From Triumph to Tragedy

From Triumph to Tragedy

The Story of the Paddle Steamer Pegasus and her people 1835-1843

Jane Bowen


GBP 12,90

Format: 13.5 x 21.5 cm
Number of Pages: 234
ISBN: 978-3-99107-708-4
Release Date: 23.08.2021

Reading:

Chapter 12
Final Voyage

When the Pegasus left Leith for Hull sometime after five p.m., on Wednesday 19 July 1843, as far as is known, there was aboard a crew of sixteen, forty-one booked passengers (eighteen cabin and twenty-three steerage). Booked passengers collected their tickets from the Company’s office on the quayside. Additional passengers who came on board on the Wednesday afternoon were not recorded. The arrangement was that, once on board, the mate collected the purchased tickets, and money from those without tickets. As a result, there was no definitive list of all those who sailed with the Pegasus that afternoon. One group of late joiners included a small group of soldiers – possibly a Captain O’Neil, a Sergeant Mackay or Munro, and others. They did not have travel warrants and were thought to be men on leave. They attracted attention as the sergeant, who was somewhat drunk, tried to get the captain to agree to provide a cabin place at a steerage fare, for the pregnant wife of another sergeant. When the captain would not agree, Mackay/Munro became obstreperous, and the Company’s clerk was summoned. The group remained on board, but no special arrangements were recorded. It was only the altercation over the cabin which led to their presence on board being noted. How many other late additions there were remains unknown. One group of army recruits arrived at the harbour, only to see the Pegasus sailing out into the Forth.

The ship’s crew were the captain, Alexander Miller; first mate, William Brown; second mate, Thomas Miller, brother of the captain; engineers, William Hood and Alexander Agnew; firemen, Daniel Campbell, William Knaresborough and William McCoombs; sailors, Robert Melville and John (Jack) Johnstone (or Johnson); ship’s apprentice, Andrew Dowie or Dowely; carpenter, George Taylor; ship’s cook, Robert Marshall; and stewards, George Parker and Louisa Howard.

As always on forms of public transport, the passengers came from a wide variety of backgrounds and were on the ship for many different reasons. The most famous by far was Mr William Elton, a celebrated Shakespearean actor, returning south for further engagements, after performing at the Adelphi Theatre, Edinburgh, in Richard III, and Anthony and Cleopatra, as well as other now less well-known plays. Another distinguished passenger was the Reverend John Morell Mackenzie, a lecturer at Glasgow’s Congregational Theological College, who was travelling south to visit his sister and parents, after spending a short holiday at Portobello with his wife. He had deliberately chosen to go by the Pegasus rather than the Martello, to avoid travelling on the Sabbath. Among the rest were:

Thomas Hodgson (26), a young man who had been visiting his parents in Edinburgh, and doubtless celebrating his good fortune, before taking up a new post as Assistant Secretary to the Leeds Mechanics’ Institution and Literary Society.
Two boys off on their holidays, Master Elliott (6), from Dundee, was accompanying his uncle, James, a solicitor, to his home in Rochdale; David Scott (11), the son of a Paisley shawl manufacturer was being taken to London by his old nurse, Mrs Stewart.
A group of young people, travelling back to Lincolnshire – Fanny Flowers (11) was the daughter of the Rector of Tealby, going home for a delayed summer holiday, as she had caught measles and had to remain at Miss Banks’ boarding school in Edinburgh for the first weeks of the holiday; with her was another lady from the boarding school, Isabella Hopton (30), also Fanny’s brother Field (13), who, with a family friend, Maria Barton (26) from nearby Market Rasen, had travelled to Edinburgh to see the sights, visit the school and accompany Fanny home.
Charles Bailey (39), a former sailor and ferryman, on the ship as a companion to Robinson Torry (27), a young draper’s apprentice from Market Rasen, who seems to have suffered some form of breakdown, and had been travelling for his health.
William Primrose (22), a young man, returning from Glasgow, where he had married his pregnant sweetheart. He was now on his way to his employment as a stonemason at Stoke Rochford Hall in Lincolnshire.
Robert Hildyard (23), a sailor, the son of a Curate of Beverley Minster.
William Milne (c.27), the son of the Edinburgh shoemaker to the Queen. William was travelling to London to widen his experience of business.
Arthur Moxham (23), a Glamorgan man who had been on a tour of the Highlands with his brother Egbert, who lived in Edinburgh.
There were also a number of soldiers, some apparently en route to India. One group was a recruiting party of the 96th Regiment consisting of Lance-Sergeant William Scotter, Corporal B. Dunn, Private J. Harford and Private R. Liddell, together with a recruit for the 78th Regiment, J. McDougal, and the Lance Sergeant’s wife, Martha, and son, John, a boy of seven. With them travelled Susan Allan, a young girl who was going out to India to join her father, a soldier in the 25th Regiment.

