'READY!' Punch and the 1883 Mumbles Lifeboat Disaster by Kate Jones

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“READY!”

Punch and the 1883 Mumbles Lifeboat Disaster

Kate Jones

In February 1883 readers of the illustrated weekly magazine Punch were treated to a wonderful drawing by one of its most famous and prolific cartoonists - Edward Linley Sambourne. It depicts a lifeboatman, wearing waterproofs and a heavy cork life-jacket, looking out over a stormy sea; below him a lifeboat speeds towards a shipwreck. The anguished woman and children ‘tell’ their own story.

Sambourne’s drawing illustrated a poem - ‘READY! A BUSINESS-LIKE BALLAD’ –praising the courage and bravery of ‘the Life-Boat Man’, who was ‘Ready’ to put to sea in dreadful weather, risking his life to save others, for little or no pay. It was prompted by the disaster two weeks earlier when four crew of the Mumbles lifeboat were drowned whilst assisting a ship wrecked on Mumbles Head in a gale. The words ‘Business-Like’ in the ballad’s title refer to its call for donations to the RNLI.

The weather, Saturday 27 January 1883:

The story of what was to be the first Mumbles Lifeboat Disaster began early on Saturday, 27 January, 1883. The Cambrian newspaper later described how, at 4am, the wind, which had been blowing fiercely since the middle of the week ‘gathered up its strength and blew with great fury, accompanied by hail and rain.’

The villagers of Mumbles had awoken to the gale and the news of a dreadful loss of life in Port Eynon Bay. At about 4.30am the steamer Agnes Jack (bound for Llanelli with a cargo of iron ore) after losing her way in the storm had struck rocks off Port Eynon Head. Her crew of 17 and her Llanelli Pilot, Phillip Beynon, were drowned. The vessel had only left the safety of Mumbles Roads the previous evening.

Once light dawned, three men hurried up Mumbles Hill to look out for any other ships in distress. Battered by gale-force winds and sea-spray, they peered through the rain and mist. Two vessels were battling the winds and rough seas – one towing the other - probably heading for Swansea Bay. Bristol Channel vessels had to watch out for the treacherous Mixon sandbank, the Cherrystone Rocks and, once inside the bay, the Greengrounds, an ancient submerged foreshore which at low tide could catch out an unwary ship’s master with awful consequences!

Many lives and vessels had been lost in this part of the Bristol Channel. So in 1794 the Swansea Harbour Trust had erected a lighthouse at the entrance to the bay; its two coal fires acting as ‘a light for the benefit of ships.’ Seventy years later in March 1863 the Swansea Branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was formed - It was renamed The Mumbles in 1904. A lifeboat was kept at first in Swansea’s South Dock but in 1866 she was moved to Southend, Mumbles, to be nearer vessels in trouble and where there was a ready-made volunteer crew of experienced oyster dredgers who lived and worked nearby.

The Ship:

The ship in distress that Saturday morning, 27 January, was a German three-masted wooden barque, Admiral Prinz Adalbert. She was named after the Prussian admiral, Prinz Adalbert (1811-1873) who had helped establish the Prussian navy and later founded the first united German navy. The barque, with her master Ludwig Leibauer and crew of 15, was on her way from Rochefort in France to Swansea with a 900-ton consignment of pit wood for timber merchant, Mr James Davies.

At midnight on Friday the Admiral Prinz Adalbert was off Caldy Island and Captain Leibauer, worried by the worsening weather, signalled by flare for a pilot. No one came. It must have been an anxious night so when at 8 o’clock the following morning a Swansea tug, Flying Scud, emerged out of the rain and mist Captain Leibauer was grateful for the skipper’s offer to help his ship into Swansea Bay.

It was common for Swansea tugs to cruise around looking for work, particularly in bad weather - it was known as ‘seeking to’ or ‘dodging’. Flying Scud was a steam paddle tug built at Neath Abbey Ironworks in 1877 and owned by Rosser Rosser of Swansea who for a time owned more tugs than anyone else in the town.

