, Aberdovey to Bangor
  • Bangor to London
  • London to Whitehaven
  • Whitehaven to Newport by 29th April 1862
  • 2nd May 1862, Newport to Aberdovey
  • Aberdovey to London
  • London to Whitehaven
  • Whitehaven to London by 17th July 1862

The crew for these voyages consisted of:

  • The Master (no certificate), Captain William Lewis of Borth, resident in Aberdovey
  • The Mate, Thomas Jones, age 29, of Borth
  • AB (able-bodied) seaman John Davies, age 20, of Aberdovey
  • OS (ordinary seaman) John Jenkins, age 21, of Borth
  • Ship’s boy Thomas Edwards of Borth, age 16, on his first voyage

The seaside town of Borth was not a trading port in its own right, although it had a long fishing tradition, but it supplied a lot of the Aberdovey trading coasters with crew, and several of the Aberdovey-based Masters came from Borth, much like Captain Williams. Captain Williams sailed with the ship until his death on board at Newport in October 1863 from “a rupture of a blood vessel” at the age of 36.

Captain Williams was replaced the next day by Captain John Evans, aged 43, who held a Certificate of Service (no. C.S. 701507), a native of Bangor but resident in Aberdovey, and the Master of Jane Gwynne (also built by John Jones, and of a similar size).  Under Captain Evans, the ship engaged in the Spanish trades, calling at Valencia, Lloret de Mar, Malaga, Tarragona and other ports, sailing mainly from Newcastle.  She also visited French ports, including Boulogne, Dunkirk, Dieppe, Quimper and St Valery.

Captain Evans was succeeded by John Williams (no certificate) from Aberdovey, by 1867.  From then on here trips were mainly along the British coastline, again, but included at least one visit to St Valery.

Captain John Williams was in turn succeeded as Master by John Morris, aged 35, of Aberdovey in 1868 (no certificate), the same year in which he became managing owner for the Frances Poole.  He had formerly sailed on Mountain Maid, and took on William Morris, aged 33, as Mate, also formerly on Mountain Maid.  By 1869 he had been replaced by Hugh Pugh of Aberdovey, having previously served on the Mary Jane. A common port of call was Runcorn.

The Frances Poole was still sailing and trading until March 1869.  The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard reported on the loss on 27th March 1869 (the short report is shown on the left).  Frances Poole had set out from Cork, heading from Liverpool, then Runcorn before heading down to Faversham with a mixed cargo.  She was wrecked during a gale against the rocks of “Godvery” (probably Godfrevy) Head near St Ives in Cornwall, with the total loss of the ship, the Master and other unnamed crew members.   The captain, John Morris, and crew member Hugh Pugh both came from Aberdovey.  The Mate, William Morris, may have been the elder brother of John Morris.  The captain’s widow was pregnant with three children.  Pugh had worked on the paddle steamer Elizabeth, which provided a ferry service between Aberdovey and Ynyslas when the final leg of the Cambrian Railway was being built to connect Aberdovey, Machynlleth and Aberystwyth.  He left a wife and child. Frances Poole was not the only ship wrecked in the area that night, but the other ship’s crew were fortunate enough to survive.

As I said in my introduction, it is the brevity of this report that is so startling, not just because all lives were lost, but because it is clear that this was not an unusual event.  Ships and crew were lost on a distressingly regular basis, and rarely merited an in-depth analysis in newspaper reports.

 

References:

The National Library of Wales
https://papuraunewydd.llyfrgell.cymru/view/3305862/3305866

Jones, A. 2010.  John Jenkins of Borth – A Welsh Master Mariner’s Story.  Maritime Wales/Cymry A’r Mor 31, p.52-68.  Available online at: http://www.mywelshancestry.co.uk/John%20Jenkins/John%20Jenkins%20Story.html

Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 1. ISBN-10 1874786488

Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 2. ISBN-10 1874786496

Steamships in Aberdovey from the mid-1800s to the First World War

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Vintage postcard of Aberdovey showing both sail and steam in port.

The local shipbuilding industry, which started on the back of the Industrial Revolution in around 1840, didn’t survive the arrival of the railway, partly because the upper reaches of the river Dyfi were cut off, but also because wooden sailing ships for deep-sea cargo carriage were being built more cheaply and ambitiously in Canada whilst, most conspicuously, steamships were beginning to replace sail all round the coast and across the oceans.   Early 19th Century steamship services had developed along big rivers and estuaries like the Thames and Clyde, with corresponding shipbuilding services fulfilling a real demand.  These were populous areas in need of reliable passenger and cargo transport and a number of entrepreneurs found that there was a good market for pleasure trips.   In Wales, these early steamers were too expensive to run for low-margin cargoes and were not suitable for carrying heavy goods.  As the technology improved, so did the ships.  There were many advantages of steam over sail.   Steamers could set sail in all weathers and tides, they could operate to a timetable, and those built of iron could be much larger than wooden equivalents.

The Dovey Belle. Source: Lewis 1996, plate following p.120

By the mid 19th Century a number of Welsh shipbuilders had tried their hand at steam, including the 1854 Victoria built in Barmouth and the single Aberdovey-made steamer, Aberllefeni Quarry Maid, launched in 1858 (see below), usually known simply as Quarrymaid.  This experiment did not evolve into a steamboat industry either in Aberdovey or Barmouth, where another steamship had been built.  The development of  a shipbuilding industry in Wales, for even small steamers, was inhibited for a number of reasons.  These included the expense of dredging access routes for the building of bigger ships, adapting shipyards, adding new infrastructure and acquiring new skills.  The last Aberdovey ship was launched from Penhelig in 1880, the schooner Olive Branch, a pattern of shipbuilding decline that was echoed in small ports along the Welsh coast as the shipbuilding industry came to a standstill. The last Dovey-built ship to frequent Aberdovey was the 1867 84-ton schooner Dovey Belle, which met her end in 1907.

The Aberdovey jetty, fitted with rails

Towards the end of the 19th Century, steamships from other areas visited small Welsh coastal ports, and Aberdovey continued to be an active port until the First World War.  The earliest steamships were paddle steamers, successfully crossing the Atlantic on regular crossings between Britain and America, and these were succeeded later by the much more efficient screw (propeller) steamers.  In 1887 a new Aberdovey jetty was built, 370ft long.  Approached along a pier, it enabled ships to load and unload at both low and high tide, encouraging the visits of steamships.  The pier and jetty were fitted with railway tracks and a turntable, so that the main railway could be connected directly with shipping via the Aberdovey Harbour branch.

