with
special thanks to.... Jan Smith,
Michael Land, John White, John Harman, John
Wraight and Nigel Robinson
Collision on the
Thames During
February 2007, we received a real gem to add to our Thames Barge
collection.... thanks to Jan Smith (Hutton). It concerns an act of
bravery back in 1923 by her barge skipper granddad, George James
Packman. Let's start with Jan's introduction.....
| My grandfather, George James Packman of Albert Street
Whitstable, worked for Daniels Brothers on the Thames
barges. I that know he was on the Duluth
and Savoy.
Photo kindly supplied by Jan
Smith
I have attached a cutting
from the Whitstable Times dated 1923 describing his barge the Why
Not's collision with other Whitstable barges on
the Thames.
Jan
Smith |
The story is an amazing one and it shows that
the serene scenes of barges under sail could occasionally turn
to moments of unexpected danger and tragedy......
|
Article
reproduced by permission of The Whitstable Times |
John White (Society for Sailing Barge Research)
has very kindly provided some more details of the incident. It
occurred near Greenwich on 6 March 1923. The Virgilia
was a relatively new cargo ship that had been built just 5 years
earlier in 1918. The Why Not and W H
Randall were smaller and rather older than most of the
barges mentioned in our feature. Why Not was built
at Faversham in 1866 (38 Reg Tons) and W H
Randall was constructed at Sittingbourne in 1876 (44 Reg
Tons). Kathleen was a little larger at 53 tons. All
three were of wood construction and none was a match for the 5,697
ton Virgilia. Miraculously, Why Not received
only light damage to her stern. The Cunarder continued on her
voyage of destruction into Talbot's barge roads, damaging several
lighters and setting others adrift before running herself ashore
by Wood's Wharf. The W H Randall was towed ashore and
subsequently broken up at Whitstable. Kathleen was saved to
become one Whitstable's most well remembered barges. The
Virgilia remained with Cunard until 1925 when she
was sold to Chambers & Co of Liverpool and renamed Corby
Castle. In 1927, she passed into the hands of Japanese
owners and suffered her own tragic end when, on 17/02/1944,
she was sunk in the Pacific Ocean by US warplanes.
In our modern era of fictitious super heroes, it
is easy to overlook the fact that real life heroes are, more
often than not, quiet and unassuming family people. That's
partly why the picture below is such a gem.....
It features George and Jan's grandmother,
Emily Elizabeth Packman (née Baynes) aboard an unknown barge in
the tranquillity of Whitstable harbour. We
discuss this quaint scene along with other memories of bargemen
and their families on our Bargemen
page.
Many thanks to Jan for sharing this lovely piece
of local history with us.
Other Troubles
and Tragedies....
Jan's records have helped us piece together
more background to some of the town's most prominent barges.
In our Where are They Now
page, we attempt to record the history and current status of
the vessels with the help of Michael Land, John White, John Harman, John
Wraight and Nigel Robinson. Amazingly, many of the craft suffered
mishaps, tragedies and untimely ends. It is worth considering some
of these incidents here... in the wake of George Packman's actions
on the Thames in 1923.
We can start with some of the barges mentioned in
Jan's email....
-
Kathleen survived that
sinking and, from 1928, she was sailed by another well
known local skipper - Fred Wraight. She featured in a
further incident at the Anderson, Rigden & Perkins
boatyard in 1953 when the flood tide swept her off the
slip and she demolished a section of the boatyard
buildings.
-
Why Not was sunk in
another collision off Northfleet and also ran aground
at West Beach while carrying a cargo of Quaker Oats.
It seems that the cargo didn't react with the water
and, so, Marine Terrace was saved from becoming the
biggest plate of porridge ever recorded.
- Duluth was damaged in the Lower Hope in a
collision in 1897, sunk near the Nore
lightship in 1912 and stranded near Scrapsgate (Sheppey)
during the great gale of November 1921. Each time, she
was repaired and returned to service. However, she was
finally lost in World War II. Skippered by Alf Fryer
she ran over the wreck of a mined steamer near Mid-Shoebury
Buoy on 10 May 1942. Four months earlier, poor Alf had
hit another mine while master of the Daniel's vessel HKD.
|
Other Whitstable barges either survived or succumbed to
adversity....
-
Azima was sunk in the
Medway before being hulked and eventually buried at
Stood creek in 1986.
-
Cereal was washed onto
the shore at Ramsgate shortly after her launch in 1894
and the crew had to be taken off. In 1929, she blocked
Whitstable harbour when shifting cargo tipped her on
to her port side.
-
Colonia was wrecked in
1929/30 but survived. However, she was sunk off Ness
Houses in 1956 and the crew were taken off by Southend
lifeboat. She was never raised but she has the
distinction of being the last barge to trade under
sail in the Medway area.
-
Major served as a
munitions barge during WWII and survived an incident
when she broke away from her moorings and ran onto the
beach at Whitstable in 1946. However, she was sunk in
the Thames estuary in 1962.
-
Trilby survived a care in 1944 when she was stranded on Buxey Sand.
She was salvaged and repaired
-
Vigilant was beached
alongside the Neptune pub where she served as the HQ
of the Whitstable Sea Cadets for many years. She
actually started life as the Lady Ellen but was run
down by a steamer in fog. This resulted in her
shorebound life on our waterfront
-
Greta is now familiar
sight at the harbour.... but did you know that she
took part in the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 and
is now the oldest active Dunkirk "Little
Ship"?
|
Life on a Thames Barge may have been a good life
and there may have been many moments of tranquillity. However, as
that newspaper report clearly indicates, it was also a tough
life.... and, sometimes.... just sometimes,.... it called for a
quiet family man to become a hero.... like George
James Packman of Albert Street.
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|
