William Date, Shipwrights Yard and the Fruit Schooners
Kingsbridge Estuary U3A Local History Group meeting, 16th October 2013
William Date was born in Stoke Damerel, Plymouth in 1809 to John and Ann Date. John
was a shipwright who learnt his trade in the Devonport Dockyard. By 1811 the family had
moved to Salcombe where John Date set up a as a shipbuilder on a site later to be known
as Chant’s Yard near to what is now Whitestrand car park. They had five children - all
boys, William was the eldest, but sadly the two youngest boys both named Joseph born in
1817 and 1819 in Salcombe died within two weeks of birth and were buried in Malborough
All Saints churchyard. Before 1844 all burials for residents in Salcombe took place in
Malborough with the funeral cortege walking the three miles to the church.
William’s younger brother John, born on 20th January 1811, was lost at sea on 4th
February 1841.
The remaining brother Richard Manning Date was born in Salcombe in 1813 and died in
1845 at Stoke Damerel, Plymouth. He married Mary Ingram on 3rd April 1838 in
Kingsbridge and they had two children, Dorinda Ingram Date who died shortly after birth in
June 1838 and John Henry Ingram Date who had a short spell working in Date’s Boatyard
with his grandfather John Date before moving back to Stoke Damerel to work as a
shipwright in the Devonport Dockyard.
William Date married Mary Shepherd on 16th June 1837 at Malborough All Saints Church
in the village where she was born in 1811.
William was apprenticed in a shipyard at Salcombe, presumably his father’s yard.
However, in order to build larger ships greater space was required so William and his
father John moved in 1837 to the site in Dodbrooke although this is at odds with accounts
described later of other shipbuilders using this yard before the Dates especially as their
first known ship was not launched until 1847. Strangely the yard was never referred to as
John Date’s yard and William is credited with the building of all the ships at the yard. It
suggests William was probably the businessman as shown later by his part ownership of
several ships and his father John was more likely the skilled shipwright.
In 1841 William and his wife Mary with daughter Rhoda Shepherd Date are living with his
parents John and Ann Date at Market Place Dodbrooke. The 1841 census describes both
his occupation and his father’s as shipwrights.
By 1851 William is living with his family at New Quay, Dodbrooke, occupation Shipwright.
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He now has five daughters and finally a son, William John born about March 1850. The
children were baptised in Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury Church.
Rhoda Shepherd Date born about Sept 1838
Sarah Ann born August 1840
Mary Dorinda born about June 1842 and baptised on 3rd July 1842
Ellen Elizabeth born about March 1845 and Baptised on 4th May 1845
Eliza Grace born about June 1847 and baptised on 29th March 1850
William John born about March 1850 and baptised on 29th March 1850
A second son, Richard was born in about September 1853 and baptised on 14 TH April
1854 at Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury Church.
In 1851 William’s parents, John and Ann, are also living at New Quay, Dodbrooke, with
John’s occupation - a shipwright.
In 1861 William and his family are still living at New Quay and William is a shipbuilder
employing 20 men and 20 apprentices. His parents John and Ann are living next door with
their grandson John Henry Ingram Date, described as a foreman shipwright, his mother
having remarried after the death of John’s father, Richard Manning Date about Sept 1845.
John Date and his wife Ann died on the same day 2 nd April 1870 and both were buried in
Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury churchyard on 4th April.
In 1871 William is living with his family at No2 New Quay and working with his sons
William John and Richard as shipbuilders. William John had joined his father in the yard
about 1868 and they were soon joined by Richard. The yard was now called William Date
and Sons.
William’s wife Ann died on 8th November 1877 and was buried on 12th November in
Dodbrooke St Thomas of Canterbury churchyard.
In 1881 William is employing 15 men and 5 boys. His sons William John now 30 and
Richard 27, both unmarried are also shipbuilders. The family all live with William’s
unmarried daughters Sarah and Eliza at Shipwrights Yard, Dodbrooke.
In 1891 William is retired and lives at No1 Shipwrights Yard with unmarried children Sarah,
Eliza and Richard. William dies on 9th August 1897 at Kingsbridge and probate records
show his estate as £3701 8s 5d.
Sons William John and Richard continue to run the yard until 1912.
William John married Elizabeth Marshall Lidstone about September 1886 in Kingsbridge.
In 1891 they are living at No3 Shipwrights Yard, Dodbrooke with daughters Mary Honor
Date born about June 1887 and Dorinda Helen born about September 1888.
A son William Henry was born in 1892 in Kingsbridge but he became an electrical
engineer and never worked in the yard.
In 1901 William John and his family continue to live at No 3 Shipwrights Yard next door to
his unmarried brother Richard and his sister Eliza.
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In 1911 William John’s residence is recorded as New Quay, Kingsbridge where he lived
until his death on 27th March 1933. Probate records show his estate as £6112 3s 8d. His
wife Elizabeth died six years later on 4th June 1939 at Cliffside, New Quay, Kingsbridge.
Richard is living with his sister Eliza at Rockwood, New Quay, Kingsbridge in 1911 until his
death on 15th October 1936. His estate was £10,626 11s 2d. This house was built in the
1890’s and was sold after Richard’s death. Eliza had died much earlier on 24th September
1913.
Shipwrights Yard
There is very little recorded history of the small sailing ships and their shipbuilders that
prospered in the West Country during the 19th century. This may be partly explained by the
comparative illiteracy of the masters, builders and crew of these ships; men not given to
putting their thoughts and experiences on record. As for the owners, it is a source of
amazement that the authors of such records that remain could ever have conducted the
extensive and prosperous businesses they did.
Some records suggest the shipyard site beside the estuary at Dodbrooke was first used by
John Jordain as a timber yard when he was engaged in housebuilding. During 1837 he
thought there was more profit to be made from building ships and a shipyard evolved.
Jordain is accredited with eleven ships launched from the yard.
Incidentally, Jessamine was skippered by a William Frink Date between 1852 and 1862.
He is not thought to be a relation of William Date. He was also captain of two of the later
schooners built by William Date – Excelsior and Lizzie and we will see a photograph of him
later (slide 63 on page 35).