The only steamer to be built in Aberdovey was the 83.1ft long above-mentioned Aberllefeni Quarry Maid, built by Roger Lewis to serve as a coastal vessel, and was launched in October 1858.  She was fitted out with two De Winton 50hp engines and associated machinery in Caernarfon, and undertook her maiden voyage from Aberdovey to London in April 1859, with several of the owners on board, some of whom disembarked at Aberystwyth.   Her normal route was between Aberdovey and Liverpool, averaging a round trip per fortnight, but one one occasion she was chartered for a pleasure cruise to Aberystwyth and back, as reported in the North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser on 3rd September 1869.

ABERDOVEY.—On Thursday the Steamer Quarrymaid from Aberdovey took a trip as far as Aberystwyth and back. The weather was beautifully fine, and a rich treat was thus afforded. About eighty from Towyn and Aberdovey, visitors, &c., availed themselves of a trip, H. Webster, Esq,, of Aberdovey bore the expenses of the excursion, to whom great praise is due for his kindness and liberality at all times in Aberdovey and vicinity. During the passage, singing was kept up with spirit. After spending about six hours in Aberystwyth, the Quarrymaid steamed off at about nine knots an hour, and Aberdovey was reached in good time. Three hearty good cheers for Mr. Webster was given on board, which was joined in by the multitude on shore, who greeted the company on their return. A private company was entertained by the same gentleman at the Hotel, and a pleasant evening spent.

In 1862 she had a six-man crew.  It is not known when she went out of service.  If anyone knows of a photograph, please get in touch!

The paddle steamer Vale of Clwyd. Source: National Museum of Wales (via Williams and Armstrong 2010)

As far as I can tell, the earliest visiting steamers to arrive in Aberdovey were those of the Cardigan Bay Steam Navigation Co.  It was formed in 1834 by local gentry and operated a summer service from Pwllheli to Aberystwyth with their one funnelled, two-masted paddle steamer, the 60hp p.s. Vale of Clwyd (p.s. standing for paddle steamer), commanded by John Hughes of Pwllheli. She left Pwlheli every other day and returned on alternative days, but did not run on Sundays.  Her round trip between Aberystwyth and Pwllheli included stops at Barmouth and Aberdovey, both on outgoing and return trips.  There’s no record of how she was received in Aberdovey, but a local newspaper reported that on her arrival in Aberystwyth, she was greeted by “nearly all the population of the town and country for several miles around.”  Later in the same year she also stopped at Aberaeron and New Quay.  On 27th May 1934 the North Wales Chronicle warmly greeted the linkage of Aberystwyth and Pwllelli, seeing it as a solution to opening up the Welsh coast “so long hermetically sealed against tourists and travellers.”   It seems to have been a short-lived service, and the ship was moved to the Portdinllaen to Liverpool route the following year.

The next steamers to stop at Aberdovey were owned by the Cambrian Steam Packet Co, which was registered as the Cambrian Screw Steamship Co Ltd in March 1956, but changed its name In April.

Cambrian Steam Packet Company Share Certificate. Source: National Museum of Wales


The company operated out of Aberystwyth, with ships going to Bristol, Liverpool and London and extended the service to Swansea. It carried both cargo and passengers to these destinations, stopping off at intervening smaller ports, including Barmouth, Tywyn, Aberdovey, New Quay, Aberaeron, and Aberystwyth.  The earliest advert I have found dates to 1859, singing the praises of the ship Plymlymon.  An 1859 Cambrian Steam Packet Company advert in the first edition of the Aberystwyth Observer has an illustration of the ship Plymlymon, captained by William Wraight, which carried goods and passengers between Liverpool, Aberystwyth and Bristol, stopping at Holyhead, Portmadoc, Aberdovey, Aberaron and New Quay. Although prioritizing cargo, the advert goes on to say “Excellent accommodation for Passengers. Stewardess on board.”  Fares from Liverpool and Bristol to Aberystwyth, Portmadoc, Aberayron, Aberdovey, Cardigan and New Quay cabins were 12 shillings and steerage 7 shillings.  Between either Aberystwyth, Aberaeron, Aberdovey, Cardigan, new Quay, Portmadoc or Holyhead, cabins were 9 shillings and steerage was 6 shillings.  The full advert is shown at the end of this page.  The appearance of the advert in 1888 is somewhat confusing, as the Cambrian Steam Packet Company is said by a number of sources to have closed in 1876, so I am looking for more information on the subject.  Later ships advertised were Aberystwyth, Queen of the Isles, Young England, Genova and Liverpool, all steamships.  In 1863 an additional steamer, Cricket, was added to the list of ships running on this route “with Liverpool, Bristol and London goods,” and “good accommodation and a stewardess on board.” Although it ran cargo and offered passenger  less expensive prices than the railway, it found competition from the combination of rail and the establishment in 1863 of a rival steamship company difficult, and folded in 1876.

In the absence of a picture of Elizabeth, here’s a photograph of her owner Thomas Savin instead. Source: Wikipedia

The Cambrian Railway was directly responsible for the arrival of  the paddle steamer p.s. Elizabeth in 1863 from Blackwall, London (please get in touch if you know of a photo).  In the early 1860s, during the construction of the Cambrian Railway that began in 1862 (discussed further here), Elizabeth was purchased to serve as a ferry.  The Cambrian’s railway engineer was contractor Thomas Savin (about whom more on the aforementioned post about the railway). Savin had originally intended to build a bridge across the Dyfi to connect Aberdovey and Ynyslas by rail, and this remained the plan for some time, but due to the local geomorphology, civil engineers decided that the bridge could not be built and an additional 12 miles of rail had to be laid to go around the estuary, crossing the river just north of Gogarth instead. This meant that until the new stretch was built, southbound passengers had to cross the river by ferry between Aberdovey and Penrhyn Point, just beyond Ynyslas, linking the railway, where a line had been built.  Savin himself purchased Elizabeth, a 30 horse-power Blackwall (London) paddle steamer that was also rigged for sail as a backup for the engines.  According to a report in the Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald she arrived at Aberdovey in 8am, having sheltered in Milton Haven for a number of nights, on the morning of 10th October 1863.  She was captained by a Machynlleth resident Captain Edward Bell, who was succeeded by his younger brother Captain John Bell.  She had a draft of 20 inches (i.e. she was shallow beneath the waterline) and was “fitted up like a yacht.”  Unfortunately Elizabeth was not a success, as a letter printed in the 7th November 1863 edition of the Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald makes clear.  Although elegant, with “much the resemblance of the Great Eastern build,” she was “almost totally useless as a means of conveyance.”  At c.125ft long she was too long “by a third of her present length,” meaning that small boats had to take up the slack, as they had done before the arrival of the steamship.  He goes on: “A trip of two or three times a weeks is all ‘our toy’ can make, and she has neaped [grounded] on a sand bank since Monday last!”  In the same edition, it was reported that piers were under construction for the ferry at Aberdovey on one side of the estuary, and Penrhyn on the other, which seems like something of an afterthought!

