List of major marine casualties 1851–1875

The list of serious marine casualties 1851–1875 records accidents in the sea, which resulted in deaths or high levels of property damage.

list

date	Surname	dead	Course of events
January 4, 1852	Amazon	104	180 km southwest of the Isles of Scilly collapsed on the new British steamer Amazon of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company , which on its maiden voyage to the West Indies was, from an uncontrollable fire. Only two lifeboats could be launched before the ship exploded and went down. 104 of the 163 people on board died.
February 26, 1852	Birkenhead	445	When the ship went down off Danger Point (South Africa) 445 people (all men) were killed; 193 survive, including all women and children.
April 15, 1854	Powhattan	200–365 (?)	The 17-year-old American schooner Powhattan hit rocks in a storm on a trip to New York near Beach Haven (New Jersey) and shattered. All passengers and crew on board were killed. Between 200 and 365 people were on board in the various sources.
May 1854	City of Glasgow	480	The passenger steamer City of Glasgow of the British shipping company Inman Line left the port of Liverpool in the direction of New York on May 1, 1854 and disappeared without a trace with 480 people on board. To date, there is no evidence of its whereabouts or the reason for its loss.
January 21, 1854	Tayleur	362	The iron clipper Tayleur of the White Star Line ran into the Irish Sea in storms and fog on the rocks off Lambay Island . 362 of the 652 people on board were killed.
September 27, 1854	Arctic	about 350	The passenger steamer Arctic of the American Collins Line collided with the French steamer Vesta at Cape Race off Newfoundland and sank during the unsuccessful attempt to reach the coast. Organized rescue was not possible due to the panic on board. The information about the victims varies between 285 and 372 victims, most likely around 350 deaths, including all women and children on board.
November 5, 1854	Johanne	77	In front of Spiekeroog, the Bark Johanne, with 216 emigrants and 13 crew members, ran aground in a north-west storm . The lack of suitable life-saving equipment on the island resulted in the deaths of 77 people. The rest of them were able to escape to the beach when the tide fell. The completely inadequate rescue equipment on the island led to the first calls for the establishment of the German sea rescue service .
January 1, 1855	George Canning	164	The Hamburg sailor George Canning was stranded in a hurricane on the Great Vogelsand in the Elbe estuary on New Year's Eve 1854/55 . All 164 passengers and crew are killed in the sinking.
February 15, 1855	La Sémillante	693	The French frigate La Sémillante , loaded with troops and equipment for the Crimean War , was caught by a hurricane in the Strait of Bonifacio between Sardinia and Corsica , driven onto the rocks of the Îles Lavezzi and smashed by the surf. None of the 693 sailors and soldiers on board survived.
January 23, 1856	Pacific	186	The American paddle steamer Pacific of the Collins Line was en route from Liverpool to New York with 186 passengers and crew on board when it disappeared without a trace shortly after departure. It was not until 1991 that the wreck of the ship was found on the coast of Wales . The cause of the accident is still unclear today.
February 19, 1856	John Rutledge	135	The sailing ship John Rutledge (approx. 1600 t) of the New York & Liverpool Packet Company, which had cast off three days earlier with 120 passengers and 16 crew members on board under the command of Captain Kelly in Liverpool with destination New York, hit one in a storm Iceberg and was abandoned. Everyone on board was able to leave the ship, but the lifeboats disappeared without a trace in the storm. The Scot Thomas W. Nye was found by Germania on February 28 and brought to New York. He was the only survivor of the accident.
February 1856	Ocean Queen	123	The Clipper Ocean Queen of the American shipping company London and New York Line left with 90 passengers and 33 crew members on board on February 8, 1856 London in a transatlantic crossing to New York . After a sighting off the Isle of Wight on February 15, the ship was never heard from again.
February 1856	Driver	372	The British clipper Driver (1,594 t) ran with 28 crew members and 344 passengers under the command of Captain Nicholas Hobberton on February 12, 1856 in Liverpool and disappeared on the high seas. The ship was never seen again.
