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. 1 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. 2 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.) 3 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. 4 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.