Steam train making its way along the estuary towards Machynlleth, after the completion of the Aberdovey to Aberystwyth section of the line, eliminating the need for a ferry.

When the railway was eventually completed in 1867 it ran along the Dyfi Estuary, routing through the outskirts of Machynlleth and down the coast to Aberystwyth, making the ferry redundant.  Savin sold Elizabeth in 1869 to an agent in Londonderry.  Long after the railway was complete, sleepers were still brought into the port for the Cambrian Line.  The Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald notes the arrival of the steamers Lizzie (which belonged to Lewis and Co of Mostyn) in September 1889 and Lotus in July 1891 loaded with sleepers.  This evidently continued at least as late as 1908 when the residents of Bodfar Terrace and Glandovey Terrace joined forces to present a petition to the Cambrian Railway co. asking for the removal of the piles of sleepers stacked in front of their houses, “as they are a great eyesore to visitors and residents.”  They were particularly concerned that they should be taken away before the influx of August visitors.

Lizzie. Source: Fenton 1989b, p.121

 

The Aberystwyth and Cardigan Bay Steam Packet Company was formed by seven shareholders from Aberystwyth, including the harbour master, a master mariner, two merchants, two grocers and a carrier.  It was probably founded in 1863.

The Countess of Lisburne. Source: National Museum of Wales

The first ship purchased, in 1857, was the 108 ton s.s. Express, followed by the 118 ton s.s. Henry E. Taylor (built for the company by Bowdler, Chaffer and Co, Secombe) in 1868 and the s.s. Grosvenor (built by Crabtree and Co, Great Yarmouth later on (s.s stands for screw steamer or steamship).  The service ran between Aberystwyth and Liverpool, stopping off at ports along the way, including Aberdovey. The business was reconstituted twice and in 1885 became the Aberystwyth and Aberdovey Steam Packet Company, to raise new operating funds of £4,000 (none of which came from Aberdovey).  At this time  the Henry E. Taylor was transferred briefly to new company.  It was sold a year later when the 135 ton Countess of Lisburne (above) was purchased.  She was in turn replaced in 1908 by the steel 219 ton Grosvenor (shown below), which sailed to Liverpool on a weekly basis.  She was sold in 1916.  It is clear from the 1908 AGM, reported in Cambrain News and Merionethshire Standard on 7th May 1909, that the business was suffering from ship outages due to repairs and other difficulties with the ships.  I have quoted it an length, although the entire report is longer (see it here) but I think it is worth it for the insights that it offers into the operational difficulties:

The balance sheet had been prepared and the accounts audited by Messrs. Graham King and Co. who regretted to report a large adverse balance as the result of the Company’s trading for the year an unsatisfactory result which seemed to be entirely attributable to the breaking down of the old steamer. During the time that boat was on offer for sale and temporarily laid up for repair it was necessary to hire another steamer in order to retain freights and good will. That hiring cost the Company £450. There was also a serious loss in freight for the year, there being a de- crease of £512 in the gross earnings. The sale of the old steamer resulted in a capital loss of £1,266 I8s Id., which the auditors suggested should be wiped off over a period of ten years and had therefore charged the past year’s profit and loss account with £126 13s. 9d. The new steamer had been running about two months in the period covered by the accounts and it was trusted that the increased carrying capacity in the present- year would show a good profit, especially as the working expenses were practically the same as in the smaller boat. The report of the directors was as follows :—Your directors, in presenting the annexed balance sheet and profit and loss account for the year ended 31st December, 1908, regret to state that there is a net loss for the twelve months of £478 6s. 2d. It will be observed that a sum of£228 19s. 6d. was expended on repairs to the s.s. “Countess of Lisburne,” and a sum of £430 was paid for the^hire of another steamer during the time the s.s. “Countess of Lisburne” was on offer for sale and temporarily laid up for repair, in order as far as possible to retain the freight and goodwill. There was a considerable falling off in the traffic during the negotiations for the sale of the s.s. Countess of Lisburne,” as the steamer chartered by your Company, having to call at other ports. was not able to meet the requirements of the freighters at this port, and this accounts for the decrease in the gross earnings during the year. It is hoped that all this will now be obviated as the s.s. “Grosvenor” has a carrying capacity of 250 tons, as against the 120 tons of the s.s. “Countess of Lisburne.” and the attention of the shareholders is called to the fact that the working expenses of the s.s. Grosvenor” will be about the same as those of the s.s. “Countess of Lisburne,” with the great advantage of having a carrying capacity of 130 tons more than the s.s. “Countess of Lisburne.” It is hoped that all the shareholders will assist the directors and officials in developing the trade of the steamer, so as to wipe off the existing loss and that the directors may be in a position to declare a dividend before the end of the coming year.

Countess of Lisburne. Source: Fenton 1989b, p.41

The Grosvenor was operated by the Aberystwyth and Steam Packet Co from 1908 until 1916. This photograph shows her after she had been sold. Source: Maritime Wales by John Richards, p.111

Seaflower. Source: Fenton 1989b, p.21

The Cardigan Steam Navigation Company, which was registered in 1869 to run cargo between Cardigan, Bristol and Liverpool and other ports that seemed viable at the time.  I have not seen any reference to its ship Tivyside stopping in Aberdovey, but it seems probable that they did stop, if only occasionally.  In 1888 it went into liquidation, having failed to survive competition with the Cardigan Commercial Steam Packet Co., established in  1876 with the ship Seaflower (built by J. Reid and Co, Port Glasgow).  This itself ran into trouble when Seaflower ran into the wooden sailing brigantine Charlotte in November 1879, resulting in damages of £1200.  This finished the company, but a new company was created in the same name, with the same ship.  This endured until 1902, closing down shortly after replacing Seaflower with the Mayflower.

In 1874 a Royal Navy survey was carried out in the River Dyfi to reduce the incidence of accidents, the result of which was a new sailing chart.  Although I cannot track down a name for her, this lovely paddle steamer is, according to Hugh M. Lewis in Pages of Time, the Royal Navy’s survey ship.  She has a single funnel and two masts with schooner rigging.  Two large rowing boats are on the aft deck, and two smaller tenders (ship-to-shore boats) float at the steamer’s side.  I love the  ornamental paddle cover and the washing hanging out to dry.

Advert for the Waterford and Aberdovey Steamship Co. Source: Hugh M. Lewis Portraits of a Village. Lewis does not state the name of the newspaper in which the advert was placed.

