The coast around Cornwall is notoriously treacherous and is littered with hundreds of shipwrecks. One of the earliest recorded shipwrecks goes back more than 800 years when two lives were lost after a boat struck a rock near the tithing of Kelynack, St Just, in 1284.
As ocean-going navies developed and ship-building technology improved over the centuries, the number of ships and lives lost at sea also increased.
Just looking at 1824, the year the life-saving charity the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) was established, a dozen boats were damaged when a hurricane battered Cornwall’s south coast. In February 1824, the south and south–south–east freak weather damaged the top of the lighthouse and part of the pier in Penzance causing much destruction to the boats sheltering in the harbour.
Many boats were dismasted, and about a dozen were driven ashore, while many more in Mousehole and Newlyn were destroyed or damaged.
The hurricane, dated February 22-23 that year, saw one vessel from Mousehole wrecked with the loss of all five crew onboard, while the Celia, a ship registered in Stockholm, Sweden, was also driven ashore at Lamorna Cove.
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A month earlier, it was the Vrow Gesina, a Dutch ship, on a voyage from Lisbon to London, which was blown off course and was wrecked off Poundstock, near Boscastle, on the north coast of Cornwall, having been driven onto the rocks. Three crew members were lost that day.
On Boxing Day that year, another ship was wrecked in north Cornwall, with the disaster being watched by hundreds of onlookers. The British flag Ability had been on a voyage from Cork in Ireland to Penzance when it floundered on rocks near Bude and was lost along with all crew.
It was that July that local hero volunteers from the newly launched RNLI were awarded silver medals for their acts of bravery. On April 27, 1824, William Rowe of Porthleven and John Freeman of Gunwalloe received the first ever silver medals for the rescue of collier brig Olive, when she was driven into Mount’s Bay by bad weather and went ashore near the Halzephron cliffs, on top of which the excellent Halzephron Inn stands.
William Rowe swam through the breaking waves with a rope tied around his waist and with the help of John Freeman and 24 men on shore saved the Captain, his sister and all six crew. The 24 men were rewarded with a share of £30.
In July this year, as the RNLI celebrated its 200th anniversary, the charity revealed that across the South West its volunteers have saved an incredible 16,028 lives since 1824.
Since the charity was founded in 1824, its volunteer crews in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, West Dorset and the Channel Islands have launched its lifeboats 55,912 times, saving 14,967 lives. RNLI lifeguards across the region – who became part of the charity’s lifesaving service in 2001 – have responded to 176,585 incidents, saving 1,061 lives.
Looking at another anniversary year, in 1924, it was another mammoth effort by RNLI heroes which helped to save the lives of 93 crewmen from the White Star liner Bardic of Liverpool, which was wrecked on August 31 on Maenheere on the Lizard, near where her sister ship the Suevic ran aground in 1907.
Despite being rescued from the wreck, 44 crew members returned ashore to keep the refrigerators going and save the cargo of frozen rabbits from spoiling. Despite their best efforts the refrigerators onboard the Bardic stopped working on September 8 and all rabbits rotted away.
The ship itself was towed to Falmouth and her cargo of rotting rabbits was dumped down a mineshaft near St Day.
Also, in August, the Cardiff collier River Ely ran aground grounded on Mousehole Island. It was later towed to Penzance by the Greencastle, a salvage ship belonging to the Western Marine Salvage Company. There were, thankfully, no loss of lives.
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