The story of what happened on this fateful voyage is mainly drawn from the accounts given by five of the six survivors – William Brown, first mate, William Hood, ship’s engineer, Daniel Campbell, fireman, and the passengers, Charles Bailey and Robert Hildyard. It had been a fine summer’s day in Edinburgh, and the ship set sail on a calm evening, possibly a little hazy, but nothing to cause concern. Egbert Moxham stood on the quay, waving his brother off, until he was no longer visible. It must have been pleasant on board the ship. Morell Mackenzie remained on deck watching the coastline until St. Abb’s Head was passed, then retired to bed just after ten p.m. Charles Bailey saw his charge to his cabin, and then at about seven-thirty p.m., met with Captain Miller, whom he knew from previous voyages, and took tea with him in the captain’s cabin, before joining other passengers on the deck to enjoy the evening sun. At about ten-thirty p.m., people in Berwick, walking on the town ramparts, coincidentally after watching a tented performance of Mr Van Amburgh’s Menagerie, saw the ship steam south. In Berwick Bay, she encountered part of the herring fishing fleet, and may have changed course to avoid the nets. At about eleven forty-five p.m., the Pegasus passed the white pyramid marker on Emmanuel Head, the easternmost point of Holy Island, and the lights on the Farne Islands were clearly visible then. From there, following her usual route, she headed towards the Inner Passage. By now, everyone had retired except the crew on duty. At midnight, eight bells were rung, signalling crew changes. The captain went to the bridge. Daniel Campbell, the fireman, relieved of his duties, came on deck for some fresh air; Jack Johnstone, the helmsman, handed the wheel over to Robert Melville, and, on his way back to his bunk, wakened William Brown, the mate. The normal arrangement was that Thomas Miller, the second mate, roused Brown to take his place, but on this evening, the second mate had not appeared. As a result, William was late on duty. Then, at about twelve-twenty a.m., the ship, powered by both engine and sails, struck a submerged reef at speed. This proved to be the Goldstone Rock, a known hazard on this stretch of the coastal route. For some
reason, the Pegasus was half a mile to the east of her normal route.


To hit a rock on a clear calm night, on a route which had been taken twice a week for seven years, without problem, not surprisingly seems to have produced a total state of shock. Not only was the accident totally unexpected, but happening almost immediately after the change of watches, crew members were still picking up the threads of their responsibilities. The captain’s immediate response, on being asked by the mate what had happened, was ‘God knows, William’. Meanwhile, Charles Bailey, who had been lying on one of the cabin sofas, ran upstairs to find out what had happened. When he discovered that the ship had hit a rock, he returned to the cabin, to bring Robinson Torry up on deck. On his way to get Mr Torry, he told the passengers in the after cabin that the ship had struck a rock. Some were already in bed. By the time he got Mr Torry to the deck, sailors were already preparing to lower the ship’s boats, and passengers were rushing to get on them. No-one was in charge of the filling and lowering of the boats, and the captain complained that he had not given any order for them to be lowered. The orders he did give were for the engine, which Hood, the engineer had stopped at the time of impact, to be restarted, so that the ship could be backed off the rock and turned, with a view to running her ashore on Holy Island. Hood passed the message to Melville, the helmsman, and returned to the engine room to restart the engines.

Confusion reigned on deck. Passengers rushed here and there looking for space in one of the boats. As between the two boats, only some thirty passengers could be accommodated, even in the best of circumstances, this would have been problematic. The port boat was filled, possibly overfilled, and lowered into the water. Both Hildyard and Bailey, seeing the crowd on the port side, decided to get places in the starboard boat. Bailey saw Mr Torry safely placed there, as the boat was beginning to be lowered, and then jumped in after him. They joined a lady already sitting in the bow. Later, Hildyard also dropped into the boat, which was still suspended on the side of the ship. Once there, however, he had second thoughts – he judged the boat to be overcrowded, nor did anyone seem to be in charge. Concluding that he was likely to be safer in the ship, he clambered back up the side, probably making use of mooring ropes or the anchor chain. Two of the ship’s firemen, Daniel Campbell, and another unnamed, also tried to save themselves on the starboard boat. There was a further problem – only the boat’s bow was free, it was still held to the ship by its stern fastenings, which seemed jammed. At about this time, someone on board shouted, ‘Stick by the ship’.

