|
|
Time saver... enter a name or any word(s) to ABERCROMBIE ROBINSON WRECK, TABLE BAY, AUGUST 1842 The South African Commercial Advertiser reported as follows: 'August 25th 1842 Arrived this evening, at Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, Her Majesty's Transport, Abercrombie Robinson; of 1415 tons, and carrying 10 eighteen pounders, Lt. John R BLACK, Royal Navy, Admiralty Agent, in charge. Mr. John YOUNG, Master, with the Reserve Battalion of the 91st Regt., consisting of Lt.-Col. LINDSAY, lady, and three children; Major DUCAT, lady, and three children; Capt. GORDON; Capt. WARD, lady and child; Capt. RAWSTORNE, lady and child; Lieutenants CAHILL, JENNINGS, STEIN, CRUICKSHANKS; Ensigns CAPEL, HOWARD, McENROY, COCHRANE, OWGAN, METCALF, LAVERS; Assistant Surgeon STUBBS, M.D.; 454 non-commissioned officers and privates, 36 soldiers' wives, 48 children. Detachment of the 27th Regiment, Ensigns DALZELL and HAMILTON; 32 non-commissioned officers and privates, 2 soldiers' wives, 1 soldier's child. Detachment of the Cape Mounted Riflemen: - Lieut. CANNON, Ensign BARROW, 14 non-commissioned officers and privates, 1 woman, and 4 children. Two pensioners with their families, viz., 2 women and 8 children. As soon as the ship has taken in water and refreshments, she will proceed to Algoa Bay and disembark this Battalion, they will then embark the Flank Companies of the 1st Battalion for Cape Town and also embark the 75th Regt. for England.' However, three days later, on 28 August the vessel, which had been lying at anchor, came to grief at the mouth of the Salt River in Table Bay, a victim of the same north-west gale which wrecked the British convict ship, Waterloo, only 500m away from the Abercrombie Robinson. Several other vessels also went on shore in the gale, including a Danish man-of-war of 64 guns, but their crews were saved. In the case of the Waterloo, which was an old ship built in 1815, there was appalling loss of life - 190 people died of whom the majority were convicts on their way to Tasmania; there were also 30 men of the 99th regiment, some with their wives and children. Heavy surf smashed the rotten timbers to pieces and most of those on board were drowned. The Abercrombie Robinson, a troop transport carrying over 600 men and about 80 women and children, went aground but discipline and courage prevailed, resulting in no lives being lost. A line was taken to shore by one of the ship's boats. Women and children were evacuated by surfboats sent to the wreck and not until all of these people were ashore did the men disembark.* On 3 September 1842, the South African Commercial Advertiser carried a lengthy report mentioning both the Waterloo and the Abercrombie Robinson, and stating in defence of Table Bay that as far as the latter vessel was concerned, 'the weather, the water and the bottom' were blameless. The Abercrombie Robinson had come into the Bay 'on the evening of 25th, when it was dark, proceeded too far up the Bay, and came to anchor in a position unsafe for her should it come on to blow. The wind did blow a gale with squalls, and she wisely went on shore with an anchor at her bows, thereby saving some seven hundred souls, most of whom must have perished had she foundered where she rode at anchor. Had she been in a proper position, she would have rode out the weather ... Of the Waterloo it is impossible to speak with moderation. Deadly blame rests somewhere, and justice will, we have no doubt, find out the parties that deserve it.' The report harks back to earlier wrecks: 'So great a loss of life [as in the wreck of the Waterloo] has not happened in Table Bay since the year 1799. On the 5th of November of that year, His Majesty's Ship Sceptre, Captain EDWARDS, was driven on shore, and ... immediately went to pieces, being an accursed old hulk on her way home to be broken up. A few hours after she struck not a vestige of her was to be seen, but the fragments of the wreck scattered on the strand, in myriads of pieces, not a single plank remaining whole, nor two attached together. Captain Edwards, his son, ten other officers, and near 300 seamen and marines perished.' As a result of the wrecks in August 1842, funds were raised and measures taken for the construction of a Life Boat and for Rocket Apparatus to be always in readiness to render assistance to vessels in distress and for saving life. The SACA recommended establishing a Coroners' Court 'through which a competent Magistrate, with a Jury, may at once ascertain the manner in which any man came by his death, whose body has been washed ashore from a wreck.' NOTES *This practice, i.e. 'women and children first', later became known as the 'Birkenhead Drill' - but the wreck of the Abercrombie Robinson took place a decade before the more famous Birkenhead disaster. For further details on the Waterloo see www.sagenealogy.co.za/WreckWaterloo.htm
Wreck of the transport Abercrombie Robinson and the convict ship Waterloo during a gale on 28 August 1842 in Table Bay.
Advert for the sale of the Waterloo remnants after the wreck. From SACA 31 Aug 1842.
Photographs of SACA report taken by Sue Mackay.
|
