The wreck of the Royal Charter - the ship that never reached home.
HAVING safely travelled thousands of miles by sea from Australia, the passengers and crew of the steam clipper Royal Charter must have relaxed, knowing they would shortly land in Liverpool.
Many on board were former miners who had made considerable fortunes in the Australian gold rush and the ship was also carrying a cargo of gold.
After leaving Melbourne 60 days earlier (a fast journey in those days), her 371 passengers and 112 crew were more than ready to enjoy the next chapter in their lives. But it was not to be.
Having survived the Indian Ocean, Cape Horn, the long haul up the forbidding south Atlantic and with a call at Queenstown (now Cobh) behind her, terrible disaster struck almost within sight of home.
On October 25, 1859, as Royal Charter sailed along the north west tip of Anglesey, the barometer suddenly started dropping and severe weather was looming. It was claimed later by some passengers that the master, Captain Thomas Taylor, was advised to shelter in Holyhead, but decided to make for Liverpool, as the ship had ridden well through the stormy Southern Ocean.
Capt Taylor had failed to pick up the Liverpool pilot at Port Lynas, as the gales rose to Beaufort Force 10 and the sea was rising, whipped up by the wind.
Then Royal Charter was suddenly hit by an exceptional tempest: the wind rose to full hurricane force (Beaufort scale 12) and the wind suddenly changed direction, from east to north-east, then north-north-east, with nowhere for the ship to go but on to the rocky shore.
At 11pm Capt Taylor anchored the ship, but at 1.30am on October 26 the port anchor chain snapped, followed by the starboard chain an hour later. In spite of cutting the masts down to reduce the wind-drag, Royal Charter was driven inshore with her steam engine unable to make headway against the gale.
The ship initially grounded on a sandbank, but in the early morning the rising tide drove her onto the rocks at a point just north of Moelfre on the eastern coast of Anglesey.
She was battered against the rocks by huge waves, whipped up by winds roaring over at more than 100 mph.
Incredibly, just 10 yards of boiling angry water lay between ships and shore. A Maltese seaman, Joseph Rodgers, got a line ashore for a bosun’s chair with help from Moelfre villagers. But conditions were so rough that only about 16 passengers and 29 others survived.
Others were said to have drowned, weighed down by the belts of gold they were wearing around their bodies. No women or children survived. Some 459 lives were lost, the highest death toll of any shipwreck on the Welsh coast.
Most were not drowned, but were crushed or pounded to death when the ship broke up, or when the waves swept them off rocks.
This shipwreck was the worst of some 200 ships wrecked that night in what’s known as the Royal Charter Storm.
Much gold was rumoured to have washed up on the coasts near Moelfre, making some families literally rich overnight.
The gold bullion cargo was insured for £322,000, but the total value of the gold onboard must have been much higher.
Many of the bodies recovered from the sea were buried at Llanallgo churchyard nearby, where their graves and a memorial can still be seen. Another memorial is set on the Anglesey Coastal Path, on the cliff above the rocks where the ship struck.
Almost immediately, salvage teams went to work on the wreck. The ship’s carcass lies close to the shore in less than 20ft of water.
The remains can be seen in the form of iron bulkheads, plates and ribs which are revealed and then immersed again in the shifting sands.
Gold sovereigns, pistols, spectacles and other personal items have been found by divers and more serious salvage attempts searching for treasure have taken place in the last couple of years.
A Dickens of a disaster
The Liverpool Daily Post
June 29, 2008
