Shipping

Records of the activities once undertaken in Kirkcudbright Bay often include references to “shell wherries”. Today the term is a little confusing to most people and requires some explanation. In modern usage, a shell wherry can be a lightweight and very fast, sleek, canoe-like vessel used for exercise, pleasure and racing on ponds, rivers or canals. The more commonly used term of wherry describes a type of vessel peculiar to places such as slow flowing English rivers like the Thames. In that context, a wherry was a lightly built rowing boat, capable of being rowed by one man and carrying up to eight passengers. The much larger wherry utilised on the Norfolk Broads was heavily built and capable of carrying great amounts of cargo. A Norfolk Broads wherry was usually driven by a single sail when the wind was favourable, but being large and not easily manoeuvred, was also controlled at times by a quant pole which could easily reach the bottom of the shallow broads and rivers.

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At the south west end of Kirkcudbright harbour, close to the harbourmaster’s office, a large ‘fisherman pattern’ anchor embedded in cobbles provides a talking point for visitors, and a mini-adventure playground for small children. The extent of its own adventures however may not even be guessed at by most of the people that notice it.
On the West shore of Kirkcudbright bay, a little north of Senwick Churchyard, low spring tides expose the keel and a shattered mass of rusty metal that is almost all that now remains of the schooner Mary B. Mitchell.

The Mary B. Mitchell was a 227 tons gross three-masted tops’l schooner with double tops’ls and topgallants on the foremast. She was built in 1892 by the Paul Rodgers yard at Carrickfergus, for William Preston of Beaumaris. Her accommodation was particularly fine and featured a mahogany and maple panelled saloon, with a terrazzo floor. She was initially employed in the Welsh slate trade, and later carried cargoes of cement. Prior to 1919, she was owned by Lord Penrhyn, and is said to have been used as a yacht in the Mediterranean during the summer, reverting to the slate trade in winter.

In 1916, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty, and fitted out for service as a Q-ship operating from Falmouth under the command of Lieut. John Lawrie R.N.R.. Suitably armed, with a collapsible gun house on her stern, and under many different aliases, she sank one submarine in 1916, and evaded the torpedo of another while under sail. In 1917 she was refitted and an engine was installed after which she engaged a further three submarines, possibly sinking two of them in the Bay of Biscay.
After the war, she returned to the less glamorous role of carrying pit-props, coal, burnt ore, and china clay, but her days of fame were far from over as she featured in two films before the outbreak of the Second World War. The first was The Mystery of the Mary Celeste made in 1935, and the second was McClusky the Sea Rover made in 1936.

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Several of the place names of Galloway are known to be of great antiquity, often generating speculation about their origins, and prompting analysis of the various languages from which they may have been derived. Some of these names have been corrupted, mispronounced or otherwise adapted to suit changing spelling and diction over the centuries, a process which continues but is not always to our liking. A modern habit for example places emphasis on the first syllable of words, rather than on the second or last.  This is noticeable in names such as Dumfries, Stranraer, Auchencairn and Dundrennan. There are of course exceptions, Annan being a good example.  Visitors to the area frequently split Annan into two syllables of equal emphasis, eg Anne-Anne. Change is inevitable, but examples similar to those already mentioned make nonsense of many traditional songs and verses. Songs such as “The Road to Dundee” and “Bonnie Dundee” just do not work unless the emphasis is in the right place! Early maps, and particularly some of the Ordnance Survey maps of the late 19th Century are wonderful sources of information, providing very specific names for major and minor features of the landscape. Often the origins of these early names have been lost and they have fallen out of most people’s vocabulary. Many of these names related to individuals, occupations or incidents of local celebrity, fame or infamy and the names have simply died out with the people to whom they once meant so much. Flint Bay is the modern name of a very attractive indentation which occurs on the north side of Torrs Point on the eastern side of Kirkcudbright Bay, just at the place where the wooded shore gives way to steep and spectacular cliffs peaking at the headland. Almost everyone now uses the name “Flint Bay” and a few may wonder how it got its name and why its stony beach is comprised of such an abundance of flint. The mystery is compounded when study of the older Ordnance Survey maps referred to previously, reveals that the official name of Flint Bay is the Witchwife’s Haven.  Flint does not seem to my untutored eye to be a feature of local geology, though excavations in local caves at Torrs and Borness have yielded some flint artefacts.

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I read with great interest of the history of Solway Lass in the Galloway News and the longer I looked at the photograph of her tied up near Palnackie, the more certain I became that I had seen her before. A brief check provided me with evidence to fill a gap in her long career.
I left Kirkcudbright in 1974, to live and work in Fiji, and was quickly drawn to the waterfront in the capital city of Suva, where a colourful and varied fleet of trading vessels is based. Fiji is a group of several hundred islands, most of which are served by the Government of Fiji’s fleet of locally designed and built ships and a great array of privately owned trading vessels, which carry cargoes and passengers of every kind to some of the most idyllic places in the world. Among these ships were several sailing vessels, and one in particular, called Sundeved caught my eye with her rakish sheerline and minimal deckhouse. She had recently arrived from what were then the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, via Wallis and Fotuna and had begun to trade in Fiji’s waters with an English master/owner and a Fijian crew. Her Danish name of Sundeved was soon painted over and she was given the Fijian name of Lawendua. Lloyds register of shipping for 1968/1969 reveals that Sundeved (register No. 534473) was formerly Bent, and Bent was formerly none other than Solway Lass.