It was now that the captain’s order to back the ship off the rock took effect. The ship’s great paddles turned, and, in their wash, both ship’s boats and all the passengers in them were capsized. According to the time when Charles Bailey’s watch stopped in the water, this was at half past midnight. The decision to take the ship off the rock was a total disaster. She was successfully turned and began moving towards the shore, but in the process, she began to fill rapidly with water. Hood again returned to the deck to alert the helmsman to the urgency of getting the ship beached. On his way back, he met William Brown, the mate, only now coming on duty because of the delay in wakening him. One of Brown’s first action seems to have been to order the firing of rockets and a blue light as a signal for help. Back at the engine room, Hood remained by the door, watching his beloved engines being drowned by the water. When nothing more could be done, he returned to the deck, and then climbed the foremast to see if there was any sign of help. There was not.

On deck, it was now a case of every man or woman for themselves – the advice which Captain Miller gave the anxious passengers who surrounded him. It is probable that some of those asleep in the cabins and lounges, never even reached the deck. Those who did dealt in very different ways with the disaster which had befallen them. Some of the crew and passengers attempted to attract attention by shouting together for help. One enterprising soul wrote a message and threw it overboard in a bottle.

Pegasus steamer, to Fern Islands, night of Wednesday, July 19th, 1843. In great distress; struck upon hidden rocks. On board fifty-five persons, vessel must go down, and no Grace Darling.

The bottle was finally picked up off the coast of Holland, early in November 1843.

The Reverend Morell Mackenzie, a known strong swimmer, who could possibly have saved himself, instead called the passengers to him, and began to pray. Bailey described how his actions created calm, as passengers knelt round him, joining in the prayers. One lady prayed by herself, as she watched over two young children playing by the companionway, who were oblivious to their danger. Some women clung to the stern of the ship, three took refuge on the ship’s masts, as did the ship’s carpenter, George Taylor. Hildyard, now back on board, cut some fifteen feet of rope from that lying around, with the thought that he could lash himself to some floating wood when the ship went down. He also removed his hat, boots and stockings, so that he could move more freely through the water. He took up a position at the back of one of the paddle boxes, presumably calculating that he could dive clear of the sinking ship more easily. When the boats had capsized, Bailey had saved himself by grabbing hold of the rudder chain and called to those on deck to haul him up. The mate threw him a rope, and he regained the deck. Then, like Hildyard, he decided to remove his clothes – in his case all of them, before leaping into the sea from the rail of the main rigging.

The captain and the mate had taken up positions on one of the paddle wheel boxes. Although outwardly calm, there is no evidence that in any way the captain attempted to take charge of events. When Hood, the engineer found them, and took his leave of Miller by shaking his hand, the captain’s response was ‘Good God, we are all going to the bottom’. His last recorded words were ‘Great God, look at this’. Hood then made common cause with Thomas Miller, the second mate; together they threw a loose spar of wood overboard and leapt into the water after it, grabbing it for a float.

It was now that the Pegasus entered her death throes. She lurched heavily to the port side just before Miller and Hood leapt into the water after their plank, but as the ship righted herself, the men found themselves thrown back on deck. Hood then climbed on to the aftermast, where he clung as the ship now began to sink in earnest, bow first. A few minutes later she again levelled, only this time to sink directly to the bottom. The time was one fifteen a.m. From beginning to end, the sinking of the Pegasus took less than an hour.



Chapter 13
Recovery – Day 1

Thrown off the mast by the lurching of the sinking ship, the engineer, William Hood, found himself once more in the water. He swam until he was able to catch hold of the gangplank, which was already supporting one of the passengers. Shortly afterwards, Andrew Dowely, the ship’s apprentice boy also caught hold of it. The apprentice clung on for some three hours, before exhaustion overtook him, he lost his grip and drowned. The unidentified passenger lasted another hour before also sinking into the water.