John Jordain was born in 1798 in Dodbrooke and was described as a timber merchant in
the 1841 census, when he and his family lived in Barrack Street (Ebrington Street) and in
only one of his four children’s baptism records, Elizabeth on 8 June 1840 at Dodbrooke St
Thomas of Canterbury, did he describe himself as a shipbuilder. By 1851 the family were
living in Church Street, Dodbrooke and John Jordain is described as a Yeoman and in
1861 he is an innkeeper at The Strand, Teignmouth. By 1871 he is a retired timber
merchant living in Hackney London with his wife and two of his four children, one, George,
is described as a builder employing 81 men and 11 boys. John Jordain died about
September 1875 in Hackney, London. (Perhaps shipbuilding was not so lucrative after all.)
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In 1846 Henry Martin,
shipbuilder of Dodbrooke,
launched the schooner
Salcombe Castle from this
yard, built for Weymouth of
Salcombe. She was lost on the
coast of New Zealand on 15TH
September 1863.
Henry Martin was also
something of an enigma. In
1841 Henry Martin and his
brother Thomas were
described as wheelwrights
living in Market Place,
Dodbrooke whilst in 1839 a
William Henry Martin owned
Martins Yard (now Windsor Road) off Church Street, the site of a coach building business.
Records suggest that Henry, by now married, emigrated with his sister and her husband
Reverend Hole to Australia and were joined there by their sister-in-law Sarah on the death
of their brother Thomas in 1872 at Dodbrooke, a coachbuilder and wheelwright. Henry
died in Ballarat, Victoria, the centre of the gold rush. It is possible to conjecture that with
his carpentry skills in carriage building and as a wheelwright he might have attempted
shipbuilding.
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Nevertheless in
1847 William Date,
now 38 years old,
was recorded in the
Dartmouth Port
Register as having
launched his first
vessel, the 120 ton
schooner Compeer
(she was lost with
all hands after
leaving the Azores
in 1858).
The yard was generally known locally during its heyday as “Shipwrights Yard” and
comprised the filled-in foreshore of the estuary at a point opposite No.3 Embankment
Road to a point some 600 feet along the shore in a southerly direction and continued to
the slipway leading to the foreshore opposite Warren Road. Further infilling of the
foreshore was undertaken by William Date during the 1860’s which brought criticism on
the Harbour Commissioners for not standing up to William Date whilst denying other
frontagers similar encroachments.
On the opposite side of the road to the boatyard William Date built a row of four cottages,
also known as Shipwrights Yard in the 1881 census and thereafter, not only for his own
occupation and his son, William John Date and wife Elizabeth up to their deaths in 1936
and 1937 but also let to other families. At the southern end of the cottages was the sail loft,
now used as a workshop. The cottages remained in the ownership of the Date family until
about 1952 and are still there, a short distance beyond Jewson’s Yard.
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To digress, incidentally, in the
Kingsbridge Gazette on July 26th this
year (2013) it referred to one of the
cottages in 1881 being occupied by
Robert William Smart, a
schoolteacher and his wife Eliza and
their two month old son Robert
Borlase Smart, who grew up to be a
revered painter in the Cornish artists’
stronghold of St Ives. The family
moved away to Plymouth in 1887.
Borlase Smart as he became to be
known was an unofficial war artist in
the First World War as a Captain in
the 21ST London Regiment and the
Artists Rifles and his paintings of the Western Front are hung in the Imperial War Museum.
After the war he quickly established himself as a prominent member of the St Ives artists’
community but he remained an impoverished artist despite his prolific and much acclaimed
work, particularly seascapes, and has been described as one of the finest marine painters
of all time. He also painted highly regarded travel
posters for the Great Western and the Southern
Railway.
He was Hon Secretary of the St Ives Society of
Artists from 1930 and President at his death in
1947.
The legacy of this son of a Kingsbridge
schoolteacher continues to be immense,
particularly amongst the still vibrant artists’
community in St Ives. Much of his work remains
on public display.
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However back to William Date. There is a long history of shipbuilding on the Kingsbridge
estuary. Firstly, on suitable beaches between Kingsbridge and Salcombe, estuary
shipbuilders had supplied 16 warships to join the fleet to counter the Armada in 1588, but
during the 19th century better equipped shipyards were being constructed culminating in
the heyday for shipbuilding on the Kingsbridge estuary with over 250 ships built between
1800 and 1880.
Many fine ships were built and launched at Shipwrights Yard and one eminent book, The
Merchant Schooners written by Basil Greenhill, a former Director of the National Maritime
Museum, Greenwich, first published in 1951 describes the yard as follows:
“The yard was first owned by William Date and later by W Date & Sons. The family
seem to have started shipbuilding in Kingsbridge early in the 19th century and the
yard was at its greatest in the last forty years of the century. The early vessels were
registered as having been built at Dodbrook and only after about 1860 does
Kingsbridge appear as the site of the yard. They built schooners, large barques,
brigantines, barquentines, ketches and small smacks but Kingsbridge is best known
in the history of Merchant Schooners, for here was the yard of one of the greatest of
all the builders of small sailing ships in the West Country, William Date.
The Date family, (grandfather, father, and two sons) built right through the period
and were at the forefront of the development of the merchant schooners from the
deep heeled specialised fruit carriers of the ‘thirties and early ‘forties to the clipper
schooners which followed them, through the time of the general carriers of
miscellaneous carriers to the Newfoundland trading schooners which were the last
large vessels they produced.
In the 1850’s Date’s Yard was
Kingsbridge’s biggest employer of
over 40 men, shipwrights,
carpenters, blacksmiths, rope
maker’s, riggers and sail makers.
However all the industries of the
town contributed to the success
of the boatyard and attendant
trades supplying the yard would
have included Lidstones Foundry;
and hemp rope making for the
rigging made at the Ropewalk
where the lengths of ropes were
stretched and twisted. The two
ropewalks in Kingsbridge, opened
in 1783 and around 1815, also
supplied the Salcombe yards as
Salcombe did not have a
ropewalk.
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Life in a shipyard was very tough, heavy, demanding, manual work usually in unpleasant
conditions but also highly skilled. The hours were from six to six Monday to Friday, six to
four on Saturday – a 70 hour week plus the walk to and from home which could be several
miles; a time of hard graft, poverty and no relaxation. Families barely saw their father
during the week. Unemployment was frequent – work or starve. An apprenticeship was for
seven years earning three shillings and sixpence a week before becoming a journeyman
shipwright earning about nineteen shillings a week.
