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William Carter Ivey and the "W. R.T. of Truro( 1901) Izaro (1907) For St Bees Village School Shipwreck has been no stranger to St. Bees. Our beach has seen its share of drowned bodies over the years. In our older Burial Registers the entry "Body of unknown man washed up on the shore" occurs time and time again. These notes concern just three disasters which made news in our village. Today they have been largely forgotten - but there are reminders here of each of them, for those who know where to look. A shipwreck from Victorian times has left us its own memorial - though its story is now largely forgotten. In our churchyard is an imposing stone monument. Upon its plinth rest a number of very old sea-shells. Beneath it, in three rows of four, lie the remains of twelve mariners: eleven Italian seamen and an English deep-sea pilot. We do not know the names of the eleven, but the twelfth was Henry Legg, from Falmouth in Cornwall. -------- The story starts with an eleven year old boy, John McGill, of Braystones. He lived at the railway station (his mother was station mistress) and from the station there is normally a fine view of the sea. On the Sunday night in question, however, it was snowing heavily, and to make matters worse a gale was blowing off the sea. Suddenly, through the gloom, John saw a ship's mast-light, and he was sure it was too close to the shore. But when his mother looked there was nothing to be seen, and she concluded that he must have been mistaken. Next morning, though, it was obvious he had been right. Below the station wreckage lined the shore, and when Mrs McGill rushed down to it she saw there were dead bodies among the rocks. Some railwaymen arrived and helped her search, and between them they located eight bodies. After the police and the customs officials had been called, the bodies were taken along the railway to St. Bees. When bodies are found there has to be an enquiry or "inquest". Twelve members of the public are summoned to investigate the deaths and see if anyone is to blame. The jury for this inquest was made up of notable village figures such as the village chemist John Reay, market gardener William Blythe, and Jonathan Burnyeat the postman. They met at the Royal Hotel (now 'Grindal House', opposite the station) on January 14th, which in 1879 was a Tuesday. The eight bodies, still in the clothes in which they were found, were laid out on straw in a stable behind the hotel. Early in the proceedings the jurors were taken to see them. This cannot have been a pleasant task, for some of the bodies were terribly mutilated. One had no arms or legs, most of its head was missing, and it had been completely disembowelled. The postman was unable to continue after seeing it. One of the bodies - Henry Legg's - was identified from his Pilot's Certificate, kept safe in a tin in his pocket. The others could only be given numbers. The ship had been the sailing barque "Luigi Olivari", taking grain from Philadelphia to Silloth. Wednesday the 15th was a solemn day in St. Bees. All our shops stayed closed, as a sign of respect for the dead. The eight bodies from the inquest, and another which had been found afterwards, were placed in coffins and carried to the churchyard, where many villagers were gathered to hear the burial service read over them. Although the coffins were not taken into the church, the villagers went inside afterwards, where according to the newspaper "a hymn bearing on the perils of the deep was sung, with a feeling in keeping with the mournful ceremony". There was less respect, however, on the beach. As clothes and other goods came in from the wreck, local people scrambled to acquire them. But stealing from wrecks is illegal. Police Constable Armstrong from St. Bees did his best, but he had to call in policemen from four neighbouring places before he could actually stop it! Over the next few days three more bodies were found - one on St. Bees Beach and two at Fleswick Bay. These were buried with the others. If, as was believed, there were fourteen or fifteen in the crew of the "Luigi Olivari", there must have been other bodies which were never discovered. A week after the funeral the salvage from the wreck was auctioned on the beach. Dealers came from as far away as Barrow and Liverpool, and bidding was brisk. Timbers, chains, anchors and other sundries, and a good deal of the original cargo of grain, together fetched about £450. And how do the shells come to be on the grave? We don't know. Elderly people in the village today remember the shells from their childhood, but how they came to be there in the first place is totally forgotten.
The monument to the seamen from the "Luigi Olivari".
IN CHRIST ----------- Maria McGill - Braystones Station Mistress
Maria McGill, the Braystones station mistress was much respected in seafaring circles for the help she gave to seamen wrecked on our shore. Her descendants still own a bible given to her by the captain of another ship, lost in the same place two years later.Her son John (or Jack) McGill, who first saw the ship near the rocks, and was decsribed in the papers as "a bright little lad", went to sea himself when he grew up. He was drowned in 1903, when his ship was sunk in a hurricane off Florida. He left a widow and three daughters at Sea View, St. Bees.
I am grateful to Dorothy Walker of London, Maria McGill's Great-Grandaughter, for much of the information about her. 1901 - William Carter Ivey and the "W. R.T. of Truro".On Christmas Day, 1901, a man's body was found on the beach. There was nothing to identify him, so a description was put in the papers in the hope that he would be recognised. Meanwhile he was given a funeral here, and entered in the records as "Unknown man washed up on the shore". A second unknown man, found on the following day, was buried next to him. Before long a letter arrived from Cornwall. It was from the eldest daughter of William Carter Ivey, who had recognised her father from the description. "Our dear father", she wrote, "has left a wife and eight children". She explained that he had been the Captain of the Cornish schooner "W.R.T. of Truro", and she named the other two members of his crew - the second of whom was found at Drigg shortly afterwards. Their ship had foundered on December 21st, drowning all three.
Captain Ivey's clothes, including his "flannel drawers, hemmed in blue", were duly posted to his widow in Cornwall. So were the four pounds thirteen shillings and seven pence, and the three one-penny postage stamps, which were found in his pockets. Later his grave was marked by an imposing headstone. It still stands in our churchyard today, though with the passing of the years its inscription is becoming hard to read. 1907 - The Steamship "Izaro"At the Seacote end of our beach, just off the Head, is evidence of one of last century's shipwrecks. Two boilers from a steamship can be seen when the tide is low - and when it is very low, the keel and some ironwork as well. These are all that is left of a Spanish steamship, the "Izaro". She was taking iron ore to Maryport when, one night in 1907, she lost her way in thick fog. She crashed into the rocks just below Tomlin - fortunately so high up that her crew could scramble to safety. When the tide went down they could see that the ship's prow and stern were lodged upon the rocks. There was nothing, though, under her amidships. Soon the weight of the cargo caused the unsupported hull to split. There was no hope of refloating the "Izaro" in that condition, and so her cargo was taken off in flat-bottomed A photograph of the "Izaro" taken at the time. Can you see the crack where her hull is beginning to split'? Her presence on our rocks brought many sightseers to the village. We have no idea who this lady is. For several more weeks workmen toiled over the "Izaro", salvaging much of her metal for scrap, What was left was dragged back into the sea. When the "Izaro" first hit the rocks her crew abandoned her. They reboarded her, however, when it seemed she might be refioated. After three days it was clear she was going to break up, and the crew left her again to camp on the rocks. This photograph was made into a postcard which was sold around the district. Its caption says "CREW OF S'SHIP IZARO WRECKED ON TOMLIN ROCK ST. BEES MAY 07'". This seems a very large crew for so small a vessel and the picture may include some salvage men as well.
A Winter Storm
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The inscription around the base reads:
barges which could be brought in close to the shore. By the time this was finished the ship had broken in two.
Almost a century later very little remains. The boilers have withstood the battering of the waves, though they are badly holed now on the seaward side. Sea anemones live on the ironwork of the keel where it is not too deeply buried in the sand, and lobsters - so fishermen tell us - find the "Izaro" an ideal home.
