Not Set

The remains of a three-masted steamship were found by divers from In Deep Dive Centre in 2023.

Type

Steamship

Location

Bigbury Bay

History

The three-masted screw steamship Marie was built in 1863 as yard number 12 at the J. W. Klawitter shipyard in Danzig (Gdańsk), part of the German Empire at that time but now in Poland.  The ship had a rivetted iron hull 57.9m / 190ft long with a beam of 7.3m / 24ft and registered as 383 tons net.  Her 92hp steam engine, boilers and screw were made at the shipyard which was known for fitting its own machinery to its ships.

The Marie was registered in London in 1864 with official number 50131, originally owned by Bremer, Bennett & Bremer of London, later transferred to Charles James Bennett in 1880.  In February 1895, the newly formed Steamship Marie Company Ltd. was registered in London with a capital of £1500, and then the directors entered into an agreement with John Esplin of Liverpool to acquire and operate the steamship Marie.  At the time W. Esplen Jr. & Co. of Liverpool were Marie’s managing owners and it is not clear if ownership had been transferred by the time the ship was lost.

The master of the Marie, Captain Matthew Cowper R.N.R., was a Sunderland-born 58-year-old seaman of considerable experience now living in Liverpool, like most of his crew.  Cowper had recently sailed the Marie to Dunkirk in France from his home town of Liverpool with a cargo of coal.  By Sunday 21st April 1895, the ship was in port at Saint-Valery-en-Caux in France and ready to head for Runcorn in Cheshire with a cargo of flint which was destined for the potteries at Stoke on Trent.  The ship headed out across the channel but soon met heavy weather and fog, with a low-pressure system the next day bringing strong south-westerly winds, heavy and continuous rain, and very rough seas.  It is thought that Cowper decided to head inshore for the safety of Plymouth Sound, but the ship never arrived, she disappeared early on the morning of Tuesday 23rd April.

The first sign that something was amiss was when wreckage was washed up on shore between Bigbury and Plymouth.  A ship’s boat was washed ashore near Thurlestone Sands with the name SS Marie on the transom.  But then the bodies started to be found; at Challaborough a lifeboat and a body lashed to a plank were washed ashore and the body of a merchant seaman wearing a lifebelt was washed up under the cliffs at Mothecombe.  Another body of a seaman wearing a lifebelt was picked up floating by Plymouth Breakwater on the 25th, a body was found at East Hollacombe a mile east of the Yealm the same day and another body was seen floating near the coast under cliffs at Bolt Head.  Fishermen picked up an oar with ‘Marie’ marked on it and a door marked ‘Boatswain’s Storeroom’.  It was not immediately clear which Marie had sunk, but the owners of the steamship with the same name built in Hartlepool in 1892 and also registered in London were quick to announce it was not their ship, as she was still on her way back from the Black Sea and had not yet passed Gibraltar.  The other Marie registered in London had foundered, taking at least 10 lives with her. Despite the wreckage and the recovery of so many of her crew the Marie was not officially posted missing by Lloyds until 16th May.

The last crew of the Marie were:

Matthew Cowper, Master
S. Walker, Chief Officer, from Magee Island, Ireland
William Walker, Second Mate
James West, Chief Engineer, from Bootle
John Riley, Second Engineer, from Garston
Thomas Wilson, sailor, from Liverpool
Edward Price, sailor, from Garston
Joseph Davies, sailor, from Widnes
Frank Keefe, fireman, from Liverpool
William Williams, fireman, from Liverpool

Cause of Loss

No one knew why the steamship Marie had disappeared, but one theory from the time was that she had hit a rock and sunk. A search through the archives failed to find an account from a survivor and no survivor is mentioned in the press that covered the story for days so I expect that she went down with all hands.

A collision at sea that flooded the ship may have been the cause and at the time it was suggested that the Marie had hit an abandoned ship.  The Devonport-based Royal Navy steam tug HMS Traveller had been tasked with finding a derelict ship reported off the Isles of Scilly a few days earlier.  On 30th April a ship had passed the abandoned barque Birgitte of Grimstad, found floating 100 miles west of Scilly with just her foremast standing, and her foreyard cockbilled and yard arm down indicating a ship in distress.  Commander Cathie left for Scilly in HMS Traveller to search for the derelict vessel, but he returned to Devonport on 1st May empty-handed, after having taken shelter in port in Ireland during the storm that sank the Marie.  Later, the dismasted and waterlogged Birgitte was towed into Queenstown by a Liverpool steam tug, her cargo of timber had kept her afloat even though her hull was full of water.

The iron ship had gone down in the storm, but the loss was not immediate because the crew had time to don their lifebelts and there had been time to lash one of the crew to a plank. There is no account of another shipping loss so it is unlikely the sinking was caused by a collision, and an iron built hull would likely withstand hitting floating wreckage at sea. Another possibility is that the heavy cargo of round flint shifted in the rough seas causing the vessel to list, she then took on too much water which overwhelmed the pumps. Divers report that the ship is upright on the bottom but boiler on the ship has exploded; this can happen if the boiler runs out of water or sometimes happens when cold seawater hits the hot boiler, either way this suggests the boiler was still under pressure when the boat sank, again hinting that the disaster happened quickly. We may never know why the Marie sank but a careful investigation of her remains on the seabed may provide more clues. 

Location and Access

The remains of this three-masted steamship were found by divers from In Deep Dive Centre in 2023.

The location of this wreck has not been published.

Last updated 07 June 2023