An apprentice had to observe stringent conditions on his conduct and was bound to obey
his master written into a legal agreement such as “he shall not contract matrimony within
the said term (of seven years), he shall neither buy nor sell, he shall not haunt Taverns or
Playhouses, or absent himself from his master’s service day or night unlawfully. But in all
things as a faithful apprentice he shall behave himself towards his said master at all times
during the said term”. As boys who were not going to make the grade or were unsuitable
were soon weeded out, there were few poor craftsmen.
Once the building of a merchant schooner was called for, it became the responsibility of
the moulder – the shipwright owner, master or yard manager - to conceive the design and
then to ensure that the finished vessel as she grew on the slipway developed to be a
replica in full size of the design that had been agreed for her. One of the few surviving
artefacts to show the form and lines of these vessels is a half model discovered in
Kingsbridge and shows a heavy very deep vessel with a flat sheer and considerable power
with excellent sea keeping characteristics.
Local shipbuilding methods varied by custom and tradition but were not sophisticated and
had a simplicity and straightforward approach appropriate to the skills of the workforce and
the locality. Nevertheless wood shipbuilding was a very complex craft and the more it is
examined in detail the more complicated it seems to have been. The design of any new
vessel in South Devon was based on the wooden half-model of one side of the ship from
stem to stern through from deck to keel, cut with sharp chisels and gouges to the
moulder’s design from a block made of layers of ¾ inch planking up to 4 feet in length,
generally yellow pine and fastened together with wooden pins (see next page).
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When the shape was to the shipwright’s and owners’ satisfaction the laminations were
separated again, and measurements made. It was very unusual for more than one
schooner to be built from the same model as owners were individualists and each vessel
was unique. This method of design was a comparatively sophisticated system and
elsewhere in the United Kingdom very different methods were used. Knowledge of the
behaviour and performance of the vessel was used for future design that slowly evolved
and was perfected. It was rare for scale drawings to be made and the plan of the vessel
was drawn out with chalk lines on the moulding loft floor or, before that, just by furrows
drawn with a sharp stick on the sandy beach near the slipway where for the first time the
true shape of the full sized schooner became apparent.
Next, based on the measurements for the ship's design the building of the vessel could
begin. The construction of any ship necessitated huge quantities of nails, barrels of pitch,
oakum, cables of rope, paint, and linseed oil. The wood for ships was reduced to timbers
in a saw pit and the joining of the wood required tools such as saws, mallets, caulking
irons, augers and planes. Canvas, needles, leather, beeswax and thread were among
other supplies needed.
Timber for the construction
of the ship was largely
imported from
Scandinavian and Baltic
ports but some was locally
sourced from the woods of
the nearby countryside;
trees selected by the
moulder and the yard
sawyers for their shape
and suitability were felled
and dragged to the cart
rides for transport by great
timber wagons for
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seasoning near the
yard, accomplished
by immersing the logs
in water for quite long
periods alongside the
estuary before being
ready for use in
shipbuilding.
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Timber was likely also to have been supplied from the saw mill on Squares Quay.
In Sarah Prideaux Fox’s book “Kingsbridge and its Surroundings” first published in 1864
she refers to “Complaints having been made that the public path beneath the cliff was
much interfered with by the lodgement of timber, the Harbour Commissioners requested
the owner to remove the obstruction, which was effected, but only for a time. He was
therefore requested to make a new and good road, as an approach to the steamer landing
stage at High-House Point. This has been done, and it is much used, instead of the steep
and narrow path some time since cut in the cliff.”
The timber bark on the logs was removed with an adze by the apprentices and then sawn
into suitable lengths and sizes in the saw pit by a large double-ended saw used vertically
by two men, one standing in the pit below, the other above.
The sawyers started work on the seasoned wood; first the keel blocks were made on
which the keel was laid, then the stem and stern posts scarfed to it and held with copper
bolts driven in by sledgehammers.
Flimsy battens or ribbands were then erected, to
show in outline the shape of the finished vessel
taken from the waterlines of the half model and
setting out plans, and held in place by light
scaffolding and these were not removed until the
ship was ready for planking.
The frames were added next having been formed
on the ground to the mould pattern with the most
appropriate timber shape selected and made up in
five or seven pieces with each frame bevelled on
the outer face to suit its position in the hull.
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The finished frames were massive
objects and were hoisted in position
inside the ribbands by derricks requiring
skilled judgement and then bolted to the
keel. The keelson was then added
running the length of the vessel over the
frames directly above the keel. The
massive beam shelf was then added
stretching right round the vessel below
deck level inside the frames. Wedge
shaped slots were cut to receive the
ends of the square deck beams each
"crowned", or "peaked", at the centre to
create a camber so that the deck would
allow water to run off into the gunwales
at the side of the ship and unequally
spaced being closer together at the
bows and fitted with timber knee braces.
A thick timber covering board or
waterway was fixed above the deck
beams around the perimeter for added
strength and to cover the frame heads.
With the basic hull frame
complete, the vessel was ready
for planking. While the planks
were being cut, the entire frame
was finely bevelled to achieve the
smooth flowing lines envisaged in
the half model and to ensure a
good flat seating for the planking.
This step involved the judgement
of highly skilled shipwrights using
an adze who had to estimate the
rate of twist between the frames
by eye.
Cutting the planks to the right
length and width to follow the
profile of the vessel and ensure a
snug fit required great skill and
where the shipwrights’ prowess
and judgement were best
displayed. Bear in mind that each
plank could be perhaps two and a half inches thick and twelve inches wide both convex
and concave curved in profile and tapering at the bow to six inches and possibly up to
eighty feet long.
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Each plank was bevel edged to allow for caulking with the inner edges of the planks
touching. The planks for the lower half of the hull were usually made of softer pine, while
the upper strakes (that is a row of planking running from bow to stern), which received
more abrasive wear-and-tear, were made of harder oak. Planks that required a lot of
twisting for the right fit and shape were placed in a steam kiln to make them more pliable
and then rushed to the vessel where they were shoved, shouldered, wedged, shored and
clamped into place.
The gangs protected themselves from the face of the steam soaked timber with anything
to hand, sacks, shavings or the jackets of their fellow workers! (above left).
The inside of the hull had to be planked too! After this the deck planking was relatively
straightforward with the outer planks tapered off to shape and all planks were bevelled to
leave space for the caulking (above right).