In 1887 a line from Aberdovey to Waterford (and other ports) in southern Ireland was established, the Waterford and Aberdovey Steamship Company, to be subsidized by rebates, after some difficulty, by the Cambrian Railway.  A report in Cambrian News said that “a valuable connection has been formed with Ireland, and traffic is brought upon the railway that otherwise would not have reached it.  The first ship in the service was the 246 ton s.s. Liverpool, which ran a livestock transportation service from April 1887 from Waterford to Aberdovey.  On her first trip she brought a general mixed cargo together with 60 pigs, returning with another general cargo to Waterford.  She made four such trips in that April, and records show that another ship, Magnetic, made more than 12 trips from Waterford to Aberdovey between November 1887 and March 1988.  Departures from Waterford had to be timed carefully to coincide with the Aberdovey tides.  Livestock pens were built at Aberdovey for holding incoming cattle, pigs and horses, prior to their transportation by rail to other parts of Britain, particularly the Midlands.   Livestock was a potentially good cargo for shipping, assuming that the demand was there.  Not only were there few handling costs (livestock was simply led or herded off a ship into waiting pens, with minimal manpower and no lifting gear required) but it was thought that there would be demand in urban areas.  An advert in Hugh M. Lewis  Portrait of a Village (page 64), and dated July 1888, is shown to the left, advertising both its electric lighting, which was also in its cattle holds, and its superior passenger accommodation.  Another 1888 advert below advertises “Great acceleration of transit” on the steamers s.s. Magnetic (and possibly s.s. Electric), “Carrying passengers, Merchandise and Live Stock in connection with the Cambrian Railways, at Low Through Rates, the principal English and Welsh Towns”.  An interesting paragraph towards the end of the advert details the following advantages:

“For the conveyance of Live Stock from Ireland, owing to the favourable course of the currents in the part of the Channel to be navigated, and its freedom from fogs.  On arrival at Aberdovey shippers may, as suits their convenience, either despatch their Stock to destination immediately by Special Trains, or place them in a large field adjoining the Cambrian Company’s Station, where they will be allowed to remain free of charge for twenty-four hours, and from which they can be loaded at any time direct into Trucks. Another advert in Lewis’s book, dating to later in 1888 reads:  “Shortest and most expeditious route to Lancashire, Yorkshire, Midland Counties etc.  Sailings for August and September 1888. The s.s ‘Magnetic‘ is a fast boat, and is fitted throughout (including the cattle space) with the Electric Light.  The Passenger Accommodation is of a superior description.  A Steward and Stewardess on board.”

Lewis Lloyd lists some of the livestock carried by Magnetic, the dates showing when dues were paid on each cargo (1996, p.219) including the following example:

  • 8/11/1887: 14 cattle,
  • 15/11: 7 cattle and 233 pigs
  • 20/11: 212 cattle, 187 pigs and 32 sheep
  • 331/12:  35 cattle, 88 sheep and 259 pigs (returning to Waterford with slate and pipes)

The Liverpool was not quite up to the task, and after several slow runs it became clear that a faster ship would be desirable.  In September 1887 she missed two buoys on her approach to Aberdovey, and ran aground, after which a light was fitted to her bows.  She was replaced the following month by the 290 ton s.s Magnetic., which had been adapted for carrying livestock, but it soon emerged that this work was woefully inadequate.  Green (1996, p.109-110) tells the story:

The Magnetic‘s second trip, on 26th October 1887, was a great disaster.  She rolled abominably in severe gales, and the conversion had been done badly, with the stallage constructed at too low a level so that the beasts were thrown over the tops onto others in the next stalls.  The ventilation was also quite inadequate.  The had set sail with 149 head of cattle, and arrived with 21 of those dead, and a further 25 injured.  A butcher from Towyn was sent for, and he slaughtered another three immediately, whilst the other 22 had to be sold off locally as being unfit for further travel. . . . There was a considerable legal wrangle over insurance, primarily because no cover had been ordered!

Having lost the trust of customers wishing to transport cattle, she became confined largely to small livestock, mainly pigs and some sheep.  Local businesses were clearly aware that an expansion of the route to Ireland could replace the coastal trade, and were keen to build on the existing service, but not only were new services not established but in spite of its apparent success, the Waterford and Aberdovey’s operation was regrettably brief, closing at some point between 1888 and 1895 (harbour records are incomplete for the period).

The Aberdovey and Barmouth Steamship Company was founded in 1877.  The company operated out of the offices of Liverpool wholesale grocers David Jones and Co., although they were not the only shareholders.

The best photograph I have found for the Dora so far is this one, showing her in Barmouth, c.1901. Source: People’s Collection Wales, which in turn scanned it from the U-Boat Project 1914-18 by Michael Williams.

Advert for the Dora.  Source: Nefyn.com, which sourced it from Katie Hipwell and Claire Smith great grand-daughters of Captain Williams and their late father O G Williams (Gwyn) grandson of the Captain.

Their first ship was the iron-hulled screw steamer, the 162 ton s.s. Telephone, built in 1878 by H.M. McIntyre and Co of Paisley, replaced in 1900 by the 200-ton, three-masted s.s. Dora, known locally as The Grocery Boat.  The two ships were registered in Liverpool.  The steel-hulled Dora, also built in Paisley, by J. Fullerton and Co, was fitted with three masts and a single funnel set between the main (central) and mizzen (rear) masts.  She was a weekly visitor to Aberdovey and the last ship to sail to and from Aberdyfi on a scheduled basis, carrying grain, cement, wood, timber, manure and sleepers.  She departed from Liverpool every Friday stopping at Porthdinllaen, Barmouth and Aberdovey.  The ship carried groceries, timber and animal food to Aberdovey, where they were met by local farmers who loaded horse drawn wagons from sheds on the wharf.  She also carried passengers. You can find some more about the Dora at the Nefyn.com website.

Lewis Lloyd comments that “The steamers Telephone and Dora endeared themselves to the people of Aberdyfi and their regular ports-of-call.  Their schedules represented normality and their passing meant a further reduction in the character of the coastal communities which they served.”  There are several old photographs showing Dora, which usually, although by no means always, loaded and offloaded her cargo on the jetty’s inner berth.  Dora was requisitioned for  the Liverpool to Belfast route in November 1916.

Steamship Telephone. Source: Fenton 1989b, p.125

An interesting article in the Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard dating to two years previous to the withdrawal of Dora from Aberdovey concerns the withdrawal of Telephone from Aberaeron, and may reflect some of the concerns that the loss of Dora may have caused.  “Notes from Aberayron” opens with the statement “The most significant of all news for the week” was that s.s. Telephone would no longer connect Aberaeron with Liverpool with its “fairly large cargoes” on a fortnightly basis.  The article says that it has been suspected for some time that the service was running at a loss, and this was now confirmed.

