Shipwrecked: the rescue of the crew of HMS Racehorse in December 1822 saw eight men lost at sea off the Isle of Man. Painting by Paul Parker, courtesy the Isle of Man Post Office
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: A surgeon from Croydon who served in the Royal Navy of Nelson’s era, survived a traumatic shipwreck that prompted the formation of a fine institution, as DAVID MORGAN discovered with the help of fellow archivists from the Isle of Man
It is more than 200 years ago now since he decided to write his will, a timely decision just a few months before he was on board a ship that ran aground in a notorious shipwreck, an incident that would lead to the foundation of one of the great institutions of this country.
The document that was drawn up on March 7 1822 was the last will and testament of John Pegus, a surgeon in the Royal Navy. Pegus described himself as living at Croydon Common, which at that time was an area of some affluence.
Pegus was married to Fanny, to whom he left all his goods and chattels. The will suggests that Pegus and Fanny had no children.
Officer and a gentleman: the will of John Pegus, of Croydon Common, from 1822
He named as the executor of his will as William Bradbury, of Adelphi, an area of central London now associated with the hotel of the same name. Pegus recognised that a life at sea was perilous and after his death he wished his body to be committed to the earth or to the sea, “as it shall please God to order”.
A record of two significant events in his naval career have survived to this day.
The first was when he was serving as surgeon on board HMS Unité in 1811 when he was involved in action in the Bay of Sagone, on the west coast of Corsica, during the Napoleonic Wars.
Late in the evening of April 30, three British ships, the Unité, under the command of Captain Chamberlayne, HMS Pomone, under Captain Barrie, and a scout brig under Captain Sharpe, came upon three French ships moored in the bay. The French vessels, the Giraffe and the Nourrice, were with a smaller merchant ship that was carrying timber bound for the naval yards at Toulon. They had anchored in the bay for shelter, under the protection of artillery cannon in the Martello tower which overlooked the harbour.
The Unité was a 40-gun frigate which had been captured from the French in 1793 and renamed in 1802. The French had known the ship as Imperieuse.
Victory at sea: the 1811 action in the Bay of Sagone, off Corsica, saw three French ships destroyed by the British detachment, including John Pegus on HMS Unite
The April 1811 battle at Sagone was brief, by the standards of the time, and after 90 minutes of engagement, the Giraffe and Nourrice were both ablaze, and the merchant ship they were protecting had also caught fire. Royal Navy gunnery of the time was noted for its accuracy and rapid fire, and the Martello tower and the battery within also exploded under the British bombardment.
The loss of timber on the French ships was said to have set back the construction of new ships by several months.
The British ships were relatively unscathed. Casualties were light, with two killed and 25 injured. Both the fatalities were aboard the Pomone.
In the Royal Navy of Regency Britain, a ship’s surgeon was required to provide a full report after an engagement, and Pegus’ report for HMS Unité has survived. He wrote that only three of the crew were injured. Richard Goodridge, a midshipman, was slightly wounded, Thomas McBray, captain of the foretop and coxswain of the barge, was slightly wounded, as was John Day, a private in the Royal Marines.
The second significant piece of evidence about Pegus’ naval career begins with the will itself. Pegus wrote that he was the naval surgeon of His Majesty’s sloop, Racehorse. Just nine months after the will was written, HMS Racehorse was wrecked off the Isle of Man.
A consequence of the tragedy was that a Manx resident, Sir William Hillary, wrote to the Admiralty about the need for a coordinated response to such incidents. Two years, later Sir William was credited with being the founder of what we know today as the RNLI, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Thanks to the Manx National Heritage Centre and the detective skills of their archivist, Allison Fox, we can piece together the details about the final voyage of HMS Racehorse.
The ship had been ordered to sail to Douglas to escort the naval cutter Valiant back to Plymouth, after it had undergone repairs on the Isle of Man. On October 6 1822, the Valiant was badly damaged on a reef called Conister Rock, just off Douglas bay, and had to have her mast cut away and her guns thrown overboard in order to be towed off the reef and back into port.
HMS Racehorse left Milford Haven early on Saturday December 14, setting a course up the Irish Sea for Douglas. By 5pm, she had made the Calf Lights, off the southwest coast of the Isle of Man, with another light being seen soon after, which the pilot assumed was on the Douglas pierhead.
Action report: HMS Unité’s surgeon’s report after the action in the Bay of Sagone
Captain Suckling, the master of the Racehorse, gave orders to haul windward and reef the top sails, but before the command could be executed the sloop struck rocks, which they only later discovered, too late, were the Skerranes, off Langness Point. The pilot had made a catastrophic error.
