A BOATMANS TALES BY S HOLBOURN

A Boatmans Tales

PART 4


EXIT

ORIGINS


~ Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor


 In the late days preceding the general use of steam powered shipping, the sea levied a heavy toll along the Kent coast, aside from the dangers of storm and the notorious Goodwin Sands, many a life has been lost through the deeds of unwary mariners. Shipping disasters may not always be put down to an act of God. An interesting example of such on oversight in my mind is clearly recorded in the pages of the ‘Kentish Gazette’ on the 8th of January 1822, which reveals :

‘We regret to learn the distressing account of the wind in the night of Friday last. In the evening of that day a sloop was observed on the ‘Columbine sand’ opposite Whitstable. Her dangerous position being observed by those able mariners Messes. Bell of Herne Bay. They put off and offered to take charge of her, but although, when they reached her, the vessel had then beat off her rudder, the Captain refused their assistance, declaring he would ride out the gale. They however, remained by her, putting one man on board, and making fast a boat to her, in which was another of their crew, when towards morning a tremendous sea broke over the sloop, and forced her on her beam ends, sweeping all on board into the sea (except the Captain who had since been found dead clinging to the shrouds) with the mariner who had been put on board, off the deck into the deep water where the whole perished. Thomas ‘Holbans’, the unfortunate mariner who was lost with the crew was a native of Whitstable and has left a wife and two children’

Given that the population of Whitstable in 1831, nine years after this incident was only one thousand nine hundred and twenty six, and had only increased by 731 since 1801, and that the ‘unfortunate mariner’ Thomas had perished, I am certain that the reporter on this story had received an incorrect interpretation of the lost mariners true name. For it is a fact also that a Thomas Holbourn was baptised at Herne in 1756, as was his brother John, in 1758 and their sister in 1760. This Thomas, with his brothers and sisters were the children of the local farmer Thomas Holbourn, who although born in Wingham, near Canterbury, in 1719, held land in Herne as a freeholder and ‘Husbandsman’ until his death in 1813. (a recent housing development at Herne has included in its structure a road named ‘Holbourn Close’, which seems likely to refer to the said farm.) Now, it is then not surprising to find that a Grandson of farmer Thomas, through his eldest son of the same name was a boy named Thomas. This child was born in 1789 and started out in life to become a seaman. He married an Hannah and they raised two sons, the first born 1819, also to become a mariner and baptised Thomas and whose own son was to become a Customs Officer, James Isaac Joseph Holbourn and the second child who was born in 1821, Robert Thomas also of the maritime community. Given that farmer Tom had several other children and between them they constituted a large family in a small village, and as yet, no further record of ‘the unfortunate mariner’ have come to light to contest my realisation, I am content to at least speculate as to the possibility of this being a first recorded reference to my family of Shipwright’s actively involving themselves in offshore rescue attempts.

In any event the good deed of the Bell family of mariners of Herne and those that accompanied them on that fateful night is one of great merit and must surely rank high amongst the long list of heroic rescue attempts off our coastline. Unfortunate as its outcome was, to demonstrate clearly the selfless quality of the boatmen of the times, who all too often have been criticised for placing maritime salvage rights from ships wrecked, often before the welfare of those they have nevertheless rescued from a certain watery grave. The rights of salvage were often a critical factor, because the mariners boat represented their means of survival, which they could not be expected to risk without some form of compensation for their efforts.


~ IN THE BEGINNING : The Lifeboat Story


The 'Original' 1790


THE RAMSGATE TUGBOATS

A Lifeboat station was established at Ramsgate as early as 1802,16 it’s first Lifeboat having been built for the Trustees of the Harbour by the Lifeboat pioneer Henry Greathead. Half a Century later however after the station had been closed for 28 years, that other famous Ramsgate Lifeboat the ‘Northumberland’ appeared there in 1851, and was named in honour of the Lifeboat sponsor the then Duke of Northumberland. The new and prized boat had been built in accordance with the plans of a model that had been the prize~winner in the 1851 national competition for the best design for such a craft. Ramsgate Harbour had been renamed the ‘Royal Harbour’ in honour of the visit made there by King George IV and the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1821 although the construction, which had begun in 1749 was finally completed in about 1850. The full benefits of its development were to become apparent, in particular with regard to the shelter it could offer from the effect of storms and it’s close proximity to the Goodwin Sands. The Harbour’s development happily coincided with the growing use of the ever popular steam tugs that were then being built for the shipping industry. During this era a considerable amount of the work undertaken by the local boatmen was carried out by these tugs. The benefits of this in regard to the heavier ships in distress was inestimable but nevertheless the salvage of wrecks soon became an intense and contested undertaking, offering as it did substantial cash rewards to the boatmen and the tugmen, neither of whom, it is reported, were otherwise that well paid. Ramsgate’s tugs became a regular feature in the Harbour and unlike the Lifeboats they were also able to be of great benefit in being able to easily haul ships out into open waters against an unfavourable wind or under conditions of dead calm.

It is clear from the many accounts of the local sea rescues that the Ramsgate tugs, whilst undertaking salvage work were also able to attend to the saving of lives and their crews performed many a noteworthy task in this regard, either alone or by co~operation with the Lifeboats which they would often tow out to the scene of an imminent disaster to stand off whilst the smaller craft would attend. The first Ramsgate tug, built of wood and measuring 90 tons, and provided with an engine of 50 h.p. was built at South Shields by Woodhouse in 1843, and was named the ‘Samson’. The ‘Samson’ along with her successors ‘Aid’, a wooden paddle steamer of 112 gross tons built at Blackwall on the Thames and in use by 1855, and ‘Vulcan’ which was an iron steam paddle tug of 140 tons, also built at Blackwall and delivered to Ramsgate in 1858 were to receive national acclaim for the epic work undertaken alongside the local Lifeboatmen, receiving a good number of rewards from thankful foreign administrations and the R.N.L.I. although they remained much less well known in general for their heroism.


 15~ ‘The tugs at Ramsgate’ 1846/1938. Anthony Lane : Bygone Kent. (Vol.10, No.12) 1989.

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