On 5 December 1822, a storm developed, initially from the south and then veering north-east with extremely strong (hurricane force) gusts. There was much damage on land: roofs removed, walls collapsed and trees uprooted. Here I focus on damage to shipping, particularly in the Liverpool area.
Some of these losses are recorded separately:
Hero (false report);
Britannia Dee Estuary;
Rockingham Point of Ayr;
PSS Prince Regent Mersey, 9 lost;
PSS Belfast Bootle Bay;
Pilot Boat no 4 Abergele, 3 lost.
Most of these vessels, and those mentioned below as being driven aground, were refloated and repaired. The Pilot Boat and Britannia were reported as severly damaged, while the Rockingham was refloated and taken to Liverpool, but then not put back in service.
The comparison with the Hurricane of 1839 is striking: the later hurricane caused over 100 shipping fatalities, mainly as a consequence of the Northwest Lightvessel (marking the entry channel to Liverpool) being driven from its designated location. Since it was also a neap tide in 1822, the offshore sandbanks gave some protection to vessels aground in the channels.
Here I describe the many other losses to shipping at that time (mostly from a summary in the Chester Courant of 17 December 1822):
MERSEY. The Nantwich, one of Mr. Fletcher's flats of Chester, loaded with timber for Liverpool, at the commencement of the storm from the south, ran under the Cheshire shore, and anchored; but the wind veering and increasing in violence, she was compelled to slip her cables about half-past 10 o'clock, and in consequence was drifted, at the mercy of the sea, without any direction knowledge of the men board. After rolling about in the most tremendous sea, for four hours and upwards, she grounded on a sand-bank, about half a mile off the port, when she sunk. The men climbed the mast, where they remained four or five hours exposed to the most inclement hardships, when they were released from their distressing situation, by a fishing boat and we are happy to say are in good health. The cargo will be shortly recovered, the recovery of the vessel is doubtful.
See also loss of PSS Prince
Regent in the Mersey.
The Brig Ardent from Liverpool to
Cork [built Newport 1817, 140t] was driven ashore (reported as on 6
December) at Ince [on the South side of the Mersey Estuary opposite
Garston - not far from where the Prince Regent went ashore].
DEE. The Britannia and Rockingham were driven ashore and wrecked in the Dee Estuary.
LIVERPOOL DOCKS. Secure one might imagine the docks to be against the
effects of the storm, yet the vessels in most of them sustained
considerable damage on this dismal night. The Prince's dock was crowded
with vessels, and very few of them escaped without damage. The Alice
and Amelia [schooner, b Chester 1811, 106t], for Dundalk, sunk in the
middle of the dock, having been crushed by vessels driving against her.
Most of the ships sustained serious damage in their hulls, spars, etc.
Several of them lost their bowsprits, injured their cutwaters, their
cutwaters carried away their figure heads, or had their stems stove in.
One vessel's bows cut through the stern of a large ship, and the
figure-head of the former was forced into the cabin of the latter. In
several instances the cutwater and figure-head of one vessel rested on
the quarter-deck of the one a-head. The dock, next morning, was strewed
with fragments of wreck. The vessels, especially on the east side of
the dock, were locked and jammed together in a most surprising manner,
and such as human ingenuity never could have effected. - The other
docks presented similar spectacles, and in all of them the vessels were
more or less damaged. The Robert and Ann, from Waterford, sunk in
King's dock. The ferry-boats and small craft, lying in the basins and
at the different slips, sustained much injury; great number of them were
stove in and sunk, and some almost shattered to pieces.
BOOTLE BAY. Often as we have beheld the destructive effects storms
on our shore, never did we witness such a scene destruction as Bootle
Bay presented on Friday morning. Its monotonous flatness was completely
changed, and it exhibited a spectacle at once melancholy and
interesting. Two fine vessels, the Chili [brig, Captain F.
Cook, built 1821 Ulverston, 200t, owned C. Taylor, 15 ft draught,
trading Liverpool - South America] and La Plata [brig, Captain R.
