Loss of the Albion, The [Laws D2]

DESCRIPTION: The Albion [sailing from New York to Liverpool] is caught in a storm which washes captain and many hands overboard. The ship is finally wrecked upon the [Irish] rocks; only one man survives
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1825 (broadside, Bodleian 2806 c.17(236))
KEYWORDS: ship sea wreck death storm
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
April 22, 1822? - Wreck of the Albion
FOUND IN: US(MA,NE,SE) Ireland
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Laws D2, "The Loss of the Albion"
Forget-Me-Not-Songster, pp. 35-37, "Loss of the Albion" (1 text)
Thompson-APioneerSongster 65, "Loss of the Albion" (1 text)
Thompson-BodyBootsAndBritches-NewYorkStateFolktales, pp. 204-206, "(Loss of the Albion)" (1 text)
Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine, pp.271-273, "The Loss of the Albion" (1 text)
Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, pp. 212-213, "The Loss of the Albion" (1 text, 1 tune, composite)
Ranson-SongsOfTheWexfordCoast, p. 101, "The Loss of the Albion" (1 text)
Chappell-FolkSongsOfRoanokeAndTheAlbermarle 30, "Loss of the Albion" (1 short text)
Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, pp. 91-93, "The Loss of the Albion" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 609, ALBION LOSSALBN
Roud #2228
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, 2806 c.17(235), "The Loss of the Albion," W. Armstrong (Liverpool), 1820-1824; also 2806 c.17(236); c. 2806 c.17(237), R. Peach (Birmingham), 1855-1875
LOCSinging, as108080, "Loss of the Ship Albion", L. Deming (Boston), 19C
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Cedar Grove" [Laws D18]
NOTES [249 words]: The date of this event is somewhat uncertain. Eckstorm, cited by Laws, gives the date as April 22, 1822. Craig Brown, ed., The Illustrated History of Canada, states that a ship Albion was wrecked November 1819. (It also shows a poster advertising, in English and Welsh, for migrants to go to America. The name of the Albion has been crossed out and another name listed. Not the most encouraging advertising).
Plus Bennett Schwartz sent in this report, "April 1, 1822: '... wrecked about a mile west of the Old Head of Kinsale ... struck ... rocks under 60 foot cliffs'; at least one survivor (source: Bourke in Shipwrecks of the Irish Coast v2, p. 119; more details at v1, p. 116)."
In addition, Terence Grocott's Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras has a report from February 6, 1810, from the Shaw, which describes a ship Albion, sailing from New Brunswick, which had encountered a storm and lost her masts some stores; 10 of 13 crew apparently starved or died of dehydration.
There was also an Albion wrecked in 1797, though without loss of life.
Not a very well-omened ship name!
An 1862 book by John S. Warner was entitled The Wreck of the Albion, one of Beadle's Dime Novels published by Beadle and Company, but it was fiction, and about a wreck in the Carribean, so it's not related to this event (see Albert Johannsen, The House of Beadle and Adams And Its Dime and Nickel Novels, Volumes I and II, University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, volume I, p. 84). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: LD02

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