“... we were obliged to appease our
thirst of their blood and our hunger of
their flesh …”
Joseph Powell, 1826
Two scraps of evidence set Doug Ford on the trail of a gruesome tale
of cannibalism on board Jersey ships. Here he tells of his findings.
EATING FLESH
Cannibalism at Sea on board Jersey ships
In 1999, while researching an exhibition on shipwrecks for
the Maritime Museum, I came across two interesting documents
that illustrated the dangers faced by mariners in the past. The first
was an item in an 1841 edition of the Nautical Magazine, and the
second was an account of the aftermath of a shipwreck written by
a Jersey seaman in 1826. Whereas the first was used in the exhibition to give an interesting insight into the general reasons for
shipwreck at sea, the second raised an altogether different issue
– the choices and moral issues faced by individuals in their desire
for survival.
In 1841 the Nautical Magazine listed 50 causes of ship loss
which included, at number 6: ‘Teetotality’! However, the most
common cause of shipwreck was navigational error - we thought
we were somewhere else! This was reduced as charts were improved and various pieces of equipment such as the chronometer, octants and the log were improved and developed. It was then
that the weather became the biggest killer - storm, blizzard, fog
etc. These weather-related risks naturally increased in winter. Collision with other vessels was a frequent occurrence, especially in
the narrow approaches to the main ports; however, because there
was no legislation covering the construction of ships, many vessels were lost simply because they were unseaworthy. It wasn’t
until the 1870s that the English MP, Samuel Plimsoll, took up the
issue of safety at sea.
The normal practice when a vessel was wrecked at sea was for
most seamen to remain with the vessel for as long as possible in
the hope that a passing vessel would come to their aid. Taking to
the ship’s boat was only done as a last resort because these were
intended for auxiliary duties rather than for use as a lifeboat. This
meant that they were rarely equipped with water and emergency
stores, and, of course, being forced into ship’s boats resulted in
real hardship and starvation which, in the most extreme cases,
saw the men driven to cannibalism in order to survive.
Of all the hardships faced by shipwrecked sailors the most agonising was, undoubtedly, having to make the decision whether
to feed on the flesh of their dead companions or starve to death
themselves. In fact survival cannibalism has been a factor in seagoing for as long as men have been making ocean voyages. So
much so, that it became a customary practice with its own attendant rituals, from the necessity of perhaps having to draw lots
to select the victim, to the urgency of drawing off the blood before it congealed and eating the most perishable meat - the liver
and heart - first.
Every seaman knew the ‘custom of the sea’, and while they
did not necessarily talk of it, they saw no reason to conceal the
fact should they ever be forced to resort to it. Perhaps the most
famous story of cannibalism at sea was the wreck of the French
frigate the Medusa in 1816, made famous by Theodore Géricault’s
wonderfully evocative painting The Raft of the Medusa. However,
the best written account is probably Owen Chase’s account of
the events following the wreck of the American whale ship, Essex,
in November 1819, and published shortly afterwards in 1821.
However, for the landsman there has always been something
about the taboo of eating human flesh that fascinates the reader
or listener. In the 1860s a young W S Gilbert wrote a ballad, The
Yarn of the Nancy Bell, which although it was turned down by
Punch as being too cannibalistic for the taste of its middle-class
readers, was published in the magazine, Fun, and soon afterwards
it was being sold on the streets as a sheet-ballad. Its chorus really
captured the public’s fancy.
February the food ran out and still the storm blew. Ten days later
one of the seamen, James Clarke, died, and the water ration was
reduced to half a gill (2fl oz) per person per day. On 22 February
another seaman, James Wilson, died, and his body was “cut . . .
in quarters”, washed and then hung on the pin. The following
day J Moote died and was “thrown overboard, having eaten part
of him, such as the liver and heart”.
Between 23 February and 5 March eight men died – the last
being James Frier, the fiancé of Ann Saunders, who it was reported, “shrieked a loud yell” and then “cut her late intended
husband’s throat and drank his blood, insisting that she had the
greatest right to it.”
