Mumbles is a village at one end of Swansea Bay, popular with locals and tourists who are drawn to the walks along the coast, the views from the top of the hill, its proximity to the Gower Peninsula and its ice-cream shops. It’s where my own family are from, and the location for many a happy holiday in my childhood. Beyond the main shops, in the direction of Caswell and Langland Bays, is Mumbles Pier, and behind it Mumbles Lighthouse.

In the late 19th century, the lighthouse was home to the Ace family. Abraham Ace was the lighthouse keeper, watching out over the bay towards Swansea and outwards to the wider sea. Abraham’s family was from the Penrice area of Glamorganshire, but he had been born in Devonport around 1820, and had started his career as a mariner. In 1840, he married Margaret McLean in her native Glasgow, but by 1841 the couple was living with Abraham’s parents; his father, Abraham Senior, was the Mumbles Lighthouse keeper at that time. Abraham and Margaret were living in Redruth, an industrial town in Cornwall, by the mid 1840s, when their eldest daughter Elizabeth was born, but by 1849 they had returned to Mumbles, where Abraham took over the lighthouse keeper duties from his now widowed father. Abraham Sr continued to live there, however, until he died in 1885.

It was at the lighthouse where the Ace children – Elizabeth, John, Sarah, Margaret, Jane and Jessie – would grow up, looking out onto the hazardous rocks and the grey expanse of the sea beyond. Their friendships and networks were from the immediate area, and despite the isolation of their home, they were a vital part of the community. Many of those they knew were the fishermen who made up a sizeable proportion of the local population. Whole families would go into fishing, setting out each day to catch a haul that could then be sold on. The living could be precarious, but it was what generations of local families knew. Second daughter Sarah Ace would marry a fisherman in 1872, with her husband Robert often away on the sea while she looked after their house and three children.

By 1881, another generation of the Ace family was watching over the lighthouse. Although Abraham, now aged 60 and widowed earlier in the year, was still ostensibly in charge, his son, another Abraham, had joined him as assistant lighthouse keeper. This third Abraham had moved in with his own family – a wife and two sons, company for Jessie Ace, the youngest daughter and the only one still living at home. Her other sisters had married, although all were still living in the Swansea area, so Jessie still had close and regular contact with them. Her sister Margaret had married a Royal Army gunner, Charles Wright, in 1874, but often came to see her family up at the lighthouse after her marriage.

Jessie and Margaret were undoubtedly strong and courageous women. They had grown up living in this lighthouse on the rocks, and were used to helping their father out. They had also spent time looking out as the local lifeboat crews went out to rescue ships’ crews caught up on the rocks or in the storms that plagued the seas. In 1883, Jessie in particular nearly lost her life when she saw trouble outside and decided to go and help.

It was 27 January 1883; Jessie was 22 years old, and Margaret 28. The weather was wintry and stormy. It was not for nothing that the press regarded the rocky coast round Mumbles as a graveyard of ships and sailors, for a combination of swelling sea and invisible rocks under the water could be dangerous. On this day, a German ship, the Admiral Prinz Adalbert, was travelling to the port at Swansea with a heavy cargo of pitch. The boat had sailed from Rochefort under the command of Captain Leabauer, a native of Danzig (now Gdańsk), and his crew of 16. At around 9am, the cargo ship went ashore on the rocks by Mumbles Lighthouse as a storm raged overhead. The crew were in danger of going down with the ship or drowning if they tried to swim to shore in the horrific conditions.

As was usual in such cases, the local lifeboat crew were called out. Many of the lifeboatmen were also local fishermen, drawn from extended families around Mumbles and Oystermouth. On this day, 11 men went out in the wooden lifeboat, the Wolverhampton, with four members of the Jenkins family on board – a father and his three sons. Also on the boat was William McNamara, who had married one of the Jenkins sisters, so was part of their family as well. Most of these men were married with children; their families were dependent on their fishing incomes. The Jenkins family were long-established fishermen in the Mumbles area. The father, Jenkin Jenkins, is in the 1861 census as a fisherman; already, his three eldest sons – John, William and Jenkin – were all working with him, despite the youngest being only 11 years old. By 1881, the children had married and moved out to establish their own families. John Jenkins, for example, was living in Oystermouth with his wife Jane and five children; at the time of the 1883 disaster, his eldest child, another Jenkin, would be 13, and his youngest, Lilly, just two years old.