Ainslie, 181 tons, built 1819 Chepstow, owned Hurry and Co., 13 ft
draught], laden with valuable cargoes for South America, lay stranded at
the Mile Rocks [one mile north of Liverpool Pierhead - now covered by
the dock area]. The Chili had lost her foremast and maintopmast, and
was considerably damaged in her rigging. The La Plata had lost her
foremast, bowsprit, and a melancholy loss of life occurred from the
wreck of this vessel: soon after she went on shore, several persons got
into the boat, among whom, a Mr. M'Nabb, a woman and a boy, were
unfortunately drowned. The others happily saved themselves by regaining
the vessel. The Caledonia, fine outward bound ship [full-rigged
ship, b Chester 1807, 445t], for Demerara, lay at little distance off
shore, and full of water, with the loss of her mizenmast. A little
farther northward, opposite Sandhills, the Otho [full-rigged
ship, b New York 1806, 348t], for New York, lay in a similar situation.
About three miles more to the north, lay the Gilbert Henderson
[full-rigged ship, b St. Johns 1815, 316t], for Savannah, on her
beam-ends, and full of water, with the loss of masts, yards, and running
rigging, all blown away as clean as if they had been cut by design. The
Topaz, a new inward bound vessel, on her first voyage from
Boston, lay full of water on Crosby Point. The British Tar, a
timber ship, from Narva, Russia, with loss of bowsprit and foremasts,
lay nearly opposite the Waterloo Hotel, Crosby. The Thomas
Naylor [snow, b Liverpool 1815, 295t], from St. Petersburg, was
ashore, with loss of foremast, bowsprit, and rudder unshipped. About
four miles more to the northward, and about ten miles from Liverpool, at
the mouth the river Alt, the Belfast, steam-packet, lay on the
sands, the most distant object in this melancholy of desolation.
See here for a fuller description of the loss of the PSS Belfast in Bootle Bay.
THE PRINCIPALITY:
Report from Bangor: the hurricane of Thursday last was experienced in these
parts of the Principality in all its violence, though we are happy to state not
with the fatal effects in the loss of life, which resulted from it in many
other parts of the kingdom. The morning was tolerably fine, but about
noon the rain descended in torrents, accompanied with a stormy wind
from the S. W. which at the close of the evening became a perfect hurricane, and
shifting suddenly to N. W. The mischief done to the roofs of houses, and
chimnies blown down, are too numerous for insertion; providentially this
storm took place during the neap tides and when the vessels
were all aground in the different harbours, or the loss to the shipping interests in
these parts would have been truly calamitous. Two sloops (one called the Mary)
bound from Liverpool, and laden with goods from Pwllheli, went down at their
anchors off Carnarvon, crews saved, but the goods are totally spoiled or lost; a large
brig called the Alciope, of Boston, U. S. and bound from Glasgow to Richmond,
was driven ashore near Dinas Dinlle, crew all saved, but it is feared the
vessel must be sold for her materials.
DUBLIN PACKET. The following narrative of the progress of the
packet Annesley (also called Earl of Annesley), from Liverpool for
Dublin in early December 1822, is of a nature which, we doubt not, will excite the sympathy of
our readers, and may tend to allay the apprehensions of the friends of
those board : -
Liverpool no. 4 Pilot Boat: Happy Return.
The Liverpool Pilot Service had a fleet (about 12) sailing vessels which
offloaded pilots (by going alongside or using a punt) to incoming vessels and
took off pilots from outgoing vessels. These pilot boats were seaworthy and
remained at sea for several days at a time to perform their duties.
In the atrocious weather of 5 December 1822, the No. 4 Pilot-boat, Happy
Return, was wrecked ashore near Abergele. The master, Henry Hughes, and two
apprentices were drowned. It is supposed, that the master must have been
washed overboard with the punt - before the pilot-boat stranded - as the punt
has been picked up at Dove Point, near to Hoylake. The master has left a wife
and six small children. The two apprentices were interred
(on Tuesday) at St. Asaph.