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In an article contributed to the Galloway News in 2010, I described the Barque Rory O’More, which was built in Kirkcudbright in 1842 and at 296 tons was the largest vessel known to have been built in the town. The main purpose of my article however was to accompany the magnificent illustration of a painting of Rory O’More that I had found in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It was then the only illustration I had ever seen of a Kirkcudbright-built ship, apart from a tiny pencil sketch of the schooner Prince of Denmark which was reproduced earlier this year in my book describing the history of that well-travelled little vessel.

Although the painting of Rory O’More is unsigned, Daniel Shackleton, Kirkcudbright’s well known fine art expert quickly suggested that it might have been painted by Joseph Heard, an accomplished marine artist who was based in Liverpool between 1826 and 1857. Last week, I stumbled upon the catalogue of a sale of paintings by Joseph Heard, which took place in Bonhams Auction House in April of this year. Among the items offered for sale was a splendid oil painting of the inwardbound barque John Tomkinson of Liverpool, boarding her pilot in the Formby Channel of the River Mersey in 1840.

At the time of her completion in 1840, the barque John Tomkinson, at 260 tons, was the largest ship known to have been built in Kirkcudbright, and her launching was reported in the Dumfries Times of 29^th September 1840, as follows:

On Saturday forenoon, a splendid new vessel, the John Tomkinson, of about 500 tons burthen was launched from the building yard of Messrs Jenkinson and McEwen. She made a most majestic plunge into her new element, and although the rain fell in torrents, thousands of spectators patiently awaited to witness the imposing and interesting spectacle.

The reporter’s estimate of her tonnage was probably as optimistic as his perception of the size of the crowd that assembled to await the launching, but his account goes some way towards conveying the sense of excitement there must have been in Kirkcudbright and the surrounding area at such a significant event in the town’s maritime history. The launch of Rory O’More only two years later however quickly took away John Tomkinson’s status as the largest vessel built in the town.

John Tomkinson was built for Rimmer and Co of Liverpool and sailed from there on 19^th January 1841, for Batavia and Singapore under the command of Captain Hutchinson. In July 1841 she and six other vessels were dismasted off Canton during a typhoon, but she returned safely to Liverpool, and by 16^th August was bound from Deal to Bombay. In 1843, Lloyd’s register of shipping recorded a change of ownership to that of W. Hay of Sunderland, and a new master, Captain Rhynas. John Tomkinson arrived at Bombay on 29^th January 1843, sailing for China via Singapore on 26^th March. Her cargo is not recorded but she had three passengers, Major Aldri, Captain Gifford and Colin Junor esq. Her ownership had reverted to that of Rimmer and Co., and her former Captain Hutchinson was once more in command.

On 2^nd March 1844 she returned to the United Kingdom, and was reported as arriving off the Downs, from China. In May of 1844 she then sailed for Hobart, Tasmania with government stores and one passenger, arriving safely on 30^th August 1844.

1. Fitzgerald, Tailor and Clothier

begs to inform his customers and the public that he has received, ex John Tomkinson,

a choice and select assortment of spring and summer goods selected to or, and

comprising every description of goods requisite for a large and fashionable business, and will upon inspection be found superior to any hitherto imported. No1 Elizabeth Street, September 13^th 1844

Colonial Times, Hobart 17^th September 1844.

For Valparaiso Direct

The A1 Bark

John Tomkinson

300 tons register, D Hutchinson Commander will sail for the above port on Wed 18^th inst. For freight or passage, apply to Captain Hutchinson on board, or to New Wharf. September 10^th   Askin Morrison

Hobart Town Courier 14^th September 1844

On 24^th September 1844, John Tomkinson sailed for Valparaiso to take on a rather less attractive cargo of guano (bird lime) bound for the British market. Apart from one voyage to the West Indies in1847, carrying equipment for a sugar plantation, she was probably in the guano trade for the rest of her days, and is last recorded in Lloyds Register in 1856.

The fact that both Rory O’More and her near sister ship John Tomkinson were both built in Kirkcudbright and based in Liverpool make it seem highly likely that Daniel Shackleton’s opinion is correct, and that both ships were painted by Joseph Heard. Joseph Heard was born in Egremont in 1799, and after a short stay in London, moved with his brother and fellow artist Isaac, to Liverpool where they shared a studio. Both were well known and highly respected marine artists, but Joseph specialised in Marine paintings whereas Isaac also undertook commissions for portraiture.

It is exciting, not only to have more details of the astonishing careers of vessels built in Kirkcudbright, but also to know that they were vessels of sufficient substance, character and repute to merit marine portraiture by an artist of the calibre of Joseph Heard. The fact that the only three ships built in Kirkcudbright of which there are illustrations, should all be in Tasmania in the mid 19^th century is also strangely impressive, and a testament to the quality of Kirkcudbright’s shipbuilders.

(copyright David R. Collin, October 2013.)

(first appeared in Galloway News)