The Wreck of the Ospray

Prologue

Along the coasts of Ireland and Britain, the sea keeps its own ledger. It records not in ink but in broken timbers, forgotten names, and the quiet spaces where ships once passed. Some losses are remembered in monuments and ballads; others slip almost unnoticed into the tide of history, recalled only by chance encounters in old newspapers or fading registers. Yet each vessel carried lives, livelihoods, and stories that deserve to be told.

The brigantine Ospray was one such ship. For nearly seventy years she worked the waters of the British Isles, trading steadily out of Waterford through an age when sail was giving way to steam and the great era of local shipowning was drawing to a close. She knew fair weather and foul, prosperity and decline, and the hands of generations of seamen who trusted her timbers with their lives. When she finally met her end on a storm-lashed shore far from home, her loss merited little more than a few columns of newsprint — and then silence.

This account seeks to restore the Ospray to memory: to follow her long working life, to trace the people bound to her fate, and to recall the night in 1909 when courage, duty, and the raw power of the sea collided off the coast of Dover. In doing so, it preserves a small but vital fragment of Waterford’s rich maritime heritage — a reminder that even forgotten ships leave deep wakes behind them.

Recently, while carrying out research on the loss in 1911 of the Teazer off Ardmore, Co. Waterford, and the gallant efforts made by Father John O’Shea and others to rescue the crew, I spotted an item of interest in the same historical journal concerning a shipwreck that took place in Dover in 1909. It intrigued me and whetted my curiosity, as I had not come across any previous records of a Waterford brigantine called Ospray, and I was determined to find out more about the event.

The article stated:

“When the Ospray, of Waterford, stranded off the Admiralty Pier the other day, other means of getting a line on board having failed, Maurice Miller, Coastguardsman, of the Lydden Spout Station, volunteered to swim out to the wreck. He succeeded in his gallant deed and rescued the rest of the crew. He was awarded a Bronze Sea Gallantry Medal.”

The registered owner of the Ospray was Mr William Henry Farrell of 13 Catherine Street, Waterford, from the firm of Matthew Farrell & Son, Ship Brokers. William Farrell was the son of Matthew Farrell, the founder of the firm. The Farrells were an important family in Waterford shipping circles and contributed hugely to the maritime heritage of the city. William Farrell was a highly respected figure in the public, commercial, and shipping life of Waterford in the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. In addition to his shipping interests, William Farrell was an important consular official. He acted as Consul for both the United States and Russia, as well as serving as Consular Agent for Portugal, Greece, and Denmark.

Mr Farrell had originally purchased the vessel around 1875 on behalf of Mr John McSweeny of Sion Row, Ferrybank, a major exporter of timber from Waterford. Mr Farrell later became a joint owner of the vessel before eventually completing full ownership.

Records show that Mr Farrell was also the owner of another brigantine, called the Eagle. Built in Prince Edward Island, Canada, in 1865, the Eagle was towed into Waterford Harbour in a stricken condition during a storm in January 1883.

A newspaper report at the time described the incident as follows:

Storm at Waterford — The brigantine Eagle, of Cork, bound for Runcorn with a cargo of China clay, was towed into Waterford Harbour on Wednesday night during a terrible storm. She was in a sinking condition. Her canvas was all torn away, and she had six feet of water in the hold. A large number of coasting vessels were more or less damaged and ran into the harbour for shelter.

Newspaper accounts tell of a subsequent dispute between owners and sailors over payments due, and notices for the sale of the vessel, as ordered by the mortgagees, appeared in local papers, with the auction taking place on July 5th, 1883. Mr Farrell was the purchaser and had the vessel overhauled and repaired at Appledore in Devon, after which he successfully operated her in coastal trading for a further twenty years. In May 1903, the Eagle was put up for sale in Cardiff. In 1904, Lloyd’s Register of Sailing Vessels shows the new registered owner to be Robert McClenahan of Dundalk.

While the peak years for Waterford shipping and shipbuilding had now passed — in 1849 there had been 215 vessels on the local register, with a gross tonnage of 27,431 tons — Waterford was still an important centre of commerce and shipping, both steam and sail. The city could still pride itself on the knowledge that the Malcomson-owned Neptune Iron Works had built over forty steamships and employed one thousand workers at its peak. The Malcomsons, who owned over seventy ships at one time, were deemed to be the largest steamship owners in the world. The shipyard closed in 1882.

