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Hi there,
I thought that I'd give a short update:

Thanks to Alpinecottage, I have a record of the shipwreck in the Scotsman Newspaper, 15th November 1860.

I've found records of the Schooner, the Lady of Mugdrum, from the Crew List website:
http://www.crewlist.org.uk/data/vesselsalpha.php

From this website, I've found the ship in the Mercantile Navy List, and LLoyd's Register, both on-line.

Armed with the Schooner's Official number 25546, the Perth Archives within the AK Bell Library, were able to send on a lot of technical data about this ship, including the fact it was registered in Perth and had a carved figurehead.

I found some information on an earlier voyage, probably the Schooner's maiden voyage in a Swedish Newspaper. I posted another thread looking for help in the Swedish translation at:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=482694.new

We managed to decipher the article, and then Jorose, another Rootschatter found another on-line Book on Swedish Statistics, "Befallningshafvandes femårsberättelser" which gave further information, including the Ship's Captain as James Writtel, presumably a typo.

I found several references to the storm passing over Britain, including eye witness accounts of a shipwreck off Scotland, from the Moidart Local History Group:
http://www.moidart.org.uk/datasets/drimninshipwreck1860.htm

I found a Journal Article, "Weather Prophecies", in "The Popular Science Monthly" of December 1872:
http://www.archive.org/details/popularsciencemo02newy

This article cites the shipwrecks of the storm of 2nd and 3rd of October 1860 and argues for a network or system of signals to warn shipping of approaching storms to prevent such losses:

"Meteorological science ... it may be possible to predict ... the state of the weather... for several days coming... A storm could be telegraphed coming..."

Roll on the Shipping Forecast...
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/shipping_forecast.html#All~All

Its a little strange to think that in some way, my ancestor's demise was part of a much bigger picture.

So finally, as I can't reasonably get to London within the next decade or so... I've decided to "engage" the help of a researcher to go delving into the archives to see if we can piece together any of James Whittet's earlier voyages.

And strangely enough, this weekend will be 150 years from the date of that storm...

Best wishes, Jimmijam