- 04/08/2025
Documentary, BBC Shipwrecks- Britain's Sunken History Part: 2
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#BritainSunkenHistory #Shipwrecks #History #Documentary
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00:00If you had to choose just one image that explained how deep and visceral the fear
00:24of shipwreck was for our ancestors, then it would have to be this giant canvas.
00:30Because it explains that the fear of shipwreck was not just the fear of the sea, the fear
00:37of drowning.
00:39It was the terror of the forces of brutality that would be unleashed when the ordered world
00:44of a ship was turned on its head by disaster.
00:52This painting by Jericho captures the chaos, murder and cannibalism that followed a real
00:58shipwreck.
01:00It came to encapsulate all the anxieties that had built up in Georgian Britain about wreckings
01:06at sea.
01:11In the 18th century, maritime trade was central to Britain's economic advance and helped shape
01:18a sense of national identity.
01:21Out on the high seas, a ship flying the British flag was a microcosm of the Georgian state itself.
01:28Ordered, hierarchical and by modern standards, cruel.
01:33Everyone on board was drilled to know their place.
01:37But this was a world that could be turned on its head in an instant if shipwreck struck.
01:47Unleashing not just terror, but the anarchy of bloody mutiny, the violence of slave rebellion,
01:55and the fear of gangs of murderous scavengers.
02:01The shipwreck jeopardised the vast fortunes accumulated by the merchant class.
02:07And its high drama became deeply rooted in our culture.
02:11Creating heroes and villains who inspired a powerful art and literature all of its own.
02:21This is the story of how the shipwreck threatened not only life at sea, but the Georgian state itself.
02:41The Isles of Scilly.
02:44A mass shipwreck here, as the 18th century began, would show just how vital the great
02:50ocean-going ship was to Britain's ambitions for wealth and conquest.
02:58In October 1707, a British naval fleet was returning from fighting the Spanish at the
03:03siege of Toulon.
03:05They reached home waters off the Scilly Islands after a perfectly routine voyage.
03:09What happened next changed the history of navigation and sent shockwaves through British society.
03:22Twenty-one ships, led by the highly regarded Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovel, were plotting a
03:29course for Portsmouth when, in the dead of night, they unexpectedly hit the rocky waters that
03:35surround the Isles of Scilly.
03:44Although only 28 miles off the British coast, the Scilly Isles were inaccurately charted and
03:51notoriously treacherous.
03:53I'm getting a boat out to trace the route followed by Admiral Shovel's fleet.
04:03On the 22nd of October 1707, Admiral Shovel thought he was safely out to sea to the south-west
04:10of the Isles of Scilly.
04:11In fact, he was here, thick amongst the rocks at the mouth of the Broad Sound Passage.
04:17It's like being in a sailor's nightmare.
04:20There are jagged rocks, tides swirl around them.
04:24In the total darkness of night, the fleet mistakenly believed they were safely out to sea in the
04:33English Channel, and they would have been oblivious to the perils of these rocks.
04:39On the right flank of the fleet, Admiral Shovel's flagship, HMS Association, was the first to
04:44get into trouble.
04:45And she foundered here, on the Gillstone Ledges.
04:54She fired two guns as a warning, but it was too late, and two other ships, the Romney and
04:59the Eagle, foundered over there, on the rocks in the distance.
05:07In a period thought to be no more than 20 minutes, these three ships went under, taking with them
05:14over a thousand men.
05:20A fourth ship, the Firebrand, also struck these ledges.
05:24But her captain, Francis Piercy, guided her to the island of St Agnes, just over those
05:29rocks, when she sank with all but twelve of her crew.
05:36Had Admiral Shovel's convoy been just a few miles south, they would have missed these rocks
05:42entirely.
05:45Almost 1,500 men died that night, just in this small stretch of water.
05:52One of the reasons that the death toll was so high is that the rest of the fleet just carried
05:57on sailing, oblivious to the disaster that was unfolding on these rocks.
06:02It has an eerie feel to it here.
06:06This is a mass maritime graveyard.
06:13What did for Shovel and his captains was their inability to accurately calculate longitude,
06:20their east-west position at sea.
06:23The disaster highlighted a problem facing all British ships at the time.
06:29It was this potentially lethal challenge to lucrative global trading which terrified Britain, as much
06:36as the loss of over a thousand sailors.
06:41The following morning, the islanders woke up to a grotesque scene.
06:45All that remained of the ships was flotsam and jetsam floating on the waves.
06:49But literally hundreds of bodies, battered and bruised by the sea, were washed up on the
06:55three main islands.
06:56Atresco, St Agnes, and here on St Mary's.
07:03What was one of the largest maritime losses in British history quickly became part of the
07:09folklore of these islands.
07:13This is Port Helic Beach on St Mary's, and it was here that Admiral Shovel's body was found.
07:20But a colourful local legend tells a different story.
07:23According to that version of events, Shovel actually survived the wreck of the association
07:28and made it here, together with two of his stepsons and his favourite dog, a greyhound.
07:34But once he got here, he was murdered by a local woman who cut off his finger to steal
07:40his precious emerald ring.
07:47The Isles of Scilly Disaster exposed not only Britain's rudimentary grasp of maritime
07:53navigation, but also just how disposable sailors' lives were on the great sailing ships.
08:00Even in death, the rigid class divisions of 18th century society were enforced.
08:07The navy did not recover the bodies of the hundreds of drowned sailors, but, at great cost,
08:13they retrieved Admiral Shovel's remains from Port Helic Beach.
08:19An aristocrat and a member of the ruling class, Admiral Shovel was given a lavish burial ceremony
08:25in Westminster Abbey, and they've even erected a monument to him here on Port Helic Beach.
