Halloween

 

It’s not often you get the chance to line up the subject of an article with a festival close to its publishing date.  Anyway the ‘Halloween’ that I am dealing with here has nothing to with witches or goblins – or even the churches’ festival of All Hallows (or the Thames Estuary resort come to that). This Halloween was another big sailing ship.

Readers will remember that a couple of weeks ago I did an article about the sailing clipper Blackadder.  Well, Halloween was her sister ship built alongside her at the Maudslay Son & Field shipyard at Bay Wharf on the Greenwich Peninsula. I am however very aware that other people have already recently done a very good job on writing up Halloween.  David Ramzan devotes about a quarter of his ‘Three Greenwich Built Ships’ to Halloween, so I will have to be careful and pick up on some of the stuff about her he doesn’t mention while recommending you read what he says about it all.

Blackadder and Halloween were commissioned by John Willis, also owner of Cutty Sark  They were built of iron and modelled on the lines of Cutty Sark. Blackadder was launched first.  Halloween followed with a launch in June 1870 but by that time problems with Blackadder were becoming apparent – in my article on Blackadder  I described how her masts fell in mid-Atlantic on her maiden voyage. Special care was then taken with the seating of the masts on Halloween – but she was unable to leave until the problems with Blackadder had been resolved. Blackadder eventually returned to London in late 1871 where John Willis and the insurance company’s underwriters were waiting. A row developed as the insurance company refused to meet the total losses on the damage to Blackadder. Willis were also involved in litigation with Maudslays, claiming that Blackadder had been delivered late, incurring losses on their part with a separate case claiming much the same for Halloween – while Willis were refusing to take possession of her  Meanwhile she lay in the East India Dock piling up charges from the dock companyfor leaving her there

Eventually Halloween set off on her maiden voyage in June 1872  but actually got no further than Gravesend. She had to go back to the West India Dock for repairs.  Many of the crew protested she was unsafe and were all sacked. Within a week there was another rebellion from the crew on the grounds of safety as they neared Land’s End.  However Halloween continued and reached Sydney in sixty-nie days – considered a remarkably fast time.   We can see the pattern set by Blackadder repeating – everything goes wrong but her speed sort of makes up for it.  Halloween had the reputation of being one of the fastest ships of her day.

It is said that a major part of her success lay in her seventy eight foot mainyard from which flew a huge mainsail - three masts with sails to catch every bit of wind, and a hold which would take sixteen hundred tons.  .She was very very fast and on her return voyage to London from Shangai she took just 92 days – beating the previous record by 30 days. On her next voyage she did it in a day less – 91 days. In 1880 she raced Blackadder from Foochow to Deal  - Blackadder did it in 130 days, and Halloween in 126.   At the same time there were all sorts of ‘goings on’ wth the crew and various ships officrs – but you will need to read what David Ramzan has to say in his long account of Halloween.

Halloween was eventually wrecked off the Devon coast. It is a long and harrowing story which I can’t possibly detail here. Coming fast up past the Eddystone light in a gale, returning from Foochow she missed her way and ran aground at 7.45 at Sewer Mill Cove south of Salcombe.  The crew sent off distress signals and nothing happened. They took to the masts as the ship flooded and began to break up.. Eventually two crew members tried to swim ashore – but only one made it.  By then it was light and a local farmer saw the wreck – and alerted the coastguard.  It was after 11 am before the lifeboat got the crew back to land.

So – the basically the litigation all began again!  In Devon here were strong feelings about the circumstances of her wreck.  The inquest into the drowned crew member was held at the nearby farmhouse with many searching questions from the Coroner about the arrangements at the coastguard station – echoed by the jury. The two coastguard officers in charge that night were sacked.   Her wreck was auctioned off to a salvage company. She had been laden with tea –much of which was recovered albeit it was a bit – well – wet!  There were a number of prosecutions from public health officials about the disposal of that tea  - to a defence that it was alright really, just tasted a bit strange, and they were going to send it Spain anyway.

Halloween still lies off the Devon coast – and some years ago I was in touch with the men who have dived her.  There is still an excellent web site https://www.submerged.co.uk/halloween/.    The divers told me “In February 1990, Steve Carpenter took his dog for a walk along the beach and to his surprise the previously sandy beach had become all rocks. When a diver went out, he realised that he was above a huge wreck which had appeared in an area which they had often dived before.  ‘Underneath me was a huge hatch, part of a bow and a massive mast lying out across the sand … you could see the remains of the once proud bowsprit with wood decking all around…  and a complete porthole glinting in the sunbeams.  Now I knew what heaven was going to be like!’

Most interestingly, that porthole had been made by Stones of Deptford, clearly the subcontractor to Maudslay. 

Today Sewer Mill is Soar Mill and there is a hotel, flower beds and amazing sea views.  The hotel web sites only know Halloween as an amusing night for children.  But Halloween is still out there  nearer home than Blackadder at Bahia. But to be honest the Brazilians seem much more interested in Blackadder than Devon does in Halloween.  She came all the way from the Greenwich Peninsula – a very fast ship, with lots of litigation.