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My 3x great grandfather Lazarus Roberts does not mention his seventh and youngest son, Edward, in his will. Had he, like his brother Charles, also been lost to the family? Sadly, he had.
Edward Parrey Roberts was born at Brightlingsea, Essex on 2 January 1843:
All Saints Brightlingsea, born 2 Jan 1843, baptised 6 Feb 1843, Edward Parrey son of Lazarus and Mary ROBERTS, Brightlingsea, Lieutenant in the Royal Navy.
The origin of his middle name is unknown. Perhaps he was named after the Arctic explorer William Edward Parry, famous in the 1840s for his expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage?
Edward Roberts’s life was a short one with a tragic ending, but using available records and newspaper reports it is possible to piece together a narrative of his brief life and time in the Royal Navy.
Great Yarmouth
By the 1850s the family had moved to Great Yarmouth, on the Norfolk coast and when the 1851 census was taken eight-year-old Edward was at Harrison’s Buildings, St George’s Road, with his father Lazarus, his mother Mary (my 3x great grandparents) and his brothers Alfred and Arthur and sisters Ellen and Catherine, and a maid. His grown-up siblings, including my great-great grandfather James, had already left home.
Edward’s Yarmouth was the one described by Charles Dickens as ‘lying in a straight low line under the sky’, seablown and smelling of fish, pitch, okum and tar and echoing to the rattle of carts on cobbles. When Edward turned six, in January 1848, Dickens visited the fishing town to gather material for his new novel, David Copperfield, and found it to be ‘the strangest place in the wide world’.
Edward was slightly younger than Dickens’ fictional protagonist, but if he ever read David Copperfield – first published in book format in 1850 – he might have recognised the boathouse on the sands, home to Peggotty’s family, and St Nicholas churchyard, where Dickens had Ham buried and where Edward’s mother Mary was laid to rest in 1855 (see here). Edward may even have found the characters familiar: Dickens based some of them on people he met at Yarmouth.
It is perhaps ironic that the story of David Copperfield should also feature the wrecking of a boat in a fierce storm, just off the coast, in which a character is drowned. But more on shipwrecks in a bit...
Great Yarmouth in the 1850s (the Jetty). Perhaps the small boy with the lady on the bench is Edward? (www.invisibleworks.co.uk)
The Royal Navy
In August 1853, aged ten, Edward was admitted to the Royal Hospital School in Greenwich, London. Here, boys were taught reading, writing and figures and those with an aptitude were instructed in navigation. Older boys were taught rope and sail making. Facilities at the school included a fully rigged ship and swimming bath.
In 1855 he moved to Plymouth – or at least, his family did (I assume Edward was still away at school and only returned home during the holidays). His father was a retired naval officer and took up position as secretary of the Royal Western Yacht Club (more on that here)
On the completion of his education, in March 1858 fifteen-year-old Edward followed his father into the Royal Navy, entering HMS Impregnable, probably at Devonport, ‘for tuition in nautilus’ for four months.
In July he joined HMS Terrible, designed as the Royal Navy’s largest steam-powered wooden paddle wheel frigate, a veteran of the Crimean War (1853–56) and now part of the Mediterranean fleet. He served in this huge ship for four years: when the 1861 census was taken he was a master’s assistant on board, at anchor near Corfu.
HMS Swallow
In April 1862, aged just nineteen, Edward was back in Plymouth, where he joined the steam sloop HMS Swallow, under Captain Wilds, preparing to depart on a four-year surveying expedition to the Far East. For Edward this would be cut tragically short.
HMS Swallow was attached to the Hydrographic Office, its task to survey, measure and map the islands and coastlines of the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea. These mapping activities were essentially to keep sea lanes clear of any obstacles to navigation and trade, which for the British Empire meant primarily tea and opium.
The Navy List, December 1863
After leaving Plymouth the Swallow called in for provisions at Rio de Janeiro and then crossed the South Atlantic to arrive at the Cape of Good Hope (Simon’s Bay) in the middle of July. They then rounded the cape into the Indian Ocean, heading for Singapore and then Hong Kong.