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Carpenters handed over to the caulkers, and the seams between the planks were filled
with cotton and oakum supplied from the local workhouses, and then topped with pitch.
After caulking the boys cleaned off the surplus and the shipwrights rounded off the run of
the planking with plane and adze to leave a smooth finish to the vessels subtle and
complex curves.
Only if the vessel was to work the southern oceans or the Mediterranean did the hull below
the waterline have to be “Felted and Yellow Metalled” and noted in the Register Book.
This involved applying a
heavy layer of tar to the hull
and then felt sheets, also
soaked in tar, pressed
closely to the vessel’s
shape. Light gauge yellow
metal sheets were pressed
on top of the felt and
secured with copper nails
to protect the planking and
this was sometimes coated
with a green copper antifouling paint that gave the
vessel a characteristic and
attractive appearance.
With the decks completed, the bulwarks were added followed by the difficult job of
stepping the masts and rigging the ship. Sails were sewn from heavy canvas in one of the
two sail lofts in Kingsbridge and ironwork for the rigging added from Lidstone’s foundry.
The bowsprit and rudder were installed, the hull painted and lastly the carved figurehead
was fitted.
As may be imagined, the launching of these sailing ships was quite an occasion for the
townsfolk. News of a launching would spread and large crowds would gather at the yard to
witness the launch which would take place about 6am in the morning or early evening
when high spring tides occur in the Kingsbridge estuary. The event was without doubt an
exciting, dramatic and probably a tense occasion culminating in cheers and shouts of
congratulations as the vessel entered the water. Employees involved in the building of the
ship were often given a copy of John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress as a keepsake to mark
the occasion with typical Victorian sentiment! Often other local tradesmen came to help
launch the ship - the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.
It was recorded in 1880 that the nine principal shipowners in Kingsbridge and Salcombe
were managing between them some 72 small sailing vessels and the majority were built by
one or other of the five Salcombe yards, or by William Date of Kingsbridge whose output
seems to have outnumbered those of the remaining yards put together.
The smaller scale Salcombe yards were spaced out along the foreshore to the south of
what is now Whitestrand car park. They were already well-established by the early 19th
century. Firstly John Ball built 19 vessels between 1826 and 1838 on a site now occupied
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by the Salcombe Hotel. Then Evan’s yard where John Evans had a thriving business by
1815 and three generations built at least 34 vessels before the yard closed in 1878; and
adjoining was Vivian’s yard and lastly Bonker’s yard. These two men started in partnership
and launched three vessels between 1926 and 1829 before Vivian opened his new yard
with Bonker continuing in business on the same site building at least 24 vessels before
being declared bankrupt in 1868. Henry Harnden took over the yard but was himself
declared bankrupt two years later and the yard closed down.
At his new yard James Vivian built 44 vessels between 1828 and 1877. On his death
William Date bought the yard for £665 on 5th January 1877 because his Dodbrooke yard
was too busy to accommodate the construction of another vessel and he built the
brigantine Sarah Jane there. He sold the yard to William Chant in the early 1880’s by
which time shipbuilding in the harbour was already in decline.
It was the citrus fruit trade of oranges and lemons with the Azores and pineapples from the
Bahamas, West Indies, over twice as long a voyage, that led to the building of about 120
topsail schooners, fast easily maintained vessels with at least 85 of these vessels schooners and the later designs of brigs, brigantines, barques and barquentines of up to
500 tons being built at Date’s Boatyard between 1837 and 1912. The vessels were usually
jointly owned by a consortium of local shareholders. Yet apart from those directly involved
in the trade, few realised that it was being carried on or the scale of the operation and it
went on unrecorded and unrecognised until it was gone for ever.
In 1854 it is recorded that there were 70 vessels involved in the fruit trade carrying 60
million oranges and 15 million lemons to London alone from the Azores and western
Mediterranean. In addition pineapples were brought from the West Indies, melons came
from Portugal, currants and other
dried fruit were obtained in the
eastern Mediterranean.
The nursery rhyme “Oranges and
Lemons” - says the bells of St
Clements - refers to St Clements
Church situated at Clements Lane
and King William Street,
Eastcheap, London where citrus
fruit was unloaded at nearby
wharves.
The great fruit schooner ports
throughout the history of the trade
were those of the South Hams of
Devon - Dartmouth, Brixham and
the Kingsbridge estuary; for some unknown reason from the early nineteenth century the
Kingsbridge estuary – small with no deep anchorage and equipped with few facilities –
became the pre-eminent port in Great Britain for the fruit trade and the building of deep
heeled specialised Kingsbridge fruiterers and clipper bowed schooners which followed
them profoundly influencing the design of small schooners and the distinctive shape of the
vessel’s bows (see next page).
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“Of all the rigs ever put on a vessel, none is more fascinating or romantic than the
schooner, and of all the schooners the old topsail schooner is unquestionably the most
handsome – for beauty and romance - in her are combined the handiness of the fore-andafter in narrow coastal waters with the powerful carefree drive of square rig on ocean
passages.”
This early design of topsail
schooner shows the classic
features of a schooner, with
two masts each in two parts, a
long lower mast and a short
separate topmast. The main
canvas is set from the second
or main mast and each lower
mast has a gaff or boom sail.
The quadrilateral or ‘square’
topsail makes her a topsail
schooner and there are 2
staysails forward.
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William Date, one of the greatest of the West Country schooner builders, not only
perfected their design but also their elegant lines and seaworthiness to be the foremost
shipbuilder of these vessels.
Perhaps the best known trade for these ships after about 1870 was “The Newfoundland
Trade” as the fruit trade declined. Up to the First World War schooners including those
from Dates Yard were regularly crossing the Atlantic to ports in Newfoundland and
Labrador. A saying among local seafaring folk was “Forty days to the Westward” meaning
forty days to cross to Newfoundland – which was reckoned to be a pretty fast passage in
the 19th century but they frequently made the return to European ports in less than 20
days, several taking under two weeks. The chief industry of Newfoundland and Labrador
was cod fishing caught on the Grand Bank, then salted and dried in the small native
settlements before being shipped to Europe in sailing ships, mainly to the Roman Catholic
countries such as Spain, Portugal and Italy although some went as far as Brazil and the
UK.