08:31But hundreds of other sailors died alongside him, and their bodies were also washed ashore
08:37here.
08:39Members of the Georgian underclass, those men were simply thrown into mass graves.
08:44There's no monument to them.
08:51A brutal logic was at work.
08:52Britain's elite was prepared to sacrifice the lives of ordinary sailors, if that's what
08:58it took to secure new international trade routes.
09:02Yet the loss of four ships here showed how this global expansion could be threatened.
09:09Long news of the disaster finally reached the Admiralty in London.
09:12There was mourning for the loss of their favourite admiral, but there was also panic.
09:16This disaster threatened their ambitions for an empire based on maritime supremacy.
09:22And until they solved the problems of longitude, those ambitions lay in ruins.
09:28The response was swift.
09:31The country's merchants and seamen presented a petition to Parliament demanding a solution.
09:37And in 1714, the Longitude Act was passed as a direct result of the tragedy on the Isles
09:44of Scilly.
09:46It offered a monetary prize to whoever could solve the mystery of longitude.
09:53And the answer came in the form of the marine chronometer.
09:59This is a marine chronometer, invented by an Englishman, John Harrison.
10:04A chronometer is essentially a clock that is not disturbed by the motion of the sea.
10:09By setting its time to that of Greenwich in London, a sailor can calculate his east-west
10:14position anywhere in the world.
10:17It had revolutionised maritime navigation, and gave Britain the ability to safely expand
10:22its empire overseas.
10:28Armed with this confidence, Britain would start to aggressively expand its empire.
10:36And at the forefront of this endeavour was the Great Sailing Ship, which became central to
10:42the British identity in the Georgian period.
10:46The Georgian world is built on trade, global trade, and the ships are the great vehicles
10:50that go out and gather that trade.
10:53This is a period where actually ships aren't just sort of emblems of the nation.
10:57They really are, if you like, the engines of Georgian wealth, of Georgian power, of Georgian
11:02empire.
11:07Britain's wealth and ambition relied on its powerful naval fleet.
11:14And these ships, like the famous HMS Victory, were a microcosm of Georgian society.
11:24The physical divisions on board replicating its highly ordered and hierarchical structure.
11:34Imagine being at sea, hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles away from Britain.
11:39A long way from home shores, yes.
11:41But if you go below these decks, you get a real sense that you were never far from the
11:45Georgian state, where every man knew his duty, and where every man knew his place.
11:56This is the admiral's cabin.
11:57It could be in the grandest of Georgian mansions.
12:00Just look at the fixtures and fittings.
12:02Candlesticks, curtain tassels, and these magnificent windows.
12:12And this is the captain's cabin, slightly less regal, but still impressive.
12:19So if the admiral and captain went to sea, living the life of lords of the manor, where
12:24did the sailors live?
12:30Below the grand surroundings of the admiral and captain, these gun decks were the quarters
12:36for the sailors and marines.
12:37This is incredible.
12:40At least 250 sailors and marines would have lived, eaten, and fought on a deck like this.
12:48And their only access to fresh air and light, if they were lucky enough to live on a deck
12:52above the waterline, was through a port like this.
12:56Dark, stuffy rank.
13:00This place would have been really grim.
13:04You could have left the tiny village hamlet, or in a city slum you called home.
13:08But in a way, you never really left Britain.
13:11It's all so ordered and organised.
13:13And what really worried the Georgians was that if a ship like this was wrecked, this whole
13:19world was turned upside down.
13:28And in 1741, these fears were realised when the wrecking of one British ship sparked its
13:35crew to launch a violent mutiny.
13:38This shipwreck would bring about a change in British maritime law.
13:43HMS Wager was part of a naval fleet that was sailing round the tip of South America.
13:51She became cut off from the rest of the convoy.
13:54And the extraordinary events that followed were documented by a sailor, John Bolkley, who
14:00would lead the uprising.
14:04Separated from the rest of the squadron and surrounded by nothing but ocean, the wager
14:10was in serious trouble.
14:13Morale under Captain Cheep had plummeted, and her crew was ravaged by disease.
14:19In fact, so many sailors were ill that they were barely able to man the yards.
14:24And then in the early hours of the morning, disaster struck.
14:28The wager hit rocks off the coast of Chile and immediately began taking on water.
14:38Three thousand miles from home, and with no back-up, Captain Cheep and his officers had
14:44no way of maintaining order.
14:46John Bolkley recorded that as soon as the wager hit rocks, anarchy broke out.
14:54They fell into the most violent outrage and disorder.
14:58They began with broaching the wine in the Lazzaretto, then breaking open cabins and chests, arming
15:04themselves with swords and pistols, threatening to murder those who should oppose or question
15:09them.
15:11They clothed themselves in the richest apparel they could find, and imagined themselves
15:16Lords Paramount.
15:21Eventually all the crew managed to make it ashore, and they began salvaging parts to build
15:26a makeshift boat to take them home.
15:30The captain directed his officers to make a camp on the beach.
15:34But outnumbered by the men, they now feared for their own lives.
15:40Sat on the beach, huddled around a campfire, Captain Cheep and his officers knew that they
15:45now faced different rules.
15:48Admiralty Law stated that when a ship was wrecked, the sailors stopped getting paid, which meant
15:54that inevitably discipline broke down.
15:58I heard Mr Cousins use very unbecoming language to the captain, telling him, by God, you are
16:07a rogue and a fool.
16:11The Admiralty still expected the men to follow the captain's orders, even after a ship was
16:16wrecked.
16:18But the crew of the wager interpreted things differently.
16:23Without pay, they believed they were no longer subject to naval authority and discipline.
