Disaster in the Loughor Estuary

Last Updated on Friday, 04 March 2011 12:25

1880 - The Loughor Estuary was the site of a terrible disaster.   A diary entry by Harriet Gibbs for 23 January 1868 reported that her son, George Gibbs, a Lloyds agent "was sent for to Rossily at 2 o'clock in the morning, a vessel ashore and all perished.   It was an awful gale and sea running mountains.   There was a heart rending scene to look at.   Eleven vessels all to pieces, having come out of Llanelly in the evening and the wind died away, the sea made and they all got ashore on Rossily sand and Llangenny, Brufton and the banks.   The shore was all strewed with wrecks.   Fifteen vessels came out and eleven can be seen the remains;  others are supposed to be gone and the crews of them, as they could,left their vessels and some of them got to the hulk.   How many poor fellows is gone, the account is not known.   This is the most distressing wreck that was ever heard of on this coast."

There is a debate about numbers but it seems that 19 colliers had been held up for several days by stormy weather at Llanelli.   On the afternoon of the 22 January conditions improved and they headed out to sea, some independently, some towed by tugs.   On the ebbing tide the ships hoped to reach the open water beyond Burry Holms before the flood set in.   But the wind died, the tide turned, and most of the fleet was caught by enormous waves and wild water.   Sixteen or seventeen of the ships were wrecked and there remains confusion about how many men lost their lives.   An inquest was held into the deaths of eighteen men at Llanmadoc but there was talk of more bodies buried eslewhere.   The named wrecks included The Water Lily, the Onward, the Huntress, the Jeune Celine, the Ann, the Brothers, the Roscius, the Amethyst and the Mary Fanny (wrecked at that time on Rhossili Bay but later rebuilt and finally sunk, 50 years later, by a U-boat).   The Elizabeth and Ann had managed to clear the bar and limped in to Tenby the following day, and the Eliza, undamaged, completed her original journey to St Malo.   (ref 004)