Every Nation

(click here to hear it read by Pauline Eades)

Shipwrecked! At nine in the morning of 4th June 1853 the sailing vessel Meridian left England from Gravesend Dock for Sydney, Australia. Among the 105 people on board was Rev James Voller, erstwhile pastor of Zion Chapel, Princes End, Tipton. With him was his wife and three children. The ship was barely a year old, was well-built and fast for her size (579 tons). She was described in one account as ‘over-masted’, that is, capable of maintaining sail appropriate to a much larger vessel. At the time the route to Australia was lucrative and the Meridian carried plenty of cargo (fetching over £4 per ton). The Meridian was commanded by an experienced navigator, Captain Richard Hernaman, described by Mr Voller as ‘a captain whose talents and manners admirably fitted him for his position’. There is evidence that the vessel was under-crewed. One account claimed that in addition to the captain and three mates only ten of the 23 crew could be considered as able-seamen and up to the job. This deficiency was to prove significant as matters later transpired.

The first few weeks were uneventful and probably enjoyable for the passengers who were looking forward to a new life in the colonies. Mr Voller and his family were among the 26 cabin passengers, these included Alfred Lutwyche – a barrister – who was later to publish an account of the voyage. In addition, there were 84 steerage passengers and, all told, there were 41 children under 16 on the voyage.

Lutwyche records: ‘We were … favoured with one of the finest passages ever that was made, out-sailing everything but a Spanish man-of-war schooner, till we reached the 20th degree of latitude. After that we met with baffling winds, calms, and squalls, and soon afterwards a smart gale …’

Battling against a fierce storm, the Meridian headed towards two of the remotest islands in the Indian Ocean, St Paul and Amsterdam Island. The exact circumstances are less than clear but it appears that the combination of a navigational error and lack of an adequate watch caused the vessel to hit the rocks outlying Amsterdam Island. It was just before 7:00pm on Wednesday 24th August. Most of the passengers had retired to bed and were unprepared for the sudden disaster. Voller’s later recollection was that ‘the whole ship seemed to quiver like a leaf in the wind and it literally trembled from stem to stern … accompanied by a fearful crashing noise, as if the ship were in the jaws of some giant monster …’

Captain Hernaman rushed onto the quarter deck to size the wheel but was swept overboard by a huge wave that swept over the imperilled vessel. He was not seen again. In his account Mr Voller reveals his own thoughts at this crucial point: ‘I gave up myself and family for lost … We resigned ourselves to our fate, with a calmness which I can only trace to His mercies who guides our souls in all seasons of peril.’

However, his hopes rose somewhat as the broken ship settled on the rocks. By this point the sea was pouring into the cabins so the passengers were in severe danger. James Voller managed to rescue the captain’s wife from her cabin but in doing so almost lost one of his own children: ‘the cabin was half filled with water, and the furniture tossed about and broken. I felt under the bed to find my little girl, dreading almost to feel what I expected to find her lifeless and mangled body – … by what seemed to be a special mercy, however, she was entirely unhurt.’

The terrified passengers gathered on the poop deck with the vessel breaking apart under them. Voller records that may people were praying for deliverance: ‘some who had probably never prayed before, and whom I had but too often heard cursing and swearing’ – he preached to them whilst the storm continued to rage around them. It is amazing that all the passengers survived this part of the ordeal and that none were drowned as tons of water entered the vessel. One of the mates – an ancient mariner, claimed never to have experienced such a sea. As the ship broke up it became imperative to get ashore. But how? There was no obvious means of escaping the sea that roared about them.

Stranded! It was a broken mast provided the means of escape, forming a perilous bridge to the narrow and rocky beach. Mrs Voller was washed off the mast three times as she crossed – and many others had a similar experience – yet, everyone got ashore to face another trial.

Amsterdam Island is a rocky outcrop. On one side is a natural harbour but the Meridian had foundered on other side – the west, where a cliff drops sheer into the sea. The people were poorly clad – many in just their night clothes and barefoot. They were drenched and bitterly cold and in severe peril of their lives through exposure as they perched on the rocks beneath a sheer cliff. Voller records: ‘The moon, which had just made its appearance, gave sufficient light to expose the dangers and terror of the place. Before us the cliffs rose like a perpendicular wall, to the height of at least two hundred feet while at their base, the margin between the rocks and the sea was very narrow, and it was my thought and that of others that, if the weather did not subside,we must soon be washed away.’

He and he half-naked family spent the first night on a rock their only shelter an umbrella that had been washed off the ship! Soon other goods were washed ashore (remember the ship carried considerable cargo). Both Voller and Lutwyche record this as a literal life-saver – particularly the discovery among the first salvage of bales of woollen clothing. Some were soon wearing as many as six woollen shirts! Some food was also recovered together with barrels of drink. Referring to the later drunkenness of the sailors Voller says: ‘We had a little port wine, and much, far too much gin, brandy, and rum, as the sequel proved.’

And this was not the only problem experienced with some of the crew who, as daylight came, returned to the wreck to ransack the goods of the passengers left on the wreck. By and large, the passengers were forced to fend for themselves and spent two desperate days clinging to the rocks and sheltered by makeshift tents. Clearly, they could not survive long in this condition. Their escape was due to the initiative of a London whitesmith who discovered a way up the cliff. With help from the crew who literally ‘knew their ropes’ everyone, including the weakest, were moved to higher and safer ground. According to Voller this took a day and a half. He records their first meal – provided by an odd circumstance. The sailors who made the first ascent (and then moved off leaving others to fend for themselves) had burnt the long grass, possibly to make walking easier. As a result birds had suffocated and were soon turned into soup: ‘It was but a poor refreshment: we had no salt to season it with, … we had no spoons or knives and forks to assist us at our meal, but still we found it very delicious. It was the first meal, if meal it could be called, we had had for days. At night we had again to lie down on the grass, cold and exposed to rain and tempests.’