16:30Drunken scuffles and fights broke out.
16:32Captain Cheep tried to stop one sailor stealing from the rum rations.
16:37The man resisted.
16:38So at point-blank range, the captain shot him dead.
16:45Everyone was armed, everyone was hungry, and they were thousands of miles away from home.
16:51Bulkeley presented a letter to Captain Cheep, asking for permission for the men to sail their
16:56makeshift boat via the Straits of Magellan to the British Caribbean.
17:02Bulkeley and the majority of the men left in their improvised boat, leaving the captain
17:08and officers to find an alternative passage home.
17:12As they departed the beach, Bulkeley assumed that he would never see Captain Cheep again.
17:21It took Bulkeley's contingent over a year to reach home.
17:25And over half of the men died on the journey.
17:29Within weeks of arriving in London, Bulkeley published his account of the mutiny and won
17:33the support of the public for leading the rebellion against a murderous captain.
17:40That however, was not the end of the story.
17:43A year later, something unexpected happened.
17:47Captain Cheep arrived home with his own version of events.
17:52When Captain Cheep finally returned home and recounted his version of the mutiny, John Bulkeley
17:58was arrested and a court-martial was convened.
18:02But the Admiralty were aware of public opinion, so they cut a deal.
18:06Neither Bulkeley nor any of the men were charged.
18:09And Captain Cheep, whose poor leadership had sparked off the mutiny in the first place and
18:14who, in full view of his crew, had shot one of his men in the face, was promoted.
18:25Fearful of such chaos happening again, Parliament stepped in.
18:29A new law was devised and it agreed with the mutineers about what had been the real issue in the case of the wager.
18:39This is an Act of Parliament passed in 1747, held here in the Parliamentary Archives.
18:47After this legislation was passed, if a British naval vessel was wrecked anywhere in the world,
18:53its crew would continue to get paid and that meant that the men would remain subject to military discipline.
19:02The Georgians' strategy for a rich trading empire demanded that order and discipline at sea be maintained.
19:09Within five years of the passing of this Act, Britain's ships were embroiled in the first ever truly global conflict.
19:23The Seven Years' War saw the country fight France and other European rivals
19:29for control of vital shipping routes and key colonies.
19:39By the early 1760s, Britain had emerged as the undisputed master of the seas
19:46and was exploiting this to huge financial gain.
19:49The economic value of maritime trade was also beginning to shape attitudes to shipwrecks.
20:04There was one particularly profitable enterprise which made ports like Bristol amongst the most
20:10wealthy and influential cities in Georgian Britain.
20:15But one that also posed a unique challenge if its ships were wrecked.
20:24Ports like this were the starting point of a triangular trade in which slaves were bought in West Africa.
20:31They were sold to British plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas.
20:35And then the ships returned here, carrying sugar.
20:39A key part of that trade notoriously became known as the Middle Passage,
20:44a dangerous transatlantic voyage when the ships were packed with a human cargo.
20:51These slave ships would carry up to 500 men, women and children,
20:57shackled and manacled in the hold,
20:59with little food, water or even enough air to breathe.
21:05This was a gruesome trade, with the slavers placing only a monetary value on their human cargo.
21:12They were prepared to accept an average of 10% of their slaves dying on the transatlantic journey.
21:20But what would be the reaction if one of these ships were wrecked?
21:24Dozens of slave ships were wrecked in this period, but we hardly know anything about them at all.
21:32And yet, here in Bristol, one eyewitness account does survive and it gives a chilling insight
21:38into what the Georgians thought about their slaves and into what it would have been like to have been wrecked on a slaver.
21:45It concerns a slave ship called the Phoenix and is held within walking distance of the Bristol harbour where many of these ships departed.
21:59This is Felix Farley's Journal, a Bristol newspaper that was published on the 8th of January 1763.
22:06It records how one ship, the Phoenix, bound from Africa to sugar plantations in Virginia,
22:12got into trouble and began to take on water.
22:15They took on so much water that the white crew were forced to release the slaves from their irons
22:22to get them to help at the pumps.
22:26The Phoenix, from Africa to Virginia, with 332 slaves, founded on the 30th of October.
22:34They were under a necessity of letting all their slaves out of irons to assist in pumping and bailing,
22:40who, having no sustenance of any kind for 48 hours except a dram, made them very sullen and unruly,
22:49upon which they put half of the strongest of the slaves in irons,
22:53some of whom got their irons off and attempted to break the gratings.
22:58The seamen, not daring to go down the hole to clear their pumps,
23:01were obliged for the preservation of their own lives to kill 50 of the stoutest of them.
23:10It is impossible to describe the misery the poor slaves underwent,
23:16having had no fresh water for five days.
23:20Four of them died and one drowned herself in the hold.
23:24The seamen were quite worn out, many of them in despair,
23:28three having dropped down dead at the pump with fatigue and thirst.
23:33There were ten days in this terrible situation, expecting the ship hourly to sink,
23:39the water in the hold continually increasing, when they met with the King George.
23:45The captain, who with much difficulty saved the lives of the white people,
23:50the boat being scarce able to live in the sea.
23:5436 of the crew were taken up by the King George of Londonderry.
23:59The slaves were all drowned.
24:13What's so striking about this account is the utter lack of compassion displayed
24:19towards the lives of the slaves.
24:22When they realise they're in trouble, the white crew release some of the slaves
24:26to get them to help with the pumping and with the bailing.
24:30But then, when there's no hope, they either kill them or put them back in their chains,
24:36back down in the hold, where the water is constantly rising.
24:41It's absolutely terrifying.
24:45To the Georgian merchant elite, the African men, women and children on board were shockingly dispensable.