The few women, who had clung to the stern of the ship, were now dragged down with its sinking, as were those on the aft and main masts. Part of the foremast remained above water. The carpenter, George Taylor, succeeded in clinging to it despite the violent movements of the ship. After the sinking, he was joined there by Hildyard, who, on surfacing, had grabbed a floating accommodation ladder, sat astride it, and paddled his way to the mast. There the two men lashed the ladder to the mast with Hildyard’s rope, which remarkably, he had managed to retain. This gave both men standing room, and they managed to hang on there for the next six hours.

Like Hood, William Brown was thrown into the sea as the ship went down but was drawn underwater by the suction. He surfaced to what he described as a ‘fearful scene’ – the sea covered with the men and women from the ship, struggling against the waves to keep afloat, shrieks and prayers were heard on every side. He saw the captain swimming – the last record of Alexander Miller alive. Brown managed to grab hold of the engine house hatch. Though it was too small for him to use as a raft, it helped support him in the water. Then nearby, he saw one of the ship’s boats, empty of passengers and largely waterlogged, and, using the hatch as a float, he swam to it. Full of water, the boat sat low in the sea. Very carefully lest he capsized it altogether, Brown was able to roll himself into it. He pulled the hatch in after him and laid it across the boat to help steady it. Daniel Campbell, the fireman, found refuge in the other ship’s boat.

Charles Bailey was also drawn underwater by the suction of the sinking ship, but, on surfacing, grabbed a piece of wood. He clung to that determinedly, fighting off all other claimants. Louisa Howard, the stewardess, sought his help and tried to grab his hand, but he pushed her away. Similarly, one of the other firemen tried to get hold of the wood, only to have Bailey steer it out of his reach. Nor did he offer any help to young David Scott who floated near him for three hours supported by one of the ship’s skylights. What Bailey lacked in humanity, he made up for in narrative power. His account of the wreck, published shortly after his rescue, describes vividly the scene in the water.

The sky being clear, and the water smooth, I could perceive a great number of persons struggling in the water. Their cries and groans were most awful, and inexpressible. The sound dying away as they sunk, one by one; till all had become silent in death. To me it was like the funeral knell, – the surges dashing sound against those fatal rocks, – and the wild sea fowls screech, hovering over them; as if deeply wailing for the dying and the dead.

About four a.m. he was able to get hold of one of the ship’s ladders, which provided better support, but by now he too was becoming exhausted, and wrote that some thirty times the wood slipped from under him, and he had to rouse himself to recapture it.

Chapter 12
Final Voyage

When the Pegasus left Leith for Hull sometime after five p.m., on Wednesday 19 July 1843, as far as is known, there was aboard a crew of sixteen, forty-one booked passengers (eighteen cabin and twenty-three steerage). Booked passengers collected their tickets from the Company’s office on the quayside. Additional passengers who came on board on the Wednesday afternoon were not recorded. The arrangement was that, once on board, the mate collected the purchased tickets, and money from those without tickets. As a result, there was no definitive list of all those who sailed with the Pegasus that afternoon. One group of late joiners included a small group of soldiers – possibly a Captain O’Neil, a Sergeant Mackay or Munro, and others. They did not have travel warrants and were thought to be men on leave. They attracted attention as the sergeant, who was somewhat drunk, tried to get the captain to agree to provide a cabin place at a steerage fare, for the pregnant wife of another sergeant. When the captain would not agree, Mackay/Munro became obstreperous, and the Company’s clerk was summoned. The group remained on board, but no special arrangements were recorded. It was only the altercation over the cabin which led to their presence on board being noted. How many other late additions there were remains unknown. One group of army recruits arrived at the harbour, only to see the Pegasus sailing out into the Forth.

The ship’s crew were the captain, Alexander Miller; first mate, William Brown; second mate, Thomas Miller, brother of the captain; engineers, William Hood and Alexander Agnew; firemen, Daniel Campbell, William Knaresborough and William McCoombs; sailors, Robert Melville and John (Jack) Johnstone (or Johnson); ship’s apprentice, Andrew Dowie or Dowely; carpenter, George Taylor; ship’s cook, Robert Marshall; and stewards, George Parker and Louisa Howard.

