HMS Eurydice (1843)

HMS ''Eurydice'' was a 26-gun Royal Navy corvette which was the victim of one of Britain's worst peacetime naval disasters when she sank in 1878.

Origins of ''Eurydice''

Designed by Admiral the Hon. George Elliot, the second ''Eurydice'' was a very fast 26-gun frigate designed with a very shallow draught to operate in shallow waters. She originally saw service on the North American and West Indies station between 1843 and 1846 under the command of her first captain, George Augustus Elliot (the eldest son of her designer). In July 1845, she was driven ashore near the Moro, Havana. Her guns were taken off to lighten her before she was refloated. Under Captain Talavera Vernon Anson, her second commission between 1846 and 1850 was spent on the South African ("Cape of Good Hope") station. Her third commission, under Captain Erasmus Ommanney (between 1854 and 1855) and then Captain John Walter Tarleton (1855 to 1857) saw her first sent briefly to the White Sea during the Crimean War and then to the North American and West Indies station again. The ''Eurydice'' saw no further seagoing service in the next twenty years; she was converted into a stationary training ship in 1861. In 1877, she was refitted at Portsmouth and by John White at Cowes for seagoing service as a training ship.

Figurehead

The figurehead of ''Eurydice'' was carved at Portsmouth Dockyard by its resident master carver, J. E. Hellyer of the Hellyer & Sons family business and is displayed at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.

Loss of ''Eurydice''

After being recommissioned under the command of Captain Marcus Augustus Stanley Hare, ''Eurydice'' sailed from Portsmouth on a three-month tour of the North America and West Indies Station, which had its headquarters at Bermuda, on 13 November 1877. On 6 March 1878, she began her return voyage from the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda for Portsmouth. After a very fast passage across the Atlantic, on 24 March 1878, ''Eurydice'' was caught in a heavy snow storm off the Dunnose headland at the Isle of Wight, capsized and sank in Sandown Bay.

A weather report in ''The Midland Naturalist'' explained:

Only two of the ship's 319 crew and trainees survived; most of those who were not carried down with the ship died of exposure in the freezing waters. Captain Hare, a devout Christian, after giving the order to every man to save himself, clasped his hands in prayer and went down with his ship.Agnes Weston: My Life among the Bluejackets, James Nisbett: London, 1909. Page 123 One of the witnesses to the disaster was toddler Winston Churchill, who was living at Ventnor with his family at the time. The wreck was refloated later that same year but had been so badly damaged during her submersion that she was then subsequently broken up. Her ship's bell is preserved in St. Paul's Church, Gatten, Shanklin.
There is a memorial in the churchyard at Christ Church, The Broadway, Sandown and another at Shanklin Cemetery in Lake where seven crew members are buried. The ship's anchor is set into a memorial at Clayhall Cemetery, Gosport.
Two of her crew, David Bennett and Alfred Barnes, are buried in Rottingdean St Margaret's churchyard when bodies were washed ashore nearby. There are four in the grave, but only two of the men could be identified.

Prelude to a second disaster

An inquiry found that the vessel had sunk through stress of weather and that her officers and crew were blameless for her loss. There was some adverse comment on the suitability of ''Eurydice'' as a training ship because of her extreme design, which was known to lack stability. However, she was immediately replaced by another 26-gun frigate of identical tonnage but slightly less radical hull-lines, HMS ''Juno''. ''Juno'' was renamed and made two successful voyages between England and the West Indies before also disappearing at sea on her crossing the North Atlantic from Bermuda in 1880 with the loss of 281 lives; the ship is believed to have been lost in a storm. Later British seagoing training ships were smaller purpose-built brigs.

In literature

''The Loss of the Eurydice'' is a major poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Ghost ship

The phantom ''Eurydice'' has been sighted frequently by sailors over the years since her sinking, and she is said to haunt Dunnose, a cape on the Isle of Wight that lies west of Shanklin, close to the village of Luccombe at the southwesterly end of Sandown Bay. Most notably, on 17 October 1998, Prince Edward of the United Kingdom reportedly saw the three-masted ship off the Isle of Wight while filming for the television series ''Crown and Country'', and the film crew claimed to have captured its image on film. There is also a story from Commander F. Lipscomb of a Royal Navy submarine which took evasive action to avoid the ship, only for it to disappear.J.C Medland. "Shipwrecks of the Wight". Coach House Publications ltd, 2004

References

Sources

*David Lyon, ''The Sailing Navy List, All the Ships of the Royal Navy Built, Purchased and Captured 1688–1860''
*''The Times'', various dates 1878.

External links

*
Memorials in St. Ann's Church, Portsmouth
for HMS Eurydice's crew and passengers.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eurydice, Hms
Ships built in Portsmouth
1843 ships
Corvettes of the Royal Navy
Victorian-era corvettes of the United Kingdom
Legendary ghost ships
Maritime incidents in July 1845
Maritime incidents in March 1878
Shipwrecks in the English Channel
Crimean War naval ships of the United Kingdom
Maritime folklore
Ghost ships