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THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.
THE BRIG FINDON
Copyright Valerie Martin 2003
Findon lies four miles inland for the coastal resort of Worthing and so it is a little surprising that it has connections with the sea.
The name of FINDON for a ship is not as unusual as you might imagine. The first documentation I have found listed is of a two masted sailing ship of the Royal Navy early in the nineteenth century in Kent —
| FINDON (hired cutter) 1807 - H. KAY, master, Chatham. 1811 ditto, Sheerness.
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I caught up with the FINDON again some twenty-seven years later (or was it a different ship bearing the same name) under sail after crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The sailing ship's arrival was reported in the Montreal Gazette as being on 21st August 1834. Captain Froste was her master. She arrived at the Port of Quebec after being sixteen days at sea from Workington under consignment to Le Mesurier & Company.
I do not know the year the FINDON was built and neither do I know exactly what she looked like. Perhaps one day I will manage to discover more facts about her. However, a brig of that era had two masts with square sails on both masts and the FINDON would I guess have looked something like this —
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Therefore, without any artist's representation to go on, I only have my imagination to suggest that the brig FINDON just may have appeared thus as she entered the Port of Quebec back in 1834, maybe something like this —
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I next caught up with the FINDON the following year in the Montreal Gazette of 1835 when she docked at the Port of Quebec (with Froste still as her master). She had sailed from Poole on our south coast and was still consigned to Le Mesurier & Company.
In 1847, I was again able to trace a little of the brig's activities on the high seas. Disaster appears to have struck the brig during a voyage that year. On the 19th May 1847 it was recorded in the Quebec Morning Chronicle that —
| Captain Doubleday, of the MARY, arrived this morning, spoke, on the 10th instant, the brig FINDON, of Poole, bound to Quebec, in long. 59, fast in the ice, with bow stove in and other damage. The Captain wanted no assistance, intending to put into the first port.
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The FINDON limped into the Port of Quebec on 21st May 1847 with Captain Willis as master. She had sailed from Poole on 27th March 1847 and was this time consigned to A. Gilmour and Company.
A second calamity was recorded that year in the Quebec Morning Chronicle of 1847 —
| The brig FINDON reports having on the 7th April, in lat. 41, 50 W., boarded a wreck, which proved to be the brig MARY ELEANOR of Cardigan, - she had a deal of water in her hold, and was abandoned. All her stores, boats, &c. Taken out. On the 27th April, the FINDON fell in with a quantity of loose ice, near the Green Bank, and received considerable damage in it.
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The FINDON appears to have made regular trips from Poole across to Quebec for a number of years.
Continue if you would like to read about the SNOW FINDON.
This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.
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E-mail: valeriemartin@findonvillage.com |
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