References to Lloyd’s Register of Ships show that the Ospray had been built in Hastings in 1841 and was originally rigged as a schooner (Ship No. 606). The vessel’s first home port was Weymouth, Dorset, where it was owned and skippered by the appropriately named Way & Company. From Dorset, the vessel moved north to the town of Borrowstounness in the Firth of Forth, close to Falkirk. Borrowstounness is more popularly known as Bo’ness, which is certainly easier to pronounce.

The master of the Ospray after she became a Waterford-registered vessel in 1882 was John Phelan, with addresses in Henry Street and Manor Street, Waterford. He was followed by Patrick Mahon, also from Waterford city.

Captain Walter J. Farrell was Harbour Master at Waterford from 1903 until 1941. Despite sharing the same surname, he was not a close relation of William Farrell. When Walter retired as Harbour Master, he was replaced by his nephew, Captain Richard J. Farrell. Walter Farrell had first gone to sea at the age of sixteen in 1878. Decies, No. 39 (Autumn 1988), featured The Sea Life of Walter J. Farrell, in which Captain Farrell recalls his fifth voyage at sea. 

The next master of the Ospray was John Wade, followed by Thomas Furniss, who served in the role for many years. Later, Captain Furniss was master of the Madcap, the barquentine owned by Geoffrey Spencer, which survived until 1928, when she was lost on her way to the breakers’ yard at Appledore in Devon.

In 1900, one crew member listed on the Ospray was Garrett Handrick from Fethard-on-Sea, Co. Wexford. Wexford sailors, especially those from the Hook Peninsula, formed a large part of the crews sailing from Waterford during this period. Fourteen years later, on February 20th, 1914, Garrett Handrick was one of a crew of fourteen brave men who manned the Fethard lifeboat Helen Blake and went to the rescue of the stricken Mexico, a Norwegian schooner that had gone aground on the Keeragh Islands in Bannow Bay during a dreadful storm. Nine of the lifeboat crew were lost in the rescue attempt. Garrett Handrick was one of five survivors who managed to reach safety on the bleak rocky island and remained there in desolate conditions, along with the Norwegian sailors, until they were rescued by the Wexford and Dunmore East lifeboats three days later.

Following Captain Furniss, James Moran of Waterford was appointed the next master of the Ospray, but by 1909 he had been replaced by James Kerr, a native of Kilkeel, Co. Down.

On Saturday, June 19th, 1909, having been laid up for several months, the Ospray sailed from the Port of Waterford on what would prove to be her final voyage down the River Suir, passing the small villages on either side of the harbour as she had done so many times over the previous thirty-seven years. The vessel, carrying a cargo of timber, was bound for Cardiff. Sailing with Captain Kerr were his mate, Matthew Timmons from Arklow, and three young Waterford sailors: James Moran, aged twenty-two, and Richard O’Brien and Thomas Slattery, both listed on departure as being seventeen years of age.

From Cardiff, the Ospray sailed for Glasgow, where James Moran signed off. It could not be established whether this James Moran was related to the former master of the same name. In Glasgow, a Danish sailor named Henry Hanson joined the crew. He later signed off at Port Talbot in Wales, where a Belgian sailor named Vignes replaced him.

The Ospray was next bound for Cherbourg, in Normandy, France, to load a cargo of stone for discharge in London. Autumn gales were already setting in. A report in The London Daily News on October 5th stated:

“Atlantic liners arriving at Plymouth reported terrific storms. The Hamburg-American steamer Cincinnati arrived at Plymouth yesterday thirty hours late, owing to a series of gales that beset her all the way across from New York. Tremendous seas swept on board, doing damage to the deck fittings.”

On the same day, the Southern Echo, based in Southampton, reported:

“A strong westerly gale prevailed in the Channel all night and continued to-day. A number of vessels are seeking shelter in Dover.”

A further report from Lorient in Brittany, France, stated:

“A violent gale is blowing on this coast, causing disasters to shipping. The fishing boat Colette capsized at Gâvres, and two men were drowned.”

For close on seven decades, the Ospray had traded around the British Isles and had endured all types of weather conditions during that time. On this occasion, however, the severe westerly gale blowing in the English Channel on October 7th, 1909, proved to be overwhelming, and the gallant Ospray finally succumbed to its might.