24:53They would see the loss of a slave ship as a terrible financial catastrophe for them,
24:58and it depends how many other ships that they owned, how seriously they would take it.
25:02But it was risky, and when your ship comes in, you're okay,
25:05but if it doesn't and you can't pay your debts, your credit can be ruined and credit is all important.
25:10So they'd see it primarily in terms of a credit transaction.
25:14And you just don't get any sense of the humanity of the slaves.
25:18You get the sense of that they are worth certain amounts.
25:21They're listed as commodities, and it's that progressive dehumanisation that's marginalised.
25:26It makes it seem almost irrelevant or indulgent to talk about them as people when you have that kind of focus.
25:3220 years after the phoenix was wrecked, the crew of another slave ship, the Zong,
25:39threw more than 100 slaves overboard to make an insurance claim.
25:45This infamous incident was a cause celebre for the abolitionist movement that challenged the slave trade.
25:52And the artist Turner painted this bleak event.
25:55For the 17th and most of the 18th century, the British were completely unselfconscious and
26:03unrelenting about the exploitation of African labour.
26:06They just saw it as a means to this unprecedented access to wealth.
26:11The casual disregard for life that seemed to characterise the Georgian pursuit of wealth
26:17went hand in hand with a hard-nosed strategy of colonial expansion.
26:21British interests took control of the Caribbean island of Jamaica, which would prove to be an economic powerhouse.
26:30And the East India Company, which had begun the colonial scramble in the age of Elizabeth,
26:36was at the forefront of running other key outposts, such as Madras and Calcutta.
26:44The building blocks of what would become the British Empire.
26:47These colonies were exciting, bustling places where fortunes could be made.
26:59And by the second half of the 18th century,
27:02the officers and gentlemen running them were relocating their families there too.
27:06But there was disquiet in some quarters of Georgian society about upper-class women and children
27:19mixing with other races.
27:23And in August 1782, the sinking of one East India ship, the Grosvilla, off the coast of South Africa,
27:31would be the most powerful example yet of how a shipwreck could turn the world of order and privilege upside down.
27:43This wonderful painting captures all of the elements which made the Wreck of the Grosvenor such a compelling story,
27:50one that played on the insecurities of late Georgian society.
27:55Carefully placed at the front of the painting are women and children finely dressed to depict their high social standing,
28:02but they're clinging to the uncharted rocks of a foreign and hostile shore.
28:08It underlined the unease that people were feeling about women and children travelling to Britain's new colonies.
28:15Now, the shipwreck was threatening not only soldiers and sailors, but the family itself.
28:21Returning to London from Madras, the Grosvenor was carrying 105 crew and 35 wealthy passengers,
28:32including women and children.
28:36In the middle of the night, the Grosvenor blindly hit rocks.
28:40In the darkness and confusion, the crew believed they had hit a reef in the middle of the ocean.
28:46And yet, when the sun rose the next morning, the crew of the Grosvenor discovered that they weren't on a reef 300 miles away from land.
28:56They'd collided with rocks off the very coast of Africa itself.
29:00Their captain's navigation had been hopelessly inaccurate, and they were just a few hundred yards from shore.
29:06But with these rough seas, it still seemed very unlikely that many of the crew would even be able to make it to land.
29:12With the swell crashing against the rocks, two of the men managed to swim ashore with some rope, and they made a makeshift winch.
29:28A number of men were lost in the scramble, but, miraculously, the majority made it to safety.
29:35Of a total complement of 140, 125 had survived the shipwreck, 91 crewmen, along with all of the passengers.
29:45But cast away on a little-known and poorly charted shore, they had no real idea of exactly where they were.
29:52And the only supplies that they could get were those that they could salvage from the beach.
29:58The story that unfolded would both fascinate and shock Georgian Britain.
30:05Marooned on an African shore, the survivors of the Grosvenor had three options.
30:18Their first was to stay on the beach, make a camp, barter with the local Africans, and send a party of the fittest men to get help.
30:25Their second option was to salvage timber from the wreck itself, build a makeshift raft, and sail it to the nearest port.
30:32The third option was for the men, the women, the children, the sick, the lame, those who had been injured in the wreck itself,
30:38to gather together en masse and to set off on a great trek to the Dutch settlement at the Cape.
30:44They chose to leave the beach and walk through some 400 miles of the most difficult and uncharted terrain in southern Africa.
30:57What hurried their decision to leave was the presence on the beach of the Pondo,
31:03the local tribe who had gathered to watch events unfold with great curiosity.
31:08The Pondo were clearly seeing the wreck as a great resource.
31:14This was a treasure trove.
31:15It had brought metal in all sorts of forms ashore.
31:18And once there has been a movement by the castaways to move away,
31:23the policy is an opportunity to seize further resources from those as they're departing.
31:28They come amongst them, they plunder them, they take their possessions,
31:32and what had supposedly started as an orderly march down the coast
31:36very quickly disintegrates into a sort of panicked flight.
31:44Faced with an arduous march to safety,
31:47the officers and wealthy passengers knew that their privilege and position on board the East India ship
31:53mattered little now that the Grosvenilean ruins.
31:58The hardships of the march of the Grosvenile survivors
32:02inverted the traditional hierarchies of Georgian society.
32:06The wealth of the rich gentleman passengers suddenly counted for nothing,
32:11and they and the women and children found themselves reliant upon the sailors,
32:16young, fit men in their teens and twenties,
32:18who, under normal circumstances, they would hardly have deigned to speak to.
32:23Youth and fitness suddenly mattered more than wealth, class or status.
32:29The survivors, who had set off together, confident that the cape was within reach,
32:45now began to lose heart and to fragment into smaller and smaller groups.
