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Bessie Arnold | Official Number
58199 |
The schooner Bessie Arnold was built at the Ferguson and Baird
shipyard at Connah's Quay, and was launched in June 1872. She was
registered at Whitehaven
and was owned by the Duddon Shipping Association, effectively the
shipping
fleet of the Hodbarrow Mining Company. Her owners named in Lloyd's
Register and the Mercantile Navy List were all directors of that
company, and the schooner herself was probably named after a daughter
of another director, Harry Arnold. The first master of the Bessie Arnold was Capt.John Dodd, of Connah's Quay, and he retained her command until the 1890's.
The Bessie Arnold would have operated in the typical trades
of the Duddon schooners, taking iron ore from Millom to South Wales and the Clyde,
returning with coal or timber pit props. She would have also operated
in the general coasting trades around the Irish Sea. Since Capt.Dodd
was from Connah's Quay, Dee river cargoes would probably have been
common - bricks, tiles and earthenware from Hawarden, coal from Mostyn,
ore to the steelworks at Shotton.
Capt.John Dodd left the Bessie Arnold in the 1890's and died aboard the Mary Ann Mandall in 1897.
The Bessie Arnold left Millom bound for Glasgow on the 26th December 1908 and was wrecked two days later. The Bessie Arnold, with what appeared to be three men aboard, had stranded in a severe gale at Sliddery, on the Isle of Arran. The James Stevens No.2, the sailing lifeboat based at Campbeltown, was launched under the command of Coxswain George McEachran. The lifeboat approached the wrecked vessel in very severe conditions, and her crew saw that some of the schooner's crew were still aboard. As the lifeboat drew near the Bessie Arnold, a large wave threw the lifeboat onto the schooner's deck. The lifeboat was badly holed, and began to fill rapidly after being washed back into the sea. Unfortunately the schooner's crew had been swept overboard to their deaths, and a lifeboatmen had also been cast into the sea. He was rescued after twenty minutes, the lifeboat then returning to her home station.
The five men lost with the vessel were the master, Capt. John Jones (of 45 Market St., Millom), Walter Austin, Joseph Eager, Michael McMillan (of Kilmory parish, cook) and Thomas Gowan (of 45 Sheriff St., Dublin). The mate survived.
The Times, Tuesday, 29th December 1908, page 10;
" The schooner Bessie Arnold was totally wrecked
yesterday at Sliddery, near Blackwaterfoot, Island of Arran. Four of the
crew were drowned and one was saved by the rocket apparatus. The Campbeltown
lifeboat went to the scene of the wreck, but owing to the position of the
vessel, which lay 40 fathoms from the shore, the lifeboatmen were unable
in the heavy sea to rescue the other members of the crew. Three men were
seen clinging to each other, apparently benumbed. One large wave swept
the lifeboat between the fore and mainmasts of the vessel. The bowman,
Neil Mackenzie, was washed out of the lifeboat and two of the schooner's
men were drowned. Mackenzie had a remarkable escape, being rescued in an
exhausted state by his comrades, after he had been in the water twenty
minutes. The rocket apparatus was by this time working, and rescued the
only survivor of the schooner's crew. The lifeboat had a very rough passage
across Kilbrannan Sound to Campbeltown. Her hull was damaged by contact
with the schooner. "
Coast Guard Henry Oscar Welch was awarded the Sea Gallantry Medal for his participation in
the rescue.
The original figurehead of the Bessie Arnold is now in the Free Church, Kilmory, Isle of Arran, and a replica has been created by Marvin Elliott and has been placed on the graves of the seamen lost in the wreck.
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