Wreck of the Northfleet, The

DESCRIPTION: "Come all ye feeling people while this sad story I relate" as the singer tells of the wreck of the Northfleet, destroyed at Dungeness. 500 died when another ship hit the Northfleet at anchor. The captain tries to rescue those he can; he and his wife die
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1986 (Palmer-OxfordBookOfSeaSongs)
KEYWORDS: ship wreck disaster death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Jan 22, 1873 - The _Northfleet_, bound for Australia, is hit at anchor by the steamer _Murillo_, resulting in the deaths of about 320 people
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Palmer-OxfordBookOfSeaSongs 126, "The Wreck of the Northfleet" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1174
NOTES [516 words]: There is another song on this theme, in broadside Bodleian, Firth c.12(113), "Wreck of the Northfleet, or, Father, Put Me in the Boat!" (unknown, n.d.). Although the Bodleian web site uses the same Roud number for that broadside as for the song in Palmer, they are clearly not the same song.
There is a third broadside about the Northfleet,, "Lines on the Fearful Collision at Sea," which Steve Roud files with #17057, "The Ship I Love," but it appears to me to be a different song.
Google Books has a (rather short) book The Loss of the Ship "Northfleet", Waterlow and Sons, 1873, which claims its proceeds will be used to raise a memorial to the dead of the Northfleet -- but it lists no author, so I have no idea if it's trustworthy. The best account I have is from A. J. Villiers, Vanished Fleets: Ships and Men of Old Van Diemen's Land, Garden City Publishing Co., 1931, pp. 287-291. opens by saying on p 287 "the loss of the emigrant ship Northfleet, with over 300 lives, is by far the most terrible thing in the annals of Tasmanian maritime history. The Northfleet, which was taking out navvies for the construction of the Tasmanian main line railway from Hobart to Launceston, was run down by a steamer while anchored in the Channel, a few miles from Dover, on the night of January 22nd, 1873. The steamer did not stop but, having administered her death blows to the helpless sailing ship, backed out of her splintered sides and sneaked hurriedly off on her voyage."
Villiers, p, 288, says the Northfleet was built in and named for Northfleet, Kent, on the Thames near Gravesend. She was build in the 1850s, and was a sailing ship of about 900 tons. In addition to passengers (who included the wives and children of the navvies), she was carrying 450 tons of railway iron. She was near Dungeness when heavy winds caused her, and a great many other ships, to anchor to wait for better weather.
The collision took place around 10:30, when most of the people aboard were asleep.
According to Villiers, pp. 288-289, the oncoming steamer struck the Northfleet, rebounded, and struck again, opening a huge gash in the Northfleet. The steamer then backed away and sped off, making no attempt to help the ship she had injured.
The stricken ship fired distress flares, but the nearby ships either ignored them or assumed the Northfleet was seeking a pilot (Villiers, p 288). No vessel came to help. The Northfleet sank within minutes; only two boats had gotten away. Villiers, p. 289 says that 327 people were lost, and of the survivors, only three were women.
No one saw the name of the steamer that struck her, and one survivor claimed the crew covered her figurehead to prevent identification (Villiers, pp. 289-290). But when the steamer Murillo arrived at Lisbon, the British consul noted new paint on her bow and what looked like a dent on her starboard side. Several English engineers and crew testified that the Murillo had hit something on its voyage, and the officers had brushed it off. The officers were arrested, but Villiers does not state their fate. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: PsSe126

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