32:50The young and the strong abandoned the sick and the weak,
32:53and those who were unable to carry on simply left where they fell.
32:57Of the 140 men, women and children who had boarded the Grosvenilean in India,
33:12only 18 survived.
33:14The uncertain fate of white, upper-class women in an unforgiving and remote corner of Africa
33:25was bound to hit a nerve back in Britain.
33:31For years, the Georgians had justified the slave trade
33:34on the grounds that those trafficked were little more than savages.
33:38Now, rumours began circulating
33:44that some of these well-born ladies from the Grosvenor
33:47may have fallen into the hands of these so-called savages.
33:52One of the elements of the story that makes it so fascinating
33:55for the contemporary population
33:56is the sort of myths that circulate around it
33:58of white women being sort of dragged into slavery,
34:02dragged into sort of marriage or concubinage in local black tribes.
34:06And this clearly sort of titillates the late 18th-century imagination,
34:09but it also appalls that sort of late 18th-century imperial sensibility.
34:13This is not the way it's supposed to be.
34:15It's supposed to be sort of white people ordering black natives,
34:18not the other way around.
34:20In response to continuing stories
34:22that a number of the women had indeed survived,
34:26an expedition was launched from the settlement at the Cape.
34:30Well, the expedition proceeds,
34:32and they get to a point
34:33where they find themselves amongst a tribe
34:37amongst who it's quite noticeable
34:39they're children of mixed race.
34:41And they also find amongst this tribal group
34:45three white women.
34:47And as they come, a cry goes up,
34:50our fathers are coming.
34:51I would say that one of the three women
34:55did stay, did survive, did assimilate with the pondo,
35:00and that that was Lydia Logie,
35:02the youngest of the ladies of gentry.
35:06I think also there were two children,
35:09two girls, who likewise had been eight or nine
35:13at the time of the shipwreck.
35:15Eleanor Dennis was one of them,
35:19who too was taken in by the local people
35:21and who, in effect,
35:24assimilated themselves amongst the people as well,
35:27became Africans.
35:31At a time when the country
35:33was confidently striking out into new territories,
35:37the wreck of the Grosvenor exposed the anxieties
35:39that Georgian Britain had
35:41about the indigenous peoples they sought to conquer.
35:49Only two years earlier,
35:52Captain Cook,
35:52a hero of maritime conquest and exploration,
35:56had been killed
35:57in Hawaii.
35:59And the shipwreck was also a threat
36:10nearer to home.
36:15The powerfully influential merchant classes
36:18were alarmed to hear
36:20that off the West Country coastline,
36:23ships which had been wrecked
36:24were then being plundered for goods
36:27by local gangs.
36:29This practice became known as wrecking.
36:49I've come to the north coast of Cornwall.
36:53In the 18th century,
36:55small rural communities
36:56like this village of Morwenstow
36:58had their own maritime traditions
37:01which embraced the custom
37:03of stealing from shipwrecks.
37:07It was a different world
37:08in these isolated and rural communities
37:11where there was a culture of living off the sea
37:13as much as there was one of living off the land.
37:17Salvaging from shipwrecks
37:18was very much a part of that,
37:20an activity that was affectionately known
37:22as harvesting the sea.
37:25In fact, locals would ask the question,
37:27what do you do
37:28if you find someone washed up on a beach
37:30apparently dead?
37:32And their answer would be,
37:34you rifle his pockets for money.
37:38The shipping magnets complained
37:40that even Cornwall's religious and moral leaders
37:43seemed to condone wrecking.
37:45And the most famous of these
37:47served here in the parish of Morwenstow.
37:51The Reverend R.S. Hawker
37:53certainly chronicled the local practice of wrecking.
37:57He recorded the activities of his flock
37:59in their harvesting of the sea.
38:02And his writings have added to the folklore
38:06about the people
38:07who became known as wreckers.
38:14So stern and pitiless is this iron-bound coast
38:18that within the memory of one man
38:20upwards of 80 wrecks have been counted
38:23within a reach of 15 miles.
38:27With only here and there the rescue of a living man.
38:30My people were a mixed multitude
38:33of smugglers, wreckers
38:34and dissenters of various hue.
38:39Hawker was a very sensitive individual
38:41and apparently he had a history
38:44of trying to find huts or places
38:47to kind of hide away
38:48to contemplate his religion
38:49and contemplate his life.
38:51And that's what he did
38:52when he finally came to Morwenstow.
38:54He had built actually a series of huts.
38:57This is known as Hawker's Hut.
38:59It was built by the reverend himself
39:01originally from the remains of ships
39:04wrecked off the coast.
39:07Hawker used to come here
39:08and smoke opium
39:09while surveying these stunning views
39:11and writing poetry and prose
39:14about the wrecking culture of his parish.
39:17Hawker gives us a unique insight
39:20into the prevalence of wrecking
39:22and the experiences of those involved.
39:25We gathered together one poor fellow
39:29in five parts.
39:30His limbs had been wrenched off
39:32and his body rent.
39:34During our search for his remains
39:36a man came up to me
39:37with something in his hand
39:38inquiring,
39:39Can you tell me, sir,
39:40what is this?
39:42Is it the part of a man?
39:44It was the mangled seaman's heart
39:46and we restored it reverently
39:48to its place
39:49where it had once beat high
39:50with life and courage
39:51with thrilling hope
39:53and sickening fear.
39:56It haunted him.
39:58He had written at one point
40:00that he thought that he heard
40:02the cries of a seaman
40:03with the sound of the wind.
40:05The other part of being in Morrowindstow,
40:10yeah, it's great wrecker tear
40:11to get stuff coming ashore,
40:13but it's also a horrible place to be
40:15when you're dealing
40:16with the shipwreck victims,
40:18particularly because it's very gruesome.