As always on forms of public transport, the passengers came from a wide variety of backgrounds and were on the ship for many different reasons. The most famous by far was Mr William Elton, a celebrated Shakespearean actor, returning south for further engagements, after performing at the Adelphi Theatre, Edinburgh, in Richard III, and Anthony and Cleopatra, as well as other now less well-known plays. Another distinguished passenger was the Reverend John Morell Mackenzie, a lecturer at Glasgow’s Congregational Theological College, who was travelling south to visit his sister and parents, after spending a short holiday at Portobello with his wife. He had deliberately chosen to go by the Pegasus rather than the Martello, to avoid travelling on the Sabbath. Among the rest were:

Thomas Hodgson (26), a young man who had been visiting his parents in Edinburgh, and doubtless celebrating his good fortune, before taking up a new post as Assistant Secretary to the Leeds Mechanics’ Institution and Literary Society.
Two boys off on their holidays, Master Elliott (6), from Dundee, was accompanying his uncle, James, a solicitor, to his home in Rochdale; David Scott (11), the son of a Paisley shawl manufacturer was being taken to London by his old nurse, Mrs Stewart.
A group of young people, travelling back to Lincolnshire – Fanny Flowers (11) was the daughter of the Rector of Tealby, going home for a delayed summer holiday, as she had caught measles and had to remain at Miss Banks’ boarding school in Edinburgh for the first weeks of the holiday; with her was another lady from the boarding school, Isabella Hopton (30), also Fanny’s brother Field (13), who, with a family friend, Maria Barton (26) from nearby Market Rasen, had travelled to Edinburgh to see the sights, visit the school and accompany Fanny home.
Charles Bailey (39), a former sailor and ferryman, on the ship as a companion to Robinson Torry (27), a young draper’s apprentice from Market Rasen, who seems to have suffered some form of breakdown, and had been travelling for his health.
William Primrose (22), a young man, returning from Glasgow, where he had married his pregnant sweetheart. He was now on his way to his employment as a stonemason at Stoke Rochford Hall in Lincolnshire.
Robert Hildyard (23), a sailor, the son of a Curate of Beverley Minster.
William Milne (c.27), the son of the Edinburgh shoemaker to the Queen. William was travelling to London to widen his experience of business.
Arthur Moxham (23), a Glamorgan man who had been on a tour of the Highlands with his brother Egbert, who lived in Edinburgh.
There were also a number of soldiers, some apparently en route to India. One group was a recruiting party of the 96th Regiment consisting of Lance-Sergeant William Scotter, Corporal B. Dunn, Private J. Harford and Private R. Liddell, together with a recruit for the 78th Regiment, J. McDougal, and the Lance Sergeant’s wife, Martha, and son, John, a boy of seven. With them travelled Susan Allan, a young girl who was going out to India to join her father, a soldier in the 25th Regiment.

The story of what happened on this fateful voyage is mainly drawn from the accounts given by five of the six survivors – William Brown, first mate, William Hood, ship’s engineer, Daniel Campbell, fireman, and the passengers, Charles Bailey and Robert Hildyard. It had been a fine summer’s day in Edinburgh, and the ship set sail on a calm evening, possibly a little hazy, but nothing to cause concern. Egbert Moxham stood on the quay, waving his brother off, until he was no longer visible. It must have been pleasant on board the ship. Morell Mackenzie remained on deck watching the coastline until St. Abb’s Head was passed, then retired to bed just after ten p.m. Charles Bailey saw his charge to his cabin, and then at about seven-thirty p.m., met with Captain Miller, whom he knew from previous voyages, and took tea with him in the captain’s cabin, before joining other passengers on the deck to enjoy the evening sun. At about ten-thirty p.m., people in Berwick, walking on the town ramparts, coincidentally after watching a tented performance of Mr Van Amburgh’s Menagerie, saw the ship steam south. In Berwick Bay, she encountered part of the herring fishing fleet, and may have changed course to avoid the nets. At about eleven forty-five p.m., the Pegasus passed the white pyramid marker on Emmanuel Head, the easternmost point of Holy Island, and the lights on the Farne Islands were clearly visible then. From there, following her usual route, she headed towards the Inner Passage. By now, everyone had retired except the crew on duty. At midnight, eight bells were rung, signalling crew changes. The captain went to the bridge. Daniel Campbell, the fireman, relieved of his duties, came on deck for some fresh air; Jack Johnstone, the helmsman, handed the wheel over to Robert Melville, and, on his way back to his bunk, wakened William Brown, the mate. The normal arrangement was that Thomas Miller, the second mate, roused Brown to take his place, but on this evening, the second mate had not appeared. As a result, William was late on duty. Then, at about twelve-twenty a.m., the ship, powered by both engine and sails, struck a submerged reef at speed. This proved to be the Goldstone Rock, a known hazard on this stretch of the coastal route. For some
reason, the Pegasus was half a mile to the east of her normal route.


