Gill Hoffs - Sinking of the RMS Tayleur : the Lost Story of the Victorian Titanic.

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Praise for The Sinking of RMS Tayleur

A fascinating, well-researched account of this memorial shipwreck, one of the worst in Irelands history. Highly recommended.

Richard Larn OBE, author of L loyds S hipwreck I ndex of I reland and G reat B ritain

A first class voyage of discovery. Gill Hoffs delivers a detailed and vivid account of the shameful loss of the Tayleur and the inadequate inquiry, in this skilful post-mortem of Victorian sea-going values.

Dr Ronnie Scott, Centre for Open Studies, University of Glasgow

This well-written and thoroughly researched book takes us inside a deadly shipwreck, and presents that tragedy in the larger context of Victorian life. Gill Hoffs has given us a compelling, heart-rending read. The sinking of RMS T ayleur is lost no more.

Gregory Gibson, author of D emon of the W aters: T he T rue S tory of the M utiny of the W haleship G lobe

Gill Hoffs maiden voyage as a major nautical-historical author comes off wonderfully. The violent death of the RMS T ayleur is both a heartbreaking and horrifying story, competently and clearly told. Hoffs manages to set the historical Victorian tone and mood just right.

Masterfully, she weaves in the stories of the many passengers so that we never lose sight of the human in the disaster. We see the desperation of the famine Irish and the other down and out passengers. We share in their hopes and dreams of being rich on Australian gold. Then, when disaster strikes on the Irish coast, we see ourselves reflected in the victims as they fight to survive a cruel and angry ocean.

Making liberal use of first person accounts, the book is a vivid and frightening elegy that should appeal to many readers.

Marc Songini, author of The Lost Fleet

In the flood of shipwreck narratives regularly published, The Sinking of RMS T ayleur is a rare and unusual find. Unusual, because the calamity, horrific as it was, has been virtually forgotten. Rare, because the author sets the time and place so carefully, focusing on the desperation of the poor emigrants bound for a new life in Australia

Hoffs switches skilfully between two points of view: an omniscient wide-angle lens that zooms out and with precise language allows us to watch everything unfold in all its chilling fascination; and the close-up, where amongst the chaos we watch doomed tableaux of heroism and cowardice, panic and a strange, determined calm.

When one considers Hoffs observation that hundreds of ships sank monthly, taking with them thousands of unlucky souls, one wonders why anyone went anywhere by ship. The answer, of course, is simple they had no other choice heartbreaking and humbling.

Joe Jackson, author of Atlantic Fever

Praise for Gill Hoffs previous work, Wild
(published by Pure Slush)

Wild offers exceptional fiction and reportage, with a coast-dwellers sharp eye for maritime detail, and a humane regard for both the victims and the survivors of shipwrecks, both literal and metaphorical. From Prospects , a marvellous, moving reconstruction of the murderous maiden voyage of the Tayleur , to Luck is in the Leftovers , a gripping saga of living on the edge of the land, where life and death ebb and flow like the tides, Gill Hoffs writing, fiction and non, swells with the power of life, sometimes life at the expense of other lives, but always animated and alive. This is visceral and vital prose, smooth as a sea-worn pebble yet sharp as sharks teeth.

Ronnie Scott, author of Death by Design and editor of Tommys War , Tommys Peace and The Real Dads Army

In her tales, Gill Hoffs unique voice has tamed the wild creating narratives of raw beauty. When I put the book down, I could taste the salt of the green sea on my tongue.

Marcus Speh, author of Thank You For Your Sperm

A collection of short stories and non-fiction that brings the reader to the sea, to wild Scotland. Hoffs prose is salty, rocky and storm-blown: a right and memorable voice that grabs the reader and does not let go.

Christopher Allen, author of Conversations with S. Teri OType

Dedicated to:
my Aunt Jean and Uncle Jim, who got me interested in shipwrecks;
my husband and son, who keep me whole;
and all those affected by struggles won and lost at sea.

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Pen & Sword History
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Gill Hoffs 2014

ISBN 978 1 78303 047 7

eISBN 9781473831896

The right of Gill Hoffs to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Ehrhardt by
Mac Style, Bridlington, East Yorkshire
Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon,
CRO 4YY

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Social History, Transport, True Crime, and Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Contents

... being in a ship is being in a jail, with a chance of being drowned Samuel Johnson, in a letter to Tobias Smollet, 1759

Liverpool, 4 January 1854

My Dear and Affectionate WifeI hope to God this will find you well and comfortable. I arrived here at 5 oclock yesterday. I have embarked on board the Tayleur, at 12 oclock this day, in the greatest confusion. We are 600 passengers now on board, and I write on the crown of my hat. I shall live in hopes of seeing you again, my dear woman.

I am, yours till death,

Thomas W. Lloyd .

Preface

I had never heard of the RMS Tayleur until a visit to Warrington Museum a few years ago. Amidst the more exotic exhibits of mummies, cannibal cutlery and shrunken heads, nestled a small display of chipped crockery, and a brass porthole with a few barnacles still clinging to the glass. One of the curators saw me pause by the old plates, and explained that a shipwreck over 150 years ago had led to these artefacts being deposited there. He advised me to read the survivors accounts of the disaster. I sobbed when I did.

When the wreck occurred 70 children were travelling with their families on the ship to Australia. My son was a toddler at the time of our visit, and I could picture the adults on board clutching their terrified children and howling for help as ropes snapped and planks fell. Others lay in their bunks tortured with seasickness as the water flooded over them. It was horrible, but very similar to a thousand other shipwrecks during the nineteenth century. What really hit me, however, was the demographic of the people involved. So few women and children were saved, yet the ship had been positioned so close to safety that between life and death there intervened only a space that passengers traverse daily in walking from a steamers dock to the pier, as the Leeds Times remarked. I wondered why so many had died. The story had taken root in my mind, and I knew the only way to exorcise it was to uncover the fates of the travellers and crew, then commit them to paper.

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