William Date, Shipwrights Yard and the Fruit Schooners Kingsbridge Estuary U3A Local History Group Meeting, 16Th October 2013

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William Date, Shipwrights Yard and the Fruit Schooners Kingsbridge Estuary U3A Local History Group meeting, 16th October 2013

William Date was born in Stoke Damerel, Plymouth in 1809 to John and Ann Date. John was a shipwright who learnt his trade in the Devonport Dockyard. By 1811 the family had moved to Salcombe where John Date set up a as a shipbuilder on a site later to be known as Chant’s Yard near to what is now Whitestrand car park. They had five children - all boys, William was the eldest, but sadly the two youngest boys both named Joseph born in 1817 and 1819 in Salcombe died within two weeks of birth and were buried in Malborough All Saints churchyard. Before 1844 all burials for residents in Salcombe took place in Malborough with the funeral cortege walking the three miles to the church.

William’s younger brother John, born on 20th January 1811, was lost at sea on 4th February 1841. The remaining brother Richard Manning Date was born in Salcombe in 1813 and died in 1845 at Stoke Damerel, Plymouth. He married Mary Ingram on 3rd April 1838 in Kingsbridge and they had two children, Dorinda Ingram Date who died shortly after birth in June 1838 and John Henry Ingram Date who had a short spell working in Date’s Boatyard with his grandfather John Date before moving back to Stoke Damerel to work as a shipwright in the Devonport Dockyard. William Date married Mary Shepherd on 16th June 1837 at Malborough All Saints Church in the village where she was born in 1811. William was apprenticed in a shipyard at Salcombe, presumably his father’s yard. However, in order to build larger ships greater space was required so William and his father John moved in 1837 to the site in Dodbrooke although this is at odds with accounts described later of other shipbuilders using this yard before the Dates especially as their first known ship was not launched until 1847. Strangely the yard was never referred to as John Date’s yard and William is credited with the building of all the ships at the yard. It suggests William was probably the businessman as shown later by his part ownership of several ships and his father John was more likely the skilled shipwright. In 1841 William and his wife Mary with daughter Rhoda Shepherd Date are living with his parents John and Ann Date at Market Place Dodbrooke. The 1841 census describes both his occupation and his father’s as shipwrights. By 1851 William is living with his family at New Quay, Dodbrooke, occupation Shipwright.

He now has five daughters and finally a son, William John born about March 1850. The children were baptised in Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury Church. Rhoda Shepherd Date born about Sept 1838 Sarah Ann born August 1840 Mary Dorinda born about June 1842 and baptised on 3rd July 1842 Ellen Elizabeth born about March 1845 and Baptised on 4th May 1845 Eliza Grace born about June 1847 and baptised on 29th March 1850 William John born about March 1850 and baptised on 29th March 1850 A second son, Richard was born in about September 1853 and baptised on 14TH April 1854 at Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury Church. In 1851 William’s parents, John and Ann, are also living at New Quay, Dodbrooke, with John’s occupation - a shipwright. In 1861 William and his family are still living at New Quay and William is a shipbuilder employing 20 men and 20 apprentices. His parents John and Ann are living next door with their grandson John Henry Ingram Date, described as a foreman shipwright, his mother having remarried after the death of John’s father, Richard Manning Date about Sept 1845. John Date and his wife Ann died on the same day 2nd April 1870 and both were buried in Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury churchyard on 4th April. In 1871 William is living with his family at No2 New Quay and working with his sons William John and Richard as shipbuilders. William John had joined his father in the yard about 1868 and they were soon joined by Richard. The yard was now called William Date and Sons. William’s wife Ann died on 8th November 1877 and was buried on 12th November in Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury churchyard. In 1881 William is employing 15 men and 5 boys. His sons William John now 30 and Richard 27, both unmarried are also shipbuilders. The family all live with William’s unmarried daughters Sarah and Eliza at Shipwrights Yard, Dodbrooke. In 1891 William is retired and lives at No1 Shipwrights Yard with unmarried children Sarah, Eliza and Richard. William dies on 9th August 1897 at Kingsbridge and probate records show his estate as £3701 8s 5d. Sons William John and Richard continue to run the yard until 1912. William John married Elizabeth Marshall Lidstone about September 1886 in Kingsbridge. In 1891 they are living at No3 Shipwrights Yard, Dodbrooke with daughters Mary Honor Date born about June 1887 and Dorinda Helen born about September 1888. A son William Henry was born in 1892 in Kingsbridge but he became an electrical engineer and never worked in the yard. In 1901 William John and his family continue to live at No 3 Shipwrights Yard next door to his unmarried brother Richard and his sister Eliza.

In 1911 William John’s residence is recorded as New Quay, Kingsbridge where he lived until his death on 27th March 1933. Probate records show his estate as £6112 3s 8d. His wife Elizabeth died six years later on 4th June 1939 at Cliffside, New Quay, Kingsbridge. Richard is living with his sister Eliza at Rockwood, New Quay, Kingsbridge in 1911 until his death on 15th October 1936. His estate was £10,626 11s 2d. This house was built in the 1890’s and was sold after Richard’s death. Eliza had died much earlier on 24th September 1913.

Shipwrights Yard There is very little recorded history of the small sailing ships and their shipbuilders that prospered in the West Country during the 19th century. This may be partly explained by the comparative illiteracy of the masters, builders and crew of these ships; men not given to putting their thoughts and experiences on record. As for the owners, it is a source of amazement that the authors of such records that remain could ever have conducted the extensive and prosperous businesses they did. Some records suggest the shipyard site beside the estuary at Dodbrooke was first used by John Jordain as a timber yard when he was engaged in housebuilding. During 1837 he thought there was more profit to be made from building ships and a shipyard evolved. Jordain is accredited with eleven ships launched from the yard.