If the s.s. “Telephone” has gone for good, and if no new venture is in store which will put another boat on the trade, it will be a commercial loss to the community . . . . To lose the advantage of buying in the Liverpool markets means a good deal.  The clients and customers of the Liverpool houses, too, will be cut off from Aberayron and that reduces the commercial status of the town.

The article finishes with worries about the tyranny of monopoly and the dominance of the railway, but hopes that instead “the old, old relationship with Bristol” might remain unimpaired or even strengthened.

Dora was sunk by a German submarine, UC 65 under the command of Otto Steinbrink in 1917, when she was carrying aggregate on a trip to Ireland. The submarine surfaced and ordered the crew to disembark into the ship’s boats and return to shore, so there was no loss of life, but the ship was destroyed.  In Aberdovey, the company did not resume service following the war, closing officially in 1918.  Thanks to Eleanor Cole for the information that her grandfather Frank Morris, was one of Dora‘s crew, and after the war he worked on the Aberdovey golf course.  His brother was a blacksmith in Tywyn and often worked on the Tal-y-Llyn railway.

In July 1895 the Cardigan Bay Steamship Company was formed in Pwllheli to offer a service between Pwllheli and Aberystwyth, calling in at Barmouth, Aberdovey and Aberystwyth.  However, none of these destinations ever saw a ship, because potential investors were deterred by the existing services already offering a service to these ports, and after failing secure the necessary finance, the fledgling company closed.

Finally, the Liverpool and Cardigan Bay Steamship Company was founded in 1900 to run a service for the usual Cardigan ports from Liverpool.  It purchased the Telephone, which had been replaced by the Dora, from the Aberdovey and Barmouth Steamship Company.  As the main investors in the new company were the same Liverpool wholesale grocers David Jones and Co, who were the main investors in the Aberdovey and Barmouth Steamship Company the transaction must have been fairly painless.  This was another short-lived service, closing in 1905.

Lewis Lloyd mentions other steamers that visited Aberdovey during and after the 1880s (1996, p.218-222).  Included in his examination of the harbour records are those that visited in the last years before the war, including the steamers Ruby and Beryl, both carrying creosoted sleepers from Glasgow, the s.s. May and the s.s Countess of Warwick carrying summer day-trippers between Aberystwyth and Aberdovey, and the s.s. Gem from Ardrossan, carrying more sleepers 96528 if them).

Marconi’s steam yacht Elettra. Source: ARRL

In 1918, during Guglielmo Marconi’s tests of a radio station set up near Tywyn for transmission of wireless signals to America.  Marconi (1874-1937) and and his team moored in Aberdovey in his absolutely stunning steam yacht Elettra.  Elettra (meaning electron) is easily identifiable with her white hull, a long deeply raking clipper bow and stern, a single central funnel and two masts and neat rows of portholes.   As a youngster, Kenneth Sturley, who later became a Marconi power engineer, spent his childhood holidays in Aberdovey, and tells the story of going aboard Elettra:

So I’d always watched with interest those aerials strung across from Tywyn. It was a long horizontal wire in those days, with low frequencies, of course, involved. Marconi occasionally came into Aberdovey Harbour with his yacht “Elettra,” in order to get to Tywyn from there, Tywyn being about five miles away. I heard that it was possible for one to make a request to go on the boat “Elettra”, and perhaps even see the great man. So I asked if I might do so, and was granted this opportunity. We went into the Morse-code cabin, and I duly put on the headphones and listened, and then the great man walked in. I’m afraid I was almost too tongue-tied to have much conversation with him. I remember very vividly, him coming in, but I can’t remember what he said. It certainly gave me a considerable kick, and made me realize that what I wanted to do was to be in radio.

Hugh M. Lewis comments in Pages of Time:  “When the yacht berthed alongside the outer jetty, Marconi with his crew of young, good-looking Italians, were made very welcome in the village.”  He includes a photograph showing her in Aberdovey, but it chops of both bow and stern and as she is simply shown on the sea with nothing showing Aberdovey itself, a different photograph here has been chosen to show the yacht’s main external features.

Enid Mary. Source: Fenton 1989b, p.112

After the war, few other regular commercial visitors arrived at the jetty, apart from fishing, boats.  In the 1930s the Overton Steamship Company brought in shipments of cement for a while.

Finally, the Enid Mary, owned by British Isles Coasters came into Aberdovey around twice a year cargoes of superphosphate from the Netherlands, a fertilizer for local farmers.

Just as steam replaced sail, oil replaced steam.  Two  naval ships visited, and both were oil-fired:  HMS Fleetwood in 1951 and the minesweeper HMS Dovey in 1987.  The Aberdyfi lifeboat station has a rather special and unique feature:  the bell from the HMS Dovey.  It is on loan from the Royal Navy.  Should another HMS Dovey be built, the bell will have to be returned, but at the moment it is a much loved and admired resident of the lifeboat station.  The HMS Dovey was a river class minesweeper M2005 commissioned in 1984 and sold to Bangladesh in 1994 for use as a patrol ship.  The last large visiting ship that I have been able to find reference to was the Royal Navy survey ship Woodlark, which spent 10 days surveying the approaches to the port in 1973.

One of the things that surprised me when I started writing this post and hunting for images was just how small most of these steamships were.  I don’t know why I was expecting them to be substantially larger, because they were replacing small sailing coasters.  Like their predecessors, they were true workhorses, and built to last.  All of them retained masts from their sailing ancestry, usually two, as back-up for the engines and to save fuel when there was a good following wind.

The coming of the railway led to the decline and the eventual end of many small coastal ports.  For a while sea and rail operated simultaneously, and at Aberdovey, ironically, all railway construction materials were landed by sea, leading to a brief spike in shipping activity.  The decline of the slate trade, one of its primary coastal exports, was another contributing factor to Aberdovey’s deteriorating status as an active port.   Businesses had clearly believed that running steamers in competition with the railways, by providing slower but cheaper cargo carriage, had genuine potential.  The sheer number of steamship companies described above indicates that businesses refused to abandon the idea that steam could compete with rail, mainly trading regular perishable cargoes such as groceries, grain and, at the other end of the scale, non-perishable heavy goods like railway sleepers and ores that were not time-sensitive.  The attempt to create a link with Ireland via the Waterford and Aberdovey Steamship Company must have given hope to Aberdovey, making use of the rail link with the port, but although it seemed to be quite well thought out, with animal pens provided for sending livestock on by rail, this eventually failed, perhaps because the demand for premium Irish livestock in expanding industrial areas was over-estitmated. Meanwhile, larger ports with good infrastructure benefited by becoming railway termini, where deep sea traders and the railways complemented one other.