On 7 March the six remaining survivors who included the two
women and the captain were picked up by HMS Blonde under
the command of Lord George Byron at 44° 43’N 21° 57’W. When
the Lieutenant in charge of the rescue boat remarked: ‘You have
yet, I perceive, fresh meat,’ he was told: ‘No sir, it is part of a man,
one of our unfortunate crew.’ It was reported that Ann Saunders
had performed the duty of cutting up and cleaning the dead bodies while it was generally said of those that did not survive: ‘From
want of water, those who perished, drank their own urine and
salt water; they became foolish . . . and generally died.’
While Islanders were reading about this dreadful affair in the
comfort of their own homes, they probably had no wish to know
that it was not only foreigners who degenerated into flesh eaters
in times of crisis. There are also a couple of accounts of Islanders
resorting to cannibalism in times of extreme need, from this exact
same period.
"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain’s gig"
In the spring of 1826 the drawing rooms of the English residents of St Helier would have been a-buzz with the gossip surrounding the latest news reported in the pages of the Island’s
English language newspaper, The Jersey Loyalist, concerning the
wreck of the 398-ton ship, Francis Mary. On 20 March the Loyalist included the tantalising line: ‘Plymouth 16 (March): For 22
days the survivors supported their wretched existence by actually
feeding on the dead bodies of those who died in the wreck.’ The
whole story came out in the edition printed two weeks later on 3
April, and what made it even more salacious was that two of the
survivors were women, one of whom, Ann Saunders, had played
an important role in the survival.
The Francis Mary had been on passage carrying a cargo of timber from New Brunswick in Canada to Liverpool. She cleared St
Johns, Newfoundland, on 18 January 1826, and by 1 February
she had encountered strong gales which carried her main topmast and mizzen mast head away. Heavy seas also washed away
the caboose (the deck house containing the ship’s galley), the
jolly boat and left five men injured. Five days later she lost the
long boat, her rudder, two bower anchors and the foremast. At
this stage, as a precautionary measure 50lbs of bread and a 5lb
cheese were stowed in the main top and Mrs Kendall1, the captain’s wife, and a female passenger, Ann Saunders, were sent aloft.
Twice in the next three days American ships closed in but were
unable to offer assistance because of the state of the seas. By 11
General Brock, 18262
A letter in the Jersey Archive, dated 26 July 1826 from Frederick Brock Tupper to George Frederick Janvrin, mentions ‘the
loss of our two ships and their noble crews’ and writes of ‘the
misfortune that has lately befallen the Messenger and the General
Brock’. It alludes to an incident that was to be made public the following Saturday. On Saturday 29 July, Islanders were shocked to
read in the Chronique de Jersey the details surrounding the loss of
the Janvrin-owned brig, the General Brock. The news had arrived
in the Island on 17 July from Aberdeen where the local newspaper, the Aberdeen Chronicle, had carried a report on 2 July from
Captain McBain of the Phesdo, newly arrived from Cape Breton.
His report stated that the General Brock of Jersey had been run
down by another brig while on passage from Jersey to Gaspé.
1
English broadsheets name her as Mrs Patterson.
2
General Brock was a 97-ton brig built in River Bourgeois, Richmond County, Nova Scotia,
by Peter Bouchard in 1821 for the Channel Island company, Janvrin & Tupper. The six joint
owners were all noted as merchants – Frederick Brock Tupper of Arichat, Cape Breton;
Philip and Francis Janvrin of Jersey, and Carteret Priaulx, Daniel Delisle and John Elisha
Tupper of Guernsey. Her original port of registry was Sydney, Nova Scotia but in March
1822 she was re-registered in Jersey where her owners are set down as Francis Janvrin
& Co.
A newspaper report of the crew’s
ordeal on the Francis Mary.
Brigs like this were the workhorse of the North Atlantic in the first half of
the nineteenth century.