Incidentally, Jessamine was skippered by a William Frink Date between 1852 and 1862. He is not thought to be a relation of William Date. He was also captain of two of the later schooners built by William Date – Excelsior and Lizzie and we will see a photograph of him later (slide 63 on page 35). John Jordain was born in 1798 in Dodbrooke and was described as a timber merchant in the 1841 census, when he and his family lived in Barrack Street (Ebrington Street) and in only one of his four children’s baptism records, Elizabeth on 8 June 1840 at Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury, did he describe himself as a shipbuilder. By 1851 the family were living in Church Street, Dodbrooke and John Jordain is described as a Yeoman and in 1861 he is an innkeeper at The Strand, Teignmouth. By 1871 he is a retired timber merchant living in Hackney London with his wife and two of his four children, one, George, is described as a builder employing 81 men and 11 boys. John Jordain died about September 1875 in Hackney, London. (Perhaps shipbuilding was not so lucrative after all.)

In 1846 Henry Martin, shipbuilder of Dodbrooke, launched the schooner Salcombe Castle from this yard, built for Weymouth of Salcombe. She was lost on the coast of New Zealand on 15TH September 1863. Henry Martin was also something of an enigma. In 1841 Henry Martin and his brother Thomas were described as wheelwrights living in Market Place, Dodbrooke whilst in 1839 a William Henry Martin owned Martins Yard (now Windsor Road) off Church Street, the site of a coach building business.

Records suggest that Henry, by now married, emigrated with his sister and her husband Reverend Hole to Australia and were joined there by their sister-in-law Sarah on the death of their brother Thomas in 1872 at Dodbrooke, a coachbuilder and wheelwright. Henry died in Ballarat, Victoria, the centre of the gold rush. It is possible to conjecture that with his carpentry skills in carriage building and as a wheelwright he might have attempted shipbuilding.

Nevertheless in 1847 William Date, now 38 years old, was recorded in the Dartmouth Port Register as having launched his first vessel, the 120 ton schooner Compeer (she was lost with all hands after leaving the Azores in 1858).

The yard was generally known locally during its heyday as “Shipwrights Yard” and comprised the filled-in foreshore of the estuary at a point opposite No.3 Embankment Road to a point some 600 feet along the shore in a southerly direction and continued to the slipway leading to the foreshore opposite Warren Road. Further infilling of the foreshore was undertaken by William Date during the 1860’s which brought criticism on the Harbour Commissioners for not standing up to William Date whilst denying other frontagers similar encroachments. On the opposite side of the road to the boatyard William Date built a row of four cottages, also known as Shipwrights Yard in the 1881 census and thereafter, not only for his own occupation and his son, William John Date and wife Elizabeth up to their deaths in 1936 and 1937 but also let to other families. At the southern end of the cottages was the sail loft, now used as a workshop. The cottages remained in the ownership of the Date family until about 1952 and are still there, a short distance beyond Jewson’s Yard.

To digress, incidentally, in the Kingsbridge Gazette on July 26th this year (2013) it referred to one of the cottages in 1881 being occupied by Robert William Smart, a schoolteacher and his wife Eliza and their two month old son Robert Borlase Smart, who grew up to be a revered painter in the Cornish artists’ stronghold of St Ives. The family moved away to Plymouth in 1887. Borlase Smart as he became to be known was an unofficial war artist in the First World War as a Captain in the 21ST London Regiment and the Artists Rifles and his paintings of the Western Front are hung in the Imperial War Museum. After the war he quickly established himself as a prominent member of the St Ives artists’ community but he remained an impoverished artist despite his prolific and much acclaimed work, particularly seascapes, and has been described as one of the finest marine painters of all time. He also painted highly regarded travel posters for the Great Western and the Southern Railway. He was Hon Secretary of the St Ives Society of Artists from 1930 and President at his death in 1947. The legacy of this son of a Kingsbridge schoolteacher continues to be immense, particularly amongst the still vibrant artists’ community in St Ives. Much of his work remains on public display.

However back to William Date. There is a long history of shipbuilding on the Kingsbridge estuary. Firstly, on suitable beaches between Kingsbridge and Salcombe, estuary shipbuilders had supplied 16 warships to join the fleet to counter the Armada in 1588, but during the 19th century better equipped shipyards were being constructed culminating in the heyday for shipbuilding on the Kingsbridge estuary with over 250 ships built between 1800 and 1880. Many fine ships were built and launched at Shipwrights Yard and one eminent book, The Merchant Schooners written by Basil Greenhill, a former Director of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, first published in 1951 describes the yard as follows: “The yard was first owned by William Date and later by W Date & Sons. The family seem to have started shipbuilding in Kingsbridge early in the 19th century and the yard was at its greatest in the last forty years of the century. The early vessels were registered as having been built at Dodbrook and only after about 1860 does Kingsbridge appear as the site of the yard. They built schooners, large barques, brigantines, barquentines, ketches and small smacks but Kingsbridge is best known in the history of Merchant Schooners, for here was the yard of one of the greatest of all the builders of small sailing ships in the West Country, William Date. The Date family, (grandfather, father, and two sons) built right through the period and were at the forefront of the development of the merchant schooners from the deep heeled specialised fruit carriers of the ‘thirties and early ‘forties to the clipper schooners which followed them, through the time of the general carriers of miscellaneous carriers to the Newfoundland trading schooners which were the last large vessels they produced.

In the 1850’s Date’s Yard was Kingsbridge’s biggest employer of over 40 men, shipwrights, carpenters, blacksmiths, rope maker’s, riggers and sail makers. However all the industries of the town contributed to the success of the boatyard and attendant trades supplying the yard would have included Lidstones Foundry; and hemp rope making for the rigging made at the Ropewalk where the lengths of ropes were stretched and twisted. The two ropewalks in Kingsbridge, opened in 1783 and around 1815, also supplied the Salcombe yards as Salcombe did not have a ropewalk.

