Previous Lot Next Lot

Auction: 7012 - Orders, Decorations, Medals & Militaria
Lot: 91

The Following Fifteen Lots Comprise Items Recovered from the Wreck of H.M.S. Birkenhead, Which Sank off South Africa, 26th February, 1852. In January 1852, under the command of Captain Robert Salmond, the H.M.S. Birkenhead left Portsmouth conveying troops to the Third Kaffir War in South Africa. She picked up more soldiers at Queenstown, Ireland, and was also conveying some officers´ wives and families. In the late afternoon of 25 February 1852, the Birkenhead left Simon´s Bay near Cape Town with approximately 643 men, women, and children aboard, under instructions to reach its destination at Algoa Bay as quickly as possible. In order to make the best speed possible, Captain Salmond decided to hug the South African coast, setting a course which was usually no more than three miles from the shore; using her paddle wheels she maintained a steady speed of 8.5 knots. At 2 a.m. the following morning, the Birkenhead struck an uncharted rock near Danger Point. The impact was so violent that the forward compartment of the lower troopdeck flooded instantly and over 100 soldiers were drowned in their hammocks. The surviving officers and men assembled on deck, where Lieutenant Colonel Seton, 74th Foot, took charge of all military personnel and stressed the necessity of maintaining order and discipline to his officers. Distress rockets were fired, but there was no assistance available. Sixty men were detailed to man the pumps, while the rest were drawn up to await orders. Poor maintenance and paint on the winches resulted in only a few of the ships´ lifeboats being launched; eventually two cutters and a gig were launched, onto which all the women and children were placed and rowed away for safety. Only then did Captain Salmond order that those men who could swim should save themselves by swimming to the boats; Lieutenant Colonel Seton, however, recognising that rushing the lifeboats would risk swamping them and endangering the women and children, ordered the men to stand fast. The soldiers did not move, even as the ship broke up barely twenty minutes after striking the rock. Some of the soldiers managed to swim the two miles to shore over the next twelve hours, often hanging on to pieces of the wreck to stay afloat; however, most either drowned or were eaten by sharks. The next morning the schooner Lioness discovered one of the cutters, and after saving the occupants of the second boat made her way to the scene of the disaster. Arriving in the afternoon, she rescued as many people as possible. It was reported that of the 643 people aboard the Birkenhead only 193 were saved. After the Birkenhead sank it was soon rumoured that she was carrying a military payroll of £240,000 in gold coins (about 3 tons in weight and around £30 million at today´s prices) which had been secretly stored in the ships´ powder-room before the final voyage. Despite numerous salvage attempts, from as early as 1854, no more than a few hundred gold coins, which appear to have been personal possessions, have been recovered. If the fabled hoard had existed, it would have been contained compactly in a few chests or boxes, all in the same place, and there is every possibility that it lays undiscovered to this day. Ceramics A Wedgwood grey-blue ground Jasperware pen-tray, 216mm long; a fluted white bone-china saucer, 165mm in diameter; two large fragments of a Copeland "Blue Italian" pattern transfer-printed washing-bowl, the base retaining impressed markings, the large approximately 260mm (4) Estimate £ 40-50

Sold for
£60