Wrecks and Wreckers
The History of Lighthouses
Course 8 · Chapter 8 · Wrecks, Wreckers and Safety
Lighthouses were built because ships were lost, and in the 18th and 19th centuries they were lost in very large numbers. This chapter looks at the scale of shipwreck, the legend of the wreckers who lured ships ashore with false lights and what the evidence actually shows, the other aids that grew alongside lighthouses (lightships, buoys, lifeboats), and the safety reforms of the Victorian period. It ends with the storm of 1859 that changed forecasting as well as shipping. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check".
The Scale of Loss
Numbers
In the mid-19th century well over a thousand ships were wrecked around the British coast every year, with a loss of life measured in the hundreds or more (check the series). Britain had the largest merchant fleet in the world, so it also had the most to lose.
Causes
Storms, poor charts, overloaded or badly built ships, ignorance of position and the lack of marks on dangerous coasts all contributed. Lighthouses addressed only one cause, and the records show that many wrecks happened near lights, in bad weather (check).
Cost
The owners of ships and cargoes, the insurers and the seamen's families bore the cost. This pressure led merchants, shipowners and insurers to press for lights and for regulation.
The Wreckers
| Question (check each) | What the evidence suggests |
|---|---|
| What is the legend? | That gangs on the coast, notably in Cornwall, lit false lights or lanterns on cliffs to draw ships onto rocks, and then killed survivors and plundered the cargo. |
| What is documented? | The plundering of wrecked ships is well documented. Coastal communities took what came ashore, sometimes violently, and customs officers and magistrates complained of it. In law, goods from a wreck belonged to the Crown or the local lord, and taking them was a crime (check). |
| What about false lights? | Clear proof of ships deliberately lured by false lights is hard to find. There are rumours and a few accusations, but few convictions on that charge (check). Historians disagree about how much deliberate wrecking took place. |
| Where did the story spread? | Sermons, ballads, novels and, in the 20th century, books such as Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn (1936) made the figure of the wrecker familiar (check). |
| What do modern historians say? | Some accept that deliberate wrecking happened occasionally, while others see the legend as a later invention that blamed poor communities for losses that were mostly caused by storms and bad navigation (check). |
The case is a good example of a story that contains a documented core (plunder) and an undocumented addition (luring). It is tested again in Chapter 10.
Other Aids
- Lightships. The first English lightship was moored at the Nore, in the Thames estuary, in 1732 (check). By the 19th century dozens marked sandbanks and channels, crewed by men whose lives were hard and wet. Most were replaced by automatic buoys by the late 20th century (check).
- Buoys and beacons. Cheap and portable, buoys marked channels and wrecks, and became the commonest mark of all. A system of colours and shapes told the navigator which side to pass.
- Lifeboats. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution was founded in 1824 by Sir William Hillary, who lived on the Isle of Man, to save life at sea by volunteer crews (check). It is funded by gifts and is independent of the state. Lighthouses and lifeboats worked together, with the keepers raising the alarm.
- Charts and pilots. The Admiralty published charts and sailing directions, and local pilots guided ships through difficult waters.
Regulation
| Reform (check each) | Note |
|---|---|
| Lloyd's Register | A register of ships and their condition, begun in the 18th century by merchants and underwriters, helped insurers to judge the risk of a ship (check). |
| The Plimsoll line | Samuel Plimsoll, a Member of Parliament, campaigned against overloaded and unsafe "coffin ships". The Merchant Shipping Act of 1876 required a mark showing the safe loading level, and it is still used (check). |
| The Board of Trade | The government department that oversaw shipping collected wreck returns, held inquiries into wrecks and regulated the lights and the seamen (check). |
| International law | Conferences in the 20th century led to the international convention on safety of life at sea, adopted after the loss of the Titanic in 1912 (check). |
The Royal Charter Storm, 1859
In October 1859 a great gale struck the British coast, and the steam clipper Royal Charter, returning from Australia with gold and passengers, was wrecked on the coast of Anglesey with the loss of about 450 lives (check). The storm sank many other ships. In response Robert FitzRoy, the head of the new meteorological office of the Board of Trade, began issuing storm warnings in 1861, the start of public weather forecasts (check). The same gale thus connects shipwreck, safety and the history of weather forecasting.
Exercises
Apply the six questions to the claim "Wreckers lured ships onto the rocks with false lights", and give a more careful sentence.
List five causes of 19th-century shipwreck and say which a lighthouse could address and which it could not.
Choose one reform (Lloyd's, the Plimsoll line, the lifeboat service or the storm warnings) and write a short note on what it changed, who opposed it and what evidence you would use to judge its effect.
Quick Reference
- Wreckers: plunder documented; luring by false lights unproven (check)
- Aids: lightships (1732), buoys, lifeboats (RNLI, 1824) (check)
- Reforms: Lloyd's Register, the Plimsoll line (1876), the Board of Trade
- 1859: the Royal Charter storm and the first storm warnings