40:21Your shipwreck victims
40:22are very rarely whole.
40:24There are always body parts
40:26coming ashore
40:26or unidentified bits of human flesh
40:29that would come ashore
40:30that they would have to collect.
40:32On a ridge of rock
40:35just left bare
40:36by the falling tide
40:37stood a man,
40:39my own servant.
40:40He had come out
40:41to see my flock of ewes
40:42and had found the awful wreck.
40:45There he stood
40:45with two dead sailors
40:46at his feet
40:47whom he had just drawn
40:48out of the water,
40:50stiff and stark.
40:51And ever and anon
40:52there came up
40:53out of the water
40:54as though stretched out
40:55with life
40:56a human hand and arm.
40:58It was the corpse
40:59of another sailor
41:00drifting out to sea.
41:02Wreckers induced fear
41:15and paranoia
41:16in shipowners
41:17and merchants,
41:19worried that they might
41:20lose precious cargoes.
41:24With great fortunes at stake,
41:27those with shipping interests
41:28eventually flexed
41:30their political muscle.
41:32they successfully
41:33pressurised the government
41:34into passing a new law
41:36that would swiftly
41:37and ruthlessly
41:38prosecute any wrecker
41:40who dared to steal
41:41from a shipwreck.
41:44In 1753,
41:46Parliament bent to the will
41:47of the merchant elite
41:48and passed this act
41:50with a rather wonderful title.
41:53An Act for Enforcing the Laws
41:54Against Persons
41:55Who Shall Steal
41:56or Detain Shipwrecked Goods
41:58and for the Relief of Persons
42:00Suffering Losses Thereby
42:02It's otherwise known
42:04as the Wrecker's Act.
42:05This was an era
42:06of brutal state justice
42:08and this act threatened
42:10anyone who had stolen
42:11so much as a piece of rope
42:13or a plank of wood
42:14from a wrecked ship
42:15with the death penalty.
42:19In 1769,
42:21a Cornishman,
42:22William Pearce,
42:23was hanged in Launceston
42:25for stealing some rope
42:26from a wrecked ship.
42:28This was a very visible
42:29and public warning.
42:33The Wrecker's Act
42:34was part of a wider
42:35political move
42:36to protect the property
42:38and rights
42:38of the merchants
42:39and aristocrats
42:41who ruled Georgian Britain.
42:42A series of punitive laws
42:46were passed
42:47that allowed the state
42:48to publicly execute
42:50its citizens
42:51for a host of petty crimes,
42:53including the theft of goods
42:55worth as little as 12 pence.
42:59In the 18th century,
43:01there was an increasing idea
43:02of property being sacred.
43:05A lot of the legislation
43:06that was passed
43:07was to protect property
43:09and to bring in
43:10the death penalty for it.
43:11and there was something
43:12like 200 statutes
43:13that were actually passed
43:14during this period
43:15and crime historians
43:16called them the Bloody Code
43:17because they required
43:19death by hanging
43:20and the Wreck Act
43:21was one of those.
43:27A clause in the 1753 Act
43:30contained a highly
43:32contentious provision
43:33provoked by allegations
43:36that Cornishmen,
43:38not satisfied with stealing
43:39from shipwrecks,
43:40were employing nefarious methods
43:43to deliberately lure ships
43:45onto the rocks
43:46to be wrecked
43:47and then plundered.
43:50But what was the evidence
43:52for this?
43:54Nobody has ever been convicted
43:57of wrecking using false lights.
44:00So that particular clause
44:01has never been actually used
44:03in a court of law.
44:04The rumours of wreckers
44:08employing false lights
44:09was an indication
44:11of just how panicked
44:12the merchants were
44:13about losing ships
44:15and their valuable cargos.
44:19Coming here to Morwenstow,
44:21I get a real sense
44:22of two worlds colliding
44:24over the shipwreckers
44:25and event.
44:26I think that the merchants' fear
44:29about wrecking
44:29had nothing to do
44:31with accusations
44:32of locals murdering sailors,
44:33but everything to do
44:35with losing goods
44:36and property.
44:38In this era
44:39of expanding global trade,
44:41the story of wreckers
44:43simply added to the fear
44:44that already surrounded shipwrecks.
44:46And as the last decades
44:51of the 18th century approached,
44:54this agonising
44:55over the fate
44:56of stricken vessels
44:57because of the financial value
44:59of the goods they carried
45:00showed no sign
45:02of easing off.
45:04But then, in 1786,
45:07the most extraordinary
45:09shipwreck story of the era
45:10forced the wealthy elite
45:12to reconsider their prejudices
45:14about isolated
45:15coastal communities.
45:16I've come to Werthma Travers
45:22on the Jurassic Coast
45:23in Dorset.
45:24It's a picture postcard place now,
45:27but 200 years ago,
45:28it was just another remote village
45:30where people scraped a living,
45:32farming or working
45:34in the local quarries.
45:37But one night,
45:39the people of this place
45:40took part in the most remarkable
45:42rescue of survivors
45:44from a shipwreck.
45:44just after midnight
45:47on the 6th of January, 1786,
45:50a full-rigged ship,
45:52the Hallswell,
45:52was caught in a snowstorm
45:54that engulfed this coast.
45:56The waves were breaking
45:57on these rock ledges
45:58with such ferocity
46:00that the spray reached
46:01the tops of the cliffs.
46:02and the Hallswell
46:07was blown onto the rocks
46:08behind me.
46:14The Hallswell
46:15was owned by the East India Company
46:17and only a week before
46:18had left Portsmouth
46:20bound for Madras.
