30 drowned in Tynemouth ships disaster
LOCAL historian and photographer Steve Ellwood has built up a vast personal archive of images capturing Newcastle and the North East over the last three or four decades.
He has been sharing some of his work with The Chronicle over recent months, and here he recalls in words and photographs a shipping disaster which unfolded of the Tyneside coast nearly 160 years ago.
Among the numerous graves in North Shields’ Preston Cemetery is a memorial to 30 crew and passengers who drowned when two ships floundered on the Black Midden shoal nearly 160 years ago.
The carnage unfolded on the evening of November 24, 1864.
Two vessels, the steam ship Stanley and the schooner Friendship, were attempting to take shelter in the River Tyne as a gale-force storm made it unsafe to sail in the North Sea.
The Stanley was on her usual route between Aberdeen and London with 26 crew and 30 passengers. Additionally, she carried cargo which included 48 head of cattle and 30 sheep.
The Colchester schooner Friendship had a cargo of coal and a crew of six.
During the afternoon of November 24, as the storm raged, the Friendship was driven on to the shore at the western end of Spanish Battery Rocks at Tynemouth.
She capsized as a rescue was being prepared and her crew was lost.
At quarter to five in the same afternoon the master of the Stanley, Captain Thomas Howling, decided to seek sanctuary in the Tyne and, having only navigated the river once in his career, summoned a pilot, using the usual method of sending off a rocket.
However, a pilot did not arrive and Howling made the fateful decision to enter the harbour without assistance – and his ship hit the Black Midden shoal.
The coastguard was attempting to rescue crew from the Friendship when he witnessed the Stanley wrecking.
By that time the Friendship was lost, so attention turned to the Stanley, including the launching of the North Shields lifeboats Northumberland and Providence, as well as South Shields lifeboats William Wake, Tyne and Fly.
The Tynemouth lifeboat Constance was also launched but capsized, with volunteers James Grant and Edwin Burton Robson drowned.
The coastguard successfully attached lines to the vessel using rockets and began the rescue using a cradle supported by ropes – the first person saved being crewman Andrew Campbell.
Two others were rescued but a second crewman and a woman passenger drowned.
The movement of the vessel and the weather conditions caused the ropes to entangle and it was decided the method of rescue be abandoned.
Such was the desperation of the crew and passengers that many of them lashed themselves to the ship rails and superstructure in an attempt to avoid being washed away by the waves striking the ship.
At half-past nine at night a huge wave hit the Stanley, which wrecked most its upper structures and washed away those who thought they were safe.
At five o’clock the next morning the storm had subsided sufficiently for the rescue to restart and rockets were again fired to secure lines to the ship.
Nine passengers and 20 crew were rescued.
On November 30, 1864 the burial of those lost from both ships took place in Preston Cemetery, with a memorial obelisk being erected.