STORM AND COMPANY
Jacob Storm's Memoir
CHAPTER THREE. MASTER MARINER
Trading began from Hartlepool and on the year's last trip to the
south, my father handed her [the 'Crosby'] over to me at Ipswich
and I brought her back to Whitby without mishap.
The next March, brought only one crew change and trade followed
the usual routes until June when we sailed from the Tyne to
Rouen. Here my father became ill and was found to be suffering
from smallpox. He had to be taken to a house on the South Quay.
My mother was with us on that voyage and she nursed him through a
severe illness. I remember the doctor, who spoke no English,
presenting my mother with an opening rosebud as a sign that the
crisis had passed.
I got the schooner chartered through Betancourt the broker to
load burr stones for Hull, and started for home the day my mother
and father were able to start their own journey home. This event
was a never-to-be-forgotten experience, as was the kindness of
the people, French and English, who helped us in our time of
need.
I shipped no extra hand, and so we numbered only four aboard. A
pilot took us down the Seine to Havre Roads and thence we made
for Hull where we arrived all well and discharged our cargo to
Mr. Child, a manufacturer of millstones. From there I
found a handy cargo of coal in Goole for Le Havre, but, before we
could sail, we had to be towed above Blacktoft Sands and left
there to encounter the stress of the bore and the shifting sands,
which the pilot assured us could easily wreck us. He was mistaken
however, for the little craft floated like a duck when the bore
came. At high water, the tug picked us up again and towed us to
Hull Roads. To please the mate, I went ashore for another hand,
but a Good Samaritan told me we should do better without the man
I found and so we went as we were.
The passage to Le Havre was fine and we proceeded next to
Sunderland where the 'Crosby' was sold, for what my father had
paid for her, to Mr. Candlish for his bottle
trade. We all joined the brig 'Coquette' at Bill Quay, I carting
our effects over to Pelaw Main.
Father was master when we made three voyages with coal to
Rochester in what was left of the year.
I have a note of profits we made with the 'Coquette'. Three
voyages in three months was not bad going. Some masters, and more
owners, used to say a ship in the east coast coal trade should
make twelve trips a year, but nine or ten was nearer the fact. So
each voyage in the last three months of 1859 produced a profit of
over £26. As a master earned £8 a voyage my father was earning
about £10 a week as long as the freights kept up. This was very
good indeed for the times, especially as competition from
railways and steamships was looming up. The fuller account of the
'Coquette's' profits I now give:
Year ..£. s. d
1859 .79 0 0
1860 .124 17 5
1861 .137 16 7
1862 .203 4 0
1863 .247 4 7
1864 .154 12 1
1865 .115 17 6
1866 .147 2 0
1867 .165 19 6
1868 .80 19 11
1869 .153 19 11
1870 .122 10 0
1871 .148 17 4
1872 ...48 14 3
1873 .200 2 9
1874 .214 18 3
1875 .107 9 5
1876 carried to 1877
1877 ..22 11 2
1878 .170 10 8
1879 ..32 1 3
Total 2687 19 8
As she cost £830 and was sold for £300 in April 1880, she
brought in £2237. 19s. 8d. all together, or an average of just
under £112 a year over the twenty years, or £2. 3s. a week. So
the run of three voyages at the end of 1859 had been exceptional,
but an income of £4 to £5 a week, wages and profits, was far
from unsatisfactory in those days. From time to time, also,
several of my family had more than one vessel. The biggest owners
in Bay in those days were Matthew Storm and Ben Granger, another cousin, each with six
vessels much of the time. There were usually about twenty
Storm-owned ships at any one time, and close kin, like the Bedlingtons,
Moorsoms, Hewsons, Skerrys and so on, brought the total
near a hundred. All sorts of trades and professions were drawn
into share-holding in the fleet, like Matthew Storm's son-in-law
the Rev. Thomas Phillips and John
Rickinson the grocer. In any one of the many reasonably
good years, thousands of pounds of profit came back to Bay, and
it is not surprising that it was well provided with shops, trades
and inns. There were two doctors. Every space in the village was
built upon, and older houses were enlarged. Most of them were
held on ancient or very long leases, granted by the Cholmleys
in the seventeenth century. Prosperity and a lot of
independence made the appearance of Bay Town, for which I and
many more have so great affection, and for which now the summer
visitors express so much admiration.
I have kept some accounts of local shopkeepers who supplied the
ships as well as the inhabitants. Captain Phatuel Granger
in 1819 bought for the brig 'Mercury' these provisions:
.............................................................£..s..d
Feb 13. to Potatoes ..1 Bushel......... .........3 4
Feb 20 .to.Beef......... 2 Stone @ 6d..... ..13 4
Mar 2...to.Beef 2 cwt. 2st. 22 @ 56/-.. 7 11 0
Mar 6...to.Potatoes 2 Bushels....................6 8
Mar13 .to.Potatoes 1 Bushel..................... 3 4
Sept11 to Beef 1 stone 2lb at 7/-............... 8 0
Sept18 to Leg mutton 12 @ 6d .................6 0
Oct 2...to Beef 8st. 12 lb @ 7/-............. 3 2 0
Oct 2 ..to Salt .......................................... 5 0
Oct 2 ..to Potatoes 1 Bushel .....................2 4
...................................................Total
13 1 2
This account was rendered by butcher Stephen Crosby,
whose family was also in farming and moved into shipping and
seafaring. Business like this, with scores of locally-owned
ships, was an important part of local trade, and the Crosbys
bought a lot of property in Stephen's time, and his son after
him.
By 1880, times had turned against the sailing ships on the coast
and colliers in particular.
