The Isles of Scilly

by Jessie Mothersole

SCILLONIANS revel in a wreck, just as the soldier loves a battle and the fireman loves a fire. But theirs is a happier case than the soldier’s, for their duty calls them to save life instead of to destroy it.

I remember hearing of a girl near the Land’s End who had been describing a wreck and how she had taken the little babies from the arms of the rescuing seamen, and carried them up the shore, two at a time, to where they could be warmed and cared for. “A wreck is lovely,” said she; “I’d go miles to see one. Of course I’m very sorry for the poor people, but oh, I do love to be there when there’s a wreck!”

Here spake a true daughter of the sea, and the spirit that inspired her is the same that animates the brave fellows who man our life-boats. And it is the spirit of the Scillonians. The love of wrecks is in their island blood. Centuries of wrestling with the sea, and wresting from it the treasures it had stolen or was threatening to steal, have made this a part of their very nature. And how much better that it should be so; that the cry of “A wreck!” instead of inspiring them with horror and paralysing their efforts, should fill them with a kind of fearful joy, and nerve them to work wonders in saving life and property.

There is no need to say that to save human life is always their first consideration. If efforts in this direction are unsuccessful or only partially successful, a gloom falls over the islands, and the salvage-seeking loses much of its zest; but when all lives are saved the joy is unmixed, and no pity is wasted on the insurance companies, who are usually the chief sufferers.

There may or there may not be any truth in the stories that long years ago Scillonians used to show their love of wrecks by doing their best to cause them. Nowadays it is certainly true that they make every effort to prevent one when they get the chance. But it too often happens that the vessel is on the rocks before there is any consciousness of danger or signalling for help.

Now that the great sea-lights encircle the islands, and warn all vessels away from the danger-zone, it is seldom that any wrecks occur except during a continued fog. Fog was the cause of the great disaster in 1707, in which Sir Cloudesley Shovel lost his life, when four ships of the British fleet were wrecked on the western rocks. Fog, again, occasioned the loss of the “Schiller,” the German mail-steamer that struck on the Retarrier Ledges in 1875, and went down, with a death-roll of three hundred and ten. There are many who remember the terrible gloom that hung over the islands at that time, and the making of that sad array of nameless graves in the little burial-ground of Old Church.

OLD CHURCH, ST. MARY’S

And it was fog that caused the wreck of the “Minnehaha,” in April, 1910, when that great Atlantic liner, 600 feet long, and drawing six fathoms of water—the largest vessel that has ever been wrecked at Scilly—struck upon the Scilly rock. She was bound from New York to London, and for three days it had been quite impossible to take observations on account of fog. The look-out was searching eagerly for the “Bishop” light when suddenly rocks loomed up close to the vessel and the next moment she struck. The passengers, awakened by the shock, rushed on deck in great alarm, but being reassured by the captain, they went below again to dress. In a very short time boats arrived from Bryher, and the passengers, who were already in the ship’s boats, were safely piloted to that island, where they were treated with all possible kindness. Provisions ran short, but fresh supplies were fetched from the ship. So little inconvenience did the passengers suffer that some of them declared that the nicest way of arriving in England was to be wrecked! They could not speak highly enough of the way in which they were treated by every one—and of the care that was taken, not only of themselves but of their personal belongings, many of which had been left lying about in their cabins.

This was just the right kind of wreck, from the Scillonian point of view, for not a single life was lost, and there was a tremendous amount of salvage-work to be done in the weeks that followed. For further details I cannot do better than quote some letters I received from a friend who was there all the time.