 

Main sources:

Please note that not all accounts of the steamship companies listed above agree, particularly on foundation and liquidation dates.  I have done my best to select what I think are the most probable of the various accounts by cross-referencing between the various sources of information, but if you are using this post as a preliminary step for research purposes, I urge you to read my sources below (particularly Green; Fenton; and Williams and Armstrong), and then explore their sources.

The National Library of Wales
https://newspapers.library.wales/

Fenton, R. 1976.  Aberdyfi, its shipping and seamen (1565-1907).  Maritime Wales/Cymru A’r Môr 1, p.22-46

Fenton, R. 1989a.  Steam Packet to Wales:  A chronological survey of operators and services.  Maritime Wales/Cymru A’r Môr 12, p.54-65

Fenton, R. 1989b.  Cambrian Coasters.  Steam and motor coaster owners of North and West Wales.  The World Ship Society.

Fenton, R.  2007.  The Historiography of Welsh Shipping Fleets.  Maritime Wales/Cymru A’r Môr 28, p.80-102

Green, C.C. 1996.  The Coast Lines of the Cambrian Railways, volume 2. Wild Swan Publications

Lewis, H.M. n.d. Aberdyfi:  Portrait of a Village

Lewis, H.M. n.d. A Chronicle Through the Centuries

Lewis, H.M. 1989 Pages of Time

Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 1.

Richards, J. 2007. Maritime Wales. Tempus

 

Vintage Postcards #25: Two-masted schooners at Aberdovey wharf

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Two lovely postcards showing sailing vessels at Aberdovey, moored against the wharf.  I have no information about either.  The names of the vessels are not visible and there is no information on the postcards themselves, not even a postcard manufacturer name.  As to a date, the postcards post-date the building of the wharf and jetty in 1885 and predate the conversion of the Pen Y Bryn chapel into a school inn 1894.

In spite of the lack of additional information, I love them.  They are incredibly evocative of 19th Century and early 20th Century Aberdovey, when the village was an important trans-shipping port for for exports and imports.  The symbiotic relationship between Welsh sailing ships and the growing network of railway lines, the juxtaposition of old and new, was all about using the best possible solutions for the growth of trade and communication both within Britain and across the Atlantic.

Both postcards were unused, and apart from the fact that they were printed in Saxony, there are no further details.

19th Century John Thomas photograph of cargo vessels at the wharf, Aberdovey

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Thanks very much to the Visit Aberdovey Facebook page for posting this photograph of Aberdovey in the final years of sail.  It is in the National Library of Wales archives, where it is listed as “The landing stage, Aberdyfi.” It is thought to date to about 1885 and was taken by Ceredigion-born John Thomas (1838-1905).

The landing stage, Aberdyfi. Source: National Library of Wales (used under terms of licence)

The schooner nearest to the camera is called Adventure.  She is not mentioned in Lewis Lloyd’s book so she was probably not built at Aberdovey but, like the Ellen Beatrice, discussed on a previous post, was probably a coaster that visited various ports on the Welsh coast.  The Crew List website lists over 40 vessels named Adventure between 1857 and 1940, but none of those clustering around the mid to late 19th Century seem to fit the bill.  I’ll continue to look into it, and update the post when I have more information.

All three vessels are beached on the sand at low tide.  If you click on the image to enlarge it and look behind the ships and you can see the rails that ran along the wharf, with some trucks in situ, with a man sitting on one at far left of the shot, and a linkage between the truck and Adventure.   There is a mobile gantry next to the trucks, which would have been shifted along the tracks to assist with the loading and unloading of ships.  I haven’t seen the gantry in other photographs.  Beyond the trucks are what appear to be sails drying.  On the whole, this wonderful photograph poses more questions than it answers.

The People’s Collection Wales website has the following details about Thomas:

John Thomas, excerpted from a group photograph. Source: Wikipedia (from National Library of Wales, where the entire group photograph is shown)

Born in Cellan, Ceredigion in 1838, John Thomas was the son of labourer David Thomas and his wife Jane. Following his education in Cellan, first as a pupil and then a pupil-teacher, Thomas began an apprenticeship at a tailor shop in Lampeter. In 1853 he moved to Liverpool to work in a draper but was forced to leave after ten years to find work in the open air due to ill health. It was due to this that he began work as a traveller for a firm dealing in writing materials and photographs of famous people. Small photographs of celebrities, known as ‘carte-de-visite’ photographs, were extremely popular at that time and made for a very lucrative business.

But, during his travels, John Thomas noticed that there was a lack of photographs of Welsh celebrities. This was inspiration enough for a new business and so, having learnt the rudiments of photography, he began taking photographs of famous Welsh people. He began by asking well-known preachers to sit for their portraits.

His venture was a success and in 1867 he established his own photographic business, The Cambrian Gallery. Travelling the length and breadth of Wales, he photographed celebrities, ‘characters’, chapels, churches, homes and buildings and landscapes, though he remained based in Liverpool throughout his career. Undertaking photography of this style, and on such a scale, was not an easy task. Photographic techniques remained rudimentary for the purposes of external photography, and travel was not easy at this time.  Despite this, John Thomas succeeded in capturing individuals, landscapes and buildings in every corner of Wales during his thirty-year career. The worth of his vast collection was great. He realised its importance and chose some 3,000 glass plates which he sold to O. M. Edwards for a very reasonable price. Thomas had worked for O. M. for many years, supplying him with images for the magazine Cymru and his images would continue to illustrate the magazine even after his retirement.

John Thomas died in October 1905. The negatives bought by O. M. Edwards now form part of the photographic collection of The National Library of Wales and are an important contribution to People’s Collection Wales.

Truly fascinating.  Later this year I hope to post more of his photographs of Aberdovey here, with accompanying information when I can find it.

“Ellen Beatrice” (built in Aberystwyth, 1865), in Aberdovey Harbour c.1903

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The Ellen Beatrice, via the Peoples’ Collection Wales website (Copyright Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru).

I have been working my way slowly through the Peoples Collection Wales website since before Christmas, finding what it has in the way of photographs about Aberdovey and other places of interest.  I have a particular affinity with 19th Century ships, so when Adrian Lee posted the photograph on the Aberdovey/Aberdyfi Past and Present Memories Facebook page asking for information, I recognized it instantly from the Peoples Collection website, which mercifully provided the name of the ship and its port of registration.  From there it was only a few steps to finding out some more details.

