| More information : Prior History:
The earliest mention of the vessel in surviving contemporary newspapers appears to be the following, the master being consistent with the Lloyd's Register reports of ownership in the years immediately prior to loss (10)(11) possibly within the same family, and consistent with a date of build of 1728 (12):
'Newcastle, June 4 . . . Arrived here since our last . . . The TWO BROTHERS, John Leeds, SEA ADVENTURE, Cornelius Clark; ELIZABETH AND MARGARET, John Reid; and the MARY, Antho. Hymers, from London, with Goods . . . ' (13)
Lloyd's Register (Shipowners) 1800-1801: SEA ADVENTURE, J Brown master, 248 tons, belonging to Whitby, built [17]28, owner C Clarke, Whitby coaster, condition I 1. (I: third class, i.e ships 'not perfectly safe to carry dry goods, but are deemed sea-worthy as far as regards the carrying goods not liable to sea-damage': 1 materials well found). Not in Underwiters' Register. Some repairs 1800. (14)
Lloyd's Register (Shipowners) 1809-10: SEA ADVENTURE, J Brown master, 248 tons, belonging to Whitby, built [17]28, owner C Clarke, Whitby coaster, condition I 1 Not in Underwriters' Register. Sheathed 1806, some repairs 1800, 1806, single deck with deep waist. No SEA VENTURE recorded. (10)
As above, SEA ADVENTURE, in Shipowners' Register, 1810-11 [and lost during the life of this Register], no annotation/overstamp. (11)
Not in 1811-12 Shipowners' Register, consistent with loss during latter end of 1810. (12)
Primary Sources:
'The SEA VENTURE, belonging to Whitby, was wrecked on Holbeach Marsh.' (2)
'The old ship the SEA VENTURE, belonging to the port of Whitby, was in this gale wrecked on Holbeach Marsh, after weathering the storms of A HUNDRED YEARS. She was built in the reign of Queen Anne, and has been a constant trader from Whitby to London, during the long period intervening to the present year.' (4)
'DREADFUL STORM.
'The high wind which prevailed on Saturday last may in its consequences be regarded as the most awful visitation with which the county of Lincoln has been afflicted in the annals of time. The ruinous calamity produced by the gale has been two-fold: at sea and on shore its effects have been so extensively fatal, that in the estimate of injury suffered, it is impossible yet to say whether the adventurous mariner or the peaceful husbandman has the greater weight of afflication to sustain . .
'The losses at sea have been extremely dreadful all along the coast . . .
'Off Boston were the following losses . . . SEA VENTURE, of Whitby, a ship more than 100 years old, and never before driven into Boston. Complete wreck: crew saved.' (15)
'INUNDATION OF THE SEA. Boston, Nov.13.
'On Saturday morning last, about 7 o'clock, it began to rain at Boston, and continued to do so throughot the day. The wind accompanied the rain impetuously from the ESE and gradually increased in roughness: from eleven o'clcok in the day till six in the evening, it blew extremely hard; and from that hour till nine, a perfect hurricane. The consequence of this continued gale for so many hours in one point was, that the tide in the evening came in with great rapidity, and rose, half an hour before the expected time of full flood, to a height exceeding by four inches what it is recorded to have attained on any occasion preceding.
'What was extraordinary was, that the tide, when it had flowed to to its highest, did not perceptibly subside for more than [an] hour . . . this was a sure prognostication of an extensive calamity . . . As it happened, the town [Boston] was saved, and the neighbouring country deluged from Wainfleet almost to Spalding, a distance of 30 miles.
' . . . In Holbeach Marsh, we are told, the greater part of the estates are three feet under water, and the town of Holbeach has been much distressed by the inundation.
'LOSSES AT SEA . . . The old ship the SEA VENTURE, belonging to the port of Whitby, was in this gale wrecked on Holbeach Marsh, after having weathered the storms of a hundred years. She was built in the reign of Queen Anne (we state this from good information) and has been a constant trader from Whitby to London during the long period intervening to the present year. The crew with great difficulty landed on the Marsh from the boats, almost perished.' (7)
'We copy the following article from the Hull Packet of Tuesday last, and hope, for the honour of human nature, that few such will appear upon record. In speaking of the wreck of the ship SEA VENTURE, on Holbeach Marsh, in the gale of Sunday se'nnight, it says:-
'The crew with great difficulty landed on the Marsh from the boats, almost perished, and applied at a large farmhouse for shelter, but were denied even the indulgence of a barn as a refuge from the pelting of the storm.' (8)
'During the late gales, the eastern coast of the kingdom has sustained extensive damages. At Boston, in Lincolnshire, the tide flowed into the town . . . It is supposed that not less than 20,000 acres of land in Lincolnshire are under water. The losses at sea have been very great. The SEA VENTURE, of Whitby, a vessel known to be a century old, is among the wrecks that covers the coast.' (9)
'The old ship the SEA VENTURE, belonging to the port of Whitby, was in this gale wrecked on Holbeach Marsh, after weathering the storms of a hundred years. She was built in the reign of Queen Anne, and has been a constant trader from Whitby to London, during the long period intervening to the present year. By the gales which prevailed about a fortnight ago, she was for the first time compelled to run for Boston Deeps; and the subsequent tempest has wrecked her. The crew with great difficulty landed on the Marsh from the boats, almost perished, and applied at a large farm-house for shelter, but were denied even the indulgence of a barn as a refuge from the pelting of the storm.' (16)
'To be sold by auction, by Mr C. Cave, on Wednesday the 28th November, 1810, at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Skirbeck Quarter, between the hours of 2 and 4 in the afternoon, in such lots as shall be agreed upon at the time of sale;
'The wreck or hull of the ship SEA ADVENTURE, with the cargo of 17 keels of Tanfield Moor Coals now in her; and several lots of guns, masts, booms, boats &c. &c. as now lying near Holbeach Marsh.