Returning to my seafaring narrative, I must tell of an experience
in one of the most disastrous gales ever known on the coast.
In the great gale of 28th May 1860, I was still mate of the
'Coquette', and we got our anchors down in Hartlepool Bay, with
Hastie the pilot on board. Our chains held and we got towed into
W. Hartlepool Basin when the weather moderated. In this gale, the
'Fortitude' was caught in the wold. Andrew had Damaris and child
on board and he ran up by the beach through the Hemsby Hole and
thus saved the lives of all on board. The Cockle Gat was a death
trap. Ships could not carry sail enough to fetch into the roads
and the Scroby Sand got many victims.
(Editor's note: To give some idea of the risks at sea at
about this time it has been said that in 1871 there were 856
ships lost within 10 miles off the British coast)
On 8th February, 1861, I sailed in command of the 'Coquette',
having at the age of twenty-three some experience of ships and
their affairs. The cargo was nut coals from Hartlepool for
Rochester and we caught the last of the tide. The morning was
fine with a light breeze from the west which lasted until we were
off Huntcliff Foot, when a freshening gale came up from the
south, testing the close-hauled sailing qualities of the fleet,
amongst which the 'Coquette' was not to be despised.
We beat to southward under all sail until about 4 p.m., when off
Whitby, the wind increased with the ship on the port tack. North
Cheek was well on the lee bow and I debated in my mind whether to
signal to our people at Bay before dark or take advantage of the
flood and seek a good offing ready for the fight with the
cantankerous North Sea which outlook and glass foretold. Thanks
to Providence and my early training among fishermen, skippers and
shellbacks who taught me to dread a lee shore, I adopted the
right course, which is to say I tacked, single-reefed the
topsails, set main t'gallant and sailed her hard for two hours,
in which time we reached a very safe position twenty miles east
of High Whitby and were able to close reef and make all snug.
During the night, the wind backed to the eastward and became of
hurricane force. Towards midnight, we had put our vessel before
the wind to cross the hawse of a craft that seemed bent on
running us down. When we brought her to the wind again, I put her
on the port tack and well up to her course but the heavy sea
prevented her making much headway. It was now really bad weather
with rain, wind and sea all exceedingly heavy, but we rode the
surges buoyantly.
Towards noon on the 9th, the sea came more abeam and heavier than
ever, causing the 'Coquette' to labour now, and very heavily at
that. The weather fore-topsail sheet carried away and so we
furled it and set foresail, which in the trough of huge seas was
almost in calm. But towards evening, the weather improved and our
speed increased, and in the early morning light of Sunday 10th,
we saw Flamborough Head still well to leeward. By full daylight,
the wind was moderate north-east which allowed us to set course
and sail for the Wold, and, thank God and a good sea boat, we
were among the favoured few that made port safely after a night
that had taken many fine ships, including the tea-clipper
'Kelso'. The Whitby lifeboat capsized, and drowned all but one of
her crew, and the loss of ships and lives in Tees Bay and on the
adjacent coasts was appalling. Nearly eighty vessels went in that
storm. The Harrison's good little brig 'Claret' was stranded at
Hartlepool and sold as a wreck, although she was later refloated
and lengthened. Allison Crosby, the master, and Boyes Cooper were
lost at Hartlepool in Isaac Shadforth's 'George Andreas', and ten
of the ships that went down took all hands with them.
My crew were a fair sample of the coasting seamen. They went
steadily about their work of reefing, steering, keeping look-out
and the rest of it and they won through.
 |
Looking over the harbour is St Mary's Church where there is a moving memorial to the loss of the Whitby Lifeboat and crew. Sampson Storm 1803-1865, master mariner, was a member of the board that enquired into the disaster | |
A little after these events, on 27th May, 1861, Miss
Isabel Pearson, daughter of Captain and Mrs.
William Pearson, and I were married. Mrs. Pearson was
one of the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. William Robinson
of the Bay Mill, and Capt. Pearson's ancestor came from Ebberston
to Bay in the seventeenth century.
At the beginning of 1862, my wife and I kept ship at West
Hartlepool, without remuneration, except for victuals, to give me
time to obtain my certificate for mate.
Any of my family who read this may think we had good heart to
marry in such circumstances. I can only say that we counted the
cost before doing so and that I have known many people marry
under more favourable circumstances whose married lives have been
less happy. With strict economy and hard work on the part of my
helpmate, we rubbed along without getting into debt but, to use
an Americanism, we lifted our bottom dollar several times, and I
was able to return my father 'a Roland for his Oliver'' when he
spoke of the hard times in his generation.
Two years later while I was still master of the 'Coquette', we
took a cargo of gas coal to Erith gasworks, but the coal whippers
made an attempt to boycott me and make their own price. However,
I fairly surprised both meters and whippers by proving myself an
able basketman and the crew well able to follow. We discharged
the ship in four days and made an extra 25/- each. When I visited
the local barber, he said we had become the talk of Erith. This,
1863, was the 'Coquette's' most profitable year.
In June of the same year, we went to the Baltic with a cargo from
Seaham Harbour, and it is an indication of the competitive times
that, before we left port, we had the topsails fitted with
Colling and Pinkney's patent reefing apparatus.
I stayed with the 'Coquette' for another eighteen months or so,
by which time I had been at sea for fifteen years, and I decided
it was high time I took my master's ticket. In January 1865, we
were discharging in Dover, and frequently leaving the mate to
keep an eye on operations, I gave all the time I could to
revising my studies and navigation. We sailed up to Hartlepool
where my wife came to keep ship with me again while I studied,
including four days of cramming at Marine School, I passed before
Captains Gillies and Armstrong in Sunderland. My
certificate is dated 8th February, 1865.
BACK