Title
Malta, wrecked at Botallack, October 14th 1889
Subject
Liner
Passengers
Shipwreck
Wreck
Description
On October 15th 1889, the miners of St Just awoke to find the Cunarder Malta on the rocks, half a mile east of Cape Cornwall, beneath the Wheal Castle Mine.
The 2,244-ton Malta had been launched in 1865 by G. & J. Thompson of Glasgow for the Mediterranean service of the early Cunard Line. Brig rigged with a tall funnel, she was 39tft 3 inches in beam, and 303 ft long, excluding her magnificent female figurehead. The engines were two-cylinder compounds by J. Jack & Co of Liverpool.
She had left Liverpool on October 14th 1889, bound for Genoa via Falmouth, with 2,000 tons of general cargo and nineteen passengers.
Hazy weather thickened off Lundy, but Captain Richard Lavis decided not to reduce speed as the elderly Malta could barely raise nine knots. It was not until nearing Land's End and having failed to sight either Trevose Head or Godrevy light that speed was reduced and the lead prepared.
The Malta then idled ahead until a lookout saw breakers on the port quarter, and she slid gently ashore below the black, dripping cliffs o Kenidjack Castle Headland. At first few on board realized that they were shipwreck. No on was quite sure where they were; above the roar of the swell came a rhythmic thudding that was assumed to be a railway engine, but in reality was the sound of the stamps crushing ore at the nearby cliff-top mine of Botallack.
Cottagers from St. Just, Pendeen and Botallack were converging on the headland and as the Malta's boat came in two brothers waded out to it. Like most St Just miners, Edward and William Roberts knew the coast intimately working their own boat when work underground was slack, or in the summer evenings. They made several trips piloting the heavily laden ship's boat into a narrow gully, with the seas sweeping around them and guided only by lanterns. Coastguards and other miners helped the shaken passengers up the steep cliff, and soon they were all gathered before cottage fires at St Just.
The Malta was only flooded forward so the crew stayed on board but at daybreak Falmouth tugs failed to shift her. By 11am she was pounding so heavily that the crew transferred to Sennen lifeboat and the tugs. Deck gear, stores, and baggage were salvaged, but at dusk one of the Malta's boat capsized, and James Roberts , one of the six Sennen Fishermen manning her, was drowned.
The following evening a hard WNW gale got up, and by dawn the Maltas masts and funnel had gone and she had split amidships. Her cargo provided the best display since the Le Landois; bolts of velveteen, calico, muslin, linen sheets, rugs, and carpets, casks of palm oil, kegs of spirits, handkerchiefs, bottles of wine and beer, and rolls of India rubber littered the coast.
At a Board of Trade inquiry in November, Captain Lavis, though given an excellent character by Cunard, was found guilty of not navigating with due care and in a proper and seamanlike manner, and his certificate was suspended for three months.
Description from Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The North Coast (London: Penn Ltd, 1970), p. 21-22.
The 2,244-ton Malta had been launched in 1865 by G. & J. Thompson of Glasgow for the Mediterranean service of the early Cunard Line. Brig rigged with a tall funnel, she was 39tft 3 inches in beam, and 303 ft long, excluding her magnificent female figurehead. The engines were two-cylinder compounds by J. Jack & Co of Liverpool.
She had left Liverpool on October 14th 1889, bound for Genoa via Falmouth, with 2,000 tons of general cargo and nineteen passengers.
Hazy weather thickened off Lundy, but Captain Richard Lavis decided not to reduce speed as the elderly Malta could barely raise nine knots. It was not until nearing Land's End and having failed to sight either Trevose Head or Godrevy light that speed was reduced and the lead prepared.
The Malta then idled ahead until a lookout saw breakers on the port quarter, and she slid gently ashore below the black, dripping cliffs o Kenidjack Castle Headland. At first few on board realized that they were shipwreck. No on was quite sure where they were; above the roar of the swell came a rhythmic thudding that was assumed to be a railway engine, but in reality was the sound of the stamps crushing ore at the nearby cliff-top mine of Botallack.
Cottagers from St. Just, Pendeen and Botallack were converging on the headland and as the Malta's boat came in two brothers waded out to it. Like most St Just miners, Edward and William Roberts knew the coast intimately working their own boat when work underground was slack, or in the summer evenings. They made several trips piloting the heavily laden ship's boat into a narrow gully, with the seas sweeping around them and guided only by lanterns. Coastguards and other miners helped the shaken passengers up the steep cliff, and soon they were all gathered before cottage fires at St Just.
The Malta was only flooded forward so the crew stayed on board but at daybreak Falmouth tugs failed to shift her. By 11am she was pounding so heavily that the crew transferred to Sennen lifeboat and the tugs. Deck gear, stores, and baggage were salvaged, but at dusk one of the Malta's boat capsized, and James Roberts , one of the six Sennen Fishermen manning her, was drowned.
The following evening a hard WNW gale got up, and by dawn the Maltas masts and funnel had gone and she had split amidships. Her cargo provided the best display since the Le Landois; bolts of velveteen, calico, muslin, linen sheets, rugs, and carpets, casks of palm oil, kegs of spirits, handkerchiefs, bottles of wine and beer, and rolls of India rubber littered the coast.
At a Board of Trade inquiry in November, Captain Lavis, though given an excellent character by Cunard, was found guilty of not navigating with due care and in a proper and seamanlike manner, and his certificate was suspended for three months.
Description from Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The North Coast (London: Penn Ltd, 1970), p. 21-22.
Date
1889-10-15
Rights
Morrab Library
Format
Print
Type
Photograph
Identifier
COLLINS.117A
Coverage
Cape Cornwall, Cornwall
Original Format
Print of an etching