February 1856	Umea	20th	The Swedish steamship Umea (length 44 m), which was only built last year, went down in a snow storm on its way from Sundsvall to Stockholm . 15 people were able to escape to a deserted island in a lifeboat and were rescued after three days. 20 people drowned. The reason for the sinking was presumably too heavy cargo on deck.
September 24, 1856	Niagara	60-70	On the paddle steamer Niagara a fire broke out in the area of ​​the engine room on Lake Michigan a few miles from Port Washington . The steamer burned out completely and went under. In the panic, the lifeboats were stormed, all but one of which capsized. Of the approximately 175 passengers and crew members, between 60 and 70 were killed (the numbers differ in the sources).
November 2, 1856	Lyonnais	130	The French steamship Lyonnais , the day before New York had left, collided 50 nautical miles southeast of the fire ship from Nantucket with the American Bark Adriatic and sank. Of the 146 passengers and crew, only 16 survived on a raft found by the German barque Elise . The other lifeboats were never found.
February 13, 1857	Tempest	150	After casting off in New York, the steamer Tempest of the British Anchor Line disappeared without a trace on the North Atlantic. He was never seen again.
August 20, 1857	Dunbar	121	At the entrance to Sydney Harbor , the British sailing ship Dunbar suffered from a navigational miscalculation in strong winds and heavy rainfall, so that the ship ran on rocks and smashed. Of the 122 people on board, only a single crew member survived.
September 12, 1857	Central America	425	The paddle wheel sailing passenger steamer Central America sank with 425 people after flooding and days of fighting a storm. The ship was on its way from Panama to New York City with 477 passengers and 101 crew members , with a stopover in Havana . It had a large cargo of gold on board. The loss of gold worsened the economic crisis of 1857 . The wreck was located in 1987 and large amounts of gold were lifted.
June 13, 1858	Pennsylvania	200-250	On the Mississippi River near Memphis, the boilers of the paddle steamer Pennsylvania exploded . According to various sources, between 200 and 250 of the 450 people on board were killed, including Henry Clemens, Mark Twain's brother . Twain had been a member of the steamer's crew until a few days earlier.
September 13, 1858	Austria	471	The passenger steamer Austria the HAPAG fell on the way from Hamburg to the United States with 538 people on board on fire, let ausschwefeln the intermediate deck as the ship's doctor. Panic broke out on board and an orderly rescue was impossible. Only 61 survivors were able to save themselves from the sinking ship with a lifeboat and were picked up by the French barque Maurice , 471 passengers and crew members died.
April 27, 1859	Pomona	391	On its way from Liverpool to America, the American clipper Pomona was stranded on a sandbar seven miles from Ballyconigar on the coast of the Irish county of Wexford in storm and dark . While the ship was stuck and the strong wind increased, it was hardly possible to properly lower the lifeboats. Most were drowned in the stormy waves. 18 men of the crew and three passengers, all men, made it ashore alive, while 391 passengers and crew were killed.
October 26, 1859	Royal Charter	449	The Royal Charter clipper , which was hauling passengers and cargo from Liverpool to Australia , got caught in a severe storm off Anglesey . The ship was hurled against the rocks, broke apart, and sank. Only 39 people survived, all men. 449 people died, including all women and children on board. The sinking of the Royal Charter is the worst shipping disaster on the coast of Wales to this day.
February 19, 1860	Hungarian	205	The steamship Hungarian of the Allan Line ran aground on the rocks of Cape Ledge off Sable Island on the coast of Nova Scotia (Canada) and sank with all passengers and crew on board.
September 8, 1860	Lady Elgin	about 400	In the dark and stormy seas, the paddle steamer Lady Elgin , the so-called "Queen of the Great Lakes", was rammed by the unlit schooner Augusta on Lake Michigan and sank within 20 minutes. More than 400 people were killed in the worst ship accident to date on the Great Lakes . Many Germans and Irish were among the dead.
