The sight so appalling must strike all with pity,
To think of the cries of the children on deck,
Of the fathers and mothers who left their own city,
And perished in midst of the fast burning wreck.
(Pedlars’ ballad about the sinking of the Abeona)
THE painful recent events of immigrants confronted with uncaring authorities and hostile conditions, not only through natural barriers but also because of agents of cultural xenophobia, is terribly familiar. It has its history. Many past events have been almost forgotten. Here, Alan Riach talks with writer Lynnda Wardle about one such disaster, the sinking of the merchant ship Abeona on its way from Greenock to South Africa in 1820.
Alan Riach: Lynnda, could you tell us how you found out about this story?
Lynnda Wardle: I learned of the Abeona while researching Scottish emigration to South Africa in the 1800s. As a creative writing masters student at the University of Glasgow, and an emigrant myself, I wanted to tell the story of those who left Scotland for the colonies but perished at sea. It seemed sad that 200 years after the event the fate of these emigrants is almost forgotten.
Alan: Who were they and why did they leave?
Lynnda: These Scottish emigrants were responding to promises from the British Government to provide them with free passage and farming provisions, to make a new life in the Cape in South Africa. The difficult economic and social conditions in Scotland at the time would have made the dangerous journey seem worth risking. What they didn’t know was that they were to be used as a human buffer along the Eastern Cape frontier, with indigenous Xhosa people dispossessed by the British in ongoing disputes over cattle grazing and land.
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Alan: So there was an imperial agenda. Today, that agenda seems to be trying to keep immigrants from coming into Britain but in 1820 it was trying to get emigrants to go out there – “there” in this instance being contested territory in South Africa. What happened?
Lynnda: The Abeona sailed from Greenock to the Cape Colony on October 13, 1820, carrying 161 passengers and crew. Soon after the Abeona crossed the equator off the coast of Africa on November 25, the ship caught fire and sank.
Duff, the first mate, had clambered down into the stores to draw rum and he removed the glass cover of his candle to see better to siphon the alcohol. Within moments black smoke poured through the hatch.
Passengers formed a human chain, passing pails of water to the crew battling the flames. But the fire was unstoppable, and Lieutenant Mudge realised his vessel was doomed. He ordered the three rescue rigs to be lowered into the water and he and most of the crew abandoned ship.
Alan: And the passengers?
Lynnda: Well, in an account written the following year, the survivors told how Duff remained on board – feeling responsible for starting the fire, he tried to save as many as he could. The cook, who couldn’t swim, threw food and livestock overboard before he unstrapped his wooden leg, tied his dog to his arm and plunged with her into the sea.
Passengers flung themselves into the waves to escape the flames, but the rigs were too small to save everyone. A passenger named McFarlane bound his new bride to his back and swam from the burning ship towards the rigs, but a ship’s dog paddling in the water clambered on to their backs, forcing the exhausted couple under. Those on the rescue vessels finally decided that no more passengers could be picked up without jeopardising the lives of those already saved. It was a terrible decision to make. The rigs rowed to a safe distance and the survivors watched in horror as passengers continued to jump to their deaths. By 3am on Sunday November 26, the Abeona was gone.
Alan: There were some survivors, though?
Lynnda: Yes. As the sun rose, those on the boats took stock of their provisions: 10 bacon hams, three pigs, two turkeys, 8lbs of ship’s biscuit and some hammocks which they could fashion into makeshift sails. They had one broken compass and 15 gallons of rain caught in a barrel and squeezed out of their sodden clothes during a squall the previous night.
They thought they had no hope of survival but just after sunrise someone spotted a ship on the horizon. Within an hour all the survivors were rescued by the Condega Da Fonte, a Portuguese merchant ship, and taken to Lisbon where they were looked after by a British merchant association. Ten orphans stayed behind with British families in Lisbon. The remaining 21 emigrants arrived back in Greenock on the Royal Charlotte on January 13, 1821.
Alan: How many survivors were there?
Lynnda: Of the 161 passengers and crew, only 49 people survived the fire. It seems shocking now, but it wasn’t unusual at the time for a captain and his crew to leave the ship before the women and children. There were also no regulations stipulating the number of rescue boats per head of passengers on a ship at that time.
Within months of the fire, Lieutenant Mudge took up another commission as captain on a merchant vessel bound for the East Indies.
In January 1821, four survivors of the Abeona disaster applied again for passage to the Cape. Since they had lost their families, there seemed even less reason to stay in Scotland. Their request was granted. Their stories would become part of the troubled colonial history of the Eastern Cape frontier.
READ MORE: Scottishness and the growth of the British Empire in the 19th century
Alan: It’s a story with intrinsic value and it’s timely to remember it now.
Lynnda: Yes, both in our own times of witnessing the mortal dangers brought to bear upon emigrants all over the world, and also because the bi-centenary of the event falls this month, so it seems appropriate to commemorate the story and mark what it tells us of survival and what drives people to seek a better life elsewhere.
Alan: Even in such ghastly circumstances as these.
Details about the fire are taken from an account written by the survivors and published in 1821, available here: Narrative of the Loss of the Abeona, which was destroyed by fire, on the 25th November 1820 … Compiled by some of the survivors. 2nd ed. Chalmers & Collins. 1821 www.1820settlers.com/genealogy/Media/documents/Loss%20of%20the%20Abeona.pdf
For anyone with further interest, Lynnda Wardle has set up a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Abeonaship with sources, passenger lists and more information
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