– 7 –

Extraordinary Voyages, Part 2

Cutty Sark’s career was rarely without incident, but no voyage can compare to the drama and tragedy of her twelfth. Not for nothing did Basil Lubbock term it the ‘Hell-Ship Voyage’. By the time it finally drew to a close, 697 days after the ship had first set out, seven men had died and one was a fugitive from the law.

In the spring of 1880, it was still early days in Cutty Sark’s tramping career. Having reduced her rig, it remained unclear what this tea clipper of old might now be available for. When an order came through from the US Navy, Willis gladly jumped at the opportunity.

A crew of 23 was hastily assembled and Cutty Sark left London on 13 May 1880. She was bound for Penarth Dock, South Wales, where she would collect her cargo of steamer coal destined for the US Navy based at Yokohama, Japan. Steamships may have forced Cutty Sark out of the tea trade, but there was still money to be made in carrying their fuel. The voyage did not start well. Arriving in Penarth just nine days later, three men deserted and two were discharged from the ship. Basil Lubbock contends that this was a direct result of the tyrannical rule of First Mate Sydney Smith. No such evidence can be traced in the logbooks, but Lubbock’s contention certainly seems to gather weight as the voyage progressed.

Master James Wallace was forced to find replacement crew in Wales. It took until the first week of June for a sufficient number of new recruits to be signed up.

The Crew

Name	Rank	Origin
James Wallace	Master	Aberdeen
Sydney Smith	First Mate	London
George Rogers	Second Mate	Calcutta
Edward Holford	Carpenter	Brighton
T. W. Wells	Cook	Essex
Alex Jansen	Sailmaker	Prussia
George Alexander	Able Seaman	Trieste
William Edwards	Able Seaman	London
Jose Camando	Able Seaman	Valparaiso
Charles Louis	Able Seaman	London
Nicolas Nicolasen	Able Seaman	Denmark
T. C. E. Nothroth	Able Seaman	Hamburg
Sam Carson	Able Seaman	Savannah
John Dorsey	Able Seaman	North Carolina
W. H. Francis	Able Seaman	Chicago
Joseph Reynolds	Able Seaman	Jamaica
John Somers	Ordinary Seaman	London
G. E. Williams	Ordinary Seaman	Cheltenham
Charles A. Sankey	Apprentice	Unknown
W. I. McAusland	Apprentice	Unknown
John Frederick Campbell Kirby	Apprentice	Unknown
Herbert Lionel Stoughton	Apprentice – later engaged as an Ordinary Seaman	London

The Voyage: Part 1 (4 June 1880 – 4 September 1880)

The ship finally left Penarth on Friday 4 June. According to Basil Lubbock, this was the first in a long line of grave mistakes. Friday – and its associations with the crucifixion of Christ – had long been considered an unlucky day to set sail. As a young and ambitious master, having already experienced a number of setbacks, it seems Wallace was not to be swayed by superstition. His crew, however, were not of a like mind. In particular, Alex Jansen, a sailmaker, became the professor ‘of doom’. According to Lubbock, ‘his yarns were all concerned with mutiny and murder, with shipwrecks and disaster’. Jansen’s unceasing prophecies of plight and eerie ability to go without sleep made him a figure of both fear and derision. Answering to the name of ‘Dutchy’, he was quickly christened by the apprentices ‘Old Vanderdecken’, or the ‘Flying Dutchman’ – a mythical ghost ship – both the bringer and the symbol of doom. It soon appeared that Jansen’s forebodings were vindicated. Almost immediately, Cutty Sark was caught in a storm and held up for a further three days in the Bristol Channel before she could finally get out to the open seas.

The ship then made a good run out to the Atlantic, passing Tenerife after 11 days at sea. After she crossed the Equator and entered the doldrums, the mood on board began to turn bleak. First Mate Sydney Smith had a temper to be reckoned with. The main target of his ire was Able Seaman John Francis (listed as W. I. Francis in the crew list), a 35-year-old from Chicago who was one of the new recruits assembled in Wales. It soon became apparent that he was not up to the job of able seaman. Old Vanderdecken suspected that he was in fact a cook and steward, while others reported that he had actually achieved his AB Certificate in steamships and was thus ill-qualified for a more demanding clipper ship. It was not unknown for men signing up to Cutty Sark to do so without a Certificate of Discharge (a reference from their last ship), or for them to be demoted soon after their appointment. It was not unusual, therefore to discover a charge who did not have the skills he had claimed to possess. While demoting Francis would have done little to help the crew, who felt they had to compensate for his lack of skills, it does seem strange that Master Wallace didn’t do so. Instead, he left the matter up to First Mate Smith.

