108 Ireland Street

The clipped image shows the Oliver sisters standing outside their home on the corner of Ireland and Dryburgh Street, the whole photo is reproduced with kind permission given to us from Rod Hendley.

Image Copywrite Hendly Family

The clipped image shows an unknown child standing outside on Dryburgh Street, beside the Oliver home on the corner of Ireland Street, the whole photo is reproduced with kind permission given to us from Rod Hendley.

Image Copywrite Hendly Family

The first Crown Land Purchaser, Mr. Thomas Mollineaux’s body was never found on the 26th October 1859 when the ship he and other passengers and crew, its estimated that around 450 people, died as a result of their vessel breaking up in a huge storm that battered it against rocks by pounding waves whipped up by winds of over 160 km/h. It was the highest death toll of any shipwreck on the Welsh coast at that time. The precise number of dead is uncertain as the complete passenger list was lost in the wreck, although an incomplete list (not including those who boarded just before departure) is retained in the Victorian Archives Centre.

An application to enact Thomas Mollineaux’s last will was reported in the Age Newspaper.

Friday 18th May 1860. In the Estate of Thomas Molineaux, (spelt Mollineaux) was Deceased. In this estate Mr Bunny moved that probate of the will of the deceased be granted to the executors named in the will. The learned counsel stated that the peculiarity of the case consisted in the fact that there was no evidence of the death of the deceased. The deceased, who was manager of Mr Harker’s bonded store, was one of the unfortunate passengers by the Royal Charter, and the Court must infer his death from him not being alive, inasmuch as his body had never been found.

The learned gentleman read an affidavit, setting forth that the Royal Charter sailed from Hobson’s Bay for England, having the deceased on board at the time that the name of the deceased appeared in the passenger list published in the Times amongst the persons believed to have been lost; that a fellow passenger seeing him on the deck of the wrecked vessel after she struck the rocks at a point just north of Moelfre Bay near Porth Helaeth on the north coast of Anglesey, England; and finally that amongst the fragments of clothing torn by the violence of the sea from the bodies of the shipwrecked people, there was found a portion of a shirt bearing the initials ‘T. M.’ written in a manner precisely corresponding with that in which the deceased was accustomed to write these letters. The application was granted.

The Royal Charter’s maiden voyage was from Liverpool to Melbourne. The voyage was made in 52 days beating the previous record by 13 days.

In late October 1859 Royal Charter was returning to Liverpool from Melbourne. Her complement of about 371 passengers, with a crew of about 112 and some other company employees, included many gold miners, some of whom had struck it rich at the diggings in Australia and were carrying large sums of gold about their persons. A consignment of 79,000 ounces of gold bullion was loaded onto the ship. As she reached the north-western tip of Anglesey on 25 October the barometer reading was dropping and it was claimed later by some passengers,[who?] though not confirmed, that the master, Captain Thomas Taylor, was advised to put into Holyhead harbour for shelter. However, he decided to continue on to Liverpool. The Royal Charter broke up on these rocks near Moelfre. Off Point Lynas Royal Charter tried to pick up the Liverpool pilot, but the wind had risen to Storm force 10 on the Beaufort scale and the rapidly rising sea made this impossible. During the night of 25/26 October the wind rose to Hurricane force 12 on the Beaufort Scale in what became known as the “Royal Charter Storm”.

A large quantity of gold was said to have been thrown up on the beach at Porth Helaeth, with some families becoming rich overnight. The gold bullion being carried as cargo was insured for £322,000, but the total value of the gold on the ship must have been much higher as many of the passengers had considerable sums in gold, either on their bodies or deposited in the ship’s strongroom. Many of the bodies recovered from the sea were buried nearby at St Gallgo’s Church, Llanallgo, where the graves and a memorial can still be seen.

The aftermath of the disaster is described by Charles Dickens in The Uncommercial Traveller. Dickens visited the scene and talked to the rector of Llanallgo, the Rev. Stephen Roose Hughes, whose exertions in finding and identifying the bodies probably led to his own premature death soon afterwards. Dickens gives a vivid illustration of the force of the gale:

“So tremendous had the force of the sea been when it broke the ship, that it had beaten one great ingot of gold, deep into a strong and heavy piece of her solid iron-work: in which also several loose sovereigns that the ingot had swept in before it, had been found, as firmly embedded as though the iron had been liquid when they were forced there.”
Dickens’s friend, the painter Henry O’Neil exhibited the picture A Volunteer in 1860, based on the incident, depicting Rogers about to leap into the sea with the rope around him.

The disaster had an effect on the development of the Meteorological Office as Captain Robert FitzRoy, who was in charge of the office at the time, brought in the first gale warning service to prevent similar tragedies. The intensity of the “Royal Charter storm” and winds were frequently used as a yardstick in other national disasters – when the Tay Bridge collapsed in 1879 the Astronomer Royal referred to the Royal Charter storm frequently in his report.

The wreck was extensively salvaged shortly after the disaster. The remains today lie close inshore in less than 5 metres (16 ft) of water as a series of iron bulkheads, plates and ribs which become covered and uncovered by the shifting sands from year to year. Gold sovereigns, pistols, spectacles and other personal items have been found by scuba divers by chance over the years.

By Item is held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14511438