Lost to the waves

Deaths at sea were for our ancestors a far-from-uncommon occurrence. Sea voyages were long and arduous, and – especially for those who had to scrimp and save to buy their passages – conditions were usually cramped and unsanitary. In such close confines, illnesses could and did spread rapidly throughout those on board.

Those men who worked at sea battled with similar experiences of outbreaks of disease, largely due to minimal hygiene and lack of space. Most ships’ passengers and marine workers were also provided with poor food over a significant period of time, which did little to help stave off illness; quite apart from this, the dangers posed by the oceans and unpredictable weather were also very real.

Traditional burial at sea for the officers and men of the USS Intrepid, which was hit by Japanese bombs during WW2

Perhaps a little surprisingly, there was no legal obligation to keep records of British births, marriages or deaths at sea before the mid-1800s. These were only maintained from 1837 and sent to the General Register Office, where they were recorded in the Marine Register.

However, be aware than not all records are complete. Despite the vast majority of records pertaining to British-registered ships, some information does relate to British personnel on foreign vessels, so it is worth a speculative search for an ancestor.

At TheGenealogist.co.uk, Overseas BMD Indexes are available under the Master Search function and in the Birth Marriage and Death Indexes collections. The Overseas Marine Deaths section – comprising more than 210,000 records – covers deaths at sea on board British ships from the beginning of the Victorian age. There are also World War One and Two naval death indexes, which can be found in the same search section.

As ever, the more information you have with which to begin a search, the better. However, if your details are scant, you may not face as mammoth a search as a browse of other record sets would entail. A search solely for the common surname Davis in Overseas Marine Deaths, for example, brings up 395 records, Smith just under 2400 and Johnson 1123. As well as surname, you can search for forename, ship and year.

The records generated by a search include a person’s first name, surname, the ship aboard which he or she died, usually his or her age, and year of death. Further links show the original page of the index and a transcription. Sadly, many of those listed are young children, who were more susceptible to the dangers of life aboard a ship.

Notable burials at sea

People often express their wishes that their ashes be scattered at sea after cremation: John F Kennedy, Neil Armstrong, Alfred Hitchcock and HG Wells are more recent examples. There are also, of course, ancient traditions of burial at sea, such as in Norse culture. In some faiths, particularly Hinduism, ashes are scattered in water after cremation. But what happened when a person died at sea during a long voyage or during wartime? Up until World War Two, many were laid to rest at sea in the same manner as British colonial burials in the 1700s and 1800s: warships – like colonial ships – could not generally facilitate cremation of bodies before burial, nor carry coffins, so the body would be sewn into sailcloth, which would be weighed down with cannonballs or stones.

A bronze plaque of Sir Francis Drake’s burial at sea by Joseph Boehm, 1883, in Tavistock

Sir Francis Drake (c1540–96) died off the coast of Panama while anchored waiting for Spanish ships. He asked that he be buried in his armour and was perhaps unusually was laid to rest in a lead coffin at a site near to Portobelo. Searches for his grave site continue, but the most recent major search, in 2011, failed to locate it.

Edward Winslow (1595–1655), one of the Pilgrim Fathers who travelled to America aboard the Mayflower, died at sea during a later naval expedition against Spanish interests in the Caribbean. It is not clear whether his death was through illness or injury, but he was buried at sea between Jamaica and Hispaniola in May 1655.

Zachary Hickes (1739–1771), a crew member on James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific and one of the first to see Australia, died on board Cook’s ship Endeavour. His body was buried at sea near St Helena.

A Lost Child

The Delharree [Dilharee] was a barque originally used for transporting troops to India and which later also transported Indian indentured workers to the Caribbean. Records show that a shocking 46 Indian workers died aboard while en route to Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

The record of Annie Wakefield’s death at sea, available at TheGenealogist.co.uk

In 1874 the Dilharee transported British government workers to New Zealand. The passengers included the Wakefield family who, with their four children, can be found arriving in Auckland on 16 January 1875. They had left London over three months earlier, on 12 October 1874. Sadly, their youngest child, Annie, had died at sea, aged 16 months. Like most of those who did not survive the voyage, she had succumbed to diarrhoea, which in the 19th century was a highly infectious condition associated with crowded conditions and lack of sanitation and was especially dangerous to younger children. It also thrived in hotter climes, and a newspaper report of the barque’s arrival in the Auckland Star details that most deaths aboard were in the ‘tropics’ – the area around Cape Verde. Those who died would have been laid to rest in the ocean. Despite the inhospitable conditions, though, two surviving babies were born aboard the Dilharee, one boy and one girl, whose arrival on 16 January 1875 was especially well timed.

Issue 028 / August 2015

Research advice

Jill Morris looks at records of deaths at sea available online

August 2015's news

history in the details: sandals

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