The Dover and East Kent News the following day gave a detailed account:

WRECK AT DOVER LAST NIGHT

IRISH BRIGANTINE DRIVEN ASHORE ON SHAKESPEARE BEACH

GALLANT RESCUES BY COASTGUARDS

Yesterday evening, at six o’clock, the Irish brigantine Ospray, of Waterford, with a crew of five men, went ashore on the beach outside the Western Blockyard of Messrs Pearson and Son. A strong breeze from the west had been blowing during the latter part of the afternoon, and just before dusk the brigantine was observed by coastguards at Cornhill to be in difficulties. She was well in shore, and, missing stays, was rapidly drifted ashore by the eddy that runs into the West Bay.

The coastguards, under Chief Officer O’Connor, who had directed the rocket apparatus at East Cliff to stand by, were quickly on the spot, together with several Dover Harbour dock head men, pier boatmen, and sailors off the mail boat. As soon as the brigantine came ashore, the crew threw a throw-line, attached to a lifebuoy, overboard. Those ashore secured this, and a big hawser was then hauled ashore from the vessel.

The two youngest members of the crew decided to come ashore on this line. The vessel was at this time labouring very heavily. She bumped on the beach with great violence, and the big waves washed right over the vessel, the men being on the poop aft, holding on. The first man to get ashore was named O’Brien. The rope slackened as the vessel rolled, and he was ducked three or four times before the coastguards, who had rushed into the surf with lifelines, got hold of him.

The next man to come ashore, T. Slattery, had a similar experience. Both men reported that there were three more men on board, but that they were elderly men and not able to get ashore along the hawser. The two men were then taken to the Sailors’ Home, where they were received by the master, Captain Treadwell, and their wants attended to.

Chief Officer O’Connor, who was in charge of the life-saving operations, in the meantime telephoned to East Cliff for the rocket apparatus, which arrived shortly after seven o’clock, the first two men having been rescued within twenty minutes of the vessel coming ashore. The seas continued to break over the vessel with great violence, and the masts rocked dangerously, the sails being gradually blown away.

As soon as the rocket apparatus arrived, blue lights were at once burnt on the beach, lighting up the wild scene. The apparatus was fixed up on the blockyard and within a very few minutes the first rocket was fired. It went low and struck the hull of the vessel just below where the men were standing. Another rocket was fired within a few minutes, but this was carried away to leeward.

Boatman Miller, of Lydden Spout Coastguard Station, then volunteered to climb along the hawser and take the line of the breeches buoy on board. The hawser was held as tight as possible, and Miller climbed along the rope until halfway to the ship, when the jerking of the hawser caused his feet to slip and he hung by his hands on the rope for some moments. He, however, regained his hold and climbed on board, being helped over the bulwark by the crew. The big crowd loudly cheered the gallant coastguardsman.

He at once set to work to adjust the hauling gear of the breeches buoy, and at length signalled to haul ashore. Captain Kerr, who had been jammed between the boom and the deckhouse and had injured his leg, was the first to be hauled ashore. The coastguards and others with lifelines rushed into the water, got hold of him, and assisted him ashore before escorting him to the Sailors’ Home.

A man named Jacob (sic) was next brought ashore, followed by another man named Timmons, while Miller, the coastguard, was the last to be hauled ashore. The crowd again cheered him as he emerged from the buoy. The men were immediately taken to the Sailors’ Home, where their wants were attended to and dry clothing supplied, and the crowd gradually dispersed.

The Ospray belonged to Waterford and was a brigantine of 128 tons. She was bound from Cherbourg to London with stone for the Road Maintenance Company. The vessel was an old one, having been built at Hastings in 1841.

During the night the vessel completely broke up and was reduced to matchwood. At the spot where the brigantine drove ashore there now remained only the keel and a few timbers, while the sea was awash with wreckage, into which crowds of youths rushed, wading into the surf to secure what they could.

The Waterford News of October 8th, 1909, reported:

The captain, despite his exhausted condition, insisted on attending to his duty and wiring the owners. Accordingly, he despatched the following telegram to Mr W. H. Farrell:

“Ospray ashore, Dover breakwater. Crew saved.”