Life in a shipyard was very tough, heavy, demanding, manual work usually in unpleasant conditions but also highly skilled. The hours were from six to six Monday to Friday, six to four on Saturday – a 70 hour week plus the walk to and from home which could be several miles; a time of hard graft, poverty and no relaxation. Families barely saw their father during the week. Unemployment was frequent – work or starve. An apprenticeship was for seven years earning three shillings and sixpence a week before becoming a journeyman shipwright earning about nineteen shillings a week. An apprentice had to observe stringent conditions on his conduct and was bound to obey his master written into a legal agreement such as “he shall not contract matrimony within the said term (of seven years), he shall neither buy nor sell, he shall not haunt Taverns or Playhouses, or absent himself from his master’s service day or night unlawfully. But in all things as a faithful apprentice he shall behave himself towards his said master at all times during the said term”. As boys who were not going to make the grade or were unsuitable were soon weeded out, there were few poor craftsmen. Once the building of a merchant schooner was called for, it became the responsibility of the moulder – the shipwright owner, master or yard manager - to conceive the design and then to ensure that the finished vessel as she grew on the slipway developed to be a replica in full size of the design that had been agreed for her. One of the few surviving artefacts to show the form and lines of these vessels is a half model discovered in Kingsbridge and shows a heavy very deep vessel with a flat sheer and considerable power with excellent sea keeping characteristics.

Local shipbuilding methods varied by custom and tradition but were not sophisticated and had a simplicity and straightforward approach appropriate to the skills of the workforce and the locality. Nevertheless wood shipbuilding was a very complex craft and the more it is examined in detail the more complicated it seems to have been. The design of any new vessel in South Devon was based on the wooden half-model of one side of the ship from stem to stern through from deck to keel, cut with sharp chisels and gouges to the moulder’s design from a block made of layers of ¾ inch planking up to 4 feet in length, generally yellow pine and fastened together with wooden pins (see next page).

When the shape was to the shipwright’s and owners’ satisfaction the laminations were separated again, and measurements made. It was very unusual for more than one schooner to be built from the same model as owners were individualists and each vessel was unique. This method of design was a comparatively sophisticated system and elsewhere in the United Kingdom very different methods were used. Knowledge of the behaviour and performance of the vessel was used for future design that slowly evolved and was perfected. It was rare for scale drawings to be made and the plan of the vessel was drawn out with chalk lines on the moulding loft floor or, before that, just by furrows drawn with a sharp stick on the sandy beach near the slipway where for the first time the true shape of the full sized schooner became apparent. Next, based on the measurements for the ship's design the building of the vessel could begin. The construction of any ship necessitated huge quantities of nails, barrels of pitch, oakum, cables of rope, paint, and linseed oil. The wood for ships was reduced to timbers in a saw pit and the joining of the wood required tools such as saws, mallets, caulking irons, augers and planes. Canvas, needles, leather, beeswax and thread were among other supplies needed. Timber for the construction of the ship was largely imported from Scandinavian and Baltic ports but some was locally sourced from the woods of the nearby countryside; trees selected by the moulder and the yard sawyers for their shape and suitability were felled and dragged to the cart rides for transport by great timber wagons for

9 seasoning near the yard, accomplished by immersing the logs in water for quite long periods alongside the estuary before being ready for use in shipbuilding.

Timber was likely also to have been supplied from the saw mill on Squares Quay.

In Sarah Prideaux Fox’s book “Kingsbridge and its Surroundings” first published in 1864 she refers to “Complaints having been made that the public path beneath the cliff was much interfered with by the lodgement of timber, the Harbour Commissioners requested the owner to remove the obstruction, which was effected, but only for a time. He was therefore requested to make a new and good road, as an approach to the steamer landing stage at High-House Point. This has been done, and it is much used, instead of the steep and narrow path some time since cut in the cliff.” The timber bark on the logs was removed with an adze by the apprentices and then sawn into suitable lengths and sizes in the saw pit by a large double-ended saw used vertically by two men, one standing in the pit below, the other above. The sawyers started work on the seasoned wood; first the keel blocks were made on which the keel was laid, then the stem and stern posts scarfed to it and held with copper bolts driven in by sledgehammers. Flimsy battens or ribbands were then erected, to show in outline the shape of the finished vessel taken from the waterlines of the half model and setting out plans, and held in place by light scaffolding and these were not removed until the ship was ready for planking. The frames were added next having been formed on the ground to the mould pattern with the most appropriate timber shape selected and made up in five or seven pieces with each frame bevelled on the outer face to suit its position in the hull.

The finished frames were massive objects and were hoisted in position inside the ribbands by derricks requiring skilled judgement and then bolted to the keel. The keelson was then added running the length of the vessel over the frames directly above the keel. The massive beam shelf was then added stretching right round the vessel below deck level inside the frames. Wedge shaped slots were cut to receive the ends of the square deck beams each "crowned", or "peaked", at the centre to create a camber so that the deck would allow water to run off into the gunwales at the side of the ship and unequally spaced being closer together at the bows and fitted with timber knee braces. A thick timber covering board or waterway was fixed above the deck beams around the perimeter for added strength and to cover the frame heads. With the basic hull frame complete, the vessel was ready for planking. While the planks were being cut, the entire frame was finely bevelled to achieve the smooth flowing lines envisaged in the half model and to ensure a good flat seating for the planking. This step involved the judgement of highly skilled shipwrights using an adze who had to estimate the rate of twist between the frames by eye. Cutting the planks to the right length and width to follow the profile of the vessel and ensure a snug fit required great skill and where the shipwrights’ prowess and judgement were best displayed. Bear in mind that each plank could be perhaps two and a half inches thick and twelve inches wide both convex and concave curved in profile and tapering at the bow to six inches and possibly up to eighty feet long.

Each plank was bevel edged to allow for caulking with the inner edges of the planks touching. The planks for the lower half of the hull were usually made of softer pine, while the upper strakes (that is a row of planking running from bow to stern), which received more abrasive wear-and-tear, were made of harder oak. Planks that required a lot of twisting for the right fit and shape were placed in a steam kiln to make them more pliable and then rushed to the vessel where they were shoved, shouldered, wedged, shored and clamped into place.

The gangs protected themselves from the face of the steam soaked timber with anything to hand, sacks, shavings or the jackets of their fellow workers! (above left). The inside of the hull had to be planked too! After this the deck planking was relatively straightforward with the outer planks tapered off to shape and all planks were bevelled to leave space for the caulking (above right).

