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In February 2024, winter storms stripped layers of sand from an Orkney beach, revealing the remains of a previously unknown shipwreck that lay preserved in the intertidal zone off the island of Sanday. Initially spotted by a local schoolboy, the massive timbers were reported to the Orkney Islands Council’s archaeology team, who in turn informed Historic Environment Scotland and Wessex Archaeology. What followed was a race against time and tide to document and recover the exposed remains before they were lost to another episode of severe weather – and a remarkable piece of archaeological detective work involving the local community.
Close inspection of the timbers that were lying upside-down at Sand o’Erraby revealed that they had come from the central section of the very lowest part of a ship’s hull. Although only a small part of this vessel had survived, it still represented an impressive portion, measuring 10m by 4.5m and made up of around 60 oak timbers that together weighed 10-12 tonnes. Dismantling and recovering the wreck would be no mean feat, Ben Saunders, Senior Marine Archaeologist at Wessex Archaeology, commented, but it was achieved with the help of local farmers who, after the remains had been documented in detail, brought tractors and trailers to the site to assist their recovery.
‘This was a rare opportunity to take a wreck apart,’ Ben said. ‘They are most commonly found submerged in the sea, and you tend to leave them underwater as that is the safest place for them. Here, though, the wreck was exposed and vulnerable. February is very much storm season in Orkney, and just one day after the timbers had been recovered, another storm came through that would have scattered them.’
Once the timbers had been rescued from the beach, a grant from Historic Environment Scotland allowed Dr Coralie Mills of Dendrochronicle to carry out tree-ring analysis of 19 samples taken from across the wreck. Climatic variations cause visible variations in tree-ring sizes that can be compared to established regional chronologies. By using these data, Coralie established that the ship had used wood that grew a long way from Orkney, in the south and south-west of England. The timbers had not all come from the same forest, however, but represented a range of different sources across this region, perhaps reflecting both the vessel’s original construction and subsequent repairs.
‘These insights really helped to narrow down potential candidates for the wreck’s identity,’ Ben said. ‘We were lucky – if the timbers had come from northern England, the Baltic, or Norway, areas that had many more ships sailing past Orkney, we would have had many more possible identities to investigate. Southern-made ships, though, tended to sail out through the Channel rather than towards Orkney.’
Dendrochronological analysis was able to produce five definite felling dates for some of the timbers, too, and broader ranges for others. The earliest timber to be identified came from a tree that had been felled in the spring of 1748, while the latest had been cut down in the spring of 1762 (this fairly wide range may again reflect later repairs). Armed with this information, the search was on to see if a name could be put to the anonymous 18th-century vessel.
Thar she blows
Led and trained by Wessex Archaeology, a team of 20 local volunteers, including members of Sanday Heritage Group and Orkney Archaeology Society, set to work scouring local and national records and archives for more clues. Helpfully, some 250 wrecks had already been documented around Sanday thanks to the efforts of Alan Braby in the 1990s. This offered an excellent starting point, to which the team were able to add new details gleaned from other sources including the Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, a list of seagoing merchant vessels (together with useful details of their hulls and fittings) dating back to 1764. By comparing archival information with archaeological evidence that offered clues to the ship’s construction methods, materials, and likely size, they were able to narrow down the possible options to a single candidate: a London-based whaling vessel called the Earl of Chatham.
Establishing this identity immediately placed the ship in a fascinating social context. Whale oil, derived from blubber, was a hugely important commodity during the 18th century. As well as being a key ingredient in the production of woollen textiles, it literally fuelled technological innovations like the lamps and streetlights that transformed people’s living conditions, and it was also in great demand as a lubricant for the machinery on which an increasingly industrialised Britain relied. Investments in whaling ships like the Earl of Chatham could prove highly lucrative, and written sources attest that the vessel enjoyed commercial success for a number of years.
Under the leadership of William Brown, an experienced whaler, the Earl of Chatham completed four successful seasons in the Arctic between 1784 and 1787, hunting Greenland right whales (also known as bowhead whales). From these records we also know that its crew was able to bring back 19 whales, equivalent to over 350 tonnes of blubber. This haul would have returned a respectable profit, as the government of the day offered upwards of 40 shillings per ton of whale oil produced. In 1788, however, the ship embarked on its first voyage under a new master, Captain Paterson – and this journey would prove to be the Earl of Chatham’s last.