Maurice Miller’s bravery was widely recognised throughout the British Isles. A vast number of national and provincial newspapers carried the story of the dramatic rescue and the gallantry of the coastguard. The Waterford Standard, on October 9th, 1909, brought news of the wreck and the saving of the crew’s lives to its readership. The Illustrated Police News of October 16th, 1909, carried two full pages of artistic depictions of the dramatic events.

On October 15th, just over a week after the rescue of the crew of the Ospray, Dover was to record another historic event when the new Admiralty Harbour was officially opened by the Prince of Wales. The bad weather appears to have continued, as a report in the London Evening Standard, dated October 16th, began:

“Dover was in the grip of a gale this morning when the Prince of Wales came to open the new Admiralty Harbour, which has been completed at a cost of nearly four millions. But twenty gales could not have damped the enthusiasm of the thousands of persons who were massed in a solid phalanx along the sea front. And the roar of twenty gales could not have drowned the cheers as the Prince of Wales rode past to the appointed spot where the stone-laying ceremony was to take place.”

The newspaper report was a lengthy one. The following is another extract:

“It seemed that all the handshaking had been done, all the presentations made, when of a sudden a tall, broad-shouldered man was brought forward by an officer. The Prince immediately left a group of officials with whom he was conversing and came across to the man.

‘This is Coastguard Maurice Miller, your Highness,’ said the officer. ‘The man who swam out to the wrecked brigantine Ospray last week and rescued three of the crew.’

The coastguard had removed his broad-brimmed straw hat and was tugging nervously at his short black beard. He came to the ‘attention’ quickly as the Prince, with a kindly smile, stretched out his hand and clasped the big, horny fingers of the hero. For some minutes they remained together, the Prince plying the coastguard with questions and inquiring the distance he had swum. The man answered them all shortly, almost monosyllabically, as though the recital of his deed was a weakness of which he was ashamed.

‘I am proud to have met you,’ said the Prince graciously, again extending his hand. A word from the officer, and Miller came to the salute again, and in the next moment he was outside, threading his way through a cheering crowd.”

One wonders whether the Prince told Maurice Miller that he himself had served in the Royal Navy from 1877 to 1892. It was the unexpected death of his elder brother in early 1892 that placed him directly in line for the throne. In May of the following year, 1910, he became King George V on the death of his father. Did he have time to tell Maurice Miller that he had been in Waterford Harbour in August 1889 as part of his naval duties? As Prince George of Wales, it is recorded that he visited the lifeboat station at Dunmore East while ashore.

Ten months later, the two men would meet again. The Prince was now King George V, and a ceremony took place on August 2nd, 1910, to present medals to almost seventy men for recent heroism in mining disasters and for lifesaving at sea. The Dover Express of August 5th, 1910, reported:

“Amongst those who received the bronze medal was Maurice Miller, coastguard commissioned boatman, Dover. The record read by the President of the Board of Trade was as follows: ‘On October 7th, 1909, the brigantine Ospray, of Waterford, stranded to the west of Admiralty Pier at Dover. The East Cliff life-saving apparatus company fired two rockets without succeeding in effecting communication, and the coastguard, Maurice Miller, then, with life-line on, proceeded through a very heavy sea to the wreck and sent the remainder of the crew—three in number—ashore in the breeches buoy."

A further newspaper report stated that the Mayor of Dover presented Coastguard Maurice Miller with a vellum certificate. He also received monetary awards from the Carnegie Heroes Fund and the Board of Trade.

We know that three of the crew of the Ospray returned to sea despite their narrow escape from death at Dover — Captain Kerr, Thomas Slattery, and Matthew Timmons. No record of Richard O’Brien returning to sea could be traced. In 1912, Captain Kerr is recorded as being master of the Mary, a small sailing vessel trading from Annalong, Co. Down.

The next time at sea for Thomas Slattery, one of the rescued sailors from the Ospray, would be another “last voyage”. Records show that he was a crew member of the steamship Lara, which left Waterford on March 10th, 1910, bound for the Mersey to be scrapped. The Waterford Standard of March 12th, 1910, reported:

“On Thursday last, the steamship Lara sailed on her last voyage from this port, the Waterford Steamship Company having, we understand, sold the vessel to a Mersey firm, and the latter will at once proceed to break her up for ‘scrap’. The Lara was a Waterford-built steamer, having been constructed at the Neptune Iron Works as far back as 1868 from designs prepared by the late Mr J. Horn. She was largely used for a long number of years in the cattle trade carried on from this port, and was one of the best-known steamers in the cross-Channel service.”