Smith and Francis reportedly clashed on numerous occasions. Smith is thought to have instructed Francis to ‘please jump overboard’, and once struck him with such force that Francis bled from his ears and spent several days recovering in his bunk. Francis may not have been adequately qualified, but he was not willing to accept Smith’s attacks without retaliation. According to Lubbock, while Francis’ incompetence had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the crew, the force of Smith’s venom towards him provoked some sympathy from them. On one particular occasion, Francis angrily responded to one of Smith’s remonstrations. A baying crowd gathered. In a bid to settle the situation, Master Wallace called his officers and apprentices aft and armed them (although Cutty Sark is not known to have encountered any pirates, ships sailing to China were stocked with limited arms for protection and the discipline of the crew). Wallace then ordered Francis to apologise to the first mate or face a beating from him. Francis had no intention of backing down and the two flung themselves at each other in a violent clash. Wallace reportedly brandished his captain’s pistol and threatened to shoot anyone who interfered in the natural order of things. After 15 minutes, he called the fight to a halt and cautioned the crew with punishment should they abuse his officers again. The tension was momentarily dispelled, egos repaired and discipline restored, albeit in a rather dramatic fashion.

On a stormy night on 10 August, Francis was on look-out duty on the anchor deck, the raised deck at the bow of the ship. The rest of the watch grappled with the sails. The first mate hollered to Francis to ‘let go the lazy tack’. Francis failed to respond. Smith hollered again, and still there was no response. The whole watch sang out before Francis let go, but rather than simply release it, he let the end fly overboard. Enraged by what Smith regarded to be a deliberate act of petulance, the first mate stormed forward, threatening to throw Francis overboard. The AB responded that he had a capstan bar waiting to hit him with. Smith himself grabbed a broken capstan bar and dealt Francis a vicious blow to the head. Francis fell to the forehatch, where he lay in a pool of his own blood. He never regained consciousness, and died the next evening. The sailmaker – the harbinger of doom, Old Vanderdecken – sewed up his body in canvas, and Francis was buried at sea. The worst, however, was far from over. First Mate Smith retreated to his cabin and a foreboding mood took over the ship.

Seventy-two days after departing from Penarth, Cutty Sark arrived in Anjer, where she awaited a telegram with further instruction from Jock Willis. Neither Willis nor Wallace had anticipated that her reduced rig would not slow Cutty Sark down and so orders had yet to arrive. Also in port was the American ship Colorado. The master of the Colorado made it known that he was in search of a mate for his ship. Wallace, perhaps sensing an opportunity to pacify his crew, agreed to transfer Sydney Smith. During a deliberately concocted commotion created by haggling with locals, Smith quietly slipped off the ship and boarded the Colorado. The crew were outraged, not least at Master Wallace’s apparent complicity in Smith’s escape from justice. They pressured their master to report the missing mate to the shore authorities. He went along with this, and all the ships at Anjer were duly searched, but to no avail. When the order to proceed to Yokohama was finally received from Willis, the crew refused to work. Wallace was forced to rely upon his apprentices and petty officers – the bos’un, the carpenter and the sailmaker – to weigh the anchor and make sail. At this point, the rebels attempted to interfere. The four ringleaders of Cutty Sark’s mutiny were formally arrested and clapped in irons. The rest of the crew resentfully returned to their duties.

By now Master Wallace was well aware of the mistakes he had made. The mood on board was sour. Discipline had been lost and his authority demeaned. An investigation was likely once they reached Yokohama and his role in Smith’s escape would not go unpunished. On 4 September, as the watch was called at 4.00am, Master Wallace enquired as to whether the second mate was on deck. When it was confirmed he was on his way up, Wallace retreated to the stern of the ship and quietly stepped overboard. Two lifebuoys were quickly thrown over and the crew who had defied him now hurriedly got a boat onto the water in search of their master. The water was calm and reportedly shark infested. There was no sign of James Smith Wallace. He was 27.

The Voyage: Part 2 (4 September 1880 – October 1881)

The sullen, sombre crew assembled to discuss what to do next. Most wanted to press on to Yokohama but it was quickly apparent that the second mate, George Rogers, did not have the necessary navigation skills to take her there. He was so short-sighted that Wallace had regularly needed to accompany him on his watches. It was clear the ship would have to return to Anjer, make contact with Jock Willis and await instruction. Charles Sankey, the most adept of the apprentices at navigating, assisted. Once at Anjer, Rogers telegraphed Willis to inform him of the dramatic events. He refused to take command of the ship and so was instructed to engage a Dutch pilot and proceed to Singapore.

