Crew of the Schooner Peggy Saved, 13th Oct 1891
Shortly after embarking from the Tyne, in darkness and laden with coal, the Peggy met an easterly gale off Seaham and turned back to the Tyne to seek shelter. On entering the river at 8.30pm in hurricane force winds, she struck the Black Middens rocks below the Brigade Watch House. The crew of 5 men were rescued by the TVLB, who were ready at the scene with breeches buoy equipment.
This rescue produced a notable hero, Coastguard George Edwin Hoar, who was awarded the Albert Medal, which was the precursor to the George Cross and instituted by Prince Albert in 1866. Hoar was also made the first recipient of the Tynemouth Medal, a gallantry honour initiated by a witness to the rescue and which is still awarded to lifesavers locally today.
The Rescue
After four of the crewmen were hauled ashore, one remaining young man, Frank Whittet, lay injured on the ship with a broken leg. He had twice fallen from the rigging while attempting to reach the breeches buoy and had been tied to the mast for his safety by the other crewmen.
Coastguard Hoar volunteered to be put in the breeches buoy and sent to the ship to recover Whittet. But this was not a simple task. Having got to the ship and assessed the situation, he signalled to be returned to shore. He explained that the rope was too high in the rigging and that he would go back and signal to have the rope slackened, so he could be lowered onto the deck and retrieve the man.
When Hoar returned to the ship, he lifted Whittet by wrapping him in his arms and legs and then dragged him across the deck to where they could disembark. He then signalled for the rope to be hauled back.
All this was achieved in horrendous conditions and pitch darkness. On the return, they were carried up in raging waves and then thrown down against the rocks as they were pulled over a distance of 150 yards. At any moment Whittet could’ve been torn away from Hoar’s grasp and drowned.
Thank you to Brigade Chairman and Historian, John Wright, for help in curating this information.
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No air-built castles, and no fairy bowers,
But thou, fair Tynemouth, and thy well-known towers,
Now bid th’ historic muse explore the maze
Of long past years, and tales of other days.
Pride of Northumbria!—from thy crowded port,
Where Europe’s brave commercial sons resort,
Her boasted mines send forth their sable stores,
To buy the varied wealth of distant shores.
Here the tall lighthouse, bold in spiral height,
Glads with its welcome beam the seaman’s sight.
Here, too, the firm redoubt, the rampart’s length,
The death-fraught cannon, and the bastion’s strength,
Hang frowning o’er the briny deep below,
To guard the coast against th’ invading foe.
Here health salubrious spreads her balmy wings,
And woos the sufferer to her saline springs;
And, here the antiquarian strays around
The ruin’d abbey, and its sacred ground.
Jane Harvey
From ‘The Castle of Tynemouth. A Tale’ (1806)
Photograph: Lee Stoneman
Photograph: Lee Stoneman
No air-built castles, and no fairy bowers,
But thou, fair Tynemouth, and thy well-known towers,
Now bid th’ historic muse explore the maze
Of long past years, and tales of other days.
Pride of Northumbria!—from thy crowded port,
Where Europe’s brave commercial sons resort,
Her boasted mines send forth their sable stores,
To buy the varied wealth of distant shores.
Here the tall lighthouse, bold in spiral height,
Glads with its welcome beam the seaman’s sight.
Here, too, the firm redoubt, the rampart’s length,
The death-fraught cannon, and the bastion’s strength,
Hang frowning o’er the briny deep below,
To guard the coast against th’ invading foe.
Here health salubrious spreads her balmy wings,
And woos the sufferer to her saline springs;
And, here the antiquarian strays around
The ruin’d abbey, and its sacred ground.
Jane Harvey
From ‘The Castle of Tynemouth. A Tale’ (1806)
