THE Friends of The Museum of Somerset (FOTMOS) were very pleased to welcome back to its March Zoom meeting Philip Browne, who gave a ‘prequel’ to the fascinating talk he had given in 2020 about the dramatic shipwreck of the Halsewell East Indiaman.

Philip began this talk by taking the Friends on a virtual tour of the ship so that we could understand what it was like to travel on such a ship.

It had set off from Gravesend on New Year’s Day 1786, heading for Calcutta and Madras, a voyage that should have taken six months, but ended in tragedy after only six days.

Initially they were becalmed, then a snowstorm started which became a very violent storm.

By the time a leak was discovered, there was five feet of water in the hold. Pumping had no effect, the water just kept flooding in.

In order to reduce the weight of the ship, the Captain ordered that the mizzen mast (the smallest of the three) should be cut away, but this made no difference, and so the main mast had to go as well.

Although the wind had dropped, the ship was now rolling violently, and the remaining foremast was lost overboard.

The crew was able to cobble together a jury mast and the ship turned back to try to reach Weymouth, but the storm returned and blew them onto the rocks below a cliff on the Isle of Purbeck.
Out of over 240 crew and passengers, only 74 survived.

Philip showed us some images of the objects recovered from the wreck over the years, some of which are held by the Dorchester Museum. The wreck remains where it sank to this day.

The next on-line meeting of the Friends of the Museum of Somerset will be at 7.30 pm on Tuesday, April 19 when Mary Chisholm will talk about Historic Graffiti at Montacute.

Guests will be welcome; for details, please email contact@fotmos.org.uk