Over the summer as the details emerged, the true horror of
the wreck was revealed. According to the shipping reports in the
Chronique de Jersey of April 15, the General Brock had originally
left St Helier on 9 April,3 but had been forced back into port by
weather and then resumed her passage with 18 men on board. Of
these about ten would have been crew and the rest were passengers bound for the Janvrin stations at Grand Grève, Cap Rosiers,
or Malbay in Gaspé. On 14 May she was reported as having spoken with the Francis Freeling at 47° 20’ W, and then disaster struck
just after midnight on 29 May as they crossed the Grand Banks
in one of its notorious fogs. At 12:30 am when they were about
250 miles from Bonavista, Newfoundland, at 47° 50’ N 48° 30’
W, they were involved in a collision with another brig which ran
onto the starboard bow smashing it to pieces. While the two vessels were entangled, three men - Thomas Mallet, James Perrins
and Philip Parker - were able to jump on board the other vessel,
which was later identified as the Francis, before the vessels were
separated. The master of the Francis attempted to round up on to
the General Brock to take the rest of the crew off, but the wind
swung around behind them and they disappeared into the fog.
Badly holed and sinking, Captain de la Lande gave the order
to abandon ship, but sadly one crewman, James Horner, was
trapped below deck and was drowned. The remaining 14 crew
took to the longboat where they were to spend the next ten days.
Such was the haste that they were unable to provision the longboat and so they found themselves with no water, and the only
food they had was a small 3lb Dutch cheese. With only two oars
and a compass, they set a course for the coast of Newfoundland
about 220 miles to the west, but their progress was hampered by
a very strong headwind.
On the evening of the fifth day in the boat, they saw a ship
about two miles distant, but they didn’t have the strength to row
into the wind to close in on it. It was during that night that the
first of the men, overcome by exposure, died. It was at this point
that the survivors were faced with the reality of survival: would
they commit the body to the sea, or would they follow what was
often referred to as ‘the custom of the sea’ and eat the flesh of
their dead shipmate? In his account of the wreck, seaman Joseph
Powell wrote, ‘. . . The next morning about 8 o’clock, we were
looking at our poor dead brother, talking about throwing him in
to the sea. A young boy, at that moment tormented by the great
pains of hunger and thirst, suggested that he had heard that in
some such occasions similar to ours that there had been some
people who had eaten the flesh of the corpses. He asked if he
would be permitted to satisfy his craving on this occasion - nobody opposed this.’
Given that only six days before they left St Helier the Jersey
Loyalist newspaper had extensively reported the wreck of the Francis Mary of New Brunswick - and the subsequent cannibalism - I
think he is being rather coy as to the actual events on board the
small boat.
Powell then goes on to say that they cut pieces from the thighs
and cut the throat to bleed the corpse. Over the next five days five
more men died and it would appear they were all treated the same
way. P.H. Clarke, the Lloyd’s Agent in Sydney, Cape Breton, took
a statement from Elias Baudains, the mate, when they arrived in
which he simply stated: ‘on the sixth day, cut and ate part of one
who died the night previous, continued to subsist on human
Flesh, and drank the blood with their own urine mixed with salt
water, . . .’
The men who died were Philip Duval, a clerk for the Janvrin
Company, Francis Chevalier, a cooper, Philip Syvret, Clement Renouf, Elias Vibert and James Le Brun.
On the afternoon of 8 June the eight survivors were picked
up by the brig Ann of Liverpool (Captain Forbes), but unfortunately it was too late for four of the men, who all died on board.
These were the captain, Pierre de la Lande, Edward Luce, Charles
Myers and Francis de la Mare. The four crew men who survived
the ordeal were Elias Baudains, the mate, Joseph Powell, John
Dolbel and William Hughes. Hughes was in the worst state of
those who were landed at Bras D’Or on 19 June; he was suffering from inanition, ulcerated limbs and frost-bitten feet.
Powell and the other survivors probably returned to Jersey at
the end of the fishing season in the late summer or early autumn,
for the following May he married Susanne Luce and together they
had at least nine children, two of whom, Joseph jnr and Philippe,
served as seamen. Joseph himself seems to have become a fisherman and lived for the rest of his life in St Ouen.
The fate of the three men who jumped on board the Francis
was finally revealed in early October that year when the Jersey
Loyalist reported that: ‘Mr Thomas Mallet, a young gentleman of
this island, who was on board the General Brock, when it was run
down by another vessel and sunk, while on its passage to Newfoundland, but who saved himself with two other young men on
board of the latter, has written to his friends, August 6, from Pernambuco in Brazil. From the time which had elapsed since the
loss of the General Brock serious apprehensions had been entertained about the safety of these young men. Mr Mallet was then
in hopes of soon getting a passage for Havre de Grace4 . He refers
to another letter, which has possibly miscarried.’ It was also this
letter that identified the other vessel as the Francis.