Carpenters handed over to the caulkers, and the seams between the planks were filled with cotton and oakum supplied from the local workhouses, and then topped with pitch. After caulking the boys cleaned off the surplus and the shipwrights rounded off the run of the planking with plane and adze to leave a smooth finish to the vessels subtle and complex curves. Only if the vessel was to work the southern oceans or the Mediterranean did the hull below the waterline have to be “Felted and Yellow Metalled” and noted in the Register Book. This involved applying a heavy layer of tar to the hull and then felt sheets, also soaked in tar, pressed closely to the vessel’s shape. Light gauge yellow metal sheets were pressed on top of the felt and secured with copper nails to protect the planking and this was sometimes coated with a green copper anti- fouling paint that gave the vessel a characteristic and attractive appearance. With the decks completed, the bulwarks were added followed by the difficult job of stepping the masts and rigging the ship. Sails were sewn from heavy canvas in one of the two sail lofts in Kingsbridge and ironwork for the rigging added from Lidstone’s foundry. The bowsprit and rudder were installed, the hull painted and lastly the carved figurehead was fitted. As may be imagined, the launching of these sailing ships was quite an occasion for the townsfolk. News of a launching would spread and large crowds would gather at the yard to witness the launch which would take place about 6am in the morning or early evening when high spring tides occur in the Kingsbridge estuary. The event was without doubt an exciting, dramatic and probably a tense occasion culminating in cheers and shouts of congratulations as the vessel entered the water. Employees involved in the building of the ship were often given a copy of John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress as a keepsake to mark the occasion with typical Victorian sentiment! Often other local tradesmen came to help launch the ship - the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. It was recorded in 1880 that the nine principal shipowners in Kingsbridge and Salcombe were managing between them some 72 small sailing vessels and the majority were built by one or other of the five Salcombe yards, or by William Date of Kingsbridge whose output seems to have outnumbered those of the remaining yards put together. The smaller scale Salcombe yards were spaced out along the foreshore to the south of what is now Whitestrand car park. They were already well-established by the early 19th century. Firstly John Ball built 19 vessels between 1826 and 1838 on a site now occupied

14 by the Salcombe Hotel. Then Evan’s yard where John Evans had a thriving business by 1815 and three generations built at least 34 vessels before the yard closed in 1878; and adjoining was Vivian’s yard and lastly Bonker’s yard. These two men started in partnership and launched three vessels between 1926 and 1829 before Vivian opened his new yard with Bonker continuing in business on the same site building at least 24 vessels before being declared bankrupt in 1868. Henry Harnden took over the yard but was himself declared bankrupt two years later and the yard closed down. At his new yard James Vivian built 44 vessels between 1828 and 1877. On his death William Date bought the yard for £665 on 5th January 1877 because his Dodbrooke yard was too busy to accommodate the construction of another vessel and he built the brigantine Sarah Jane there. He sold the yard to William Chant in the early 1880’s by which time shipbuilding in the harbour was already in decline. It was the citrus fruit trade of oranges and lemons with the Azores and pineapples from the Bahamas, West Indies, over twice as long a voyage, that led to the building of about 120 topsail schooners, fast easily maintained vessels with at least 85 of these vessels - schooners and the later designs of brigs, brigantines, barques and barquentines of up to 500 tons being built at Date’s Boatyard between 1837 and 1912. The vessels were usually jointly owned by a consortium of local shareholders. Yet apart from those directly involved in the trade, few realised that it was being carried on or the scale of the operation and it went on unrecorded and unrecognised until it was gone for ever. In 1854 it is recorded that there were 70 vessels involved in the fruit trade carrying 60 million oranges and 15 million lemons to London alone from the Azores and western Mediterranean. In addition pineapples were brought from the West Indies, melons came from Portugal, currants and other dried fruit were obtained in the eastern Mediterranean. The nursery rhyme “Oranges and Lemons” - says the bells of St Clements - refers to St Clements Church situated at Clements Lane and King William Street, Eastcheap, London where citrus fruit was unloaded at nearby wharves. The great fruit schooner ports throughout the history of the trade were those of the South Hams of Devon - Dartmouth, Brixham and the Kingsbridge estuary; for some unknown reason from the early nineteenth century the Kingsbridge estuary – small with no deep anchorage and equipped with few facilities – became the pre-eminent port in Great Britain for the fruit trade and the building of deep heeled specialised Kingsbridge fruiterers and clipper bowed schooners which followed them profoundly influencing the design of small schooners and the distinctive shape of the vessel’s bows (see next page).

“Of all the rigs ever put on a vessel, none is more fascinating or romantic than the schooner, and of all the schooners the old topsail schooner is unquestionably the most handsome – for beauty and romance - in her are combined the handiness of the fore-and- after in narrow coastal waters with the powerful carefree drive of square rig on ocean passages.”

This early design of topsail schooner shows the classic features of a schooner, with two masts each in two parts, a long lower mast and a short separate topmast. The main canvas is set from the second or main mast and each lower mast has a gaff or boom sail. The quadrilateral or ‘square’ topsail makes her a topsail schooner and there are 2 staysails forward.

William Date, one of the greatest of the West Country schooner builders, not only perfected their design but also their elegant lines and seaworthiness to be the foremost shipbuilder of these vessels. Perhaps the best known trade for these ships after about 1870 was “The Newfoundland Trade” as the fruit trade declined. Up to the First World War schooners including those from Dates Yard were regularly crossing the Atlantic to ports in Newfoundland and Labrador. A saying among local seafaring folk was “Forty days to the Westward” meaning forty days to cross to Newfoundland – which was reckoned to be a pretty fast passage in the 19th century but they frequently made the return to European ports in less than 20 days, several taking under two weeks. The chief industry of Newfoundland and Labrador was cod fishing caught on the Grand Bank, then salted and dried in the small native settlements before being shipped to Europe in sailing ships, mainly to the Roman Catholic countries such as Spain, Portugal and Italy although some went as far as Brazil and the UK. Some of the fruit schooners would sail to Newfoundland to take a cargo of cod to southern Europe; pick up different cargoes there and go on to the Azores where they would take unripened fruit and race back to England as fast as they could to deliver the fruit in good condition for the markets, usually tying up at Fresh Wharf near London Bridge where the fruit was rushed to Covent Garden (see below). Bristol was a distribution point for the West and Midlands and the vessels only came into Fowey or Falmouth for orders. Only classed vessels listed in the Port Register Books were taken up by the merchants.

