Hoylake lifeboatmen lost attending to vessel Traveller

Cheltenham Chronicle - Thursday 17 January 1811: The Liverpool shipping list exhibits a most melancholy aspect. Saturday week, a boat manned with ten people was dispatched from Hoylake to render assistance to the ship Traveller, driven ashore on the Cheshire coast, about mile to the eastward of Hoylake. The sea was running dreadfully high, and they paused a moment before they ventured to approach. At last, with the characteristic boldness of British sailors, they pushed towards her; but no person being on board, they, unfortunately, failed in catching the ropes which hung over her side, and were driven beyond her by the violence of the waves. At that instant, a terrible sea struck her bow, and overwhelmed her; by which afflicting accident, eight of these poor fellows lost their lives. A number of spectators were standing on the beach, within a hundred yards, but unable to afford the poor sufferers the smallest assistance. These brave fellows have for many years formed the crew of the life-boat at Hoylake, and have displayed the greatest promptitude and alacrity in rendering assistance.

Chester Courant - Tuesday 01 January 1811: Melancholy Catastrophe. On Monday the 24th instant, coroner's inquest taken, by Mr. Faithful Thomas, at Hoose, near Hoylake, in this county, on view the bodies of John Bird the elder, John Bird the younger, Henry Bird, Richard Hughes, Thomas Hughes, Joseph Hughes, and Nicholas Seeds, eight poor fishermen there, who were unfortunately drowned on the 22nd instant, by the upsetting of a lifeboat in the River Mersey, in prosecuting the laudable attempt of going on board a vessel in distress, called the Traveller, of Liverpool, which had been driven on shore by the violence of the weather in the course of the preceding night, for the purpose of giving their assistance to the vessel. There were two other persons in the boat, viz. Thomas Davies and Thomas Fulton, at the time of the accident, who with great difficulty, owing to the roughness of the sea and the heavy surf then breaking on the beach, were enabled to reach the shore. One of the poor sufferers, just as the accident happened, caught hold of a rope hanging down the side the vessel, by which he remained suspended for three quarters of an hour, in sight of the numerous spectators on shore, who, though the distance from the vessel was not more than about thirty yards, could not possibly give him any assistance; and at length, being quite exhausted, he was washed away by the violence of the waves, and sunk to rise no more. What adds greatly to the calamity is, that John Bird the elder has left a wife and ten children, Richard Hughes a wife and five children, and Henry Bird a wife and three children, to lament their untimely fate, and who being deprived their industrious exertions, are now left destitute of the means of gaining a livelihood. As there is a life boat in the immediate neighbourhood of the place where the accident happened, it is a pity that the unfortunate persons attempting so perilous an undertaking, were not furnished with so necessary and so useful protection for their persons, and especially as the signal at the life boat house had been hoisted by the person having the care of it, for the express purpose of affording assistance to the above-mentioned vessel.