September 10, 1860	Alliance	at least 9	On the Borkum offshore High reef the stranded brig Alliance . After a long agony, the entire crew perished before the eyes of the idle population, who were only interested in the cargo of the ship. The behavior of the population and the lack of life-saving equipment on the coast caused great outrage across the region and led to the establishment of the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People in 1865.
September 20, 1860 (?)	Levant	190	The American 20-gun brig Levant with 190 crew members disappeared on the way from Hawaii to Panama for unknown reasons in the eastern Pacific. The ship that left Hawaii on September 18th probably got caught in a hurricane around September 20th and sank. None of the crew survived. In June 1861, debris washed up in Hawaii that could be attributed to the ship, which would confirm the thesis that the ship sank in a storm.
June 4, 1861	Canadian	35	The passenger steamer Canadian the Allan Line ran in the Belle Isle Strait between the Labrador Peninsula and Newfoundland eight nautical miles from land on ice. The ship was torn open at full length and sank half an hour after the collision. In the meantime, everyone on board was able to leave the ship, but one of the lifeboats capsized and all 35 occupants drowned. 266 survivors were recovered.
August 20, 1861	Duchess Marie	0	The freight-going Mecklenburg barque Duchess Marie struck a leak in the Atlantic off Aveiro (Portugal) and sank. The crew (13 men) and passengers (two people) were able to save themselves.
July 27, 1862	Golden gate	204	About 15 miles from Manzanillo on the Mexican coast, the American paddle steamer Golden Gate caught fire with 338 people on board, was aground and broke apart in the surf. 204 passengers and crew were killed.
February 7, 1863	Orpheus	189	The flagship of the Australian squadron sank off the west coast of Auckland ( New Zealand ). 189 of 259 crew members died.
April 27, 1863	Anglo Saxon	238	The liner Anglo Saxon was with 445 passengers and crew on the way from Liverpool to Québec when it collided with a rock in thick fog on the coast of Newfoundland and sank before Cape Race . With 238 deaths, the sinking of the Anglo Saxon was the worst ship accident on the North Atlantic to date and the greatest loss of life on a ship of the Allan Line.
April 27, 1865	Sultana	1,700	On the Mississippi River , three boilers of the paddle steamer used as a troop transport during the Civil War exploded , which then went up in flames and sank within a very short time. Numerous other ships in the vicinity could not provide any help due to the immense heat development.
July 30, 1865	Brother Jonathan	225	In a stormy sea, the paddle steamer Brother Jonathan with 244 people and a lot of gold on board hit a previously unrecorded underwater rock off Crescent City on the California coast and sank. Only a single lifeboat with 19 people in it escaped sinking. With 225 dead, it was the worst shipping accident on the American Pacific coast to date .
January 11, 1866	London	220	The British liner London , which was on its way from Gravesend to Melbourne with 239 people on board , got caught in a storm in the Bay of Biscay , which caused the ship to roll . Seawater seeped into the hull, put out the fire in the boilers, and finally brought the steamer to sink. Only a lifeboat with 16 crew members and three passengers in it could be launched before the London sank. All other travelers perished.
May 14, 1866	General Grant	68	The barque was en route from Melbourne to London with 83 passengers and crew when it went off course off the Auckland Islands , hit the cliffs and was pushed into a rocky cave by the tide. The main mast broke on the ceiling of the cave and in the panic only a few lifeboats could be launched and left the cave. Only 15 people survived the accident, including only one woman. The survivors were not found until November 1867, a year and a half after the accident. Only ten of them were still alive.
July 12, 1866	Cawarra	61	On the way to Brisbane , the Australian passenger steamer Cawarra got into a severe storm in which a total of 15 ships sank and 77 people died. The Cawarra broke off her voyage and took shelter in the port of Newcastle , where she was caught by high waves and sank. Of the 62 people on board, only one survived.