A newspaper clipping from the 29 April 1788 edition of the Aberdeen Journal records what happened next, describing how the Earl of Chatham was ‘totally wrecked’ off Sanday, which the newspaper calls ‘the cradle of shipwrecks in Scotland’. The waters around Sanday were notoriously dangerous, swallowing numerous vessels – from Danish and Swedish East Indiamen, Dutch warships, and emigrant ships travelling from Germany to America, to dozens of smaller trading vessels – while they tried to cross the Fair Isle gap that divides the North Sea from the North Atlantic.
The frequency of these losses also meant, however, that the residents of Sanday were well-accustomed to helping stranded crewmen and passengers who washed up on their beaches. The island soon gained a reputation not just as a hazard, but as a hospitable place to sailors in need. Centuries later, this community spirit was reflected, too, in the way that the island’s modern residents sprang into action to help recover the wreck’s timbers, Ben noted. Fortunately, the Earl of Chatham’s story has a happy ending: the Aberdeen Journal notes that all 56 men on board were saved and (presumably after enjoying Sanday’s famed hospitality) were able to return home from Orkney the following month.
Distinguished service
The team had uncovered an undeniably dramatic story, but this was not the full extent of the Sanday wreck’s adventures. Further research at the National Archives and the National Maritime Museum revealed that the ship had not begun its career as a whaler. Its previous life had been even more eventful, serving as HMS Hind, a sixth-rate, 24-gun frigate that had seen years of active service with the Royal Navy.
Built in Chichester, West Sussex, in 1749, HMS Hind had travelled the globe defending Britain’s colonial interests, beginning at the Jamaica Station in the Caribbean before travelling to North America to support the sieges of Louisbourg and Quebec in 1758-1759 during the Seven Years War. After a spell in the Irish Sea as a guard ship, in the late 1770s and early 1780s it then served as a convoy escort during the American Revolutionary War. While carrying out their research, the team also learned that the ship’s loss in 1788 had not been its first visit to Orcadian waters – HMS Hind is recorded as having escorted ships through this area during the 1760s.
The frequency of these losses meant that Sanday soon gained a reputation not just as a hazard, but as a hospitable place to sailors in need.
When the American conflict came to an end, HMS Hind was deemed surplus to requirements, and in 1784 the vessel was sold to a London shipowner and merchant called Theophilus Pritzler. Its sale was one of many during this period, Ben said; at the end of a long war, the Royal Navy was keen to recoup some of its costs, selling off many vessels that were no longer needed in peacetime.
Such strongly built warships were well suited to challenging conditions like those in the Arctic, and naval vessels were eagerly snapped up by commercially minded individuals in London, Hull, and Whitby. After a swift refit, they were sent out to Greenland to begin a new life hunting marine mammals. In a neat parallel, Ben added, during times of war the crews of whaling ships were in great demand by the Royal Navy, who viewed them as particularly skilled mariners.
‘This was a very lucky ship,’ Ben said. ‘It survived a long naval career, success as a whaler, and even when it was finally wrecked it suffered no loss of life. The fact that a section of its timbers was able to survive for 250 years within the intertidal zone is also pretty lucky – and above all, we were lucky to have such a helpful local community, with such a strong interest in their heritage, who were happy to help recover the wreck and research its origins.’
Thanks to a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, secured by the Orkney Islands Council, the timbers can now be seen in a stabilisation tank outside Sanday Heritage Centre, with further information about the wreck displayed inside the building.
Another aspect of the project’s legacy, however, may prove even more important. With the Earl of Chatham/HMS Hind’s past brought to light once more, and its future assured, it is hoped that this project will help tackle issues facing archaeology in the present. As Ben said: ‘This work has built up a huge body of information and interest in maritime archaeology in Sanday. This kind of local engagement is so important as, with the increase in storms and severe weather that we are now seeing, many more wrecks may be uncovered. The Sanday community now has the capacity and experience to help respond to that.’
Further information: To learn more about the recovery of the wreck’s timbers, and the research that helped to establish its long-lost identity, see http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/250-year-old-sanday-wreck-identified.
All images: Wessex Archaeology, unless otherwise stated
