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Description

The schooner ELIZA AND JANE was built at Traethbychan, Merioneth, in 1839, and was one of the shipping losses during the Royal Charter Gale, 25-26 October 1859. Its port of Caernarvon Shipping Register entry provides a technical description:

Official number 10456. 1 deck, 2 masts, schooner rigged, carvel build, round stern, framework wood. Length from the forepart of the Stem under the bowsprit to the aft side of the Stern Post 52.3ft; main breadth to outside of plank 18.2ft; Depth in hold from Tonnage Deck to Ceiling at midships is 9ft. Tonnage under deck 54.11; Gross tonnage 54.11.

If you pass your mouse over this image, you'lll find more clues to the schooner's working life and the Welsh people who were associated with it. For example, if you look at the section listing the Names, Residences and Occupations of owners, you'll find the master - David Griffith of Porthmadoc, master mariner, who also owned 46 shares.

In the days after the Royal Charter Gale, the Welshman newspaper reported that wreckage evidently from a Porthmadoc vessel was washed ashore at Aberporth. Only the letter 'A'; was decipherable from name board. More wreckage was brought into Cardigan and this eventually helped to identify the loss as the ELIZA AND JANE. The schooner's Register entry is closed with the annotation 'Vessel lost near Cardigan 25 October 1859 with papers and crew'.

Sources include:
Lloyds Register of British and Foreign Shipping, 1 July 1859 - 30 June 1869, 316 in E
Port of Caernarvon Shipping Register 1850-1859, Gwynedd Archive Service XSR/16, folio 56
Troughton, W, 2006, Ceredigion Shipwrecks, pg43
The Welshman, 28 Oct 1859, pg3, col 5 (Welsh Newspapers Online)


One of the schooner's owners was Owen Richards of Bangor, victualler. What is a victualler? How many other people might be said to have been in similar trade at Bangor as listed in 'Slater's Directory of Glouscestershire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Shropshire & Wales, 1868'?
Follow this link to Historical Trade Directories currently online:

http://leicester.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16445coll4

Where is the nameboard traditionally placed on a ship?

Use the historic Ordnance Survey maps provided by the People's Collection Wales to locate where the ELIZA AND JANE is likely to have been built.

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