When these men got the call that their help was needed, they went – no questions asked. Their job was to aid those at sea, and they did so, putting their years of fishing experience to further use by steering their lifeboat out to help the stranded ship’s crew. But the conditions were awful, and the men struggled in the heavy seas and winds. By the end of the day, several of them would be dead or missing.

While they were attempting their rescue, Jessie was watching anxiously from the lighthouse. Her sister Margaret, now Mrs Wright, was with her, and the two women were desperate to help the men outside. When they saw a man in the water not far from them, looking as though he was drowning, the two women tied their shawls together to form a rope, ran outside and threw the rope towards him to grab hold of. It wasn’t quite long enough, however, and didn’t reach. Jessie didn’t wait any longer – she ran as fast as she could into the freezing cold waves, until she was into her waist, threw the rope again, and this time the sailor grabbed it and she pulled him into shore. Jessie was soaking wet and freezing cold, but because of her actions, and her and Margaret’s improvisation skills, she had saved the life of one of the exhausted lifeboatmen. Newspaper reports were conflicted in whether both women had run into the sea, or whether it had been Jessie alone; but their father certainly told others that both women had been involved.

Members of the Jenkins family were not as lucky as the Ace daughters. Although the father, Jenkin Jenkins, survived with a bruised head, John Jenkins, the eldest son, was found dead with his neck broken; William had been battered around the head by the rocks and also died. Two more brothers, Jenkin and George, were discovered in nearby Bob’s Cove. They had been holding onto the rocks for hours, waiting to be found. George had broken his leg in three places (or both legs – reports differed), and was badly cut around the head. His injuries were so bad that the newspapers confidently predicted his imminent demise – however, he actually survived. Two more of the lifeboat crew were still unaccounted for: William Rogers and William MacNamara. MacNamara’s coat was discovered, but it wasn’t until later that it was established that both men had drowned. Rogers was a father of seven children, the eldest of whom was only 10. He was not supposed to be a member of the lifeboat crew that night, but had volunteered his services.

The incident shocked not only Mumbles but the whole of the Swansea area. The men who died all had children and wives dependent on them; the tragedy had decimated a local family, and highlighted the dangers of a seafaring life. The lifeboat crew worked to save others, in addition to their day jobs, and several of them had lost their lives saving the ship’s crew. The funeral of two of the Jenkins brothers therefore became a focal point for the collective grief. Groups of sailors gathered to pay respect as the brothers in their coffins were brought out of their respective houses and led to meet each other outside the Antelope Hotel. From there, a single procession formed, of members of the public from Mumbles and Swansea, coastguards, sailors, the rest of the lifeboat crew who were able to attend and representatives of local organisations such as the Oddfellows. The German sailors, who had been staying at the Swansea Sailors’ Home after the storm, came as well, and joined the wives of the dead brothers. It was noted in the press that there was an unusually large number of women present compared to usual funeral processions (perhaps because so many wives and mothers could identify with the loss suffered by this one family), and that, in fact, ‘the inhabitants of the Mumbles turned out en masse, and the funerals were, without doubt, the largest ever witnessed in the village.’

After the deaths, life went on as usual for most. The rest of the Jenkins family stayed living in the area, the widows looking after their children as best they could. George Jenkins, who hadn’t been expected to live, did so, and in fact went back to work as a fisherman – he had to, to support his wife and children. He would have at least four more children after his near-death experience. Abraham Ace died in 1885, his job being continued by his son until into the 20th century. Jessie Ace became a minor celebrity, lauded in the press for being the new Grace Darling. Queen Victoria asked her to send a photograph of herself, and duly commented that she thought Jessie looked just as she had imagined, and that she approved.

But although her sister Margaret stayed in Wales after the events, Jessie wanted to travel. Two years after the storm, just after her father’s death, she married John Dunston, a widowed mariner. In 1888, with their year-old child, they sailed to Adelaide, Australia. Jessie – who later divorced – would live there the rest of her life, a world away from Mumbles. Yet she is still remembered in Wales: today, a plaque near the lighthouse remembers her and her sister’s actions that night in January 1883.