The Shipwreck 1833
This story begins with an inscription on a gravestone in Brancaster Churchyard.
"Sacred to the memory of Susanna Roche aged 32 years and also to her nephew
Alexander David Roche aged 4 years, who were unfortunately drowned with many others in the
cabin of the Earl of Wemyss, Leith Packet, which was stranded on this coast during the
dreadful gale on September 1st 1833 on its passage from London. Which melancholy
affair has been doubly afflicting for the relatives of the deceased from the fact that no
attempt was ever made to rescue them from their situation, and in continuation of such
inhuman conduct their persons were stripped of every valuable and their property
plundered."
The gravestone is still in Brancaster Church Yard
It was the worst storm in living memory (and there had been some terrible
ones). "The devastation it has caused", reported the Norfolk Chronicle,
"resembled more the effects of a West Indian tornado than a gale of this
climate. On shore, houses are unroofed, chimneys blown down, mills injured, trees
torn up by their roots..."
Hundred of ships were wrecked in the North Sea and Channel. The one
which attracted immediate public attention was the loss of the 200 ton Amphitrate bound
for Botany Bay with 108 women convicts and 12 children on board. The storm drove
her onto the French coast where her captain refused offers of help, keeping the hatches
battened down in case any of his charges tried to escape ashore. The ship broke up
and they were all drowned. "The onlookers evinced no interest in resuscitation
of the still warm bodies, but gave themselves entirely to plunder".
A few days later, the story of the Edinburgh packet The Earl of Wemyss,
stranded off Brancaster during the same storm, appeared alongside the Amphitrate in the
columns of the local and national press. The Earl of Wemyss, on her regular run from
London to Leith (the port for Edinburgh) was slightly larger than the convict ship but
carried only 22 passengers, half of whom were drowned trapped in their cabin, while the
ship's crew led by Captain Nesbitt waded ashore, watched by a large crowd waiting
impatiently for a chance to get aboard the stranded vessel. It was a Sunday and they
looked forward to profitable pickings.
Sixty other ships had been driven onto the Norfolk coast that night;
dozens more foundered in the mountainous seas. Once again, that yawning gulf between
Spurn Head and Yarmouth Roads (which had once claimed over 200 ships) had earned its
dreadful nickname "The Devil's Throat". Two Lynn ships, the Neptune and
the Margaret were lost leaving 33 fatherless children. From Hunstanton and
Snettisham beaches 40 waggon loads of wreckage were removed. At Runton The Regard
from Newcastle was wrecked. "Her captain Henry Leek lost everything. Had
he been less attentive to secure the lives and property of others", commented the
Chronicle, "his personal apparel at least might now be in his possession".
Off Cromer, The Advance from Sunderland was lost. At Sheringham The
Endeavour from South Shields, The William and Anne from Blyth, The Vauclia from Sunderland
and The Friends from Weymouth were all wrecked - but from all these ships not a single
life was lost.
Indeed, at Brancaster, The Earl of Wemyss was only stranded. After
repairs by the Wells shipwrights she was able to sail away.
The local coastguards had spotted The Earl Of Wemyss in difficulties,
drifting towards the shore, on Saturday afternoon. Leading Boatman Henry Green and
his men had kept watch all night, signalling with a lantern and calling to the people
aboard to attempt a landing at low water. They watched waves breaking over the ship
as the storm drove her further up the beach, a little to the west of where the Golf Club
now stands. At ten o'clock the surviving passengers and crew were helped ashore and
taken up to The Ship Inn in the Village where the landlady Mrs. Cutting was ready for
them.
The Ship Inn at Brancaster as it is today
Two other local people took an immediate and important interest in the
fate of the stranded ship. One was the son-in-law of the Lord of the Manor, the
other the local curate.
High on a hill to the south of the village, Law Simms the ageing Lord of
Brancaster Manor was told of the wreck; he sent his son-in-law Newman Reeve to act
as his official representative.
Law Simms knew the coast well and he knew his legal rights: as Lord
of the Manor he was entitled to everything cast up on the shore.
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