back to Liverpool after making landfalls at St Helena and Ascension. On their homeward voyage they may have carried sensitive cargoes such as tea, coconut and tobacco. It is more likely that their cargoes were at the contaminating end of the spectrum – hides, horns and hoofs, crushed bones, myrabolams and amotto seed – along with neutral cargoes such as palm fibre, gunnies, hemp, and rope cuttings, as befitted slower and older ships, compelled to round the Cape of Good Hope rather than use the Suez Canal like the steamers.9
John Isbester, aged 31, now had the necessary seatime to sit for his Master’s Certificate, which he did following a few weeks at Captain Cogle’s school. On 7 August 1883 he was awarded Square Rigged Certificate No.02269. He must have felt joyful when he reflected that his years of hardship and sacrifice had earned him the reward for which he had worked with such commitment. All that remained was to obtain a command – and, perhaps, a wife.
But with no commands immediately on offer John Isbester decided that he had no choice but to do another voyage or two as chief mate. Within a month he had joined the wooden barque Queen of Australia, 1,328 tons gross, as chief mate for a voyage to Quebec. His experience would doubtless have been enriched by the events of the voyage. A report, by cable, read:
The Queen of Australia from Quebec for Liverpool went ashore at Cacouna but afterwards came off without assistance, damage if any not yet ascertained.10
Cacouna is situated on the east bank of the Saint Lawrence river, about 100 miles seaward of Quebec. A later report gave more bad news:
The Queen of Australia from Quebec 2nd Inst. and following days had greater part of deck cargo washed overboard.11
Coming from Quebec, the deck cargo was very probably timber of some sort, and John Isbester as chief mate, possibly advised by Captain Jardalla or the longshoremen, would have been responsible for the lashings which should have secured it. Loss of deck cargo is not uncommon in the most severe weather, and could be due to ferocious conditions, to poor ship handling and/or to inadequate securing. In any event there were doubtless lessons to be learnt.
1 Cogle, Capt. Robert S, Letter to The Shetland Times Ltd, Lerwick, undated early 1914 (Isbester Collection).
2 Laing, Robert. Letter to Christina L Jamieson, 17.06.1884 (Isbester Collection).
3 Liverpool Watch Committee Order Book, entry dated 12 November.1878, Liverpool City Archive.
4 Liverpool Watch Committee Order Book, entry dated 17 Dec.1878, ibid.
5 The account which follows is based upon the Report of U.K. Formal Investigation No.1171 Cumeria.
6 This phrase from the Report of the Formal Investigation 1171 Cumeria is not understood.
7 Cumeria Agreement, Voy.14.01.1881–14.11.1881, Maritime History Archive, Newfoundland.
8 The only person signed on with a name like Johnson was E.G Johansson, AB. Cumeria Agreement, ibid.
9 Isbester, Jack, HCMM Cadet Log, cargo loaded on Clan Maclachlan in Calcutta for Liverpool in 1952 (Isbester Collection).
10 Lloyds List, 24.11.1883.
11 Lloyds List, 17.12.1883.
In 1884 John Isbester returned to Shetland and to Haggersta, where he stayed with his aunt and uncle. My father, Allan, John Isbester’s fifth son, was an observant man with an excellent memory and a considerable interest in Shetland and our family history. Although born many years after these events he had often heard the story of how my grandparents met. This is the account that he wrote to Florence Grains, a descendent of one of the participants.1
As a boy my father went to the fishing and as a youth he went South to sea. He left his watch – the equivalent of being engaged – with your grandmother Maggie Smith in Strome.2 One time there was a slump and he could not get a job at sea so he joined the Liverpool Police and wrote for Maggie to come and join him. She ‘couldna leave the sheep’ and did not go. Later he got back to sea and later still back to Whiteness – but he did not call at Strome: of course the whole of Whiteness knew that he had not been to see Maggie! Like all the young men returning home he called at Olligarth to tell Magnus Irvine [the laird and the landlord for all the crofts in North Whiteness] all the latest South news. And there he encountered my mother, a very personable, lively young lady of 20 who took it upon herself to scold him for not going to see Maggie. (Father was 32. As a boy of 17/18 he used to call at Olligarth on the way from Haggersta to the school to carry Susie Irvine 5/6 pick-a-back to school).3 My father was not used to being scolded by young ladies, rather enjoyed it and came back for more. One night after he’d gone, mother went out to the well at the back door and he was waiting to speak to her. He asked her to marry him and said that he’d give her a week to make up her mind. He came the next morning for his answer and they were married within the month! Mother said that night she opened her bible for guidance – and it opened at the passage in Ruth – whither thou goest I will go and thy people shall be my people –
She walked in to Lerwick to buy her wedding needs and to tell her friends who had never even heard of Jack Isbester4 as in the running (though there were said to be several others). Anyway Maggie’s heart was certainly not broken – and the families of Quoyness [where Maggie Smith lived as Maggie Gair after her own marriage] and Olligarth always remained good friends. After we left Scotland aged 12 and 9 Eric and I stayed at Quoyness at your grandmother’s for a Summer holiday (we were just about the same age as Agnes and Hettie your aunt and mother).
The Shetland Times of 19 April 1884 reported
At Olligarth, Whiteness, on the 10th April, by the Rev. A McDonald, Weisdale, assisted by the Rev. D Johnstone, Quarff, SUSIE, only surviving daughter of Mr MAGNUS IRVINE to Mr JOHN ISBESTER.
It may be that the two clergymen were in attendance to make clear to everybody that although John Isbester was illegitimate he had a Master’s Certificate and, therefore, the full approval of the church!
Early on the wedding day John Isbester had written his first surviving letter to his bride-to-be.5 After suggesting that he would meet her at the schoolhouse where the wedding was to take place and expressing his pleasure that it was such a lovely day, John continued:
This
