Treasure Ship Tragedy - The Royal Charter

[justmej]

I am in the middle of reading a book, about the awful tragedy of the steam clipper, the Royal Charter, which broke up against rocks, in a hurricane force 12 gale, when over 450 passengers died.

Most on board, were returning home from the Australian goldrush, with their small personal fortunes on them, as well as a consignment of gold, which was stacked below in the strongroom of the ship.  They left Melbourne, on 26 August, 1859 and were due in Liverpool in under 60 days.

During the night of 25/26 October, 1859, only a handful of passengers were to survive, when all, including families with young children, were thrown into the sea, as the ship broke up within yards of the coast, at Moelfre, Anglesey.  On board, were two of my ggg.uncles, brothers, James (aged 31) and Richard Oliver (aged 27), both miners, returning home to their families; they were amongst the hundreds of poor souls who never returned and who lost their lives.

The little church of Llanallgo became the morgue and some are buried in the churchyard there, others were buried in the churchyards nearest to wherever their bodies may have been washed ashore.

I know this is probably a crazy quest to go on, but would dearly like to find out, if and where they were ever buried.  So far, I have been unable to find a death registration, for either of them, although, not knowing which registration districts I am looking for does not help.  Would their deaths have been registered if their bodies were never recovered?

I would welcome any suggestions that might possibly help.

justmej

[millymcb]

I don't think it sounds like a crazy quest at all....it sounds fascinating.

Have you seen this website?  You might find some useful links there. 


http://www.theshipslist.com/Research/Resource.htm

I'm thinking maybe there was an Inquiry or inquests or something.  It might list the names of those whose bodies were recovered.  A long shot of course but you never know

The site may point you in the right direction for finding those.

Milly

[millymcb]

And this site..

http://www.archivesnetworkwales.info/cgi-bin/anw/desclist1_nofr?inst_id=27

Welsh archives - in particular the Anglesey County Records Office

Milly

[justmej]

Milly

Thank you for the links - will have a look at them.  There was an inquest and have read quite a lot on the tragedy from 'The Times' newspapers at the time, although, have not come across any list of people recovered.  I do have a list of the passengers on board.

Once again thanks for your interest.

justmej

[hiraeth]

Hi justmej

A newspaper report at the time:

http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/ROYALCHARTER.html

Also have you consider the deaths might be recorded several months after the accident due to a inquest being held etc. ??

H

[justmej]

Hi hiraeth

Many thanks for the link - I have seen it before and printed it off, although it seems to have had some more added into the article, which I have not previously seen.

Although, I have not looked for the brothers in quite a while, I have previously searched a long way after the event, for their death registration, without any success so far.

justmej

[wilcoxon]

http://www.royalcharterchurch.org.uk/wreck.html

You might find this interesting.
There are tales  that many  passengers had their gold on their persons, and because of the weight they perished, others who managed to survive lost it on the way to safety on land.
It`s said that many local families became very rich from this tragic event.
But 28 very brave men from Moelfre helped rescue many survivors.
The stretch of beach where this happened is a most lovely spot , as is most of Anglesey .

[justmej]

Hi wilcoxon and thank you for the very interesting link about the tragedy.

Have read the book The Golden Wreck the Tragedy of the Royal Charter, by Alexander McKee, which gives great detail on the events that happened.  Did read that many passengers were carrying their gold and how much of it was also washed ashore with the wreckage.

Have seen pictures of the area and it does look lovely and it's therefore difficult to imagine the terrible scenes, that the locals must have witnessed, following the storm in 1859.

My G.Grandfather was born in 1860, not long after the tragedy and was given the names 'James Richard', in memory of his two uncles that perished.

justmej

[Meryll]

My g-g-grandfather was supposedly one of the divers involved in the salvage operations on the Royal Charter, although whether as part of an official project I don't know.  He would have been about 30 at the time and I wonder whether he may have been the William Pritchard who was one of the twenty-eight: his wife was from the Mat(t)hew family and another two of the 28 may have been her brothers/cousins, although Anglesey was well-endowed with Pritchards and Mathews!  My grandmother was always very proud of her seafaring heritage, but I'm afraid there was probably a good deal of "gleaning" of anything that was washed up from the wreck or could be brought up by diving or trawling.