. Why schooners and why small vessels in the fruit trade? They were schooners because of the need for speed in all weathers and all conditions of wind and sea otherwise their cargoes became valueless. They had to cope with every point of sailing as near as possible equally well. The topsail schooner was best suited to these requirements; they carried an immense area of sail; they could sail off the wind as well as any similar or larger square rigged ship and better sailing on the wind; moreover they lost no time in the restricted waters at either end of their passage.

Small because the ports into which they sailed were small; the weight of the cargo if carrying more than a hundred tons would spoil the fruit underneath; more time spent loading increased the risk of damage to the fruit; and, finally, to use many small vessels in so highly speculative a trade was to spread the risk. They were extremely careful with the cargo, opening hatches during the daytime when the weather was good to improve ventilation. Inspections were carried out daily to discard rotten fruit. Masters could earn a bonus of as much as fifty pounds for bringing home a cargo without any rotten fruit. These schooners were as fast and as seaworthy as such small ships can be and often made their best passages during the orange season of November to April in the gales of autumn and early winter across the worst ocean in the world in the worst of all weathers. To see one of these little schooners in heavy weather, travelling fast through a North Atlantic sea was an awe inspiring sight which spoke volumes for the seamanship of those who commanded them and was a glowing testimony to the strength of their construction, their suitability for the work, and the excellence of their equipment. However this lucrative fruit trade came at a heavy price. The fruit clippers were built for speed and as such were vulnerable with a crew of only 5 or 6 men to save weight. Nevertheless it is a shocking statistic that half the fleet, often with all hands, was sunk, wrecked or lost. On one day, the 15th November 1851 seven local vessels were wrecked with all hands off Terciera, Azores. There is a contrary view that the high standard of the passages of these ships (when compared with the larger sailing ships of the period) were derived from several causes. Their cargo was light and bulky and when fully laden still had good freeboard. They had the low simple sail plan of the topsail and topgallant schooner and they suffered little in gales that crippled larger more squarely rigged ships. They were fast to windward and were of a very good hull design. The crews were of necessity good seamen, born and bred small ship seamen each potentially a schooner master with a strong parochial team spirit generally coming from the same small home port and all were concerned with the success of their voyages. Often the masters were shareholders in the ships in which they sailed. Captains who prospered and survived the hazards and punishing ordeal often retired to build substantial houses for themselves but the prosperity was short-lived. Trade declined during the 1870’s and outbreaks of orange and pineapple diseases in the 1880’s sealed their fate and the trade and the ships had virtually vanished by the end of the century. One interesting outcome of the citrus fruit trade was the growing of lemons and limes in the gardens of Combe Royal, Kingsbridge and oranges and lemons at Gerston on the west bank of the estuary that were almost certainly grown from pips brought back by the fruit schooners, although this is disregarded in Sarah Prideaux Fox’s book which claims that citrus fruit was grown at both locations a hundred years earlier during the 18th century. Another unusual legacy of this fruit trade is the large number of paintings of the schooners that are still to be found in West Country homes and museums, notably Salcombe Maritime Museum. They were often painted in Italian ports by struggling artists for the owners and masters of the vessels. The volcano Vesuvius in the Bay of Naples is often featured in these paintings and although painted in the so-called primitive style the care in painting the detail such as the rigging and the shape and positioning of sails is characteristic (see the following four paintings of Fruit Schooners).

It was said “The romance of the sea can never die out while such vessels and such crews as manned them are afloat”

Perhaps this slide (right) epitomises this romance showing the fore and aft schooner rigged yacht, Janette, not built by William Date, off the Eddystone lighthouse, possibly owned by the 5th Earl of Egremont.

But sadly the end was nigh. The demand for new ocean-going wooden sailing vessels rapidly declined towards the end of 19th century by 1) the loss of the fruit trade; 2) the building of steam driven steel hulled ships at industrial centres close to the sources of iron and coal; 3) the development of the marine steam engine.

The local shipyards and shipbuilding trades, as well as the sailors themselves, were forced to find new work or new skills. Dates Yard turned to building trawlers and fishing craft. The last order was for a fleet of six trawlers for a Ramsgate owner. The yard was closed and sold in 1912 and was then used for grain and cattle feed storage by Holman and Son, then for coal storage by Westcotts, the last occupier, during which time the site was extended further into the estuary. Date’s boatyard is now the site of “The Moorings” a modern residential development built in 1991 beyond the Crabshell Inn.

Michael Day

Bibliography The Merchant Schooners Volumes One and Two 1951 by Basil Greenhill The Evolution of the Wooden Ship 1988 by Basil Greenhill and Sam Manning The Schooner – Its design and Development from 1600 to the Present by David R MacGregor Westcountry Sail 1971 by Michael Bouquet A Salcombe Photographer by A E Fairweather Shipping in the Kingsbridge Estuary - Cookworthy Papers No 7 Salcombe to the Azores and Back by Jane Arnold-Brown A Pictorial History of Kingsbridge and the Surrounding Area by Sue Linton Salcombe Harbour Remembered by Muriel and David Murch and Len Fairweather Old Kingsbridge by Kathy Tanner and Len Fairweather Kingsbridge and its Surroundings by Sarah Prideaux Fox

Ships built in Dates Boatyard Pictures of these ships are on pages 32 to 36 below. They are listed in order by presentation slide number as given in the Names column in the table.