'The whole to be sold without reserve.' (6)
Secondary Sources:
Wreck of English cargo vessel which stranded at Holbeach Marsh in Nov 1810 during a gale, possibly on her 'constant trading' route between Whitby and London. This wooden sailing vessel was said to have been built in the reign of Queen Anne. (5) [Synthesised from summary in the present record in (5) and compiled back into the present record in 2008 without acknowledgement of origin.]
Commentary and interpretive detail:
Prior History:
Later 18th century newspaper reports and Lloyd's Registers appear to record a second, and later a third and fourth vessel named SEA ADVENTURE, variously reported as belonging to Scarborough, Newcastle and Shields.
No SEA ADVENTURE is recorded in the earliest extant Lloyd's Register for 1764. A SEA VENTURE, Wm Hall master and owner, 350 tons, surveyed from London to Petersburgh (St. Petersburg), belonging to Scarborough, and built 1760, is recorded in that edition, and is consistent with newspaper reports of a SEA VENTURE as a Baltic trader, so clearly a different vessel. That vessel is consistently recorded, for example in the 1776 Register, No.260(S), and the 1782 Underwriters' Register, No.297(S), both with master Hall.
No vessel named as SEA ADVENTURE or SEA VENTURE, whether registered at Whitby or Scarborough, appears in Lloyd's Register for 1790 (Underwriters). A third SEA ADVENTURE and fourth SEA ADVENTURE then appear, registered at Newcastle/Shields, from 1799-1800 onwards.
Thus it is difficult to ascribe any newspaper report reliably to the Whitby vessel between 1743 and the date of loss. For example, the SEA ADVENTURE reported in the Sound List under master Agar in the Newcastle Courant of 28 April 1792, p2 may be the Whitby vessel of 1728 as it records a voyage from Whitby to Memel (Klaipeda) but the age of the Whitby vessel by this point and the proximity of Whitby to Scarborough makes the 1760 vessel equally plausible, and is consistent with the Baltic trade of the latter.
In the following year a mention of the SEA ADVENTURE from Newcastle for Stettin with coal in the Newcastle Chronicle of 13 July 1793, p2 is close in trade (coal, departure port) to the known loss of the 1728 SEA ADVENTURE in 1810 but is more consistent with the voyages of the 1760 SEA ADVENTURE.
All that can therefore be determined without further research is that the 1743 newspaper report seems consistent with the date of build in 1728 as reported in Lloyd's Register, the condition of the vessel also circumstantial evidence for age; the name of the master in 1743 consistent with the ownership of the Clarke family from 1800 onwards; the trade of the vessel in 1743, with arrival at Newcastle from London with goods is consistent with the trade evidenced in the final loss of the vessel and the vessel's description as a constant trader in 1810, coal from the Durham coalfield lost southbound. Registry at Whitby is consistently reported in Lloyd's Register, and is corroborated in the report of loss.
The name SEA ADVENTURE is a common thread in the 1743 newspaper item, Lloyd's Register entries 1800-1811, and the name of the wrecked vessel as reported in the November 1810 advertisement for sale. The name SEA VENTURE is consistent throughout the reports of the wreck, which may have a common source, as was often the case for contemporary records, and may be an influence from the Scarborough ship of 1760. This form of confusion was not uncommon in other contemporary wrecks, nor is it uncommon for the age of a vessel to be considerably exaggerated: see, for example, the BETSEY CAINS in the present database. (12)
Wreck Event:
NB: Source (3) expresses the date of loss as a reporting date of 20-NOV-1810, based on the issue date of source (2). However, the gale referred to in source (4) is known to have occurred on 10-NOV-1810, and is corroborated by source (7).
The inundation of the local area as reported in (7) and the phraseology of (15) together suggest the potential for the wreck to have stranded above high water. (12)
Built: 1702 - 1714 (4)(7); 'a century old' (9); 1728 (10)(11)
Wind Direction: ESE (7)
Weather Conditions: flood & inundation of surrounding land (7)
Master: J Brown (10)(11)(14)
Owner: C Clarke (10)(11)(14)
Date of Loss Qualifier: Actual date of loss
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