46:22The experienced skipper,
46:24Captain Pearce,
46:24was accompanied by his two daughters
46:27who were due to be married
46:28in India.
46:30The ship's masts
46:31smashed against those cliffs
46:34and the Hallswell
46:35began to break up.
46:38As the captain
46:40and his daughters
46:40retreated to the supposed
46:42safety of his cabin,
46:44the soldiers and sailors
46:45on board
46:45attempted to get
46:46onto the rocks
46:47on the shore
46:48and the storm
46:49raged around them.
46:54While dozens of sailors
46:56tried to cling to the rocks,
46:58a few made it
46:59into a small cavern
47:00to see what shelter
47:02they could from the storm.
47:04But listening,
47:05as many of their comrades
47:06slipped
47:07and fell to their deaths.
47:14With the sailors
47:15desperately holding
47:16onto the rocks,
47:18the wreck of the Hallswell
47:19sank quickly,
47:20taking with her
47:21the captain,
47:22his daughters
47:23and all the other passengers.
47:33Incredibly,
47:34two men,
47:35the ship's cook
47:35and the quartermaster,
47:37made it to the top
47:38of these cliffs
47:38and they ran over there
47:40to Eastington Farm
47:41to raise the alarm.
47:43By lucky chance,
47:44the farmer,
47:45a Mr Garland,
47:46was also the owner
47:47of the nearby
47:48Purrbeck quarry.
47:49So he and his workmen
47:50gathered ropes
47:51and ladders
47:52from the quarry
47:52and rushed to the cliffs
47:54to help the sailors up.
47:56Back at the farm,
47:57Mr Garland's wife,
47:58Betty,
47:59gave the rescued sailors
48:00hot soup
48:00and dry clothes.
48:02eventually,
48:04eventually,
48:0874 sailors
48:10were hauled to safety
48:11up these terrifying cliffs.
48:14The people of Worth,
48:15Matravers,
48:15had rejected the fears
48:17of the merchant elite
48:18about wreckers stealing cargo
48:20and murdering sailors.
48:22Instead,
48:23the shipwreck
48:24became a celebrated part
48:25of local folklore.
48:26Charlie Newman
48:31runs the Square
48:32and Compass pub
48:33in Worth,
48:33Matravers.
48:35A keen local historian,
48:36his family
48:37has lived in the village
48:38for generations.
48:41What did the East India Company
48:43make of the people
48:44of Worth,
48:45Matravers,
48:45who'd helped out
48:46the shipwrecked sailors?
48:48Well,
48:48there was a reward
48:50that I've got a couple
48:51of coins here
48:52that were given
48:53to my father
48:54by one of the local quarrymen
48:56and it was
48:57a hundred guinea reward
48:58to the local quarrymen
49:00for assisting
49:00in the rescue
49:01of the survivors
49:03from the Horswell.
49:04Also,
49:05the owner of the farm
49:06also received
49:07a tea set,
49:08I think,
49:08from the East Inderman Company
49:10as, again,
49:12as a thank you
49:13for the rescue
49:14and looking after
49:15the survivors.
49:17What else
49:18have we got here?
49:19The boat
49:20had a lot of
49:21furniture on board,
49:22so we've got
49:23various furniture
49:24fittings,
49:25sort of drawer handles,
49:27there's a nice
49:28caster here
49:29when the leather
49:30is still surviving.
49:32This is a pewter spoon
49:33which is
49:34just about survived,
49:36but it's very corroded.
49:38Obviously,
49:38the salt tends
49:39to attack these things.
49:40It's interesting
49:41that a lot of the sailors
49:41survived.
49:43Well,
49:43exactly.
49:43I mean,
49:43they were,
49:44you know,
49:44strong and fit,
49:45able sort of men
49:46and the weather conditions
49:48were just so atrocious.
49:49Anybody that was
49:50of a lesser strength,
49:51you know,
49:52I think they were
49:52the ones that perished.
49:54The sinking of the
49:56Hallswell
49:57with the loss
49:58of her captain
49:58and the miraculous
50:00escape of some
50:01of her crew
50:02was a story
50:03that gripped
50:04the imagination
50:05of George III's Britain.
50:07The king himself
50:10visited the site
50:12of the wreck
50:12and later
50:13Turner painted the scene
50:15and Charles Dickens
50:17would write about
50:18the Hallswell
50:18in his story
50:19The Long Voyage.
50:22Here,
50:23at last,
50:24was something good
50:25to come out
50:26of a shipwreck,
50:27a stirring tale
50:28of heroic rescue
50:29and survival.
50:30It encouraged
50:31the British
50:32to feel
50:33that they could
50:33draw on
50:34unique reserves
50:35of courage
50:36and fortitude
50:37in adversity.
50:39This,
50:40it began to be said,
50:41was in stark contrast
50:43to the brutish conduct
50:45of Britain's mortal enemies,
50:47the French.
50:48What Georgians
50:59had in mind
51:00was the scene
51:01depicted
51:01in the most famous
51:03of all shipwreck paintings
51:04by artist
51:06Theodore Jericho,
51:08which is now held
51:08at the Louvre
51:09in Paris.
51:12The Raft
51:13of the Medusa
51:13documents
51:14the real-life
51:15experiences
51:16of the survivors
51:17of a shipwreck.
51:19It captures
51:19the violence,
51:21murder
51:21and worse
51:23that followed.
51:25I thought I knew
51:26this painting,
51:27but when you see it
51:28in the flesh
51:28for the first time,
51:30you notice details
51:31that you hadn't
51:32noticed before.
51:36The canvas is so large,
51:38it's seven metres
51:39by five metres.
51:40You don't really know
51:41where to look first.
