Hard down! Hard down!. Captain Jack Isbester
suggest that he was a man of good stature, probably a requirement for the police force. It would be good to believe that he enjoyed duty attending the crowds visiting the Walker Art Gallery, where up to four constables were posted, but it is more likely that his main concern was in dealing with the cases of drunkenness in Liverpool, which had in December 1876 risen from 15,763 to 16,859 per annum, leading to protests from prominent members of the public, insisting that the licencing laws be enforced.4 Other incidents requiring the attention of constables included dealing with the boys troubling Mrs McMillan in Balm Street and the need to apprehend Aaron Lipwitz, charged with stealing Abm. Liebenchutz’s cash box. I have found no record of when, why or how John Isbester left the Liverpool Constabulary, but he used to tell his family that he had been a policeman for about six months, which would place his departure from the Force during the summer of 1879. He finally returned to sea on 1 February 1880, joining the iron barque Cumeria, 1,336 tons gross, in Liverpool as second mate for a voyage to San Francisco. She had unrecorded problems which caused her to return to Liverpool after a day at sea, but she eventually completed the 11-month voyage with its double wintertime rounding of Cape Horn, returning to Hull to discharge her homeward cargo. That had been John Isbester’s first visit to San Francisco, a two-and-a-half-month stay in a port to which he was to return many times in later years. After four weeks’ leave John Isbester rejoined the Cumeria in North Shields for a voyage to Bombay with a cargo of coal. He must have done well on his first voyage on Cumeria because although the new crew signed on in Hull on 14 January his place was kept open for him to rejoin on 29 January.
Bombay would be yet another new destination for him, but the voyage would leave its marks on him for quite a different reason. When he came on watch at 0800 on 7 February Cumeria was south of St Catherine’s Point on the Isle of Wight and close hauled on the port tack, steering about south-west by west5 (Fig.5.2). The wind, from the south-south-east or south by east, was getting up, and there was a heavy cross sea from the west. Cumeria was carrying courses and upper and lower topsails in addition to jib, foretopmast staysail, maintopmast staysail and crojack, and Captain Evan Williams from Aberdovey ordered all hands on deck to shorten sail (Fig.5.3). John Isbester and his watch were allotted the mainmast, the hands going aloft to reef the main course and upper topsail while the mate and his watch reefed the corresponding sails on the foremast. Next John Isbester and his watch commenced furling the crojack on the mizzen mast while chief mate Gilbert Pearson from Shetland, bosun Robert Lloyd from Baltimore and four hands went forward to hand and stow the jib. The men selected were John Dodds from North Shields, John Small from Dundee, John Caygill from Whitby and Konstantine Barintizous from Italy. Captain Williams instructed them to wait for his signal before going on to the jibboom, the light extension to the bowsprit.
Figure 5.2 Barque Cumeria – tragic loss of four men
Figure 5.3 Cumeria before and after shortening sail
He then ordered Able Seaman E.G. (Johnny) Johansson from Sweden, the man at the wheel, to bring the ship’s head to starboard to steer WNW, bringing the wind abaft the beam, so that Cumeria was running free on the port tack, easing the weight on the jib and reducing the extent to which the vessel was pitching into the heavy seas from the west. This action made it safer for the men to go onto the jibboom, and when Cumeria was settled on the new course Captain Williams waved to the men to loose the halyards and go onto the jibboom to hand and stow the jib. When they were so engaged Captain Williams saw for the first time, at a distance of about 1½ miles, a sailing vessel which he judged to be on a collision course crossing on the starboard tack. Captain Williams was required by the Rule of the Road to keep out of the way of the other vessel, and to do this he would have to alter course to port, returning towards the more hazardous course so recently abandoned. Standing at the fore end of the poop, he waved to the men on the jibboom to get back inboard immediately, but they did not notice his signals, the bows being about 60 yards/metres from the poop. He waited as long as he dared, then ordered the helmsman to make a two-point alteration of course, to steer west, in order to avoid collision with the other vessel.
As Cumeria came onto the new course the foretopmast staysail sheet carried away (i.e. broke), and the vessel, now with sails unbalanced, broached to (i.e. lurched heavily, in this case with the bow swinging rapidly to port), and a heavy sea struck the port bow and swept over the jibboom, the bowsprit and the forecastle. At that instant the four men were swept from the jibboom into the cold February waters of the Channel, and the chief mate and bosun, on the forecastle, were trapped, reportedly ‘under the port tack’.6 The cry ‘Man overboard!’ was heard, lifebuoys and ropes were flung overboard and the yards were braced to port, to back the sails and stop the ship. One man in the water managed to catch hold of the mizzen vang, and another clutched the patent log line, but the vessel was at that time still travelling quite fast through the water, perhaps 6 or 7 knots, and agonisingly they were unable to retain their grip.
John Isbester was sent aloft to keep a lookout for the four men in the water, but could see none of them. Captain Williams asked for volunteers to man a boat, but none was prepared to venture, one man saying that if any of the men overboard were still in sight he would have been prepared to go. Captain Williams sailed back and forth through the area of the loss for the next four hours, but then, having seen nothing, resumed the voyage, and called at Falmouth six days later to pay off Johann Baer, AB from Danzig (Gdansk) and Per Rudolf Malmqvist, ship’s boy aged 17 from Sweden and to sign six replacements – five ABs and one OS. The leavers were, presumably, unwilling to continue the voyage after the distressing experience of the first ten days.
The official log book was reported to contain an entry, signed by four ABs including Johansson, the man who had been at the wheel, to the effect that the loss of the four men had been an accident and that every effort had been made to save them.
That the foregoing traumatic events are on record is because a letter signed by H.B. Johnson and dated 26 October 1881 was subsequently received by the Board of Trade alleging that the deaths of the four men were the result of ‘A piece of wilful carelessness and unseamanlike piece of work amounting to manslaughter.’ A formal investigation was held at Westminster in December 1881, the voyage having ended at Gravesend in mid-November following discharge in Rotterdam of a homeward cargo from Bombay. Six witnesses were present at the hearing, one being Captain Williams, and another the cook who confirmed the captain’s evidence that another sailing vessel had been nearby. It is likely that John Isbester was present too. He was in the UK at the time, on leave or studying for his first mate’s certificate, which he passed in Liverpool on 18 January 1882. One man not present was bosun Robert Lloyd: he had been left behind in jail in Bombay for reasons not recorded.7 The investigation cleared Captain Williams of any blame, concluding that the broaching-to of the vessel, which increased the severity of the heavy sea striking the port bow, was itself caused by the giving way of the foretopmast staysail sheet and was the cause of the loss of the lives in question. They further concluded that proper and seamanlike measures had been taken to stow the jib and that, Cumeria being the give-way vessel, Captain Williams had acted reasonably and safely when altering course two points to port to avoid collision. It was also concluded that every possible effort had been made to save the lives of the men. The tribunal decided that the complainant was the man who had signed Articles as John Johnson (sic),8 the AB at the wheel at the time of the occurrence, now again away at sea in the Mediterranean, and that his motive for making the complaint was that Captain Williams had refused to pay him off in Bombay where he had had the opportunity to obtain a more attractive job as cook and baker on a