Records show that Matthew Timmons resumed his seafaring career from the Port of Waterford aboard the Madcap, owned by Geoffrey Spencer. The Spencer family were among the last ship-owning families in Waterford. Their success dated back to 1860, when a young Geoffrey Spencer made a last-minute bid to purchase the Oriental, a ship widely regarded as unseaworthy. It proved to be an astute purchase, and in time Geoffrey Spencer went on to own the Arrow, Nancy, SS Silkstone, Caradoc, Madcap, Olga, and Zayda.

William Henry Farrell died in 1929. The editor of the Waterford Standard, David Boyd, wrote the following tribute in his newspaper, dated June 29th, 1929:

DEATH OF MR W. H. FARRELL

"I have just heard, on Friday evening, of the death of Mr William Henry Farrell, shipbroker, which occurred on Friday at his residence in Catherine Street.

He was in his ninety-third year, and his passing removes, so to speak, a landmark figure in Waterford. He was a shipbroker in the city for seventy-six years, having succeeded his father, Matthew Farrell, in the business.

Quite recently, he was honoured by the King of Denmark, who conferred a knighthood upon him in recognition of his forty-five years’ service as Danish Vice-Consul in Waterford. For twenty-nine years, he also served as Consular Agent for the United States, an office which was abolished in 1912.

He retained all his faculties to the end. To his sorrowing son and daughter, I tender my sincere sympathy."

In the same newspaper, one week later, a report from a meeting of Waterford Corporation, held on July 4th, 1929, stated that a request to suspend Standing Orders was made by Councillor Coppinger in order to pay tribute to the late Mr Farrell, who had been a member of the Corporation for many years. Councillor Forrest joined in the tribute, as did the Mayor of Waterford, Alderman Edward Walsh.

Epilogue

By the morning after the storm in 1909, the Ospray had vanished. Where she had fought through the darkness only hours before, there remained little more than scattered timbers and the slow, indifferent wash of the tide. For the people of Dover she became another entry in a long catalogue of wrecks; for Waterford, her loss was marked briefly in print and then quietly absorbed into the passing of time.

Yet ships such as the Ospray were never merely cargo carriers. They were working lives made of oak and canvas, shaped by the hands of shipwrights, sailors, owners, and harbour men whose fortunes rose and fell with the sea. For almost seventy years she linked ports and communities, carried livelihoods across dangerous waters, and bore witness to a changing maritime world as sail gradually yielded to steam.

The men who sailed her carried on. Some returned to sea, drawn back despite narrow escapes and bitter lessons learned; others slipped from the record, their stories unfinished and unrecorded. Acts of bravery, like that of Maurice Miller, were rightly celebrated, yet countless quieter courage — the daily endurance of those who worked the sea — went largely unremarked.

Today, there is no marker on Shakespeare Beach to recall the Ospray, nor any memorial stone in Waterford Harbour bearing her name. Her story survives instead in fragments: in shipping registers, faded newspapers, family memories, and the occasional line stumbled upon by a curious researcher. In gathering those fragments together, we do more than recount a wreck — we restore a small but meaningful chapter of Waterford’s maritime past.

The sea has long since closed over the Ospray, but memory, once recovered, has a way of enduring.

References

1. The Life Saving Awards Research Society, Journal No. 30, 1997

2. Slater’s Royal National Directory of Ireland — various years

3. Lloyd’s Register of Shipping — various years

4. Bristol Mercury, January 13th, 1883

5. Lloyd’s List, May 16th, 1903

6. Sailing Ships of Ireland, Ernest B. Anderson, 1951

7. Records of the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen, 1860–1921, http://census.nationalarchives.ie/

8. Ibid.

9. Dauntless Courage, Dunmore East RNLI, 2020, p. 75

10. The Illustrated Police News, September 24th, 1910

11. Two Centuries of Tall Ships in Waterford, Bill Irish and Andrew Kelly, Waterford Civic Trust, 2011

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Michael Farrell, Andrew Doherty, Brendan Grogan, Cian Manning, and Dr Patrick McCarthy for their assistance with this article