Some of the fruit schooners would sail to Newfoundland to take a cargo of cod to southern
Europe; pick up different cargoes there and go on to the Azores where they would take
unripened fruit and race back to England as fast as they could to deliver the fruit in good
condition for the markets, usually tying up at Fresh Wharf near London Bridge where the
fruit was rushed to Covent Garden (see below).
Bristol was a
distribution point for the
West and Midlands and
the vessels only came
into Fowey or Falmouth
for orders. Only classed
vessels listed in the
Port Register Books
were taken up by the
merchants.
.
Why schooners and why small vessels in the fruit trade?
They were schooners because of the need for speed in all weathers and all conditions of
wind and sea otherwise their cargoes became valueless. They had to cope with every
point of sailing as near as possible equally well. The topsail schooner was best suited to
these requirements; they carried an immense area of sail; they could sail off the wind as
well as any similar or larger square rigged ship and better sailing on the wind; moreover
they lost no time in the restricted waters at either end of their passage.
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Small because the ports into which they sailed were small; the weight of the cargo if
carrying more than a hundred tons would spoil the fruit underneath; more time spent
loading increased the risk of damage to the fruit; and, finally, to use many small vessels in
so highly speculative a trade was to spread the risk. They were extremely careful with the
cargo, opening hatches during the daytime when the weather was good to improve
ventilation. Inspections were carried out daily to discard rotten fruit. Masters could earn a
bonus of as much as fifty pounds for bringing home a cargo without any rotten fruit.
These schooners were as fast and as seaworthy as such small ships can be and often
made their best passages during the orange season of November to April in the gales of
autumn and early winter across the worst ocean in the world in the worst of all weathers.
To see one of these little schooners in heavy weather, travelling fast through a North
Atlantic sea was an awe inspiring sight which spoke volumes for the seamanship of those
who commanded them and was a glowing testimony to the strength of their construction,
their suitability for the work, and the excellence of their equipment.
However this lucrative fruit trade came at a heavy price. The fruit clippers were built for
speed and as such were vulnerable with a crew of only 5 or 6 men to save weight.
Nevertheless it is a shocking statistic that half the fleet, often with all hands, was sunk,
wrecked or lost. On one day, the 15th November 1851 seven local vessels were wrecked
with all hands off Terciera, Azores.
There is a contrary view that the high standard of the passages of these ships (when
compared with the larger sailing ships of the period) were derived from several causes.
Their cargo was light and bulky and when fully laden still had good freeboard. They had
the low simple sail plan of the topsail and topgallant schooner and they suffered little in
gales that crippled larger more squarely rigged ships. They were fast to windward and
were of a very good hull design. The crews were of necessity good seamen, born and bred
small ship seamen each potentially a schooner master with a strong parochial team spirit
generally coming from the same small home port and all were concerned with the success
of their voyages. Often the masters were shareholders in the ships in which they sailed.
Captains who prospered and survived the hazards and punishing ordeal often retired to
build substantial houses for themselves but the prosperity was short-lived. Trade declined
during the 1870’s and outbreaks of orange and pineapple diseases in the 1880’s sealed
their fate and the trade and the ships had virtually vanished by the end of the century.
One interesting outcome of the citrus fruit trade was the growing of lemons and limes in
the gardens of Combe Royal, Kingsbridge and oranges and lemons at Gerston on the
west bank of the estuary that were almost certainly grown from pips brought back by the
fruit schooners, although this is disregarded in Sarah Prideaux Fox’s book which claims
that citrus fruit was grown at both locations a hundred years earlier during the 18th century.
Another unusual legacy of this fruit trade is the large number of paintings of the schooners
that are still to be found in West Country homes and museums, notably Salcombe
Maritime Museum. They were often painted in Italian ports by struggling artists for the
owners and masters of the vessels. The volcano Vesuvius in the Bay of Naples is often
featured in these paintings and although painted in the so-called primitive style the care in
painting the detail such as the rigging and the shape and positioning of sails is
characteristic (see the following four paintings of Fruit Schooners).
18
It was said “The romance of
the sea can never die out while
such vessels and such crews
as manned them are afloat”
19
Perhaps this slide (right)
epitomises this romance
showing the fore and aft
schooner rigged yacht,
Janette, not built by
William Date, off the
Eddystone lighthouse,
possibly owned by the
5th Earl of Egremont.
But sadly the end was nigh.
The demand for new ocean-going wooden sailing vessels rapidly declined towards the end
of 19th century by
1) the loss of the fruit trade;
2) the building of steam driven steel hulled ships at industrial centres close to the
sources of iron and coal;
3) the development of the marine steam engine.
20
The local shipyards and shipbuilding trades, as well as the sailors themselves, were forced
to find new work or new skills. Dates Yard turned to building trawlers and fishing craft. The
last order was for a fleet of six trawlers for a Ramsgate owner.
The yard was closed and sold in 1912 and was then used for grain and cattle feed storage
by Holman and Son, then for coal storage by Westcotts, the last occupier, during which
time the site was extended further into the estuary.
Date’s boatyard is now the site of “The Moorings” a modern residential development built
in 1991 beyond the Crabshell Inn.
Michael Day
Bibliography
The Merchant Schooners Volumes One and Two 1951 by Basil Greenhill
The Evolution of the Wooden Ship 1988 by Basil Greenhill and Sam Manning
The Schooner – Its design and Development from 1600 to the Present by David R
MacGregor
Westcountry Sail 1971 by Michael Bouquet
A Salcombe Photographer by A E Fairweather
Shipping in the Kingsbridge Estuary - Cookworthy Papers No 7
Salcombe to the Azores and Back by Jane Arnold-Brown
A Pictorial History of Kingsbridge and the Surrounding Area by Sue Linton
Salcombe Harbour Remembered by Muriel and David March and Len Fairweather
Old Kingsbridge by Kathy Tanner and Len Fairweather
Kingsbridge and its Surroundings by Sarah Prideaux Fox
21
Ships built in Dates Boatyard
Pictures of these ships are on pages 32 to 36 below.
They are listed in order by presentation slide number as given in the Names column in the
table.
Year
Name
*picture
Tonn
age
Details
Eganora
Galley
Industry
The difficulties of coastal voyages around Britain in
autumn and winter involved scurrying from sheltered
harbour to sheltered harbour in their lee particularly on
passages westward along the North Devon and
Cornish coast with long waits in harbour for favourable
conditions. In the bad winter of 1911-12 the Industry
took 52 days to get across Padstow Bar after sailing
from Bridgwater.