HMS Racehorse sent up distress flares and rockets, but no help came.
The captain decided to launch the onboard cutter, a small sized sailing boat, capable of carrying just a few crew, so it could reach the shore and sound the alarm. But the rough December seas made launching the cutter difficult. So the Racehorse‘s galley, a small rowing boat, was deployed as well.
At 11.30pm, the galley eventually made shore at Fort Island, from where the crew, already exhausted after hours of struggling through the waves, ran to Castletown to raise the alarm. It wasn’t until 1am that the cutter also made land.
With the delay in raising the alarm, the tide had continued to rise and the waves began crashing over the stricken Racehorse. The captain knew that there was no hope of saving the vessel, as it had been badly holed. It had to find a way to get his crew rescued.
Once the alarm was raised, five fishing boats were launched from Castletown, but only one of them, skippered by Robert Quayle, managed to reach the Racehorse.
It took several journeys, but Quayle succeeded in getting all the crew off HMS Racehorse.
Captain Suckling was the last to leave.
But in his eagerness to evacuate the Racehorse, Quayle’s small fishing boat was overloaded. After going just a short distance towards the safety of the beach, Quayle’s boat was swamped by a great wave. Everyone on board was thrown into the stormy water.
Some, the stronger swimmers, including Captain Suckling, managed to reach the safety of the shore. Those that dragged themselves on to land were battered and bruised from being thrown against the rocks.
But eight men drowned: three fishermen who had gone to the rescue and five crew of the Racehorse. Robert Quayle was one of those to die that night.
As well as those who were thrown from the boat and perished, it was discovered that a local boy drowned while attempting to get into one of the rescue craft.
A letter from the Admiralty dated January 25 1823 gave details of the pensions which were to be paid to the widows or families of the local men who died: £15 a year (about £2,400 by today’s values) was to be paid to Quayle’s widow, who had just given birth to the couple’s eighth child.
To try and stop wreckers from stealing from the Racehorse, the Admiralty issued a notice that anyone found taking away any part of the wreck or the contents of the ship would be liable to a fine of £5.
In the court martial which followed, the pilot on the Racehorse, William Edwards, declared that it was his fault that he misread the lights. In his defence, he said that visibility was poor and the lights which he saw were from Scarlett House, situated at Langness Point. Unknown to him at the time, there were many lights on in the building as the old gentleman who lived there had died that very day. Edwards, together with the master, Henry Hodder, were severely reprimanded.
Sir William Hillary realised after the disaster that a new approach was needed to tackle the problem of trying to rescue survivors from the great number of ships being wrecked around British coasts. He had been part of the local response to an earlier wreck on the Isle of Man.
Sir William’s initial approach to the Admiralty was rejected, but together with Thomas Wilson, the Liberal MP for Southwark, and shipping magnate George Hibbert, who was also the Whig MP for Seaford, a campaign gained momentum. On March 4 1824 at the City of London Tavern in Billingsgate, the inaugural public meeting was held with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Charles Manners-Sutton, in the chair.
King George IV gave the new institution his blessing by allowing it to have a Royal prefix.
Pegus, thankfully, was among those who survived the wreck of the Racehorse. His name appears at the bottom of a letter sent by the ship’s officers to the Admiralty urging them to recognise and recompense those who had rescued them and to support the families of those who had lost their breadwinner.
The date of probate on Pegus’ will was February 23 1829, but no exact date of death has been discovered. There was no record of him dying at sea while conducting out his duties.
Fanny, his wife, continued to live in Croydon long after her husband died. Her is found in the 1851 Croydon Directory published by John Gray when she was listed as living in Dagnall’s (or New Windmill) Road.
The wreck of the Racehorse was back in the news 200 years after it sank. The Isle of Man Sub-Aqua Club discovered the remains and purchased the wreck from the Admiralty. The ship on which John Pegus served has continued to give up its treasures which can be viewed on YouTube.
Thanks to the sterling efforts of Brian King and Adrian Corkill, the story of the wreck and the retrieved artefacts are now on display at the Manx National Heritage Museum in Douglas.
I wonder how many people John Pegus told about that terrifying night when he owed his life to the bravery of those local fisherman?
Remember his story when next you donate to the RNLI.
David Morgan, pictured, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- When shopping required a visit to the Harrods of south London
- Archbishop Lanfranc and the Norman Conquest of Croydon
- Christmas Eve marks cententary of the Croydon air disaster
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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A very interesting article on the formation of the RNLI, thank you.