The Golden Wreck  -  The True Story of a Great Maritime Disaster.
 By Alexander McKee.

The Royal Charter            Survivors              Witnesses                Other names from the publication            Other Ships Lost

Part one:  Royal Charter – built at Sandycroft ironworks on the River Dee, in Flintshire, and was launched in 1855.  The firm which had ordered her, Charles Moore & Co., of Liverpool, sold her while she was still under construction to another Liverpool shipping business, Gibbs, Bright & co.

She was a large ship, of 2,719 registered tons, approximately 320 feet long; the length of her keel was 308 and half feet, and her length overall 336 feet.  She had three tall, clipper masts and a single funnel; the auxiliary steam engine developed 200 horse power and she had bunker space for some 700 tons of coal.  Sails were her main motive power – basically, she was an iron clipper.

26 August 1859 departed Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.  Captain Thomas Taylor, received gold to the amount of £322,440.00.00 in addition to this, many of the 390 passengers were carrying their own small personal fortunes on them.

First class passengers fares varied between 60 and 75 guineas, second class between 25 and 30 guineas, while the third class fare was either 16, 18 or 20 guineas.  Children between the ages of one and twelve went for half price, babies for nothing; the fare for a dog was £5.00

Close to Bardsey Island, 11 riggers from the steam tug United Kingdom boarded the Royal Charter in the chance of getting home earlier and Captain Taylor agreed to let them work their passage.

There was no advance warning of the tempest. The south-west had been swept and devastated already, ships driven ashore, stone embankments battered to pieces, trees blown down or sent whirling, uprooted, across a hail-swept, devastated landscape.

Hundreds of men and women had died already.  It was, as Admiral Fitzroy of the Meteorological Office said, a complete horizontal cyclone.

Over a wide area of Britain it was a night of horror; on Snowdon, rocks were sent bounding down the slopes like pebbles.

John Jones, assistant keeper at South Stack Lighthouse, was struck on the head by a stone as he was making his way across the bridge.  He died within three weeks, one of more than 800 souls lost as a result of the Royal Charter Gale.

133 ships were sunk, 90 were badly damaged.  Twice the number of people perished at sea within the space of two days of 1859 than in the whole of the previous year, when the total had been 340.

The Royal Charter was within a few hours’ sailing of her home port of Liverpool.

Captain Adams, looked Gapper straight in the face.  “If it were possible to sing the Song of the ‘White Squall’, it might now be sung with feeling.”  Dumbfounded the New Zealand farmer gaped at him.  What on earth was a “White Squall”?. The old mariner impatiently made vigorous swimming motions with his arms. “I have no doubt we shall have to do this before we get ashore.”

Liverpool Courier, 29 October 1859

Total loss of the Royal Charter and 454 lives.

The most awful calamity connected with the storm of Tuesday night and Wednesday6 is the total loss, near Point Lynas, on the coast of Anglesea, of the Australian screw-steamer Royal Charter.  The catastrophe exceeds in painful incidents, any similar event that has happened in this locality for years – it is even worse than the lamentable loss of the iron ship Tayleur on Lambay Island, in Janaury 1854.  In the latter case, the vessel drove straight on to the rocks, and in less than half an hour all was over; in the case of the Royal Charter, the ill-fated vessel was for several hours thumping on the shore and rocks, and she suddenly burst up in a moment, when long-deferred suspense had given reason for hope of speedy deliverance.  In the case of the Royal Charter the loss of the ship and treasure is overwhelmed in the great sacrifice of life.  Out of 493 souls said to have been on board, only 39 are saved; 454 have gone to their last account.  The scene of the wreck is in Dulas Bay, near Moelfra Point, on the isle of Anglesea, eight miles north west of Puffin Island and some miles southeast of the rock-bound port of Amlwch.  The coast itself is of a peculiar character, and one which, of all others, was most dangerous to an iron vessel. It has the appearance of an immense old stone quarry, and the limestone rocks are sharp, irregular, and as rough as a file where not covered over with sea weed.  At the extreme edge to the shore they rise in perpendicular shelves to the height of forty feet.  The small village of Prenteth lies about a mile and a half to the southwest, but the country round about is thinly populated and barren looking.  To the southward of Moelfra Point, Red Wharf Bay, with a fine sandy beach, makes an extensive sweep of some miles; and had it been the Royal Charter’s good fortune to get in there, perhaps all, or nearly all, might have been rescued.  Speculations, however, are now useless; our melancholy task is to proceed with the narrative of this distressing event.  After a splendid passage from Melbourne, accomplished in 58 days and having landed 17 passengers at Queenstown, and telegraphed her safe arrival to the owners, the Royal Charter made for Liverpool.

The Coroner Mr. W. JONES, apologized for being unable to get an entirely English-speaking jury, they were, however, the most respectable farmers of the district he could find.

                                                               Riggers, working their passage (5 out of 11)                          Crew (18 out of 112 – no officers saved)

Names extracted from the publication.  

              AB    C    DE    F    G    H    IJKL   M    N   OP   Q   R    S     TUVWXYZ