To hit a rock on a clear calm night, on a route which had been taken twice a week for seven years, without problem, not surprisingly seems to have produced a total state of shock. Not only was the accident totally unexpected, but happening almost immediately after the change of watches, crew members were still picking up the threads of their responsibilities. The captain’s immediate response, on being asked by the mate what had happened, was ‘God knows, William’. Meanwhile, Charles Bailey, who had been lying on one of the cabin sofas, ran upstairs to find out what had happened. When he discovered that the ship had hit a rock, he returned to the cabin, to bring Robinson Torry up on deck. On his way to get Mr Torry, he told the passengers in the after cabin that the ship had struck a rock. Some were already in bed. By the time he got Mr Torry to the deck, sailors were already preparing to lower the ship’s boats, and passengers were rushing to get on them. No-one was in charge of the filling and lowering of the boats, and the captain complained that he had not given any order for them to be lowered. The orders he did give were for the engine, which Hood, the engineer had stopped at the time of impact, to be restarted, so that the ship could be backed off the rock and turned, with a view to running her ashore on Holy Island. Hood passed the message to Melville, the helmsman, and returned to the engine room to restart the engines.

Confusion reigned on deck. Passengers rushed here and there looking for space in one of the boats. As between the two boats, only some thirty passengers could be accommodated, even in the best of circumstances, this would have been problematic. The port boat was filled, possibly overfilled, and lowered into the water. Both Hildyard and Bailey, seeing the crowd on the port side, decided to get places in the starboard boat. Bailey saw Mr Torry safely placed there, as the boat was beginning to be lowered, and then jumped in after him. They joined a lady already sitting in the bow. Later, Hildyard also dropped into the boat, which was still suspended on the side of the ship. Once there, however, he had second thoughts – he judged the boat to be overcrowded, nor did anyone seem to be in charge. Concluding that he was likely to be safer in the ship, he clambered back up the side, probably making use of mooring ropes or the anchor chain. Two of the ship’s firemen, Daniel Campbell, and another unnamed, also tried to save themselves on the starboard boat. There was a further problem – only the boat’s bow was free, it was still held to the ship by its stern fastenings, which seemed jammed. At about this time, someone on board shouted, ‘Stick by the ship’.

It was now that the captain’s order to back the ship off the rock took effect. The ship’s great paddles turned, and, in their wash, both ship’s boats and all the passengers in them were capsized. According to the time when Charles Bailey’s watch stopped in the water, this was at half past midnight. The decision to take the ship off the rock was a total disaster. She was successfully turned and began moving towards the shore, but in the process, she began to fill rapidly with water. Hood again returned to the deck to alert the helmsman to the urgency of getting the ship beached. On his way back, he met William Brown, the mate, only now coming on duty because of the delay in wakening him. One of Brown’s first action seems to have been to order the firing of rockets and a blue light as a signal for help. Back at the engine room, Hood remained by the door, watching his beloved engines being drowned by the water. When nothing more could be done, he returned to the deck, and then climbed the foremast to see if there was any sign of help. There was not.

On deck, it was now a case of every man or woman for themselves – the advice which Captain Miller gave the anxious passengers who surrounded him. It is probable that some of those asleep in the cabins and lounges, never even reached the deck. Those who did dealt in very different ways with the disaster which had befallen them. Some of the crew and passengers attempted to attract attention by shouting together for help. One enterprising soul wrote a message and threw it overboard in a bottle.

Pegasus steamer, to Fern Islands, night of Wednesday, July 19th, 1843. In great distress; struck upon hidden rocks. On board fifty-five persons, vessel must go down, and no Grace Darling.

The bottle was finally picked up off the coast of Holland, early in November 1843.

