The Golden Wreck: The Tragedy of the "Royal Charter"

by Alexander McKee

The effects of the hurricane of October 1859 were to shock the nation. 133 ships were sunk, 90 were badly damaged and almost 800 people lost their lives. More than half of those that perished were on one ship - The Royal Charter. After two months at sea voyaging more than 12,000 miles from the Australian goldfields, she was just hours away from her home port of Liverpool, when she was wrecked on the savage rocks of Moelfre, Anglesey. Many of her passengers were returning home with the fruits of their labours - GOLD! The worst shipwreck in Welsh history, this is the story of the Royal Charter...and her gold.

Genres: Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Alexander McKee was no "yes-man", he dared to criticise many military, political, economic, media and academic icons and he always kept an open mind. He was fanatical about making his works as accurate as he possibly could. He was ever alert to plain-wrong, biased, distorted or sloppy reports and hidden agendas; wickedly delighting (the more so as a self-educated man) in criticising and exposing assertions that did not fit the evidence. Among his targets were those who tended to emphasise media-image-managment, the accumulation of personal wealth and career progression over both personal integrity and respect for other people's contributions. He gleefully highlighted all the many lapses of integrity that he found. Equally, many established experts, often highly educated people and indeed experts regarding the theoretical aspects of their disciplines, but whom he considered scandalously remiss when they complacently failed to complement such theoretical understanding with practical knowledge as a way to test their theories empirically. Consequently, some of them came in for some harsh criticism on occasion. One gets the impression from his work that some of them appeared reluctant to venture outside the academy at all; out into the "real world": let alone to mix with ordinary people. Implicitly, he urged them to converse with the fishermen, the builders, the soldiers, the doctors, the nurses, the shipwrights and the firemen to glean practical understanding from these practical people, who had to be willing and able to carry out the ultimate tests on their theories to provide demonstably working solutions in order to fulfill their typical working roles. Then he urges such experts in the theory to re-test their theories against the empirically derived knowledge gleaned from their excursions among the working classes, and to do so conjunction with their own senses, out in the "real world": rather than limiting themselves and risking their reputations on the results of thought experiments alone. He dug deep into eye-witness testimonies and spent countless hours searching libraries and museums for the documentary evidence surrounding each his-story. One may find this slightly comical that viewed against the background of established caricaturisations, when the elevated "pillars of wisdom", went "building castles in the air" around about the "ivory towers" and he found strong contradictory "real world" evidence he often lambasted them mercilessly, although it does sometimes seem to be overdone. In contrast, he made the point that some of the sloppy documentary historical works such as that of Sir Robert Davis, that temporarily led his own research astray (and much to his annoyance caused him to repeat untruths in public lectures) while causing the propagation of serious errors until he uncovered them, were nevertheless probably a consequence of the pressures of work, owing to the high quality of the rest of the publication.

Reviews

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My great-great-great grandfather, Manus Boyle, died in the shipwreck of the Royal Charter. I had to read this book as it describes the final voyage of the Royal Charter, it's wreck, and the rescue efforts. It wasn't a gripping read, but it was special to me. It was a tragedy that celebrates it's 150th anniversary this year

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

My interest in the wreck of the Royal Charter was piqued when visiting Anglesey on holiday and finding some information about it at the Kinmel Pub in the village. The book, written in 1961 is as factual account as is possible about the ship and the event that led to it's wrecking less than 100 yds off the shores on Anglesey. An excellent account of an event I knew nothing about. Worth a read for lovers of non-fiction whether you have an interest in maritime history or not.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting story, and I liked that it went into some detail about the aftermath of the wreck. The descriptions rarely explain any of the ship-related jargon, so I'd mostly recommend it for those who've already read some nautical nonfiction.

[Ian Gibbons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking story of 400 plus people who lost there lives within sight of home.No women or children survived

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awkwardly written with lots of nautical terms that are not easy to follow. However the story is compelling and makes it overall a worthy read.