This solidly built visitor to Aberdovey, moored up on the wharf is the 88-ton Ellen Beatrice, registered in Aberystwyth, number 49664.  She was built in 1865 by John Faulk Evans of Aberystwyth, whose father John Evans was also an Aberystwyth ship builder.  John Faulk Evans built a number of schooners and at least one brig and one barque.  Her first Managing Owner, who retained the title for many years, was William Owens of Aberystwyth.  The name of the ship is something of a puzzle.  It probably refers to the second daughter of Sydney H. Jones-Parry, Ellen Beatrice Jones-Parry.  Captain  Jones-Parry had joined the East India Company is a boy and served in India, Burma and the Crimea but returned, with his wife and six children, to Ceredigion to turn his hand at farming on the Tyllwyd estate that he had inherited.  I have not managed to find out quite how the family was connected to William Owen, but it may be that Jones-Parry had a share or a number of shares in the vessel.

Photograph of Ellen Beatrice, showing her in Aberystwyth. This was found on the MyWelshAncestry website (original source unknown).  There’s a slightly sharper version here.

Both views are revealing, and both necessary for a full grasp of the ship’s design.  The first photograph shows off that uncompromisingly square stern, whilst the second one shows her beautiful hollow bows and classic schooner lines, and her fine rigging.  The first photograph shows Ellen Beatrice from the rear, giving a clear view of her transom (square) stern.  Although rounded sterns offer greater overall strength to a vessel, particularly important on the open sea, a coaster was usually less prone to stress, and could take advantage of the additional cargo space and deck area that a transom stern conferred.  The second photograph enables a look at her rigging and sails, identifying her as a topsail schooner.  Topsail schooners combined the benefits of sails that were perpendicular to the ship’s sides (square sails) and sails parallel to the ship’s sides (“fore and aft sails”).  The deep sea full-rigged tea clippers and East Indiamen, merchant ships of the same century, were rigged with square sails on all masts in order to pick up the trade winds, but coastal ships had much more complicated winds and breezes to confront.  Two square sails hanging from the yards (cross beams) at the top of the fore mast of Ellen Beatrice enable a following wind to provide speed as the sails billow out and power the ship through the water.  Fore and aft sails are, however, much better for manoeuvrability and tacking, allowing a ship to sail efficiently both downwind and close to the wind.  She also had jib sails (smaller triangular sails) extending from the fore mast to the bowsprit to add to lend extra flexibility and versatility.  An artist’s impression of what she looked like under sail, the painting below left of “The Charming Nancy and Ellen Beatrice” by Terry F.J. Rogers, painted during the 1970s (with Ellen Beatrice on the left), gives a good idea of how she may have looked when at sea.

From the day of her launch, her Managing Owner was William Owens of 21 North Parade, Aberystwyth.  Managing Owners were often the business managers for ships, based on land and running the commercial side of things whilst appointing a Master to take the ship concerned to sea.  The further the ship went from her own port, the more complex this relationship.  William Owens, however, seems to combined the roles of Managing Owner and Master himself.  He was listed as the Master of Ellen Beatrice for many of her voyages between 1866 and 1872, with Glyn Botwood usually acting as Mate until 1870, reappearing in 1873.  After 1872, 50-year old William Owens is replaced as Master by Robert Evans, but is listed as Boatswain.  For a few years Owens returned as Master and even when Richard Davies Jones took over for the rest of the 1870s into the 1880s, Owens often acted as Mate, only vanishing from the roster in the 1890s.

Painting by Terry F.J. Rogers: “The Charming Nancy and Ellen Beatrice,” painted during the 1970s. The Ellen Beatrice is on the left of the painting. Source: National Museum Wales

Apart from master and mate, the crew retained some consistent names from year to year, but there were also numerous changes.  Looking at the Aberystwyth Shipping records for Ellen Beatrice from the 1860s to the 1890s, again on the Taklow Kernewek website, it is clear that most of the temporary crew signed up for short contracts of between four and eight weeks.  The Taklow Kernewek website lists the crew for a large number of her journeys, and although many sailors and mates came from Aberystwyth, and a few from Borth (a supplier to many sailors to local shipping), they also came from far and wide.   The National Archives provides some details of her crew in 1881, a list that shows just how much men moved from ship to ship, in this case coming together on Ellen Beatrice from as near as Aberystwyth and as far away as Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Sydney, Australia.  Perusing the crew listings for Ellen Beatrice on the Taklow Kernewek website, it is clear that very few sailors give their place of birth as Aberdovey.   There are exceptions.  William R. Morris, Ordinary Seaman, born in Aberdovey in 1871 joined the ship at Newport and left it at Cardiff.  David Williams Lewis, born in Aberdovey in 1872, joined the ship at Aberdovey as an Able Seaman and left her at Portmadoc.  Hugh Ezekiel Davies (sic), born in Aberdovey in 1874, joined the ship at Aberdovey in 1894 as Ordinary Seaman an and also left her at Aberdovey nearly two months later.  Ezeciel Davies (sic, possibly the same person as the previous, but listed as born in Aberdovey in 1876) joined she ship from Aberdovey in 1894 as an Able Seaman and left two months later in Portmadoc.  These names turn up every now and again on the ship, but often with a year or more between journeys.  Most of those who remained with the ship from one job to another were from Aberystwyth.  What is interesting, however, is that the port of Aberdovey was a real hub for sailors.  No matter what their places of birth or where they lived, sailors joined and left the ship at Aberdovey again and again.  It is clear that Aberdovey was a good place to find new ships to join during the latter part of the 19th Century, something of a hub for jobbing sailors.

The Aberdovey topsail schooner Catherine. Source: Lewis Lloyd, A Real Little Seaport, volume 2

Aberdovey shipbuilding ended with the launch of the last ship to be built on the Dyfi, the 1869 76-ton 75.2ft schooner/ketch Catherine built by John Jones at Llyn Bwtri near Pennal.  It had been the same story in Borth, across the estuary, and Barmouth to the north. When the Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Railway arrived in the 1860s maritime trade went into decline, together with the shipbuilding industry.  This was just a year before the last sailing ship to be built on the Thames was launched, the 1870 794-ton tea clipper Lothair, part of a trend throughout Britain.  Although the new Dyfi railway bridge, the west coast railway itself and Canadian-built ships were challenges to shipbuilding and maritime trade in the Aberdovey area, there was a much bigger threat to all builders of wooden sailing ships in Britain.  Steam power was slowly taking over the sea, and many steamships and long distance sailing ships were now iron-hulled.  Shipbuilding in Aberystwyth had not quite been defeated by the railway and the arrival of steam, although it was teetering on the edge.  Shipbuilding persisted into the 1870s, although only 15 ships were built. The last big sailing ship to be built was the schooner Edith Eleanor in 1881.

The Ellen Beatrice, via the Peoples’ Collection Wales website (Copyright Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru).