Year Name Tonn Details *picture age Eganora Galley Industry The difficulties of coastal voyages around Britain in autumn and winter involved scurrying from sheltered harbour to sheltered harbour in their lee particularly on passages westward along the North Devon and Cornish coast with long waits in harbour for favourable conditions. In the bad winter of 1911-12 the Industry took 52 days to get across Padstow Bar after sailing from Bridgwater. Jeraldine 1847 Compeer 120 William Date’s first ship, a Schooner. She was lost with all hands after leaving the Azores in 1858. 1847 Kingsbridge 44 1848 Agatha* 99 A Schooner for Grant & Co and used in the fruit trade Slide 43 to St Michaels; Sold to Lerwick in June 1864. 1849 Mantura 87 1850 Fanny* 111 A Schooner launched 9th May 1850 for Hurrell & Co Slide 44 and used in the fruit trade to St Michaels, Azores 1850 Montpelier 39 1851 Stella Sailed between Liverpool and the Mediterranean. 1852 Speedy* 90 A Schooner to replace a vessel of same name lost at Slide 45 sea with six other Salcombe vessels in a great gale off Terciera in the Azores on 15th November 1851; Sold out of port to Yougal, Ireland on 19th May 1881. 1853 Andante 98 1853 Juno 300 1854 Charlotte 70 In 1869 sailed from London Bridge to St Michaels and back in 17 days.

1854 Lizzie 218 A Brigantine 92 foot long. The 64 shares in her Garrow* ownership were divided amongst 18 individuals spread Slide 46 widely to all sections of the community. William Stidston, yeoman, and John Hannaford, gentleman held eight shares; William Heywood, professor of music, held four shares and a number were held by local tradesmen including a hatter, druggist, baker, mason, draper and tanner. William Date held two shares as did the master of the vessel. Two more shares were held by a yeoman farmer and the remainder were held by five women. Six shares were held by Miss Elizabeth Garrow of Yougal Co Cork after whom the ship was presumably named. Her rig was slightly different in that in order to stiffen her overlong top masts crosstrees were fitted with the appropriate rigging. She traded in the West Indies and the Mediterranean. 1855 Excelsior* 128 A Schooner for P O Hingston & Co; Launched on 5th Slide 47 March 1855 and christened by Miss Sarah Ann Date. William Date’s daughter. William Frink Date, Master Mariner, not related to William Date, the shipbuilder, was her second captain between 1864 and 1869. He lost his command at St Michael’s Azores on 3rd February 1869 after the ship was wrecked. All the crew were saved by boats as she reached the breakers. The wreck was sold for £130. The vessel was insured for £985 12s 0d with the Salcombe Shipping Association. 1856 Elinor 129 A schooner built for J H Hill &Co. 94 feet long. In 1869 NB No she sailed from London Bridge to St Michael’s and slide but back in seventeen days. She changed ballast for cargo read out in 24 hours and passed through the same wind-bound text big ships in the Downs on both homeward and outward passages. 1856 Josephine 192 A Brig. 1857 Annie Grant 148 A Schooner for the Grant fleet.

1857 Ernest* 81 For the Sladen fleet; launched on 31st July 1858. This Slide 48 painting shows her entering Leghorn (Livorno, Italy) on 31st October 1863 She was sold to Germany in 1880. 1858 Sarah 90 1858 Renown 174

1859 Amy 161 1860 Astrea 122 1860 Willie* 181 A brig built for R Hurrell and launched on 29th Slide 49 December 1860. Her first voyage was to the West Indies on 2nd March 1861. She was sold to Whitstable in the mid 1880’s. She was lost in collision with a German schooner Stuttgart 8 miles of Portland on 22nd June 1895. 1861 Marian 133 1862 Pass By* 148 A Schooner owned by Sladen and operated out of Slide 50 Salcombe for over 20 years She was sold in 1886 to John Stephens of Par and registered at Fowey. John Stephens was extremely proud of his vessels and would sit in his own folding chair, a heavily built old man with broad shoulders and a large round clean shaven face, with no beard but long heavy white moustaches watching amongst others Pass-by “of all the schooners, these ships were the most perfect. They were coloured green under the waterline and painted black above, their decks were scrubbed and their masts scrapped and varnished” – all under his eagle eye.

One of her skippers Captain John Phillips describes one voyage in Pass By; “went down to Cadiz and loaded salt for St John’s again. On arrival there we were ordered to Mannox Island, Labrador; on arrival there we found the fishermen had left, as it was September late in the year, for St John’s and so we had to do likewise. That night, being very foggy and blowing hard, we had great difficulty in dodging icebergs. Next morning, when the fog somewhat lifted we counted forty-two icebergs around us, large and small. We managed to clear them and reached St John’s, and were afterwards ordered to the West Indies fruit trade, which was very pleasant after the fish droghing…” She was lost on 30th December 1897 on the coast of Portugal on passage to Oporto from Cardiff with coal. 1862 Apphia* 168 A Brig, 180 feet long, built for Stidstone at a cost of th Slide 51 £4000 and launched on 11 October 1862. It was

reported in a local paper on 14th June 1871 that Apphia sailed from Haiti on 2nd April for Salcombe with a cargo. She was feared lost with all hands and was never heard of again. 1863 Rebecca 171 Owned by R Hurrell &Co Ltd; one account of her voyages under captain George Dornom which he successfully commanded between 1870 and 1886 states “On the Pernambuco passage I believe the record is held by Hurrell’s Rebecca, which made the run from St John’s to Pernambuco in 19 days after an exciting race with the schooner Viola beaten by four hours. The Rebecca left Bristol for St John’s on December 17th 1880 and had the usual winter passage with a succession of westerly gales and tremendous seas After lying hove-to for four days the Rebecca got the wind northerly and bitterly cold. She was 32 days to St John’s and had to sail into harbour through ice which was more than an inch thick. With their fish in half drums the Rebecca and Viola broke their way out of St John’s harbour, which was still frozen over on March 1 1881. After a splendid run south the Rebecca was heading in for the roadstead of Pernambuco on the early morning of the nineteenth day out with the Viola astern. Captain Dornom carried every stretch of sail right in to the anchorage and as the anchor went down the Rebecca’s boat swung out over into the water. Two sample barrels of fish were tossed into the boat and away went the skipper for the shore and got orders to discharge her cargo. The Viola was sent on to Bahia. The Rebecca was lost mid 1880’s. 1864 Flora* 199 A Brigantine for P O Hingston & Co was launched on th Slide 52 16 April 1864. She was wrecked in 1883 on Happisburgh Sands, Norfolk on passage from Runcorn to Shields with a cargo of salt. All lives were saved. 1865 Restless* 189 Brigantine for P O Hingston & Co launched on 23rd Slide 53 August 1865. In 1881 W A Wood was master and owner sailing from Guernsey 1865 Star 189 1866 Nellie* 281 A Barquentine or barque schooner for R Hurrell & Co. th Slide 54 and launched on 12 April 1867. Over one hundred and twenty feet long a big three-master with, unlike a schooner, the foremast square-rigged. She remained on the Salcombe register even when she was owned