51:42It's quite bewildering,
51:43it's quite disorientating.
51:45There's a bloodied axe
51:47here,
51:48and then
51:49just over here
51:50there's
51:50what looks like
51:51a piece of flesh
51:53just floating
51:55in the water.
51:57Now,
51:57Jericho's painted
51:58the exact moment
51:59that they've sighted
52:00the ship
52:00that's going to come
52:01and rescue them.
52:02Now,
52:02that's up here
52:03on the right-hand corner
52:05and it means
52:06and it means that
52:06all of the survivors
52:06have rushed
52:07to one end
52:09of the raft
52:10and they didn't know
52:11at the beginning
52:12whether it was sailing
52:14towards them
52:15or sailing away
52:16and this went on
52:17for two hours.
52:19You get a real sense
52:20of the instability
52:22of their situation
52:24and also the angle
52:26of the raft
52:26is leaning backwards
52:27which means
52:28they're at the crest
52:29of a wave,
52:29a wave's just passing
52:31beneath them.
52:32Now,
52:32the trough of the next wave
52:34is on the right-hand side
52:35with its crest
52:36rising up
52:37to the right-hand side
52:38so what's going to happen
52:38is that the mark,
52:39the whole raft,
52:40is going to,
52:41it's going to tip down
52:42and it's going to vanish
52:43from the horizon
52:44and everyone is
52:46rushing over
52:48apart from this
52:49one man here
52:50who's looking
52:51the other way
52:52and so while some
52:53of these people
52:54were desperate
52:54to get saved
52:55they were desperate
52:55to get off the raft
52:56some of them
52:57were so far gone
52:58that they'd lost
53:00any hope,
53:01any desire
53:02to survive.
53:08The painting was inspired
53:09by the fate
53:10of the Medusa,
53:11a French frigate
53:12which sank
53:13off the coast
53:14of Senegal.
53:15The ship
53:16was evacuated
53:17but there were
53:18not enough spaces
53:19in the rowing boats
53:20so 147 crew
53:23boarded a makeshift raft.
53:26This raft
53:27with no means
53:28of navigating
53:29and few supplies
53:30was then abandoned
53:32by the rowing boats
53:33who quickly made for land
53:35only 30 miles away.
53:39Jericho would base
53:40this painting
53:40on the accounts
53:41of two of the survivors
53:42and these are his
53:44initial drawings
53:45of the scenes
53:46on board the raft.
53:47We were so crowded
53:51that it was impossible
53:52to move a step
53:53and the raft itself
53:55was weighed down
53:55a metre under
53:56the surface
53:57of the water.
53:58We had barrels
53:59of wine
54:00and drinking water
54:01but the little food
54:02we saved
54:02was distributed
54:03and eaten entirely
54:04on the first night
54:05a night of such
54:06horrible blackness.
54:07abandoned by the captain
54:15and senior officers
54:16out of this chaos
54:18erupted murderous anarchy
54:20and surrounded
54:21by the dead
54:22and dying
54:23the survivors resorted
54:25to breaking
54:26one of the great
54:26taboos
54:27of civilised society.
54:32Several of us
54:33fell upon the dead bodies
54:34which covered the raft
54:36and cut off pieces
54:37of flesh
54:37and consumed them.
54:39I ask you not
54:40to condemn those
54:41who are dying
54:42of hunger
54:42on that pitiless sea.
54:44today
54:48we have a
55:14this painting is considered Jericho's masterpiece, and one of the greatest works of French art.
55:20But its current status is at odds with the dismissal it first received when exhibited in France.
55:27What made the painting the legend that it is today is the sensation that it caused when, just a year later, it was exhibited in London.
55:44The huge impact made by the Raft of the Medusa on the British public was down to timing.
55:52It was exhibited only a few years after the triumphal destruction of Napoleon's army at Waterloo.
56:00Its picture of disorder and despair was seen as indisputable evidence that Britain's traditional foes were morally inferior.
56:11The significance of the wreck of the Medusa, and of Jericho's painting, greatly increased for the British because of a British shipwreck.
56:21HMS Alceste, a Royal Naval Frigate, had hit a reef off Java in February 1817.
56:27Like the Medusa, she had run aground, and, like the Medusa, a decision had been taken to build a raft.
56:34But that's where the similarities ended.
56:37After the Alceste was wrecked, the captain organised the safe passage of all the crew to a nearby island.
56:46In the face of great odds, discipline was maintained.
56:51Despite being starved and dehydrated, they even repelled attacks by Malay pirates.
56:59Captain Maxwell was praised for his calm leadership.
57:06And implicit in that praise, of course, was the contrast with the every-man-for-himself cannibalism that had engulfed the French on the Medusa.
57:16For the Georgians, the great sailing ship was an emblem of the state itself.
57:31It had been central to Britain's economic advance, and it had helped to shape a sense of national identity.
57:39But as the Georgian era drew to a close, and hundreds of ships continued to be wrecked every year,
57:46the question had to be asked.
57:49Just how many more lives was Britain prepared to lose out there on the world's oceans?
57:59Next time, the shipwreck in the Victorian age.
58:05How the great engineers and fervent campaigners of the 19th century joined forces.
58:12To save lives, make ships safer, and dream of building the unsinkable ship.
58:22The troops are also on the island of the city.
58:25The journey was saved by the earth, and so it was the very legendary job that the farmers are done on the planet.
58:29They only came to be as long as possible, mostly as ever.
58:32Yes, and they came to be as long as possible, the sea, and all the economically we are still on the planet.
58:37But I would like to be as long as possible.
58:42Yes, that was great.
58:43There were a few of them in the mountains, in the mountains.
Recommended
58:35
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