Jeraldine
1847
Compeer
120
1847
Kingsbridge
44
1848
Agatha*
99
Slide 43
1849
Mantura
87
1850
Fanny*
111
Slide 44
1850
Montpelier
1851
Stella
1852
Speedy*
William Date’s first ship, a Schooner. She was lost with
all hands after leaving the Azores in 1858.
A Schooner for Grant & Co and used in the fruit trade
to St Michaels; Sold to Lerwick in June 1864.
A Schooner launched 9th May 1850 for Hurrell & Co
and used in the fruit trade to St Michaels, Azores
39
Sailed between Liverpool and the Mediterranean.
90
Slide 45
A Schooner to replace a vessel of same name lost at
sea with six other Salcombe vessels in a great gale off
Terciera in the Azores on 15th November 1851;
Sold out of port to Yougal, Ireland on 19th May 1881.
1853
Andante
98
1853
Juno
300
1854
Charlotte
70
In 1869 sailed from London Bridge to St Michaels and
back in 17 days.
22
1854
Lizzie
Garrow*
218
Slide 46
A Brigantine 92 foot long. The 64 shares in her
ownership were divided amongst 18 individuals spread
widely to all sections of the community. William
Stidston, yeoman, and John Hannaford, gentleman
held eight shares; William Heywood, professor of
music, held four shares and a number were held by
local tradesmen including a hatter, druggist, baker,
mason, draper and tanner. William Date held two
shares as did the master of the vessel. Two more
shares were held by a yeoman farmer and the
remainder were held by five women. Six shares were
held by Miss Elizabeth Garrow of Yougal Co Cork after
whom the ship was presumably named.
Her rig was slightly different in that in order to stiffen
her overlong top masts crosstrees were fitted with the
appropriate rigging. She traded in the West Indies and
the Mediterranean.
1855
Excelsior*
128
A Schooner for P O Hingston & Co; Launched on 5th
March 1855 and christened by Miss Sarah Ann Date.
William Date’s daughter. William Frink Date, Master
Mariner, not related to William Date, the shipbuilder,
was her second captain between 1864 and 1869. He
lost his command at St Michael’s Azores on 3rd
February 1869 after the ship was wrecked. All the crew
were saved by boats as she reached the breakers. The
wreck was sold for £130. The vessel was insured for
£985 12s 0d with the Salcombe Shipping Association.
129
A schooner built for J H Hill &Co. 94 feet long. In 1869
she sailed from London Bridge to St Michael’s and
back in seventeen days. She changed ballast for cargo
in 24 hours and passed through the same wind-bound
big ships in the Downs on both homeward and outward
passages.
Slide 47
1856
Elinor
NB No
slide but
read out
text
1856
Josephine
192
A Brig.
1857
Annie Grant
148
A Schooner for the Grant fleet.
1857
Ernest*
81
For the Sladen fleet; launched on 31st July 1858. This
painting shows her entering Leghorn (Livorno, Italy) on
31st October 1863 She was sold to Germany in 1880.
Slide 48
1858
Sarah
90
1858
Renown
174
23
1859
Amy
161
1860
Astrea
122
1860
Willie*
181
Slide 49
A brig built for R Hurrell and launched on 29th
December 1860. Her first voyage was to the West
Indies on 2nd March 1861. She was sold to Whitstable
in the mid 1880’s.
She was lost in collision with a German schooner
Stuttgart 8 miles of Portland on 22nd June 1895.
1861
Marian
133
1862
Pass By*
148
Slide 50
A Schooner owned by Sladen and operated out of
Salcombe for over 20 years She was sold in 1886 to
John Stephens of Par and registered at Fowey.
John Stephens was extremely proud of his vessels and
would sit in his own folding chair, a heavily built old
man with broad shoulders and a large round clean
shaven face, with no beard but long heavy white
moustaches watching amongst others Pass-by “of all
the schooners, these ships were the most perfect.
They were coloured green under the waterline and
painted black above, their decks were scrubbed and
their masts scrapped and varnished” – all under his
eagle eye.
One of her skippers Captain John Phillips describes
one voyage in Pass By;
“went down to Cadiz and loaded salt for St John’s
again. On arrival there we were ordered to Mannox
Island, Labrador; on arrival there we found the
fishermen had left, as it was September late in the
year, for St John’s and so we had to do likewise. That
night, being very foggy and blowing hard, we had great
difficulty in dodging icebergs. Next morning, when the
fog somewhat lifted we counted forty-two icebergs
around us, large and small. We managed to clear them
and reached St John’s, and were afterwards ordered to
the West Indies fruit trade, which was very pleasant
after the fish droghing…”
She was lost on 30th December 1897 on the coast of
Portugal on passage to Oporto from Cardiff with coal.
1862
Apphia*
Slide 51
168
A Brig, 180 feet long, built for Stidstone at a cost of
£4000 and launched on 11th October 1862. It was
24
reported in a local paper on 14th June 1871 that Apphia
sailed from Haiti on 2nd April for Salcombe with a
cargo. She was feared lost with all hands and was
never heard of again.
1863
Rebecca
171
Owned by R Hurrell &Co Ltd; one account of her
voyages under captain George Dornom which he
successfully commanded between 1870 and 1886
states “On the Pernambuco passage I believe the
record is held by Hurrell’s Rebecca, which made the
run from St John’s to Pernambuco in 19 days after an
exciting race with the schooner Viola beaten by four
hours. The Rebecca left Bristol for St John’s on
December 17th 1880 and had the usual winter passage
with a succession of westerly gales and tremendous
seas After lying hove-to for four days the Rebecca got
the wind northerly and bitterly cold. She was 32 days to
St John’s and had to sail into harbour through ice
which was more than an inch thick. With their fish in
half drums the Rebecca and Viola broke their way out
of St John’s harbour, which was still frozen over on
March 1 1881. After a splendid run south the Rebecca
was heading in for the roadstead of Pernambuco on
the early morning of the nineteenth day out with the
Viola astern. Captain Dornom carried every stretch of
sail right in to the anchorage and as the anchor went
down the Rebecca’s boat swung out over into the
water. Two sample barrels of fish were tossed into the
boat and away went the skipper for the shore and got
orders to discharge her cargo. The Viola was sent on
to Bahia. The Rebecca was lost mid 1880’s.