3
In his account written while convalescing later that summer, Joseph Powell (1797-1878)
maintains the vessel left Jersey on 8 May but this would have been impossible given their
reported position on 14 May.
4
Havre de Grace is better known as Harbour Grace in Conception Bay, Newfoundland.
Given the nature of reporting at the time and the difficulty in
transcribing Jersey names, the crew and passengers on board the
General Brock appear in a variety of spelling:Pierre Lande/ de la Lande - Captain
Elias Baudains, (Bundon/Raudans) - mate
John Dolbel (Dobart /D’Aubert)
Francis de la Mare (Leman)
Joseph Horner (Holmes)
William Hughes
James/George Le Brun (Brown)
Edouard Luce
Charles Myers (Meyers/Mahier)
Philip Parker (Parther)
James Perrins
Joseph Powell
Clement Renouf (Rinolp)
Philip Syvret (Serret)
Elias Vibert (Verbrant)
Francis Chevalier - cooper
Philip Duval – clerk for the Janvrin Company
Thomas Mallet
It was in a longboat like this that the survivors of the General Brock found themselves adrift in the middle of the Atlantic.
Four years later another Jersey vessel was involved in a similar scenario.
The Quixote, 18305
In the autumn of 1830 Captain Francis Bailhache, master of
the Quixote, sailed for Newfoundland where he loaded a cargo of
dried cod, which he took to the Spanish port of Cadiz. The
Quixote then took on a cargo of oil in the nearby port of San Lucar
and cleared port on 23 October bound for Liverpool. Almost immediately they ran into bad weather, incessant storms which carried on until 5 December when it reached hurricane force,
obliging them to heave-to at 48º N 9º 13’ W. Just after 4:00 pm
the Quixote was pooped by a large wave and at 6:30pm, while
she was attempting to scud under main topsail, she was struck
mid-ships by a tremendous sea, thrown onto her beam-ends, and
the cargo, stowed in barrels, shifted. On deck, the two-man watch
cut away the lanyards of the rigging and the masts went over the
side and the vessel righted herself. However, because the hatches
had been smashed in by the force of the storm she was full of
water. When the sea struck, of the four men sheltering in the forecuddy, three drowned. The master and the mate managed to
make their way from the aft cabin to the deck where they encountered waves sweeping the deck from stem to stern. The remainder of the crew, completely drenched and nearly exhausted,
held on despite the intense cold. Two hours after the knock-down
the master died, and the following morning another of the crewmen died, worn out by cold and fatigue. The four survivors clung
on to the wreck for the next four days with neither food nor drink.
On 9 December another crewman died and the remaining
three men lashed his body to a spar to prevent it being washed
away in order that they might feed on it. The following day, 10
December, the three men gnawed at an arm and the following
day they again fed on the flesh. By 12 December, a full seven days
after the knock-down, the storm began to abate, but the body
was becoming putrid and so was inedible. On the evening of the
following day Philippe Arthur sighted a sail in the distance and
was able to attract its attention. About dawn on 14 December the
three men were taken on board the brig, Cérès of Rouen, commanded by Captain Ferdinand Le Rommier, bound for Harfleur.
Sadly on 15 December,, the third man died, leaving Clement
Noel, the mate, and Philippe Arthur, the second mate, both Jerseymen, the only survivors. They landed at Harfleur and they were
immediately taken to the hospital where they remained for 17
days. When they were discharged from the hospital in Harfleur
they travelled to Le Havre by steam ship where the British consul
had them transferred on to the Three Brothers bound for Plymouth. Once in Plymouth they were taken to the Poor House Infirmary. They finally arrived back in the Island on 24 January
1831 on board the Providence. On the same day the Jersey Loyalist described their situation as: ‘They have suffered most dreadfully, having been on the wreck NINE DAYS! And having been
obliged, by want of food, to eat one of their shipmates (Lemprière). Noel and Arthur are yet in an exhausted state, not having
recovered from the fatigue and privations which they have undergone.’
