Looking for SSGlendower Wreck 1853

[Bette Baldwin]

Hello Ribnet!

I am the archivist for a North Devon heritage charity - The Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage www.hoaroakcottage.org I don't have a rib - sorry! But my cousins in Lynmouth do so I hope that's 'ribby' enough to be a member.

In fact I have joined to try and find anyone with knowledge of the SSGlendower a paddlesteamer out of Liverpool which was wrecked off of Milford Haven in 1853. Our interest in it is......in June 1853 it had been used by Gerard Spooner to bring 1100 sheep and 5 shepherds and their families down to Ilfracombe from Skye. The Glendower seems to have been a Liverpool based vessel so Spooner may well have chartered it specifically to transport his sheep.

The SS Glendower was big enough and the story of the 1100 sheep interesting enough to feature in the Ilfracombe newspaper in 1852 but for us it is very important as it is the first Scottish shepherds and sheep brought down to Exmoor and set the trend for a long history of Scots on Exmoor - including at our heritage site Hoar Oak Cottage.

If anyone might know about this wreck or can help us find a photo of it that would be excellent. I can forward newspaper cuttings about the SS Glendower including its wrecking off Milford Haven.

Thankyou in anticipation.
Bette Baldwin | Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage | 07967182903

[Fenlander]

Welcome to the forum Bette, you are welcome to enquire on here. An interesting history and story to investigate.

I see there have been many Glendower ships of different types. Is this the one you are looking into?

https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?294708

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Fenlander

Welcome to the forum Bette, you are welcome to enquire on here. An interesting history and story to investigate.

I see there have been many Glendower ships of different types. Is this the one you are looking into?

https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?294708

I found that one too, but the timeline is wrong for the OP, as is the sinking location. Everything else ties up. I wonder if the OP has got some details wrong.

[scrambler]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

I wonder if the OP has got some details wrong.

No - here are some newspaper references:
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive....rycounts=false

[scrambler]

Here's a nice memento of the occasion of the wreck:

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4378599

[scrambler]

According to the entry under 4th September on this page she was refloated and towed into Milford Haven.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...September_1853

The Liverpool Albion also reported that she was towed off and lay at anchor in Milford Haven. That paper's account differs from the others in saying that she was on passage from Wexford to Bristol in ballast with no passengers whereas the other papers have her sailing from Liverpool with passengers.

Perhaps the OP can throw some light on this?

[Fenlander]

Some scattergun information from the net found over a late breakfast...

From casual googling it's quite difficult to pin down which ship was the Glendower in question that ran aground in 1853. It seems there was a military HMS Glendower built 1808, obviously not that one. A racing yacht from the early 1800s so not that either. Another commercial ship built in 1883 so that one is too late. There was a Glendower class of warships post 1900 and even a current fishing boat on AIS with the name to add to confusion when searching. However the one to my logic it must be is a commercial ship built 1839. Despite this being built with steam/paddles it seems the paddles were more of a secondary propulsion to sail and they were removed before or just after the maiden voyage. The same paddle removal was undertaken on her two sister ships, Vernon and Earl of Hardwick. See this image of Vernon below and reference to Glendower in the text.

Note it seems almost every Glendower has also been referred to as the Owen Glendower to further confuse.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/ob...c-object-15159

If the ship Bette is questioning is indeed the paddle less paddle steamer Owen Glendower it should be this ship as below, you have to scroll to the bottom of the page for the description.

https://itoldya420.getarchive.net/am...-py0566-5e2b16

So far, apart from the grounding reports, I've failed to find any reference to another ship purely propelled by steam in the same time period as the grounding of 1853. I wonder if the newspaper articles that refer to the grounded ship of 1853 call it a steam ship as they have referred back to some original registration source from when Glendower was built with steam propulsion. However if they were correct and it was a purely steam power ship that grounded then there must be a mystery additional Glendower which is not so easily found online.

I have also found reference in a text story to a paddle steamer Glendower taking 500 men during the Dunkirk evacuation, ferried to her from the beach by the smaller fire boat Massey. However further checks reveal this was a paddle minesweeper Glen Gower which highlights why caution is needed with online searches.

[scrambler]

There is a Glendower 315t 130hp built Swansea 1850 in the Lloyds Register of 1852 but not in subsequent registers. Seems a likely candidate.

Unfortunately the Lloyds Lists for the relevant months are missing from the online catalogue as they would likely have more information but I did find this:

[scrambler]

There's no date on this and the captain's name (Beckett) differs from the one in the Lloyds Register (Gosson) but the connection to Wexford seems to tie up with the mention of Wexford in the Liverpool Albion report:

https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/...19923/download

[Fenlander]

Well found thanks. Seems the old newspaper login is useful.

That does fit a bit better for a "sheep run" ship at 315T as the 1839 built one at almost 1000T was a bit large for local trips.

