Captains Daniel & Jenkin Jones, Aberayron, Ceredigion

Six children were produced while my grandfather was a church minister; my mother was the eldest. The manses were in Bangor, Caernarfonshire and at South Shields, near Newcastle-on-Tyne. Although living outside Wales, all my aunts and uncles conversed in Welsh, even in later years, on appropriate occasions. My grandfather, proud to be called Daniel Jenkin Williams, started his married life as the Calvinistic Methodist Church Minister in Upper Bangor. He had met his bride, the daughter of a church-choir tenor, whilst training in Cardiff; they were married as he was completing his studies at Lampeter College. It was easy for me to establish the details about Daniel Jenkin's parents; Catherine Jones was born in Aberayron and married William Williams, Ffynonwen, Blaen Pennal in 1869; by 1872 they had established a City Dairy in the east end of London.

Some family photos were passed on to me in 2002. One was a father-son studio portrait, probably from the 1870s. As indicated by my aunt, it showed an older Daniel Jones (her great-grandfather), seated, with a bearded young man, named Capt. Daniel Jones (Catherine's brother), wearing a double-breasted jacket. I believe that by 1881 Daniel, aged 30 and married to Leah, had become a Master Mariner.

Although I knew the address of the Jones family in Aberayron from census and marriage information - 8 Albert Street - finding information about births proved difficult, with the names being so common. I therefore sent off a Monumental Inscription enquiry to the Ceredigion Family History Society's Dr Evan James in April 2006. Considerable detail was included in his reply, including translations into English. A gravestone shows, in Welsh: #549 Daniel Jones, Albert St., Aberaeron d 24 July 1887 (79) also Jenkin, son, Master of Cornwall, Abertawe, who drowned near Ynys Lundy d 19 Mar 1871 (aged 31).

The nature of the inscriptions suggests that the gravestone was erected in 1887; Dr James also noted that, for other family members, there are some duplicate, small, gravestones - with initials and dates only. It is likely that these small inscriptions were erected at the time of burial, and were sufficient for family members to identify the grave, for memorial purposes. Only when Catherine heard of her father's death did she return home, I suggest, with sufficient funds for a detailed gravestone to be erected for both her father and her brother Jenkin. He was given an inscription below that of his father, despite being drowned 16 years before.

I elected to delve further into the circumstance of Capt. Jenkin Jones. Dr. Reginald Davies has an excellent Welsh Mariners web site, so from the gravestone inscription I found out details, transcribed from The Shipping Gazette 21 March 1871: JONES Jenkin, Aberaeron b 1840 Drowned by foundering of ship (ship run down) off Lundy Island on 19 March 1871.

I have access here in Ottawa to copies of many detailed maps produced by Charles Goad of inner-city UK districts in the 1880s. In correspondence with Allen Blethyn, Port Talbot regarding Goad's maps, I mentioned the Jenkin Jones' drowning. Back came an immediate reply: The Cambrian Newspaper, Swansea, has been indexed for significant events by many volunteers and a database put on the web. Allen found the information easily: 24 March 1871: Cornwall, of Swansea, struck by the ìHimalaya & sunk off Lundy. Capt. Jenkin Jones, of Aberayron, & 10 crew lose lives.

I then sent off an e-mail enquiry to Dr. David Jenkins, Senior Curator, National Waterfront Museum, Swansea. He replied that The wooden barque ìCornwallî was a vessel of 487 registered tons, built at London in 1849, owned by Tremellen & Co. of Swansea and registered there. She was on a voyage from Sombrero in the Windward Islands to Gloucester with a cargo of guano and in thick fog off Lundy when she was struck by the steamer Himalayaî, outward bound from Newport with a cargo of railway rails. Five crew members from the barque managed to clamber onto the steamer shortly after the impact, but the rest were lost as the Cornwall sank very rapidly.

A colleague in Ottawa mentioned that the Black Sheep web site in Liverpool (see - Masters & Mates - Shipwrecks & Accidents) indexes many legal reports, including accident enquiry summaries. The copy I subsequently obtained of the Board of Trade shipping accident report shows many more details. Captain Whiteman, of the Himalaya, did all that he could to rescue survivors. The March 1871 report concludes that, due to the dense fog and the rescue attempts, Capt. Whiteman was absolved from blame and should have his Master's Certificate returned.

I found out further details of the Cornwall by web searching. The vessel was 126' x 28' beam; she was first used as an immigrant ship from the Thames to New Zealand, then Australia; she spent many years plying between Hong Kong and Australia ( Captain Dawson was buried in Singapore) before returning to the UK - and Swansea. There are New Zealanders who, like me, would like an image of the vessel.

Bryan Richards, who runs a Swansea Mariners web site, then proved very helpful; he was patient enough to suggest that I seek further information from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. All the relevant information and enquiry processes are described on web sites, but his correspondence indicated the probable success of an expensive enquiry.