5
The Quixote, 120 ton brig, was built Peter John Du Val in Caraquet, New Brunswick. In March 1829
Du Val moved her registry to Jersey where he described himself as a merchant of St Aubin.
The Quixote - how the news broke.
The crew of the Quixote who died were Captain Francis Bailhache, Elias Vibert, Philippe Lemprière, P Ahier, Pierre Arthur jnr,
Jean Bisson and Charles McKintosh. The last named had only
joined the crew in Cadiz.
Once the three survivors had been taken off the Quixote in 46º
N 10º W she was left drifting. She was spotted by Captain Walker
of the Susannah bound for Monte Video and Buenos Aires on 19
December at 45º N 9º W, he reported that she had lost half her
mainmast and the foremast had gone completely. Three months
later, on 19 March 1831, she was towed her into the Spanish port
of Santander by a group of fishing boats that had found her drifting. Despite her missing masts and some damage, her cargo was
still in good condition.
Conclusion
What is interesting in so far as episodes of cannibalism among
Jersey crews is concerned is the fact that they received so little attention in the Island newspapers. It is almost as if there was a tacit
acceptance by society that extreme necessity could justify acts that
in other circumstances would be regarded as criminal. This silence
that surrounded incidents of survival cannibalism within the community from which the men came has been described as ‘cultural
embarrassment’. It was felt that sailors who practiced the ‘custom
of the sea’ among themselves were guilty of no crime even when
they were forced to sacrifice some of their number to save others.
In 1884 a leader in The Spectator summed up this belief in the
statement, ‘So complete is the belief of sailors in their right to eat
their comrades.’ However, in the middle of the 19th century, attitudes amongst the Victorian establishment began to change, especially with the growth of the Empire into ‘the less civilised’
regions of Africa and the Pacific. Polite society which had for so
long turned a blind eye to child prostitution and the mass exploitation of the working class, could no longer sanction the idea
of ‘Englishmen’ turning to cannibalism, and when Captain Thomas
Dudley was successfully convicted of the murder of 17-year old
Richard Parker in 1884, following the wreck of the yacht
Mignonette, the ‘custom of the sea’ was effectively criminalized,
making it extremely unlikely that any survivors of shipwreck would
ever admit to having resorted to eating the flesh of their companions in future – and so it was and has been.
Date
Vessel
Wrecked
1807
Nautilus
Aegean
1811
Polly
North Atlantic
1816
Medusa
West African coast
1820
Essex
Pacific
1822
George
North Atlantic
1826
Frances Mary
North Atlantic
1826
General Brock
North Atlantic
1828
Granicus
Gulf of St Lawrence
1830
Quixote
North Atlantic
North Atlantic
1833
Dalusia
1834
Lucy
1835
Earl Kellie
North Atlantic
1835
Elizabeth
Rashleigh
North Atlantic
1835/36
Home
North Atlantic
1836
Hannah
North Atlantic
1836
Caledonia
North Atlantic
1837
Francis Spaight
North Atlantic
1838
Earl Moira
North Atlantic
1845
Mary
Bass Strait
An indicative list of shipwrecks on which the crew were
forced to resort to cannibalism 1807-1845.
Sources
Chronique de Jersey: 15 April 1826, 27 May 1826, 29 July 1826
Le Constitutionel : 23 July 1825, 26 November 1825,
15 April 1826, 29 July1826, 29 January 1831
Jersey Loyalist: 20 March 1826, 3 April 1826, 9 October 1826,
24 January 1831
Jersey & Guernsey Magazine: February 1831 - pgs 196-198
Dr Frank Le Maistre (trans): An account of the wreck of the General Brock in
1826 by Joseph Powell of St Ouen. Annual Bulletin of the Société Jersiaise
1984 pgs 471-474
Ships and seafarers of Atlantic Canada – Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1998
A.W. Brown Simpson (1994): Cannibalism and the Common Law
Neil Hanson (1999):The Custom of the Sea
Owen Chase (1935): The Wreck of the whaleship Essex
Nathanial Philbrick (2000): In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of
the Whaleship Essex
Doug Ford is Head of Community Learning with Jersey Heritage
Tel: 01534 633340
E-mail: [email protected]