Apart from
the destruction of property and the melancholy loss of lives caused this awful
visitation, the shore presented a scene of animation, bustle, and variety
seldom before witnessed, and one which, we trust, will not soon occur again from
a similar cause. Groups of persons were seen, in various directions, collected
round the different wrecks, employed in discharging their cargoes, or brought
together by curiosity to witness the dreadful effects the storm. Carts, laden
with bales and packages from the wrecks, were being dragged through the swatch
and over rocks, to places of greater security in Liverpool; men, bending under
trunks, boxes, etc. which they were bearing away on their shoulders; boys,
dragging into the sand-hills fragments of wreck which the tide had left upon
the strand; parties of seamen, from the different vessels, bivouacking in the
sandhills, surrounded with chests, boxes, sails, and various articles of
ships' furniture which they had brought with them, piled in heaps, ready to be
conveyed away in carts that were waiting for the purpose; the varied costume
and the hardy weather-beaten countenances of the seamen, with the sable
visages of some of the crew of the Boston vessel; these altogether formed a
scene which would have formed a fine subject for the pencil of a Morland.
The packet Annesley, under the command of Captain Julius
Brett, left Liverpool for Dublin, Tuesday, the 3rd instant[December
1822], about four o'clock in the evening. Besides the master and crew,
she had on board sixteen cabin passengers, namely, seven ladies, six
gentlemen, and three children, with about fifty passengers in the hold.
At four o'clock on Wednesday morning she was off Abergele, with wind at
west and a heavy sea running; at seven in the evening, wind N. W.,
making little way; and, at daylight on Thursday morning, found
themselves nearly in the same place. About six in the morning, got
round the Lesser Ormshead; about ten o'clock the wind shifted a little
to southward, the vessel beating to the land for smooth water; at four
o'clock in the afternoon, abreast the Middle Mouse, wind W. S. W.,
obliged to reef close under the storm jib and peak; wore [tacked], and
kept the land on board; wind getting N. W., wore again off Point Lynas
and, under the dreadful gale which then ensued, lay to the whole night.
Those who are acquainted with the dangers of
the sea will be able to appreciate the feelings of those on board, under
such circumstances, expecting, every moment to be engulphed in the raging
waters. And here it ought to be mentioned, to the honour of every female on board,
that not one of them suffered a complaint to pass their lips; indeed, every one
seemed to vie with their companions in keeping order and quietness in every part of
the vessel, and in evincing their resignation to that fate which appeared to
be inevitable. During this dreadful night, so teeming with destruction to numbers
at sea, and with irretrievable distress to still greater numbers on shore, the
Annesley was combatting these imminent perils - perils which could only be
surmounted by that cool, and, yet conciliating, conduct which, from the first to
the last of this eventful expedition, distinguished every act of the humane
commander, who, alternately cheering his seamen to their duty, and
contributing to the comfort of his passengers, so far as, under such dreadful
circumstances, comfort could be administered, showed what was guided by that
humanity and consideration which ought to characterise all who are in so
responsible a station as that under which Captain Brett was then placed. At
daylight Friday morning, they found themselves about six miles N. E of the
Greater Ormshead, the squall gradually abating; but it was not until noon
that the Captain thought himself justified in spreading canvass. The vessel
then made the best of her way back to Liverpool, where, after an absence of
seventy-two hours, she arrived about five o'clock in the evening, when she
landed all her passengers in safety, grateful, in the first place, to that
Providence which had thus conducted them through the dangers of the elements,
and, in the second place to the Captain, who had thus the satisfaction of
being the agent of that Providence in saving so great a number of human beings
from a watery grave.
Square-sterned sloop with poop deck; b 1789 at Liverpool,
Wooden sailing vessel, 50' x 15'8" x 9', 46 grt
Captain Henry Hughes (described as second master)
Ashore off Abergele 5 December 1822; master and 2 apprentices lost.
There has not been a Liverpool pilot-boat lost since the year 1770 (on Hoyle Bank); and it is rather
singular that she was also No.4.
A new No.4 Pilot Boat was built at Liverpool in 1822 - to replace that wrecked.