Mary Queen of Scots (1855/02/07)

Port Gregory

Built at Sunderland England in 1843, the Mary Queen of Scots was a wooden, 3-masted barque sheathed with yellow metal. It had a standing bowsprit, one deck, a square stern, stern galleries and a woman figurehead (presumably of the queen after whom the vessel was named). Records show it underwent repairs in 1844 and 1848. The first owner was named Fairfield, but Thomas Sleddon owned it at the time it was wrecked. The Mary Queen of Scots had brought a cargo of guano from Shark Bay to Fremantle in January 1855, and after loading further cargo there it sailed to Port Gregory on 3 February 1855. It was then to continue on to Singapore.
On board were the master, Captain Baxey (Totty, 1979) or Captain Buxey (Henderson, 1988), 12 ticket-of-leave men, 15 prisoners under the charge of a constable (for the Geraldine Lead Mine), five passengers, two ostlers and a crew of thirteen. The cargo aboard the vessel included timber, shingles, flour and twelve horses. Also on board was a single fluked anchor consigned by the Harbour-Master at Fremantle to Henry A. Sanford to add to the permanent moorings at Port Gregory. The Leander and Preston had previously brought up mooring gear, but obviously this now needed to be supplemented. Mary Queen of Scots was to load 40 tons of lead ore at Port Gregory.
THE LOSS
The Mary Queen of Scots arrived at Port Gregory on 7 February 1855 after a 42-hour passage from Fremantle. It anchored ‘just at the tail of the reef on the southern side of Hero Passage where it felt the influence of the heavy current both from this and the Golddiggers Passage’ (CSO 339/6, quoted in Henderson, n.d., Research Notes). The barque went aground on a sandbank while still in the process of furling sails after the trip, but was refloated after hauling off with anchors and winch. The master, Captain Baxey, re-anchored in deeper water closer to the reef using two anchors and 25 to 30 fathoms of chain.
About 10.00 p.m. that night a gale developed and the anchors began to drag. No more chain could be veered for fear of the vessel swinging back onto the sandbank. Other vessels in the port left for the open sea, but Captain Baxey remained despite local advice to leave. At midnight the anchors had dragged so far that the Mary Queen of Scots went aground on the sandbank and began to strike heavily, fracturing the keel and starting a severe leak. The pumps were manned but made little headway against the flood of water pouring in.
The barque was now rolling excessively in the heavy surf that was breaking all around it. Several men were sent aloft to lower the topgallant masts and yards, but no sooner had they been sent aloft than they were ordered down again, as Mr Sleddon thought that the masts might snap and fall with the men still aloft. Blue lights were lit for assistance but were not answered until the early hours of the next morning.
A few hours after striking the sandbank there was 2.4 m of water in the hold and a fear of the horses drowning, so they were hoisted onto the deck. By 7.00 a.m. the crew started to throw them overboard hoping that they would swim to shore.
Henry Sanford, the officer in charge of the Lynton convict depot, tried to reach the vessel in a whale-boat but was prevented by the rough seas. He then swam to the ship and took charge of rescue attempts. Another attempt to reach the ship by whale-boat with a line from the shore was successful only because a seaman swam from the Mary Queen of Scots to the whale-boat with a line. With this line from ship to shore the crew were gradually taken off by ship’s boat, until that was dumped on the beach and stove in. After this a raft built on the ship was used. Thomas Sleddon, Captain Baxey, the first officer and Sanford finally landed ashore at 6.00 p.m.
While carrying out salvage operations Sleddon and the crew noticed that the fore part of the vessel was rocking one way while the aft section moved the other way. Three days later the vessel began to break up. On 13 February the mainmast came down and the barque went to pieces.
INQUIRY
The Resident Magistrate at Champion Bay, William Burges, in a letter to the Colonial Secretary put the cause of the wreck to mismanagement of the vessel, in particular the master’s choice of an unsafe position to drop anchor.
INITIAL SALVAGE
Eleven of the horses thrown overboard were later found ashore. On 12 February the weather abated sufficiently for the owner and crew to return aboard and salvage some of the cargo. This included a third of the timber, half of the shingles and six bags of flour. Some other articles that washed ashore, including a 5-gal keg of gin, were also recovered. The collapse of the mainmast on 13 February and the consequent tangle of rigging prevented anybody boarding the wreck until it broke up soon afterwards. Spars and some ship’s timbers washed ashore over subsequent days.
The hull, anchor and the items salvaged were sold at auction for a mere £80 to A. Clinch, and the four ship’s boats sold to Charles Evans for £20. The vessel was not fully insured, and Thomas Sleddon lost heavily, including having to pay duty on the keg of gin that washed ashore.
Henry Sanford lost two coils of whale line in the rescue. Whale line was a particularly high quality rope with great strength for its size and was consequently expensive.
SITE LOCATION
The wreck of the Mary Queen of Scots has not been located, but the magnetic anomaly that has been found in line with a large anchor on the reef may possibly be the wreck of the barque. This anomaly is at present buried by the shifting sands within Port Gregory.
Sanford in a letter to his brother in Perth dated 12 March 1855 described the sequence of events of the wrecking, and his part in the rescue of the crew. His description of the position of the vessel at various times is important in attempting to locate the wreck:
…first Mr Sleddon, Capt. Baxey and Mr Evans tried all they could to make me sign the survey, that the vessel was wrecked and lying in the minor entrance of the harbour, she never was further than this (No. 1) and she dragged her anchors from (No. 2) and she was wrecked (No. 3)—(No. 4 my store). In the first printed charts you cannot see where she was wrecked. The chart not giving far enough to the Northward. The last I have not by me, but just look to the chart with my little sketch, and you can make the thing plain I think.—Now for my story.—I was absent when the vessel arrived in sight and did not know she was in sight until I found her aground at (No. 5). I went on board and we managed to nudge (kedge? author) her up to (No. 1). The Captain stating he had come close round the reef and dropped his anchor under the reef but that she had dragged her anchor to (No. 5)—getting off the bank and afloat (quoted in WAM File No. MA-117/80, vol 3).
EXCAVATION AND ARTEFACTS
The only known artefacts from the wreck of the Mary Queen of Scots include the ship’s bell that now hangs in the Northampton District High School. The headmaster and a teacher found it lying on the beach in the mid 1960s. A post at the north end of the lower verandah of the Lynton homestead is made from a spar from the Mary Queen of Scots, and for many years one of its masts was used as a footbridge at Bowes River Station. This was washed away during floods in the 1930s. In all probability local people would have quickly used any other spars and ship’s timbers washed ashore for building purposes.