To the east of Vietnam, is the tiny Con Dao archipelago. The largest island in this group is ‘Pulo Condore’ (Con Son in Vietnamese), once an infamous penal colony, now a marine National Park apparently boasting stunning coral reefs and a haven for snorklers and scuba divers. In 1862, the archipeligo must have been of particular interest to Captain Wilds and HMS Swallow, on their way from Singapore to Hong Kong. Wilds made a pen-and-ink sketch of the approach to Pulo Condore which was copied, with an additional view, by Edward, presumably on board ship:
‘Pulo Condore Group’. Con Son Island Group, Vietnam. Approaches to Song Sai Gon and Mekong River by E. Wilds, HMS Swallow, 4 December 1862, annotated. (ADM_344_1360_001)
Copy of the above and an additional view, signed by Edward P. Roberts. Wilds’ original was intended for an engraving, so perhaps Edward’s copy was for the ship’s own records.
From here the Swallow sailed north, along the East China coast to Hong Kong and Shanghai, then up to Japan and Korea, leaving the warmer waters of the East China Sea for the less hospitable Yellow Sea. Such a journey was not without peril. There was much resentment of foreign interference amongst the Chinese population: the following year, the British ship Martha & Emily ran aground in bad weather near the island of Taiwan and was overcome by rebels armed with spears and knives. The captain of this ship was shot in the head as he looked over the rail (Lloyd's Illustrated Newspaper, 1 February 1863). The threat of attack was never far away, at least in the minds of the Europeans.
But the Swallow was not here to wage war. Reports to the Royal Geographical Society summarise their activities:
Mr. Edward Wilds, Master, commanding the Swallow, with his staff, have carried meridian distances to Singapore, to Pulo Condore, Sapato, Hong-kong, and Shang-hai, and resurveyed the shallows of Wu-sung River, leading to the last-named place. The Swallow is now engaged in the Japan Sea. [May 1863]
The Swallow, under Mr. Wilds, has been employed in the northern portion of the Chinese waters. Its commander has made new chronometric measurements between Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Yokuhama, and the Korea, and surveyed 700 miles of coast-line, including part of the Korean Archipelago; Chin Chu Bay, on the south coast of Shan-tung; also the harbour of Amoa, a good plan of which was much required. [May 1864]
The Swallow mapped the coastline of Amoy (Xiamen), opposite Taiwan. Also Kiachow Bay (Jiaozhou Bay), an inlet of the Yellow Sea on the south coast of China’s Shandong Peninsula. Both maps were produced from the survey made by Edward Wilds, assisted by Henry R. Harris and George Stanley of HMS Swallow, 1863. Stanley (born 1836) was another former Greenwich scholar (1847–50).
Some of the specimens collected by Richard Oldham in China and Japan are on the RBG Kew site. Oldham left HMS Swallow at the beginning of 1864 but succumbed to dysentery and died at Amoy (Xiamen) nine months later, on 13 November 1864, only a few days after Edward’s death.
Richard Oldham
Interestingly, the botanical collector Richard Oldham (1837–64) joined the ship at Nagasaki in November 1862. Their arrival here was delayed but Oldham remained assigned to the Swallow throughout most of 1863, as a supernumerary, gathering valuable specimens for the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. His and Wilds’ correspondence gives some detail of the Swallow’s precise movements in the seas around China, Japan and Korea, although there is no mention specifically of Edward.
In the letters, Wilds explains how he cleared out his surveying store so Oldham could have a small cabin of his own to sleep in, ‘cut off from the men and noise of the rest of the ship’, and a smaller storeroom under the poop deck for his plants.
The botanist suffered badly from seasickness, but Oldham was able to dine with the officers – with whom, it was reported, he got on with well and who were ‘mostly of the navigating class’. This must have included Edward, at twenty a junior officer still but now promoted to acting second master. Perhaps they passed the time discussing botany? Oldham, according to Wilds, was found to be ‘very zealous and agreeable’ and ‘always on shore collecting when he had the opportunity’.
The Yellow Sea, 1860s. northern China on the left, Korea to the right. Chefoo and the Shandong Peninsula are at the top, coloured pink.