by W C Jarvis of Liverpool. She was wrecked on the coast of Brazil on 21st February 1888. 1867 Spring* 138 A Schooner built speculatively and launched on 1st th Slide 55 June 1867; put up for sale on 24 August and bought by Francis Yabsley a shipowner of Portlemouth – William Date retained 4 shares in her ownership with John Lidstone, iron founder, who supplied the ironwork and Perrott Pepperell, sailmaker also held 4 shares. Sold in 1878 but in 1890 she was run down and sank and lay for years as a hulk at Gravesend and still visible over sixty years later. Her figurehead is reputedly in the Cutty Sark. 1868 Anna Maria 245 A Brig built for Henry Grant of Salcombe with some of her beams in iron. (Or possibly 1860). 1868 Grace* 93 A Schooner launched on 16th January 1869 for P O Slide 56 Hingston and Co and christened by Miss Grace Hingston. On 30th January 1883 a seaman was lost overboard in a force 12 gale 40 miles NE of Cape Finisterre on passage from Zante for Rouen with a cargo of currants. On 19th January 1901 another man was lost in a Force 10 gale bound for St John’s Newfoundland. The ship was lost on Teignmouth Bar on 16th October 1907. 1869 Emmeline 187 1870 Polly* 355 A Barque for Hurrell’s of Salcombe built for the deep Slide 57 sea. 1871 Morning 280 A Barquentine launched on 20th June 1871 for Capt F Star* L Yabsley and christened by Miss Hannaford. Slide 58 The ship was sold to Guernsey in October 1891. 1871 Bessie* 189 Little is known of this vessel other than she was a Slide 59, 60 three-masted schooner. Here she is photographed in the 1880’s in Dover Harbour after a collision which has removed her bowsprit and partly wrenched off her cutwater from the prow. 1872 Lizzie* 111 A Schooner launched on 30th March 1872 and owned by Hingston & Co. The vessel was sold to Portmadoc Slides 61, th 62 in 1889/1890 and lost at Teignmouth on 12 February 1909. In 1885 she returned to Salcombe under jury-rig after being demasted in collision with an American

barque. When repairs were complete she was reregistered as a schooner. While ships typically carried a number of spare parts (e.g., items such as topmasts), the lower masts, at up to three feet in diameter, were too large to carry spares. So a jury mast could be various things. Rigging the jury mast once erected was mostly a matter of

selecting the appropriate size of spare sail.

William Frink Date, Master Mariner, was her captain. He was born in Salcombe and baptised in Salcombe Slide 63 Chapelry of Malborough All Saints church on 13 August 1826. He married Susan Sandrey from Madron, Cornwall in Swansea in September 1858 and they had four children between 1860 and 1865. He died on Weymouth on 20th December 1887 and was buried in Wyke Regis on 22nd December 1887. He left an estate of £297 11s 6d to his wife Susan still in Salcombe. She died on 5th June 1891 at Woodbury Salterton, Devon 1872 Charlton 65 1872 Gertrude 230 A large Barquentine. Lost in September 1875. 1873 Swiftsure 235 1874 Elmina 241

Yard Reregistered W.W. Date 1875 Argosy 263 1876 Ethel* 257 A Brigantine over one hundred feet long for Steer & Slide 64 Co; later owned in Newquay she was lost 2 miles east of Lynmouth, North Devon on 10 February 1891 during a force 10 gale. 1877 Catherine 355 1877 Sarah Jane A Brigantine built in Vivian’s yard in Salcombe that William Date bought on 5THJanuary 1877 for £655 after James Vivian’s death because his Kingsbridge yard was too busy to accommodate another vessel. He sold it in the early 1880’s to William Chant when shipbuilding in Salcombe was already in decline. 1878 Titania Built for W Sladen and Co of Salcombe. 1878 Hilda 249 Brigantine over one hundred feet long lasted only one year and eight months before being lost in the Bahamas in Sept 1880.

1879 Eliza 49 A Smack built for Built for P A Hingston &Co. 1880 Effort 85 A Ketch 67 feet long built for W S Hannaford & Co, a (Dandy)* butcher of Salcombe; other shareholders were Edison Slide 65, 66 Lapthorne master mariner and captain; and from Kingsbridge Henry Grant, corn merchant, William John Thomas, shipowner but also William Date, John Lidstone, sailmaker, and Thomas Rich a ropemaker. Still trading in 1939 the Effort, with tiller steering and equipped with a tiller house, carried gravel from Dartmouth to Torquay. She was broken up, literally, in June 1952 at Galmpton on the River Dart with this man smashing up the timbers with an axe, having bought the remains of the hull for £1 10s. 1883 Our Nellie 112 1884 Progress* 84 A Ketch for H Grant and nicknamed Pilgrim by the local Slide 67 population. Her hull was strengthened with diagonal iron bands let into the face of the frames and running forward and upwards from the keel to the frame heads. She sailed to Newfoundland for 19 years making four crossings each year and it is said never lost a crew member during that time and only suffered serious damage once when she was hove-to for thirty days. On other occasions she is said to have made passing contact with an iceberg and to have crossed from Newfoundland to the English coast in fourteen days. She was sold to Bideford during World War 1 and traded over Appledore Bar. She was used as a barrage balloon vessel in World War 2. After years as a hulk in Milford Haven she was slowly rebuilt in Appledore in 1948 with a new keel and keelson and rerigged returning to sea as a ketch in 1950 although bearing little resemblance to her original form. It is said that the Effort and the Progress were respectively the first and second attempts at design by a moulder at Date’s yard; if so the second at least was very fine work for a beginner. 1886 Little 96 Ordered by John Stephens of Par. In 1890, a very bad Wonder year for losses – homeward bound got dismasted and was abandoned in the western ocean. Some of her crew were drowned, washed overboard and the rest lashed themselves to the stumps of the masts and were eventually rescued by a steamer.

