Case Study: The Sea Horse

The Seahorse transport, Captain James Gibbs, together with the Lord Melville, and Boadicea transports were shipwrecked on the south coast of Ireland; almost two hundred years ago, on January 30th 1816. There were probably at least 28 transports of troops on the seas, bound for Cork on that fateful night. The Lord Melville and the Seahorse sailed from Ramsgate together with the William Pitt while the transports Boadicea and Fox sailed from Dover. The Lord Melville was wrecked near the Old Head of Kinsale, County Cork, together with the Boadicea, while the Seahorse was wrecked about 80 miles up the coast in Tramore Bay, County Waterford. The Fox reached the safety of Waterford Harbour after a most dangerous passage on the following day.

Also, Thomas Redding, a sailor on board, mentioned in his reminiscences, dating from 1826, that ‘she was a ship of about 280 tons’. Apart from that, the tonnage is only mentioned in secondary sources, albeit in some contemporary ones. The Sea Horse was referred to as a vessel of 350 tons in the Waterford Mirror. While, John J McGregor, stated that it was a ship of 350 tons ‘burthen’. Whereas the letters and interviews in concurrent newspapers are primary sources, the actual reportage in itself is not, unless the writer was an eyewitness. ‘The ship’s burden’ was the builder's old measurement used in England from the mid seventeenth century to calculate the cargo capacity of a ship. It estimated the tonnage of a ship based on its length and maximum beam and was expressed in ‘tons

The register is the annual list of merchant ships, compiled by ship-owners and underwriters. Not all ships were surveyed and included, for instance, many ships sailing between British ports such as the colliers were often omitted from the early registers. There are two separate registers of ships published by Lloyd's from 1800 due to a disagreement between the ship owners and underwriters concerning a change in the grading system used to rate ships. Some vessels were included in only one publication. The Sea Horse transport of London is registered in both sets of books; in 1816, she is stated to be a 295 ton vessel, captained by a J Mackay. However, it must be noted that the registers contain many errors, often concerning tonnage, but also relating to irregular updating, where changes of masters and ownership were not altered for some years after the event and even extending to include shipwrecked vessels years after their demise. For example, The Charlotte transport, under the command of James Seaton, made port in Waterford on 3 February 1816. Although, the entry for the ship in both the 1816 registers, records the master as N. Pocock and it is not until the 1818 Register that the entry is updated and Seaton’s name is