The Yellow Sea
Like Oldham, not all Edward’s time would have been spent on board ship. There would have been opportunities to explore the region’s islands and ports: no doubt quite an experience for a young man from Edward’s background.
According to The China Sea Directory, Vol. IV (1873), during its survey of the Korean archipelago, the Swallow upset the inhabitants of the mountainous Surly Island (Ganghwa Island): ‘so called from its forbidding appearance and opposition by the natives to the officers of the Swallow ascending its summit’ (p. 60). The islanders were forbidden to barter, although the men of the Swallow managed to obtain bullocks, pigs and fowl, and catch fish (p. 64): a clue to Edward’s diet while at sea.
The China Sea Directory also emphasises the unpredictable nature of the weather in the Yellow Sea:
Off Yedo [Tokyo], in February 1863, HMS Swallow experienced a sharp short gale of ten hours’ duration, with little or no warning. The sky was very clear, with steady falling barometer, and in two hours the ship was reduced to close-reefed main topsail etc. [p. 16]
Later that year Commander Wilds noted in one of his letters:
During the past four months [we] have experienced much foggy weather and heavy gales and a cyclone in Nagasaki harbour on 16 Aug. Houses and trees were blown down and several ships foundered off the port, others were towed in devastated a few days afterwards. [20 September 1863]
Edward could not know it, but these adverse weather reports were to prove ominous.
On 7 October 1864, Edward was appointed second master in charge (acting) on another ship, probably also attached to the Hydrographic Office – the screw steam gunboat HMS Insolent.
The Insolent, under the command of Lieutenant Granville Toup Nicolas, was stationed at the small island of Kungtung-Tao (Kongtong Island), in Chefoo Bay (Zhifu Bay).
Lieutenant Nicolas was also the toutai, or magistrate, for Chefoo and ran a small naval depot on Kungtung-Tao island. So this must have been where Edward was bound.
A year earlier. Part of the Anglo-Chinese squadron at Kungtung-Tao island, Chefoo, 21 November 1863. HMS Insolent, the ship Edward was destined for, is shown on the far right and was stationed on the island. Its men were ‘manning their rigging and cheering’ at the departure of HMS Pekin, according to the Illustrated London News.
To reach the Insolent, Edward needed to travel to Chefoo. So he left the Swallow, possibly at Tokyo or Amoy (Xiamen), transferring to the gunvessel HMS Racehorse, a despatch boat carrying mail between Shanghai and Japan under the command of Captain Charles Boxer.
It was whilst on board this ship that Edward drowned, when the Racehorse was wrecked off the coast of Chefoo.
Remembering Edward
Edward seems to have been remembered fondly by his sisters, who were just a few years older and with him when the family moved from Yarmouth to Plymouth in 1855 – especially Catherine and Ellen, who probably supplied the details of Edward’s fate for their father’s 1873 obituary, and had the memorial to their young brother added to Lazarus’s gravestone in Ford Park Cemetery, Plymouth.
But given an age gap of almost twenty years, and a geographical distance of hundreds of miles, it is doubtful Edward saw much, if anything, of his eldest brothers, my great-great grandfather James and William (W.P.), both of whom had left home and were living in London when Edward took his first breath –although W.P. did send a notice of his youngest brother’s death to his local newspaper in Hertfordshire.
By the 1920s, anyone in the family who would have known Edward had themselves died, with the possible exception of James’s son, my great grandfather Frank in Essex. He and Edward were very close in age: Frank was fifteen when Edward, nineteen, sailed from Plymouth for the Far East in 1862, so was old enough to have been aware of his young uncle. They lived many miles apart though, on opposite sides of the country, so may well never have met.
Almost a hundred years later, in the 1950s or 60s, Arthur’s daughter Dorothy (thus Edward’s great niece and my grandmother’s cousin) wrote up some brief notes on the Roberts family in which she mentions that Lazarus had a young son who was lost at sea in the Racehorse. Her father may have told her this when she was a girl (or perhaps she discovered it for herself through her own research). Until I read her brief notes on her father’s family, I was unaware of Edward and his tragic end.
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