In the photograph at the top of the page, and copied right, Ellen Beatrice is moored at the Aberdovey wharf alongside a big pile of shaped timber, possibly deals (pieces of timber shaped to a standardized 7 ft × 6 ft × 5/2 in) and parallel to the rail tracks that bought slate in to the port of Aberdovey for trans-shipping elsewhere. There is nothing in the photograph to say whether she was, for example, loading slate or off-loading timber.  It is probable that she simply ran various locally produced cargoes into ports along the coast, picking up return cargoes where she could.  The Aberystwyth Observer noted that in the winter of 1890 she was carrying a cargo of firebricks when she ran aground trying to enter Workington harbour in Cumbria during a bad storm.

The Aberystwyth Observer reported the incident on 15th November 1890 when Ellen Beatrice was 25 years old. “The huge waves were sweeping her for stem to stern and the crew must have suffered greatly.”  Conditions were so rough that the lifeboat sent to her aid was was unable to her, forced back by “terrific” breakers at the pier head.  Instead, a rocket brigade made several attempts to fire a line on to the ship, and this eventually worked.  The line was taken on board and made fast, and the crew were taken off by breaches buoy.  The owner William Owen, Captain R.D. Jones from Pembury, his son Oliver “a lad” and his son-in-law Mr Thomas Williams, all from Aberystwyth, were removed safely.  The ship was refloated when the storm dropped, and taken into Workington Harbour.  Another incident is recorded in the Aberystwyth Shipping Records.  In 1910 Thomas Oliver Jones from Aberystwyth, master of the ship, was killed when the Ellen Beatrice was at Cowes “by an iron hook falling on his head, from the boom, whil in collision with ketch Alford.”

The Mercantile Navy List includes her up until 1924.  During that period she changed hands several times.  Her Managing Owner from 1865 was William Owens who was registered at 21 North Parade, Aberystwyth.  The vessel’s registered tonnage was 88 tons when she was launched, but was changed to 76 tons in 1892.  Between 1902 and 1914, presumably on the death of William Owens, the title and responsibilities of Managing Owner passed to Mrs M. Owens of 41, North Parade, Aberystwyth.  It’s a different address, but she was probably his wife, unmarried sister or daughter.  Between 1915 and 1917 her Managing Agent was Ernest Brown, Tintagel View, Port Isaac.  Between 1918 and 1920 she was in the hands of The Weymouth Diving and Touring Company at 17A King Street, Weymouth.  Finally, between 1921 and 1923 (now registered 73 tons) her Managing Owner was William T Cundy of Lipsom Road, Plymouth.

I don’t know why her registered tonnage was reduced from 88 tons to 76 and then 73 in the Mercantile Navy List.  It is possible that there were errors in the record, or that the way in which tonnages were calculated changed.  This did happen from time to time, because duties for cargoes were based on various measurements including tonnage, but it may also be that the ship was physically altered in some way, and that her actual tonnage was reduced as a result.

There is no record of her in the Mercantile Navy List after 1923 but I have been unable to find any record of a wreckage or sale.  As she was by then 59 years old, after a reliable but strenuous career, she was perhaps too old to be seaworthy without costly repairs.  It seems plausible that the decision was taken to break her up but it would be good to have a definitive end to her story.

There are so many gaps in this, a huge frustration.  Who was William Owen, what was his background and how did he manage his business?  Was he the sole owner of the ship, or were there other share-holders?  Did he own and manage other ships?  Did the vessel get her name as a result of a connection with Jones-Parry, and if so what was this connection?  Who were the Aberdovey sailors that sailed on her, and did they remain based at Aberdovey or did they move away?  What were Ellen Beatrice’s regular cargoes and routes, how long did they take and how did she meet her end in 1923/24?  So many other questions besides.  If anyone has any of the answers, please get in touch.

I had fun doing the reading for this post.  Thanks to Adrian Lee for setting me off down this particular path.

 

Main sources:

Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 1. ISBN-10 1874786488
Lloyd, L. 1996.  A Real Little Seaport.  The Port of Aberdyfi and its People 1565-1920. Volume 2. ISBN-10 1874786496

Aberystwyth Harbour, Shipbuilding and Ships (C.1850-1880)
http://www.mywelshancestry.co.uk/John Jenkins/Aberystwyth Harbour and Shipping/Aberystwyth Harbour and Shipbuilding.html

The Aberystwyth Observer
https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3045806/3045811/33/ellen%20moulsdale

The Mercantile Navy List
http://www.maritimearchives.co.uk/mercantile-navy-list.html

Peoples’ Collection Wales
https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/405446?fbclid=IwAR1Tx6nySDcE23NtQD0XdvhSV4hgGNTUePO4oW3MspRQOGMWizl0GGZfzp0

Taklow Kernewek
https://taklowkernewek.neocities.org/abership/crewlists/vessel184.html

Vintage Postcards #16 – View over the jetty towards Penhelig

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I couldn’t find out much about this tinted postcard because it is not listed in the Frith database.  However, it is the old 1885 jetty (the new one was installed in 1970) and retains the railway tracks that were used to move cargo to and from ships (there is more about the jetty and wharf in a previous post).  The colours aim to be realistic, but do not disguise that this was originally a black and white photograph.  The card is unused and I haven’t found a date for this postcard yet.

Thanks to Sierd Jan Tuinstra for the information that the ship moored up to the jetty is the 45ft Outward Bound boat Golden Valley (LH37), ordered by George Jarron of Port Seton.  She was built by James Martin and Son, a Granton shipyard, launched in 1949 and registered in Aberystwyth.  Granton, at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, on the south bank at the far north of Edinburgh, was a major fishing base, and had two principal boat builders during the 1940s, of which James Martin and Son was one.  The company, originally specializing in joinery, until asked by the Admiralty to built a Motor Fishing Vessel for use during the Second World War.  Subsequently they built eleven wooden Motor Fishing Vessels (M.F.V.s) for the Admiralty between 1941 and 1945, designed initially for harbour and coastal work but ultimately intended to be converted to fishing boats after the war.  After the war, during which large numbers of fishing vessels had ben lost, the company continued to build fishing boats for the herring industry.  Golden Valley was one of the last vessels to be built by the company.  It was originally fitted with a 120 h.p. Crossley engine, but triplex chain breakages caused a series of gearbox problems. This was sorted when another vessel, Mizpah, was provided with a new engine and its old tooth and pinion gearbox was fitted to Golden Valley. (Information about Golden Valley sourced from the Granton Built Fishing Boat website). From accounts on the Alumni section of the Outward Bound website, Golden Valley seems to have been acquired by Outward Bound in the early 1950s.

There is information about the Frith Series postcards and the fascinating history of the company on my post about a previous vintage postcard at https://aberdoveylondoner.com/2019/12/01/vintage-postcards-9-dysynni-valley-and-bird-rock/.