And so they remained for several days not knowing what to do for best. By the Monday the mood of desperation seems to have been shared by Voller himself: ‘Famine was fast settling down upon us, and a mute despair had seemingly taken possession of us.’ And then an amazing turn of events: ‘ … a wild cry was raised – ‘a ship, a ship’ and again a woman’s scream shrieked out the words ‘a ship!’ The effect produced is entirely indescribable. She who raised the cry, with wild and eager gestures, seemed to be absolutely fanatic, and for a moment all seemed to believe she was so. There she stood, surrounded by five or six children, her hands extended towards the coming vessel, her eyes glaring eagerly on it, and repeating her cries.

The red flannel shirts – lifesavers in one sense – were now used as lifesavers in another. Frantic waving and shouting broke out. Voller readily conveys the excitement: ‘Gradually the ship came down upon us, and at length we saw her answering our signals and sending up her own colours, as the Monmouth, whaler. The feelings which then prevailed no lips could utter, but the hope thus implanted was doomed to a long deferment. The ship suddenly put off from the island, and gradually, as she had come up, she faded out of sight.’

Rescued! Days passed. Voller records the returning despair: ‘Our hopes grew fainter and weaker hour by hour, and we were almost despairing, when suddenly we perceived a boat, well-manned, coming round close under the island. It appeared that the ship had made the inland at another point, and the captain, having determined to preserve us, had sent a boat round the island to us.’ They were about to face a new challenge.

The ship was an American whaler, the Monmouth, in the charge of Captain Ludlow. Not only did he know the deserted island but he was determined to rescue everyone who was stranded there – at a considerable financial sacrifice to himself and to his crew since he would be suspending normal operations at the height of the whaling season. The signals from the boat encouraged the bedraggled company to strike out across the island so that a rescue could be effected. However, they totally underestimated the difficulty of the trek ahead of them. It proved particularly arduous for those, like the Vollers, with young children: ‘I had … three children, and only two people to carry them. I had one slung to my back, and my wife had one to hers; and I asked one of the sailors, a strong able-bodied man, to carry my third for me, but he refused, saying that those who had children must carry them themselves. We had, therefore, to drag the child after us as we best could.’

They struggled on for two days and nights in miserable conditions with just a little herring and milk for the children. The terrain was difficult and progress was slow and their spirits low. Even so, meeting other stragglers ‘we joined with them in singing Praise God, from whom all blessings flow – for even then we felt we had much to be thankful for to Him. We then journeyed onward again, and the day wore away, the night came on, and we were just preparing to halt for the night, when we were startled by the sight of a man coming toward us.’

He had been sent from the whaler to encourage the stragglers to keep going. By this point the Vollers were also looking after Captains Hernaman’s young daughter who in the darkness fell down a 20 foot chasm. She was retrieved unharmed and they stopped for another night: ‘Although the night was dreadfully wet, we still slept soundly, and we had to rise next morning early, intending to start without any refreshment at all, our stock being indeed well night spent. I had, however, left about half a pint of nuts, a few almonds and raisins, and about half a red herring. Our bread was all gone. With this provision we had to go through a long day’s march, but I soon found that if we were to proceed at all we must halt, and take our last bit of food. Nothing now was left to us but water and a little fine grass which we found growing, which was sweet, and the moisture from which was refreshing.’

Despite getting lost they recovered their bearing and as the sun set they spotted the smoke of fires lit by the parties ahead of them. They feasted that night on raw cabbage – growing on the island due to the generosity of earlier castaways. However, they were seriously weak. You can hear the despair in Voller’s tone: ‘On the Monday morning, however, we were all worn out, and if assistance had not come, if there had been 10,000 cabbages left we should not have had strength to have plucked them. Our water, of which we had at first a plentiful supply, was now failing, as there was no spring, and for the day past we had drunk what was in reality, mud to relieve the unquenchable thirst.’

Suddenly, his tone changes: ‘Then in our last extremity the ship appeared. She came upon the island with a favourable wind, and the sea calm as glass. The speck approached, the white sails expanded, the boat was lowered, and in a short time the captain himself appeared in our camp. Oh, what a scene ensued, women, children, in the very agony of unexpected succour, sunk on their knees to clasp his hands and legs, while he, good man, with a soul as large as any that have in an American body, with tears rolling down his cheeks and outstretched hands to us, bade us to be of good cheer and welcome to all he had.’

Speed was now of the essence. Whilst the winds were favourable the rescue must be effected without further delay – but they were short of two passengers. But Captain Ludlow had determined to save all, and when asked what he intended to do,’ Do,’ replied he, ‘ while there is a pound of bread on board my ship I will not leave this island till I have all onboard. Why, to leave one behind would be to spoil the whole affair.’

Arrived!

The eventual safe arrival in Australia is another story. You can read the extant record as found in the Sydney Morning Herald here. Look for the article “The Wreck of the Meridian”- it’s a fascinating account

James Voller went on to exercise a useful ministry in Australia where he is regarded a something of a Baptist pioneer in both New South Wales and in Queensland. You can find out more about him from David Parker, an Australian church historian.