1864
Flora*
199
A Brigantine for P O Hingston & Co was launched on
16th April 1864. She was wrecked in 1883 on
Happisburgh Sands, Norfolk on passage from Runcorn
to Shields with a cargo of salt. All lives were saved.
189
Brigantine for P O Hingston & Co launched on 23rd
August 1865. In 1881 W A Wood was master and
owner sailing from Guernsey
Slide 52
1865
Restless*
Slide 53
1865
Star
189
1866
Nellie*
281
Slide 54
A Barquentine or barque schooner for R Hurrell & Co.
and launched on 12th April 1867. Over one hundred
and twenty feet long a big three-master with, unlike a
schooner, the foremast square-rigged. She remained
on the Salcombe register even when she was owned
25
by W C Jarvis of Liverpool.
She was wrecked on the coast of Brazil on 21st
February 1888.
1867
Spring*
138
A Schooner built speculatively and launched on 1st
June 1867; put up for sale on 24th August and bought
by Francis Yabsley a shipowner of Portlemouth –
William Date retained 4 shares in her ownership with
John Lidstone, iron founder, who supplied the ironwork and Perrott Pepperell, sailmaker also held 4
shares. Sold in 1878 but in 1890 she was run down
and sank and lay for years as a hulk at Gravesend and
still visible over sixty years later. Her figurehead is
reputedly in the Cutty Sark.
Slide 55
1868
Anna Maria
245
A Brig built for Henry Grant of Salcombe with some of
her beams in iron. (Or possibly 1860).
1868
Grace*
93
A Schooner launched on 16th January 1869 for P O
Hingston and Co and christened by Miss Grace
Hingston. On 30th January 1883 a seaman was lost
overboard in a force 12 gale 40 miles NE of Cape
Finisterre on passage from Zante for Rouen with a
cargo of currants. On 19th January 1901 another man
was lost in a Force 10 gale bound for St John’s
Newfoundland.
Slide 56
The ship was lost on Teignmouth Bar on 16th October
1907.
1869
Emmeline
187
1870
Polly*
355
A Barque for Hurrell’s of Salcombe built for the deep
sea.
280
A Barquentine launched on 20th June 1871 for Capt F
L Yabsley and christened by Miss Hannaford.
Slide 57
1871
Morning
Star*
Slide 58
1871
Bessie*
The ship was sold to Guernsey in October 1891.
189
Little is known of this vessel other than she was a
three-masted schooner. Here she is photographed in
the 1880’s in Dover Harbour after a collision which has
removed her bowsprit and partly wrenched off her
cutwater from the prow.
111
A Schooner launched on 30th March 1872 and owned
by Hingston & Co. The vessel was sold to Portmadoc
in 1889/1890 and lost at Teignmouth on 12th February
1909. In 1885 she returned to Salcombe under jury-rig
after being demasted in collision with an American
Slide 59, 60
1872
Lizzie*
Slides 61,
62
26
barque. When repairs were complete she was
reregistered as a schooner.
While ships typically carried a number of spare parts
(e.g., items such as topmasts), the lower masts, at up
to three feet in diameter, were too large to carry
spares. So a jury mast could be various things. Rigging
the jury mast once erected was mostly a matter of
selecting the appropriate size of spare sail.
William Frink Date, Master Mariner, was her captain.
He was born in Salcombe and baptised in Salcombe
Chapelry of Malborough All Saints church on 13
August 1826. He married Susan Sandrey from Madron,
Cornwall in Swansea in September 1858 and they had
four children between 1860 and 1865. He died on
Weymouth on 20th December 1887 and was buried in
Wyke Regis on 22nd December 1887. He left an estate
of £297 11s 6d to his wife Susan still in Salcombe. She
died on 5th June 1891 at Woodbury Salterton, Devon
Slide 63
1872
Charlton
65
1872
Gertrude
230
1873
Swiftsure
235
1874
Elmina
241
A large Barquentine. Lost in September 1875.
Yard Reregistered W.W. Date
1875
Argosy
263
1876
Ethel*
257
Slide 64
A Brigantine over one hundred feet long for Steer &
Co; later owned in Newquay she was lost 2 miles east
of Lynmouth, North Devon on 10 February 1891
during a force 10 gale.
1877
Catherine
355
1877
Sarah Jane
A Brigantine built in Vivian’s yard in Salcombe that
William Date bought on 5THJanuary 1877 for £655 after
James Vivian’s death because his Kingsbridge yard
was too busy to accommodate another vessel. He sold
it in the early 1880’s to William Chant when
shipbuilding in Salcombe was already in decline.
1878
Titania
Built for W Sladen and Co of Salcombe.
1878
Hilda
249
Brigantine over one hundred feet long lasted only one
year and eight months before being lost in the
Bahamas in Sept 1880.
27
1879
Eliza
49
A Smack built for Built for P A Hingston &Co.
1880
Effort
(Dandy)*
85
A Ketch 67 feet long built for W S Hannaford & Co, a
butcher of Salcombe; other shareholders were Edison
Lapthorne master mariner and captain; and from
Kingsbridge Henry Grant, corn merchant, William John
Thomas, shipowner but also William Date, John
Lidstone, sailmaker, and Thomas Rich a ropemaker.
Still trading in 1939 the Effort, with tiller steering and
equipped with a tiller house, carried gravel from
Dartmouth to Torquay.
Slide 65, 66
She was broken up, literally, in June 1952 at Galmpton
on the River Dart with this man smashing up the
timbers with an axe, having bought the remains of the
hull for £1 10s.
1883
Our Nellie
112
1884
Progress*
84
Slide 67
A Ketch for H Grant and nicknamed Pilgrim by the local
population. Her hull was strengthened with diagonal
iron bands let into the face of the frames and running
forward and upwards from the keel to the frame heads.
She sailed to Newfoundland for 19 years making four
crossings each year and it is said never lost a crew
member during that time and only suffered serious
damage once when she was hove-to for thirty days. On
other occasions she is said to have made passing
contact with an iceberg and to have crossed from
Newfoundland to the English coast in fourteen days.
She was sold to Bideford during World War 1 and
traded over Appledore Bar. She was used as a barrage
balloon vessel in World War 2. After years as a hulk in
Milford Haven she was slowly rebuilt in Appledore in
1948 with a new keel and keelson and rerigged
returning to sea as a ketch in 1950 although bearing
little resemblance to her original form.