Flying Scud’s skipper William Harvey offered to show Captain Leibauer the course for Swansea. But it was soon clear that the weather was too bad to do this and when Harvey suggested towing the barque into port (for a large sum - a fee of £500 was requested!) Captain Leibauer had no alternative but to accept. After an hour’s towing in rough seas the ship’s hawser broke. The same thing happened when a second tow was tried. The Flying Scud did not have a hawser strong or long enough for such adverse weather conditions and so she headed off to alert the Mumbles Coastguard. Captain Leibauer desperately put down anchors, but the cables parted. The barque, now close to Limeslade Bay, was drifting helplessly towards Broadslade (Bracelet). Soon after, blown by the gale, she went aground on the Lighthouse Island rocks.

The Lifeboat Launch:

The entry in the RNLI’s Log Book for 27 January 1883 records the launch of the lifeboat stationed at Mumbles to the barque Admiral Prinz Adalbert of Danzig aground on ‘A Side of Mumbles Lighthouse’ in ‘SSW Heavy gale, High sea’.

The barque became stuck fast on the rocks with waves breaking over her.

The Wolverhampton was about 30 yards from the barque when Coxswain Jenkins shouted, ‘Let go, Johnny! Bowman John Williams dropped the lifeboat’s anchor and did his best to keep the boat in position in winds he later described as ‘blowing a perfect gale’. A line was thrown from the barque to the lifeboat and another attached. The villagers on Mumbles Hill watched two sailors hauled by this means from the shipwreck to the lifeboat which was tossing in the waves, her crew using their oars to keep her in position. Then, to their horror, as a third man took his turn, a huge wave broke over the lifeboat and she capsized, throwing most of the men in her overboard.

When he saw that the lifeboat had been righted he managed to scramble aboard where he found William Rosser, Coxswain Jenkins and his eldest son John. Together they managed to pull aboard William Macnamara, who was in a bad way. Then the lifeboat capsized again. A Cambrian newspaper reporter described villagers on the hill being ‘in an anguish of despair, tearing their hair and the grass on the ground’ as they saw the Wolverhampton driven towards the Outer Sound, capsizing and righting until all her crew were swept overboard and she eventually disappeared from view. Once in the calmer waters of Swansea Bay she was taken in tow by a tug – the two sailors rescued from the barque were still aboard her.

As he was swept towards the Middle Island Coxswain Jenkins heard above the roar of the storm his son, John, cry, ‘It is all over with us father, my head is cut open.’ The badly injured coxswain managed to pull John ashore but he was dead. He could only hope that the rest of the crew, including his three other sons and his daughter Sarah’s husband, William Macnamara, were safe.

Looking across the Outer Sound he witnessed John Thomas and William Rosser being hauled ashore by two of Abraham Ace’s daughters and one of artillerymen stationed at the island’s fort. Out of the coxswain’s sight his sons George and Jenkin, despite their severe injuries, managed to swim into Bob’s Cave below the lighthouse. Here they were found a few hours later by Abraham Ace.

At low tide the remaining crew of Admiral Prinz Adalbert scrambled onto the island. Peter Rahlberg, the vessel’s carpenter, had drowned when the lifeboat capsized and his body along with those of John and William Jenkins was brought ashore that afternoon. William Macnamara’s remains were washed up 2 weeks later, but William Rosser’s body was never found.

Mumbles had lost four gallant men, including two of the coxswain’s sons and his son-in-law. There were now four widows and 19 fatherless children. Every man in the lifeboat crew was someone’s husband, father, son, grandson, nephew or cousin, and known to everyone in the village. Mumbles was stunned.

The Inquest:

The inquest was held in the Mermaid Hotel and heard evidence from Abraham Ace, Captain Leibauer, William Harvey of the Flying Scud and survivors of the lifeboat crew. Verdicts of accidental death were recorded with the jury expressing great sympathy with relatives of the deceased. They censured the captains of the tugs Flying Scud and Flying Cloud for not assisting the rescue and owner of the former for not having proper tow ropes on board.

‘Everything was done that was possible by the lifeboat crew and their gallant conduct was beyond all praise.’

A few days after the disaster the members of the Lifeboat Branch Committee met at Swansea Town Hall. The minutes record the committee’s: ‘desire to express their admiration of the conduct of the Life-boat crew on the occasion of the wreck of the Prussian barque Admiral Prinz Adalbert …’

The committee: ‘deplored that this gallant service was not performed without loss of life to four members of the crew, viz. John Jenkins, Wm. Jenkins, Wm. Macknamara [sic] and Wm. Rogers whose widows and orphans the committee feels the deepest sympathy for and also with Jenkin Jenkins, coxswain, Jenkin Jenkins jnr. and Geo. Jenkins who were severely injured.’ … ‘Everything was done that was possible by the lifeboat crew and their gallant conduct was beyond all praise.’