Singapore, Collyer Quay. ca. 1890–1910. Zürich, Photoglob Company. Image courtesy of Library of Congress.

Cutty Sark finally arrived in Singapore on 18 September 1880. An inquiry was launched and the crew given the option of discharge. Eight men took up the offer, including four of the men who had joined in Wales. Despite the fact that this voyage had seen such tragedy, a new master and ten men were signed up to Cutty Sark within a week of arrival in Singapore. John Willis sent a telegram to Master Foster of Hallowe’en, another of his ships located nearby in Hong Kong, asking him whether his first mate, William Bruce, was capable of taking command of Cutty Sark. The 42-year-old from Aberdeen was unpopular with Hallowe’en’s crew and Master Foster gladly assented. Bruce joined Cutty Sark as master on 24 September.

Written statements submitted to the Singapore Shipping Office and dated 1 October 1880 state: ‘I certify that ... Sydney W. Smith – First Mate – was reported as having caused the death of a seaman W. H. Francis at sea and afterwards quitted the vessel in Anjer.’ A second statement lists the new men and their wages and records the names of the men who had left by ‘mutual consent’. It also notes: ‘I certify that the master James Smith Wallace was drowned at sea on 4th Sept. ... Mr William Bruce who holds a Master’s Certificate – no.17559 – has been appointed master of the ship, in the place of J. S. Wallace deceased.’

Failure to make it to Yokohama meant that Cutty Sark had lost her charter. As a result, and in a twist of bitter irony, her cargo of coal had to be transferred to a steamship, SS Glencoe, which, using it as fuel, proceeded to London, via the Suez Canal, with a cargo of fresh tea. On 1 October 1880, Cutty Sark set out in ballast for Calcutta, arriving on 11 November. There she would stay for a further four months before a cargo could finally be found. Between November and February the following year, a further 14 members of the crew were paid off. Now only the apprentices, together with the carpenter, Edward Holford, and the sailmaker, Alex Jansen, remained from when the ship had first set out in May. Upon finally securing a cargo of jute, castor oil, Indian tea and Australian mail, Cutty Sark was ready to set out for Melbourne, Australia. Interestingly, the tea was the first to be shipped out of India to Australia, and this was to be the last time the famous tea clipper would carry tea. Yet another crew of 16 was assembled and Cutty Sark left Calcutta on 5 March 1881.

But Cutty Sark’s saga of misfortune was far from over. Despite Bruce’s lack of nerve, the ship arrived in Melbourne in May, a little over a year after she had first left London. It was here, according to Lubbock, that 49-year-old Able Seaman William McGregor from Glasgow drowned. Lubbock suggests that he had drunkenly fallen into the water on the first night when the ship was alongside the wharf. He had only joined the ship three months previously.

Master William Bruce receives a scathing review from Basil Lubbock. Deemed a ‘nautical Jekyll and Hyde’, he is described as a drunk with pretensions of religious piety. Lubbock provides an (uncited) account of Bruce’s character while the ship was docked in Melbourne. Knowing that most of the able seamen had only shipped from Calcutta to Melbourne, Bruce ordered them to immediately tar the rigging. The men considered that their duties had been fulfilled in getting the ship to Australia. They were not eager to carry out this most arduous of tasks, and that night they dumped a tar barrel overboard in a glaring act of defiance. But Bruce was not going to back down, concocting a watered-down form of tar for them to use and setting the men to work. They deliberately did a bad job, leaving the ship with an abject appearance that the apprentices then had to make good. It was the final straw for Herbert Stoughton, an apprentice who had been with the ship from the outset. He caught a passenger steamship back home.

Fifteen more new men were signed up in Australia, including Able Seaman J. H. Hackley, who then deserted two days after signing up, taking his advance with him. The able seamen in Australia were expensive. Each of the eight who signed on were being paid £4-0-0 per month while those who had signed up in May 1880 were paid just £2-10-0 per month and the second mate only £5-0-0. It was a bone of contention that was never truly settled.

Cutty Sark left Sydney with a cargo of coal on 2 July 1881. The master and the first mate, W. H. Rutland, who had been signed up by Bruce in Calcutta, conspired to make life so unpleasant for the new, expensive recruits that they would be forced to desert. Lubbock suggests that ‘poor little Cutty Sark became a real Hell afloat’. Their plan didn’t work, however – the crew were wise to their motives and no one left. After six weeks of miserable graft at sea, the crew were granted a liberty day once they arrived in Shanghai. It was not so much an act of mercy from Bruce and Rutland as an obligation after so long at sea. It was a chance to let off steam. After all they had endured, a ‘high old time’ was had by all, according to apprentice Charles Sankey. Having frequented ‘low dives’ on shore, several of the men caught an infection – Asiatic cholera. A yellow flag was raised and Cutty Sark was placed in quarantine.

