Wreck of the Royal Charter, The

DESCRIPTION: "Good people all attend I pray; Now I'll relate a sad calamity, Of a dreadful shipwreck near Beaumaris town." The Royal Charter is returning home from Australia when a storm strikes. The ship breaks in two. 455 people are lost
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1915 (Moeran, according to Palmer)
KEYWORDS: ship storm wreck disaster death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Oct 1859 - Wreck of the Royal Charter off Anglesey (on her way from Liverpool to Australia); 454 of those aboard were lost and only 39 saved (source: Palmer)
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Palmer-OxfordBookOfSeaSongs 117, "The Wreck of the Royal Charter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #3327
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Loss of the Royal Charter" (subject)
NOTES [199 words]: Although I assume the ship described in this song is the same as that in "The Loss of the Royal Charter," the lyrics are so different that I think they are separate songs. Roud also splits them. I'm not confident about it, though, and indeed Roud seems to confuse them, filing Bodleian Firth c 12(95) with the "Wreck" even though it appears to me to be a version of the "Loss."
John Harries wrote a poem in the 1860s, "The Wreck of the Royal Charter," which seems to have been fairly well known. This is not it.
According to Lincoln P. Paine, Ships of the World: An Historical Encylopedia, Houghton Mifflin, 1997, pp. 438-439, the Royal Charter was built in 1855, and was "One of the finest passenger ships of the day... [and was] the first English ship to carry double topsails." On her last trip she left Melbourne with 511 passengers and crew, which was effectively equal to her capacity. She arrived safely at Queenstown, Ireland, 58 days later, and let off 17 passengers. The next night, as the passed Moelfre, Anglesey, she ran into a severe storm. Captain T. Taylor dropped anchor at 10:45 p.m., but the cables broke at 3:30 a.m., and she was driven ashore. 455 people were lost. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: PaSe117

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