It is said that the Effort and the Progress were
respectively the first and second attempts at design by
a moulder at Date’s yard; if so the second at least was
very fine work for a beginner.
1886
Little
Wonder
96
Ordered by John Stephens of Par. In 1890, a very bad
year for losses – homeward bound got dismasted and
was abandoned in the western ocean. Some of her
crew were drowned, washed overboard and the rest
lashed themselves to the stumps of the masts and
were eventually rescued by a steamer.
28
1887
Little
Mystery
114
Ordered by John Stephens of Par; lost by gunfire off
the Isle of Wight June 1917.
1888
Cedric
100
A Schooner owned by Messrs Bisson and Dawe,
Falmouth shipowners engaged in the Carunna cattle
trade, one of the oddities of the late nineteenth century.
For about twenty five years cattle for the food supplies
of the armed forces were imported from Spain in small
schooners which loaded for Plymouth and Portsmouth,
but in the main for Penryn, with their live cargoes at
Carunna. They took up to 60 head of cattle, the beasts
standing on top of the ballast built up above the floors.
The schooners had to be specially fitted for the trade,
not only with ventilators, but also by way of extra water
supplies for sixty lively animals on a voyage which
might last anything up to three weeks, though the
Cedric is credited with a passage from Carunna to
Penryn in forty eight hours. The trade came to a
sudden end when the conditions in which the cattle
inevitably travelled became public knowledge.
1889
Ann
1889
My Lady
110
A Schooner built for Westcott of Plymouth. Remained
in the Newfoundland trade for 25 years sailing to
Labrador as late as July 1914; a beautiful little vessel
still remembered in the island and was by way of being
the flagship of the Westcott fleet and sailed under
Westcott’s management all her working life – the last of
the fleet to survive - latterly with cargoes of china clay
from Cornwall to the Mersey ports. In 1930 she was
laid up in Plymouth and in 1931 was sold for the sum
of £50 and became a houseboat at Tosnos Point,
Salcombe before being broken up – the keel is
doubtless still in existence sunk in the mud.
1890
St Clair
113
A Schooner built for Westcott of Plymouth.
1890
Nicita
109
1892
Little Gem
114
Survived to at least 1939, the last ketch to work in the
difficult harbour of Coombe Martin and owned in that
village; also sailed with stone from Plymouth and the
quarries at Berry Head to Southampton; and to the
north coast of England with coal.
A Topsail schooner ordered by John Stephens of Par
and launched in March 1893 said to have been built
from the same moulds as Little Mystery; Between 8th
and 23rd November 1895 she sailed from St John’s to
Oporto in 15 days equalling the record, the west to
29
east crossing being much quicker due to the
westerlies. She continued in the Newfoundland trade
until 1917 when she went missing on a passage from
Portugal reported by the master of a German
submarine as sunk in the Channel.
1893
J.N.R.
A Ketch, 63 feet long, one of the last fruit boats and still
afloat in Poole Harbour in 1974
1894
My Beauty
110
Built for Westcott of Plymouth.
1896
Cariad
126
Achieved the fastest crossing by a Portmadoc vessel
of ten days from Newfoundland to Oporto.
1896
Marie
1898
Lady St
Johns*
A Smack firstly out of Salcombe but working as a
motor barge in the Appledore gravel trade in 1949.
114
Slide 68
A Schooner launched in April 1898 for F W Hill and Co
said to be the last of the remarkable series of fine
hulled schooners built at the yard; Between 1924 and
1926 the vessel made five easterly Atlantic voyages
plying between St John’s Newfoundland and Oporto
Portugal of average 29 days including one of only 14
days. In 1927 she was 27 days westward and in 1928
her three eastward passages averaged eighteen and a
half days. On her last voyage in 1930 she was the last
British sailing vessel in the Newfoundland trade.
Shortly after her sale in 1930 for £900 to French
owners she was lost without trace.
In this ignominious way the story of the United
Kingdom western ocean schooners came to an end in
a sailing vessel trade that had continued uninterrupted
for over four centuries.
Mizpah
1899
Sirdar
Built for the ocean trade but ended as a collier
engaged in the coal trade out of Dover and Folkestone.
40
Continued next page:
:
30
Paddle Steamers built by Date’s Boatyard
Date
Name
Tonn
age
Details
1857
Kingsbridge
Packet
69
Wooden-hull paddle steamer launched on 28th April
1857 for Kingsbridge Steam Packet Company a
consortium of 32 merchants and tradesmen headed by
Robert Hurrell built for the Plymouth/Kingsbridge run.
On 7th May 1859 she took passengers to witness the
opening of the Cornish Railway with one of her
quickest passages to Plymouth in 2 hours and 10
minutes
1860
Queen
18
Built for £250 for the River Steamer Company – a new
company issuing shares in 1860. The 10hp engines
were supplied by a London firm for £420. She operated
the ferry service – in timed trials from Snapes Point to
New Quay, Kingsbridge she took 25 minutes - four
minutes faster than the packet – a better than expected
result. She made her first passenger trip on 3rd
November 1860.
On 2nd March 1861 the Queen towed the brig Willie
from Kingsbridge to Salcombe in less than an hour. A
great number of people watched the little paddle
steamer tow a brig of nearly 350 tons against the tide.
The Queen was broken up in 1876.
1881
Neptune
1885
Express*
Slide 69, 70
Steam launch for Randell Beer and Philip Trant; caught
fire and burnt out a month after launching in February
1881
115
Wooden paddle steamer launched on 13th May 1886
for William Randell Beer, Philip Trant and Charles
Henry Balkwill. She could carry up to 137 passengers.
She had to be modified soon after her launch as she
was too buoyant and her paddles did not touch the
water! – possibly a myth because of this photograph.
In 1887 local newspapers advertised an excursion to
Torquay on Whit Monday at a price of 2/6d.
She was sold following an unsuccessful auction for
£450 on 23rd February 1894 to Pills and Sons and King
of Plymouth and later sold in 1900 to John Westcott of
Plymouth who converted her to a 3 masted schooner.
She was sunk by a U-boat in 1915.
31
Ships built by William Date and his Sons
Pictures by Presentation Slide Number
43
44
45
46
47
48
32
49
50
51
52
53
54
33
55
56
57
58
59
60
34
61
62
63
64
65
66
35
67
68
69
70
36