1887 Little 114 Ordered by John Stephens of Par; lost by gunfire off Mystery the Isle of Wight June 1917. 1888 Cedric 100 A Schooner owned by Messrs Bisson and Dawe, Falmouth shipowners engaged in the Carunna cattle trade, one of the oddities of the late nineteenth century. For about twenty five years cattle for the food supplies of the armed forces were imported from Spain in small schooners which loaded for Plymouth and Portsmouth, but in the main for Penryn, with their live cargoes at Carunna. They took up to 60 head of cattle, the beasts standing on top of the ballast built up above the floors. The schooners had to be specially fitted for the trade, not only with ventilators, but also by way of extra water supplies for sixty lively animals on a voyage which might last anything up to three weeks, though the Cedric is credited with a passage from Carunna to Penryn in forty eight hours. The trade came to a sudden end when the conditions in which the cattle inevitably travelled became public knowledge. 1889 Ann Survived to at least 1939, the last ketch to work in the difficult harbour of Coombe Martin and owned in that village; also sailed with stone from Plymouth and the quarries at Berry Head to Southampton; and to the north coast of England with coal. 1889 My Lady 110 A Schooner built for Westcott of Plymouth. Remained in the Newfoundland trade for 25 years sailing to Labrador as late as July 1914; a beautiful little vessel still remembered in the island and was by way of being the flagship of the Westcott fleet and sailed under Westcott’s management all her working life – the last of the fleet to survive - latterly with cargoes of china clay from Cornwall to the Mersey ports. In 1930 she was laid up in Plymouth and in 1931 was sold for the sum of £50 and became a houseboat at Tosnos Point, Salcombe before being broken up – the keel is doubtless still in existence sunk in the mud. 1890 St Clair 113 A Schooner built for Westcott of Plymouth. 1890 Nicita 109 1892 Little Gem 114 A Topsail schooner ordered by John Stephens of Par and launched in March 1893 said to have been built from the same moulds as Little Mystery; Between 8th and 23rd November 1895 she sailed from St John’s to Oporto in 15 days equalling the record, the west to

east crossing being much quicker due to the westerlies. She continued in the Newfoundland trade until 1917 when she went missing on a passage from Portugal reported by the master of a German submarine as sunk in the Channel. 1893 J.N.R. A Ketch, 63 feet long, one of the last fruit boats and still afloat in Poole Harbour in 1974 1894 My Beauty 110 Built for Westcott of Plymouth. 1896 Cariad 126 Achieved the fastest crossing by a Portmadoc vessel of ten days from Newfoundland to Oporto. 1896 Marie A Smack firstly out of Salcombe but working as a motor barge in the Appledore gravel trade in 1949. 1898 Lady St 114 A Schooner launched in April 1898 for F W Hill and Co Johns* said to be the last of the remarkable series of fine Slide 68 hulled schooners built at the yard; Between 1924 and 1926 the vessel made five easterly Atlantic voyages plying between St John’s Newfoundland and Oporto Portugal of average 29 days including one of only 14 days. In 1927 she was 27 days westward and in 1928 her three eastward passages averaged eighteen and a half days. On her last voyage in 1930 she was the last British sailing vessel in the Newfoundland trade. Shortly after her sale in 1930 for £900 to French owners she was lost without trace. In this ignominious way the story of the United Kingdom western ocean schooners came to an end in a sailing vessel trade that had continued uninterrupted for over four centuries. Mizpah Built for the ocean trade but ended as a collier engaged in the coal trade out of Dover and Folkestone. 1899 Sirdar 40

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Paddle Steamers built by Date’s Boatyard Date Name Tonn Details age 1857 Kingsbridge 69 Wooden-hull paddle steamer launched on 28th April Packet 1857 for Kingsbridge Steam Packet Company a consortium of 32 merchants and tradesmen headed by Robert Hurrell built for the Plymouth/Kingsbridge run. On 7th May 1859 she took passengers to witness the opening of the Cornish Railway with one of her quickest passages to Plymouth in 2 hours and 10 minutes 1860 Queen 18 Built for £250 for the River Steamer Company – a new company issuing shares in 1860. The 10hp engines were supplied by a London firm for £420. She operated the ferry service – in timed trials from Snapes Point to New Quay, Kingsbridge she took 25 minutes - four minutes faster than the packet – a better than expected result. She made her first passenger trip on 3rd November 1860. On 2nd March 1861 the Queen towed the brig Willie from Kingsbridge to Salcombe in less than an hour. A great number of people watched the little paddle steamer tow a brig of nearly 350 tons against the tide. The Queen was broken up in 1876. 1881 Neptune Steam launch for Randell Beer and Philip Trant; caught fire and burnt out a month after launching in February 1881 1885 Express* 115 Wooden paddle steamer launched on 13th May 1886 Slide 69, 70 for William Randell Beer, Philip Trant and Charles Henry Balkwill. She could carry up to 137 passengers. She had to be modified soon after her launch as she was too buoyant and her paddles did not touch the water! – possibly a myth because of this photograph. In 1887 local newspapers advertised an excursion to Torquay on Whit Monday at a price of 2/6d. She was sold following an unsuccessful auction for £450 on 23rd February 1894 to Pills and Sons and King of Plymouth and later sold in 1900 to John Westcott of Plymouth who converted her to a 3 masted schooner. She was sunk by a U-boat in 1915.

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