The Reverend Morell Mackenzie, a known strong swimmer, who could possibly have saved himself, instead called the passengers to him, and began to pray. Bailey described how his actions created calm, as passengers knelt round him, joining in the prayers. One lady prayed by herself, as she watched over two young children playing by the companionway, who were oblivious to their danger. Some women clung to the stern of the ship, three took refuge on the ship’s masts, as did the ship’s carpenter, George Taylor. Hildyard, now back on board, cut some fifteen feet of rope from that lying around, with the thought that he could lash himself to some floating wood when the ship went down. He also removed his hat, boots and stockings, so that he could move more freely through the water. He took up a position at the back of one of the paddle boxes, presumably calculating that he could dive clear of the sinking ship more easily. When the boats had capsized, Bailey had saved himself by grabbing hold of the rudder chain and called to those on deck to haul him up. The mate threw him a rope, and he regained the deck. Then, like Hildyard, he decided to remove his clothes – in his case all of them, before leaping into the sea from the rail of the main rigging.

The captain and the mate had taken up positions on one of the paddle wheel boxes. Although outwardly calm, there is no evidence that in any way the captain attempted to take charge of events. When Hood, the engineer found them, and took his leave of Miller by shaking his hand, the captain’s response was ‘Good God, we are all going to the bottom’. His last recorded words were ‘Great God, look at this’. Hood then made common cause with Thomas Miller, the second mate; together they threw a loose spar of wood overboard and leapt into the water after it, grabbing it for a float.

It was now that the Pegasus entered her death throes. She lurched heavily to the port side just before Miller and Hood leapt into the water after their plank, but as the ship righted herself, the men found themselves thrown back on deck. Hood then climbed on to the aftermast, where he clung as the ship now began to sink in earnest, bow first. A few minutes later she again levelled, only this time to sink directly to the bottom. The time was one fifteen a.m. From beginning to end, the sinking of the Pegasus took less than an hour.



Chapter 13
Recovery – Day 1

Thrown off the mast by the lurching of the sinking ship, the engineer, William Hood, found himself once more in the water. He swam until he was able to catch hold of the gangplank, which was already supporting one of the passengers. Shortly afterwards, Andrew Dowely, the ship’s apprentice boy also caught hold of it. The apprentice clung on for some three hours, before exhaustion overtook him, he lost his grip and drowned. The unidentified passenger lasted another hour before also sinking into the water.

The few women, who had clung to the stern of the ship, were now dragged down with its sinking, as were those on the aft and main masts. Part of the foremast remained above water. The carpenter, George Taylor, succeeded in clinging to it despite the violent movements of the ship. After the sinking, he was joined there by Hildyard, who, on surfacing, had grabbed a floating accommodation ladder, sat astride it, and paddled his way to the mast. There the two men lashed the ladder to the mast with Hildyard’s rope, which remarkably, he had managed to retain. This gave both men standing room, and they managed to hang on there for the next six hours.

Like Hood, William Brown was thrown into the sea as the ship went down but was drawn underwater by the suction. He surfaced to what he described as a ‘fearful scene’ – the sea covered with the men and women from the ship, struggling against the waves to keep afloat, shrieks and prayers were heard on every side. He saw the captain swimming – the last record of Alexander Miller alive. Brown managed to grab hold of the engine house hatch. Though it was too small for him to use as a raft, it helped support him in the water. Then nearby, he saw one of the ship’s boats, empty of passengers and largely waterlogged, and, using the hatch as a float, he swam to it. Full of water, the boat sat low in the sea. Very carefully lest he capsized it altogether, Brown was able to roll himself into it. He pulled the hatch in after him and laid it across the boat to help steady it. Daniel Campbell, the fireman, found refuge in the other ship’s boat.

Charles Bailey was also drawn underwater by the suction of the sinking ship, but, on surfacing, grabbed a piece of wood. He clung to that determinedly, fighting off all other claimants. Louisa Howard, the stewardess, sought his help and tried to grab his hand, but he pushed her away. Similarly, one of the other firemen tried to get hold of the wood, only to have Bailey steer it out of his reach. Nor did he offer any help to young David Scott who floated near him for three hours supported by one of the ship’s skylights. What Bailey lacked in humanity, he made up for in narrative power. His account of the wreck, published shortly after his rescue, describes vividly the scene in the water.

The sky being clear, and the water smooth, I could perceive a great number of persons struggling in the water. Their cries and groans were most awful, and inexpressible. The sound dying away as they sunk, one by one; till all had become silent in death. To me it was like the funeral knell, – the surges dashing sound against those fatal rocks, – and the wild sea fowls screech, hovering over them; as if deeply wailing for the dying and the dead.

About four a.m. he was able to get hold of one of the ship’s ladders, which provided better support, but by now he too was becoming exhausted, and wrote that some thirty times the wood slipped from under him, and he had to rouse himself to recapture it.

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