The Public Appeal:

The RNLI contributed £800 to the public appeal set up by the Mayor of Swansea to raise the £3,000 deemed necessary to support the bereaved families. The vicar of All Saints’ chaired a meeting in the church schoolroom when £170 was immediately collected with a further £300 donated. Numerous local events raised more money.

Nationwide Publicity:

The terrible storm of that weekend resulted in the loss of several ships, four of them off the South Wales coast, with huge loss of life. There was much for local newspapers like the Cambrian and Western Mail to report. But the disaster that befell the Mumbles lifeboat and her crew had an additional aspect – the saving of two men’s lives by the bravery of two young women who became national heroines.

Twenty-two year old Jessie Ace and her older married sister Margaret Wright, daughters of the Mumbles lighthouse keeper, lived on the lighthouse island. Local newspapers recounting the disaster described how they tied their shawls together to throw to a lifeboatman then waded into the Outer Sound to help him ashore. At the inquest William Rosser agreed the girls had thrown him a rope and John Thomas confirmed his rescue by Gunner Hutchings. The story (which soon caught the British public’s imagination) was picked up by national press and local newspapers all over the country. The Graphic printed a dramatic etching, photographs of the sisters were sold to raise money and the Times reported that Queen Victoria had one.

‘READY!’:

It was in this ‘storm’ of reportage that Punch had published its Sambourne ‘cartoon’ and the ballad ‘READY’ [printed in full at the end of this article]. Describing dangers to shipping and men at sea in terrible weather, contrasting them to being cosy, warm and snug indoors, Mr Punch paid ‘homage to this heroism’ of the men of the lifeboats and appealed to the ‘British Public’ to be as ‘Ready’ to put their hands in their pockets as the ‘Life-Boat Man’ was ‘Ready’ at his post. In the same edition Mr Punch also acknowledged the ‘courageous act’ of ‘Miss Jessie’, who ‘is clearly not only an Ace, but a very Ace of Trumps’. A very clever turn of phrase!

The story of Jessie and Margaret was embellished and immortalised by the influential Daily Telegraph theatre critic and writer, Clement Scott in his poem: The Women of Mumbles Head’. Five years later, in 1888, a set of eight lantern slides was produced to accompany public performances of the poem.

Afterwards:

After receiving donations from all over Britain the appeal fund for the 1883 disaster soon closed at £3,670. Jenkin Jenkins was awarded an RNLI Silver Medal plus £50 in recognition of his gallant conduct and severe injuries. Each crew member received £5 with an additional £10 for the two most seriously injured. The Thanks of the Institution inscribed on Vellum plus £2 were awarded to Gunner Hutchings. The Emperor and Empress of Germany sent a medal to Jenkin Jenkins, generous gifts of money to the four widows and surviving lifeboat crew and mementoes to the lighthouse keeper’s two daughters.

The damaged lifeboat Wolverhampton had to be scrapped and a new, larger boathouse built to accommodate her replacement.

The tug Flying Scud was sold by Rosser Rosser in 1892; she spent the rest of her working life in Dundee, Peterhead and NE England. She was scrapped in 1929.

The loss of the Agnes Jack off Port Eynon led directly to the RNLI establishing a lifeboat station in that village in 1884.

On 10 October 1891 the world’s first ever charity street collection was held in Manchester – to raise money for the RNLI. It was the first Lifeboat Saturday, a milestone event that shaped future fundraising.

Mumbles lifeboatmen were, of course, always ‘Ready!’ Twenty years later six of them lost their lives in another disaster and Mumbles mourned again.

PUNCH: Punch was a British weekly illustrated magazine; its humour and satire reflecting the interests, concerns and frustrations of certain sections of the country. Publication began in 1841 and continued until final closure in 2002.

We do not know of course what direct influence, if any, Punch’s ballad and drawing had on funds raised for the 1883 Mumbles lifeboat disaster. But it must have raised public awareness. Whilst it is not as well-known in Mumbles as Clement Scott’s poem, I think it certainly deserves to be read – preferably aloud – and remembered for its tribute to the courage and gallantry of lifeboat crews around our shores.

Kate Jones, February 2022

More: The Mumbles Lifeboat >

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