Three of the crew – J. Hall, a 28-year-old from Guernsey; Michael McCarthy, a 26-year-old from Ireland; and Bernard Sullivan, a 37-year-old from New York – died in a Shanghai hospital. All of the able seamen were also struck down with the illness and hospitalised. William Bruce was safely housed ashore. The rest remained on the ship in woeful isolation. Three weeks later, after an extensive fumigation, the quarantine was lifted and the much-weakened men returned. Eager to make up for lost time and to continue with their plan to rid themselves of the Australian crew, Bruce and Rutland put the men straight to work. The men refused. Bruce clapped three of them in irons and eagerly marched them to the authorities, keen to accuse the crew of mutiny and thereby rid himself of them. But the plan backfired. Bruce was reprimanded for his actions and ordered to allow the crew only to complete light duties for a further two weeks.

The Voyage: Part 3 (October 1881 – 10 April 1882)

When the ship was finally ready to depart, she headed to Cebu in the Philippines to collect a cargo of jute. Undeterred by the admonishment he had already received, Bruce appeared keen to provoke more drama. Having been drinking heavily, he picked a fight with the remaining men who had boarded in Sydney. The situation escalated and Bruce managed to convince the consulate that William Blood, a 28-year-old German, was violent and dangerous. He was subsequently locked up and Cutty Sark departed with just two of the hands signed on in Sydney. Master Bruce, clearly not one for learning lessons, then sought a replacement for Blood. He paid an advance to a Cebuan, who eagerly deserted, money in pocket.

There was nothing to suggest that the apparent curse on this grimmest of voyages might now have been lifted. On 4 February 1882, 22-year-old Thomas Dunton was working aloft when heavy blocks fell on him, knocking him overboard. He could not be recovered. As he was one of the Sydney recruits, there was suspicion among the crew that this might well have been more than an accident. The scourge of blame and recrimination hung over the ship. The heavy drinking continued and chaos descended. A special stop was made in Anjer – a place at the centre of all of Cutty Sark’s recent woes – to collect more alcohol. Following a near collision, the crew, led by Second Mate George Rogers, virtually force-fed the master and mate copious amounts of booze to render them incapacitated so that they could then dispose of the remaining alcohol and regain some order and control.

But Bruce’s incompetence was becoming ever more apparent. Less than a month out of Anjer, it was clear that the ship was short of supplies. Despite sighting St Helena, an island in the South Atlantic, Bruce made no attempt to stop, and by the end of February the crew had been placed on half rations. The situation grew critical and the men on Cutty Sark were forced to beg for provisions from passing ships.

On 10 April 1882, Cutty Sark finally drew into New York, her final stop on this most hellish of voyages. Master Bruce, in his typically bullish and headstrong manner, attempted to shift the blame for his own failures and refused the second mate, George Rogers, his discharge. The long-suffering Rogers, who had been considered incapable in comparison with Master Wallace, but who had greatly redeemed himself by comparison with Bruce, complained to the consulate and the whole sorry business was revealed. As a result, Willis dismissed Bruce and transferred the entire crew of Blackadder to Cutty Sark.

Aftermath

In August 1882, two years after John Francis had been murdered by Sydney Smith, Smith – now known as John Anderson – was arrested in London. Sailing aboard the Mary Ann Nottebohm, he had most likely been spotted and reported by Edward Holford, who had been Cutty Sark’s carpenter during the fateful voyage. Smith – or Anderson – was tried at the Central Criminal Court. According to the account of the trial, Mr Justice Stephen ‘expressed his opinion that the evidence was hardly sufficient to support a charge of wilful murder, although it was abundant to support the minor charge of manslaughter’. Smith was stripped of his Mate’s Certificate and sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude. When his sentence was complete, he approached Jock Willis, who secured him a junior position on a ship bound for Australia. Once there, he reapplied for his certificates and ended his career as master of the oil tanker Navahoe. He died in 1922.

Notes and Observations

Basil Lubbock is our main source of information for this voyage. His interviews with veterans of Cutty Sark’s service offer invaluable insight into their experiences. But Lubbock’s lack of citations makes it very difficult to verify his accounts. There are undoubtedly a few holes in the plot.