[Bette Baldwin]

Thankyou so much to Fenlander, Scrambler and Pikey Dave for all of this amazing info. Its incredibly useful in helping me build a picture of what might have happened to the 'Sheep Glendower'.
Yes - I think there were plenty of 'Glendowers' and 'Owen Glendowers'. So that makes life tricky.
I have two newspaper reports of the 'sinking' of the SS Glendower in 1853 which could quite possibly be the Sheep Glendower. (I see that they need to have URLs to share with you so will get them online and then can share. They are currently just JPEGS.) One report says it went onto the Castle Rock and was holed and then a magnificent bit of seamanship saved everyone onboard including keeping the paddles running which took it into Freshwater Creek where it sank in 3 fathoms. I'm wondering if, therefore, there isn't actually a 'wreck' and that the whole thing got taken out of the water or indeed as one of the reports says it was sold as a wreck.
I'll get back to you if there is any more 'findings' and will keep an eye on this forum. Is there a way to get an email alert if there is a new forum posting by any chance? And finally, might any of you know of/remember David Little who did a lot of wreck diving in the Bristol Channel and had a massive rib?
Thanks again.

[Fenlander]

Feel a little guilty offering such an extensive tour of all the Glendower ships other than the one you were looking for but the research was actually quite interesting.

[scrambler]

Originally Posted by Fenlander

Feel a little guilty offering such an extensive tour of all the Glendower ships other than the one you were looking for but the research was actually quite interesting.

On the contrary - you were right with your first post!!

https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?294708

This from the History text:
"Iron paddle steamer, built J Spencer, Swansea 1850 with engines by Fawcett and Co. Owned J E Redmond, Wexford. Registered Dublin. Traded Bristol-Swansea-Milford-Liverpool. She had been aground, but refloated, at Freshwater Beach two years previously."

It all makes sense now as I'd found an arrival entry for her in 1854 which was puzzling me.

So she is lying off Holyhead!

[scrambler]

And that opens up a whole new line of research:

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive....e8da873314c318

[scrambler]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

I found that one too, but the timeline is wrong for the OP, as is the sinking location. Everything else ties up. I wonder if the OP has got some details wrong.

Apologies, you were right!

[Bette Baldwin]

Hello Everybody.................and thanks again for the continued investigations. Some really interesting stuff emerging. Like you folks, I also wonder if there might be some mis-transcribing of 1853 for 1855 or vice versa as the two stories seem so similar. And yet so different. For example, could Holyhead REALLY be mistaken for Milford Haven??

Whatever the case the Glendower seems to be a name given to a lot of ships and few of them seem to have had very long lives. And it is further confused by there also being a ship's name called the Owen Glendower. Its easy to see how the Owen Glendower might get shortened to Glendower in reporting.

Another little bit of new research info from our end:
We've discovered that Gerard Spooner (the guy who chartered the Glendower to send sheep and shepherds from Skye to Ilfracombe) had a brother Lucius Spooner who was heavily involved in Guano imports in the 1850s and was chartering ships. Someone has suggested 'our' Glendower was delivering Guano to Liverpool and then, on its return trip (empty) Lucius's brother Gerard chartered it to nip up to Skye - pick up a cargo of sheep and shepherds, drop them off in Ilfracombe and then head off to wherever they picked Guano up. South America somewhere?

This doesn't help resolve the "is it 1853 or 1855?" question but might be of interest.

Thanks again everybody. Bette

[scrambler]

Originally Posted by Bette Baldwin

This doesn't help resolve the "is it 1853 or 1855?" question but might be of interest.

Thanks again everybody. Bette

It's both 1853 and 1855 - it's the same ship! It was refloated in Milford Haven and continued trading.

Whether or not it's the "sheep" ship is another question altogether.

[Bette Baldwin]

Thanks Scrambler. That makes perfect sense.....do you have a reference for it being refloated off MH in 1853 by any chance?

[scrambler]

Yes I posted it previously but here it is again:


I've also found an entry for the "Glendower" arriving June 4th 1852 at Ilfracombe from Tobermory which seems to confirm the name as just Glendower. This is the link if you have a subscription.
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive....20607/004/0001

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Bette Baldwin

If anyone might know about this wreck or can help us find a photo of it that would be excellent.

I think you will be very lucky to find a photo of her if she was lost in the early 1850's. Whilst very early photography was around from the 1820s it was very much a niche capability until about 1850 when the process of applying chemicals to glass plates was proven. That did see an explosion of photography - but it was expensive and cumbersome requiring immediate processing in a darkroom, which meant most early photographs were captured because someone was paying for them - most often portraits. It wasn't until the 1870s that gelatin coated glass plates became available which enabled plates to be prepared in advance, exposed and developed later. Until gelatin became established most outdoor photography required very long exposure times which probably wasn't ideal for things like ships that move.