Jane was ready to tell him of the scandals rocking the rural community:
My dear brother, How are you getting on? We are jugging along the best way we can. Laurie Morrison was bailed out but was no sooner out than Charles Duncan put him in again for £70 which he was owing him as his lawyer when they went to law about Jane Gibbs Rhilo, so he has to sit till he pays it. Peter Jamison Stromness hens are all dead & he has gone to law, for he say Nellies folk have poisoned them. The Police have been out & taken some of the hens in to inspect I doubt it will go hard with them, they are telling so many lies with love your Mary
Arthur was feeling better about life a few weeks later when he wrote8 from Constantinople to David Hobart, his former schoolmaster and lodger in his parents’ home; or perhaps, writing to a man and not a woman, he was looking for admiration rather than sympathy.
My Dear David,
We are Bound to Odessa to load grain and then I will have more time and write you a long letter Just now I am swearing for the Mate because he wants me to throw a line to the tug & I won’t. I shall try and bring home a turk home with me in winter give my love to all I am as fat as a pig and as strong as a lion you can writ to the General Post Office her and I will get it as I come down again [i.e returning south through the Bosphorus] we are Lying under the sultan’s Palace and the Mahomedans is saying their prayers so good bye for the present I remain yours truly
Ale
In a photo (Fig.2.1) taken about that time, Arthur does indeed look substantially built; but refusing the mate’s order after only four months’ sea service seems rather reckless. Perhaps he is really admitting that he couldn’t, rather than wouldn’t, throw the line to the tug – it’s a skilled task. What sort of turk he proposed to bring home remains a mystery to me.
Arthur did not return home in the winter of 1867–68 and the next surviving letter9 was written to his father a year later, in August 1868, from Runcorn.
Figure 2.1 Arthur Irvine
Dearest Father,
This is to tell you that I have left the New House & shipped on board this one which is called the Norwich Trader of Sunderland We are going to Peterhead with salt and expect to go from there with salt the Syran left here with salt for Lerwick yesterday I thought it very homely to hear my own native Language among the cockneys Dutch Welch and Scotch as soon as I hear it I was not long of singing out Do you belong to Shetland If I had got 20 or 30 £ I would have come with her You can tell David if he does not rube his Face well with crotin oil I shall have more whiskers than him as I can get hold of it with my Teeth
But I will send my things and then you can judge for yourselves as soon as I get to Peterhead. Give my love to all and write by return of post to peterhead so no more at present I remain your loving son
Arthur C Irvine
Adress Arthur C Irvine Care of Capt Sutherland Schooner Norwich Trader Peterhead Scotland
After 15 months at sea Arthur had grown a bit of a beard, had not saved much money, was aroused by Shetland accents and was thinking of returning home. However he did not do so, and his next surviving letter10 was, from the context, written in Greenock in April 1869, before he joined the Ratcliff.
Dearest Mother and Father,
I have shipped for Quebec and am as happy as lary The wages is £4. No advance but we have all taken £3.15 and £2 advance. She carries all Shetlanders tell Mary that Peter11 is with me so that he will be comming home neset winter. I won’t promise to come home neset [next] winter but I will see I am in a hurry as we sail tomorrow and I have got to go up to Glasgow for my things Kind love to all. Write in about a week to Quebec. Your loving boy
Ale Irvine
That was the last his family ever heard from him. In Quebec he died by drowning on Saturday 5 June 1869, aged 17, although the record12 of his burial in the Hôpital de la Marine on 14 June describes him as aged 22. (In those days seamen in their sixties understated their ages while youngsters evidently did the opposite.) Arthur Irvine was shown in the Ship’s Articles as aged 20. The ship’s official log book records, in an entry signed by the master, the mate and one of the Shetland ABs:13
June 5th 1869 8PM Arthur Irvine while in the act of taking a rope into the boat fell into the river and sunk [sic]. The alarm was immediately given when all hands got onto the booms to use every effort to save him but the man never again rose to the surface. The body was dragged for but [they] did not succeed in finding him.
From his subsequent burial it is clear that his body was later found. Family tradition is that he fell from the ship’s gangway. It is likely that Ratcliff was at an anchorage and access to the shore was by boat. Saturday evening, after drink has been taken, is a dangerous time, and the access to the ship is often a dangerous place. Whatever the circumstances this was a tragic loss of someone at the very start of adult life and serves well to illustrate the precariousness of life at sea in the 19th century.
Arthur Irvine’s effects, after more than two years at sea, are listed in the Official Log Book14 as:
Three pair of trousers, two guernsey frocks, two red singlets, two coulered flannel shirts, 3 jumper frocks, 2 pair of drawers, 2 sleeves, 1 waistcoat, 1 black waistcoat, 1 coat, 1 blanket, 1 rug, 5 pairs of socks, 1 towel, 2 caps, 2 comforters, 3 mits, 1 pair of braces, 1 bible, 1 pann, 1 knife, 3 sticks of tobbaco, 2 handkerchiefs, all stored in his chest.
Arthur’s wages for six weeks work as an AB were £5 7s 6d, from which were deducted a £2 advance and 5/- for the tobacco, leaving wages of £3 7s 6d due to him. It is likely that his family only learnt of his death from fellow Shetland crew members as the Ship’s Articles showed simply that he came from Shetland.
David Hobart, on holiday in Scotland in the autumn of 1869, had apparently been making enquiries on behalf of the family about any outstanding wages due to Arthur Irvine. He wrote:15
James Spence gave the number of the vessel required; it is 15686 and the port she belongs to is London. The only thing wanted now is the amount of wages he received when she sailed. But that might be found out by writing to the owners Hall Brothers, Great Chare, Newcastle-on-Tyne. I shall write and ask them to send you word, or if you thought it would be too long to wait you might send in the official number & the port she belongs to at once to Mr Nicolson & he would fill up the shedule & give it to me.
Happily John Isbester, the primary subject of this book, survived and was strengthened by his early years at sea. It was not until 45 years had passed that my grandmother, a little girl when her brother died, was to be exposed to another heart-breaking maritime disaster.
1 Hobart, David, letter H3 of 03.10.1867 (Isbester Collection).
