Welcome to the Angell Family Website.









Padstow Lifeboat disaster 11th April 1900.

David Grubb, cox'n of the lifeboat James Stevens.

On the night of April 11th, 1900, one of the worst disasters in life-boat history took place at Padstow, North Cornwall.

 

That evening, Edward Kane, sailor and life-boatman was sitting in his little kitchen near the quayside at Padstow, cobbling a pair of shoes belonging to one of his children. No interior scene in the West Country could have been more homely and tranquil - the mellow lamplight, the shining crockery the friendly shadows, and the father of the family bent over a familiar task.

Outside, the wind blew gustily, but not at gale force. Inside the quiet was broken only by the hammer blows, until suddenly the door was flung open, and an excited voice cried. "Edward, the rockets have gone off!" Without a word, Kane dropped the hammer and shoe, seized his coat and hat, and rushed out to join his comrades who were hurrying to Hawker's Cove to take their places in the two lifeboats.













The crew of the James Stevens Lifeboat.

An hour or two later Edward Kane and others were struggling for dear life in the wide expanse of water at the harbour entrance. Kane's was the first body found in the grey light of early morning under the cliffs of Hell Bay. Not far away was Padstow's first steam life-boat, 'James Stevens' -pride of the R.N.L.I. fleet. She had been driven into a cave and looked like nothing so much as an enormous tin can - badly battered. Along the same reef of rocks lay two other victims of the storm. Padstow's rowing lifeboat, the 'Arab?, and the Lowestoft trawler 'Peace and Plenty', which the two lifeboats had gallantly and vainly tried to reach before she was driven on the rocks.

Three of the trawler's crew of eight had been drowned. The other five, sadly mauled. had been rescued by the rocket life-saving apparatus at Trebetherick. of the steam lifeboat's crew of eleven. only three had reached the shore alive.











The survivors of the James Stevens Lifteboat

Thanks largely to the superb skill of the coxswain, Samuel Brown, the rowing lifeboat had been run into a small creek, and all her crew had swarmed over the rocks to safety. During their exhausting fight to reach the trawler a huge sea had broken over the 'Arab' and washed eight of the men, with their oars, overboard. The oars were lost but the men miraculously struggled back to their places with only three oars intact.

It was a question now, not of reaching the trawler, but of averting disaster to their own boat and themselves. When the boat struck the jagged shoulder of the reef, only one oar was unbroken. The rudder was smashed to matchwood; the boat's side was stove in. It was the end of the 'Arab'.

Earlier on, the "Arab" had set off to intercept the distressed trawler which was being swept over the Doom Bar, by a direct thrust through a channel at the back of the bar. "James Steven's", the other lifeboat had steamed out to sea and was going to reach the trawler from that direction. The ground sea had never been worse, and more than once people on shore held their breath as the lifeboat's masthead light was lost to view in the trough of a great wave. Coxswain Grubb was handling the boat superbly. Held brought her safely round and was heading for the trawler and the 'Arab? when a big breaker caught 'James Stevens' on the quarter. She turned a complete somersault, pitching all but her engine-room crew into the water. Only three of them reached shore alive. One of these told me long after-wards that as he was struggling in the waves he heard the voice of only one of his comrades. It was Coxswain Grubb - a despairing cry - "Oh Jimmy, Jimmy!. Jimmy was his son. Both were drowned.











The crew of the the Arab Lifeboat

Well, that's the story - eleven lives lost. two lifeboats and a trawler. For many a day afterwards Padstow was a town of sorrow. But the lifeboat work has gone on, as it had for 80 years before this April disaster. Soon there were three new lifeboats at the Padstow station, and never have ships in distress along that coast signalled in vain for assistance. And they never will.