Most troubling is Lubbock’s use of racist language to describe John Francis, who was a black man. ‘The Log of the “Cutty Sark”’ was published in 1924. While the passage of time cannot excuse the use of racist epithets, it may explain it. Though shocking to us today, such language was acceptable in his time. What it does obscure, however, is whether a fair picture is painted of Francis or whether his race had anything to do with his treatment. Two other black men joined Cutty Sark with Francis in Wales. No mention is ever made of them being singled out in any way. Further, sailors were well used to working with colleagues from all over the world, and the crew of Cutty Sark was certainly a racially diverse one. But Lubbock’s account does suggest that Francis was impudent, somewhat above his station. He may well have been, but Lubbock’s language leaves us with unanswered questions about the true nature of Smith and Francis – questions we will never be able to answer definitively.

Deaths on Cutty Sark

Overall, Cutty Sark was a fortunate ship. A total of 15 men, six of whom were lost at sea, died in her 26 years as a British vessel. The impact of the loss of a crew member upon his comrades cannot be overstated. In April 1893, when the ship was heading for the English Channel, two men were washed off the bowsprit. John Clifton, a 21-year-old from Brighton, and John Doyle, a 30-year-old from Dublin, were swept into the sea, with scant opportunity to retrieve them. Master Woodget recorded:

At 2.30pm John Doyle and John Clifton, whilst making fast the outer jib, were washed from the boom and drowned ... I ordered the helm be put down and at once threw a life-buoy, but it was some distance to leeward of them. I saw Doyle sink and rise to the surface again, and then I could see him struggling under water. Clifton did not appear to me ... There was too much sea to lower a boat ... I wore ship and hovered about to see if I could see either of them but we could see neither and at 4pm I wore ship again ... Fancy, only a minute before they were on the boom laughing to see the sprays come over the bows and the others getting wet ... Oh, what a gloom it cast over the ship! Two young men gone to Eternity.

For George Pursey Phillips, who had served on Cutty Sark as an apprentice, the memory never dimmed. In his memoir Two Million Miles on Salt Water, written more than 40 years later, he wrote:

Two men, John Doyle and John Clifton, had been on the jibboom, making fast the outer jib ... Then the boom went right down under the tearing waves – and came up empty ... We saw their heads in the wave-crest ... at the same time tearing a lifebuoy ... towards them. It did not reach them ... So we had to watch the last grim act of the tragedy, helpless, wordless, while two men’s lives were taken by the merciless sea. Doyle ... could not swim and sank almost at once. John Clifton ... was a fine swimmer ... I saw him fighting doggedly to reach the ship ... He turned in the mountainous water, and I saw his teeth flash as he struggled ... He came up again and an eddy sent the lifebuoy just past his shoulder ... he made no effort to reach it, though his head turned towards it. The waves turned him slowly round two or three times and then avidly sucked him down ... We had been a laughing company until then.

Deaths in Service

Name and rank	Age at signing on	Origin	Date and Cutty Sark voyage number	Cause of death	Location
Robert Fisher, Able Seaman	24	Jersey	21 July 1870; 1	Dysentery	On board
William Hart, Able Seaman	28	Suffolk	16 November 1874; 6	Drowned in an accident off the coast of Isle of Wight	At sea
William Tiptaft, Master	30	Middlesex	c.12 October 1878; 10	Died of illness	Shanghai
W.H. Francis, Able Seaman	35	Chicago	11 July 1880; 12	Killed in a brawl	On board
James Smith Wallace, Master	27/28	Aberdeen	4 September 1880; 12	Committed suicide by stepping overboard	At sea
William McGregor, Able Seaman	49	Glasgow	14 May 1881; 12	Knocked overboard and drowned	At sea
J. Hall, Able Seaman	28	Guernsey	7 September 1881; 12	Asiatic cholera	Shanghai
Michael McCarthy, Able Seaman	26	Waterford, Ireland	8 September 1881; 12	Asiatic cholera	Shanghai
Bernard Sullivan, Able Seaman	37	New York	9 September 1882; 12	Asiatic cholera	Shanghai
Thomas Dunton, Able Seaman	22	Hampshire	4 February 1882; 12	Drowned	At sea
William Abram, Able Seaman	31	Lancashire	5 November 1882; 13	Died of illness	At sea
Joseph Murphy, Bos’un	53	London	25 September 1886; 17	Unknown	Shanghai
Sidney Cook, Able Seaman	17/18	Unknown	31 October 1888; 19	Washed overboard	At sea
John Clifton, Able Seaman	21	Brighton	2 April 1893; 23	Washed off the bowsprit and drowned	At sea
John Doyle, Able Seaman	30	Dublin	2 April 1893; 23	Washed off the bowsprit and drowned	At sea