The Greenwich archive for Capt. Jenkin Jones includes a birth date, 21 Aug 1840. It also contains the usual examination certificates and service summaries for the vessels on which he served. He was examined as a ìMaster Ordinaryî at Cork and obtained his BoT certificate of competency as Master in February 1865. His address was given - 8 Albert St, Abereyron; he had his required competency certificate 21833 as an "Only Mate". His service list since includes the Henry & Dora* - Aberystwyth - 5 voyages in 1860 & -61; the Empress, Caernarvon - 2 yrs to Dec í62; and the Prairie Flower, Aberystwyth - to May í64. His early vessels were the Mary, 38 tons, (as a boy, aged 13, out of Cardigan), the Salathiel, Camden*, Aeron Queen*, Gowerian*, Ann Elizabeth*, Edward John, Eliza Charles* (1858-59) and the Gambia - all registered at Aberystwyth.

I searched the web for more information about these vessels. Like me, Gareth Hicks is a GENUKI web page author/volunteer; he helped me with drover's information to Tregaron a few years ago. With others, he operates a "S-W Wales Lookup Exchange" service whereby specialist information from out-of-print books can be passed on to researchers via e-mail. One such offering is to look up details from the article Aberaeron; The Community and Seafaring 1800-1900î by David Lewis Jones, contained in the Vol VI No 2, 1969, issue of the Journal of The Cardiganshire Antiquarian Society I found a copy (using the ABE web site, Victoria, BC, Canada) in a Cardigan Town bookshop, so purchased it, rather than asking Gareth Hicks many, many questions. The article reports many details: the Prairie Flower was found, abandoned, near Castell Cadwgan, with only a cat on board! She was later lost on a voyage returning from Quebec, Canada. The vessels listed above, marked * were built at Aberayron; DL Jones lists 75 vessels built in the town, between 1780 & 1870, with the greatest activity being between 1850-60 when 22 were built.

With Jones being very common in Aberayron, I have find the usual name-searching processes both time consuming and expensive; but I should try and find out more about all of Capt. Jenkin Jones' siblings. My grandfather was christened "Daniel Jenkin" - probably after his grandfather and his uncle Jenkin, who was drowned just 5 years before my grandfather was born.

Sombrero is not just the name of a hat; it is a small uninhabited islet, the most northerly land of the Windward Islands, to the east of Puerto Rico. On another web database, I have found selected log entries from previous voyages of the Cornwall. The usual run was from Swansea to Chile, round Cape Horn, to pick up guano, nitrates or copper ore.

The Welsh Mariners web site of Reginald Davies includes information that Capt. Jenkin Jones left a widow, Anne. The "Aberaeron Ordnance Survey map, 1904" republished recently in "The Godfrey Edition", includes lists of many master mariners (and many sailors with surname Jones in Aberaeron) reprinted from Kelly's Directory, South Wales, 1906. So I find attempts at further name searching quite intimidating.

A crew list for the Cornwall, recently obtained from Memorial University, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada is consistent with many witness reports mentioned in the Cambrian newspaper. The list is on a double page in a large ledger; an associated document mentions that the vessel's final voyage, to Sombrero, was to be via Dakar, West Africa. In 1870, many years after the abolition of the slave trade in the UK, some sailing vessels continued to ply the ìSlave Triangleî from the UK to the New World via West Africa and then home, so taking advantage of both trading opportunities and favourable winds.

One aspect of this report is to show how much detailed information can be obtained without personally visiting specialist archives in the UK. I am most grateful to all those mentioned in the text for providing details on web pages and for responding patiently to my enquiries. A summary of this article, is put up here on the web - with references .

Postscript: Using a search engine to find a Barque Cornwall web page that I have created, a correspondent living close to Lundy Island sent me some personal information about the family in April 2007; it is shown below. There is much more family digging to be done. How many in the family were merchant mariners I presently do not know; there were at least two as Sea Captains; the searching never stops!

A document mentions Daniel Jones and his brother Thomas, 8 Albert Street, Aberayron. In it, Daniel writes: Boreu Sabbath am 4o'r gloch y 19 o Fawrth 1871 y boddodd fy annwyl frawd Jenkin pan yn Feistr ar y Barque "Cornwall" yn rhwym o Sombrero i Glos'ter i agerlong ei rhedeg mewn niwl ag iddi soddu mewn eiliad. Boddodd 11, a safwyd 5 o'r dwy law. Gadawodd weddw a thri o blant ar ei ol. "Pwy a ddyrred y dichon dim heb i'r Arglwydd ei orchymyn" Cymorth a gaffom oll fel perthynasau i gyfiawnhau yr Hollalluog yn ei holl weithredoedd. In summary: ÝSunday morning at 4 o'clock on 19th March 1871, my dear brother Jenkin drowned when he was the master of the barque ìCornwallî bound from Sombrero to Glosíter when it ran into a steamship in a fog and sank in a second. 11 drowned and on the other hand 5 were saved. He left a widow and three children after him.

Hugh Reekie, Ottawa, Canada 30 June 2007 h.reekie@ieee.org family history page - home page

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