October 3, 1866	Evening Star	262	On a journey from New York to New Orleans , the American liner Evening Star got into a severe hurricane about 180 miles east of Tybee Island . Huge breakers damaged the superstructure, so that the waves poured into the ship, flooded the engine room and put out the fires in the boilers. The sails were torn, the rudder stopped responding and the lifeboats were flooded in the heavy seas. The Evening Star eventually capsized and sank. Of the 278 passengers and crew members, only 16 survived, including only two of the approximately 100 women.
October 29, 1867	Rhone	124	On the coast of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands (Caribbean) the British passenger ship Rhone of the Royal Mail Line sank in a severe hurricane. Of the 147 people on board, only 23 crew members survived. The passengers were tied to their beds according to the customs of the time and could not escape. The wreck is one of the most popular in the Caribbean today .
November 25, 1868	Hibernia	78	In the middle of the night in a hurricane in the North Atlantic, 700 miles west of Ireland, the wave of the British steamship Hibernia breaks , which is on its way back to Glasgow with 133 people on board. The ship runs full and sinks. All lifeboats are safely launched, but are scattered in the storm and some are lost.
January 28, 1870	City of Boston	191	After casting off in Halifax , the British passenger liner City of Boston of the Inman Line disappeared without a trace on the North Atlantic with 191 people on board. He never arrived in Liverpool. No trace of the ship was ever found; its fate is unclear.
September 6, 1870	Captain	474	The newly built British armored frigate Captain was caught in a heavy storm at night on its maiden voyage off Cape Finisterre and capsized because a gust pushed the frigate to its side and water could penetrate the artillery deck, which was too low. A total of 474 people died, including the ship's designer, Captain Cowper Phipps Coles . Only 18 crew members survived. A Royal Navy investigative committee later found the cause of the loss to be a design flaw.
October 19, 1870	Cambria	179	The passenger ship Cambria of the British Anchor Line crashed off the coast of the Irish county Donegal in stormy seas at full speed on the rugged cliffs of the island of Inishtrahull. The inrushing sea water put out the fires in the boilers and made the ship sink quickly. Only one passenger survived the accident.
July 30, 1871	Westfield	125	In New York Harbor , a disaster occurred. On board the Westfield , a passenger ferry that shuttled between Manhattan and Staten Island , a boiler explosion occurred shortly before casting off from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in Manhattan , which tore open the bow of the ship and hurled hundreds of people into the Hudson River . A total of 125 people were killed in the worst ferry accident in New York harbor.
November 1872	Mary Celeste	10	The brigantine was supposed to bring a cargo of industrial alcohol from New York City to Genoa before being found on December 4, 1872, pilotless by another ship midway between the Azores and Portugal . The team disappeared without a trace. The Mary Celeste is one of the most famous ghost ships . Its remains are underwater in front of the Rochelais Reef near Haiti .
January 22, 1873	Northfleet	293	The British sailing ship Northfleet was anchored with 379 people on board on the way to Tasmania off the headland Dungeness on the coast of the English county of Kent when it was rammed by the Spanish steamer Murillo and went down within half an hour. In the panic, 293 people were killed before rescue arrived at the scene of the accident.
April 1, 1873	Atlantic	545	The British White Star Line's Atlantic liner ran aground on an underwater rock near Meagher's Island in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia . Of the 957 people on board, 545 people, including all women and all but one of the children, died.
November 22, 1873	Ville du Havre	226	The transatlantic liner Ville du Havre of the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique was rammed by the Scottish clipper Loch Earn in the middle of the night on the North Atlantic , broke apart and sank within twelve minutes. Few people were able to save themselves in the short time. 226 of the 313 people on board drowned.
May 20, 1874	Nile	142	The passenger steamer Nil of the French shipping company Messageries Maritimes ran in the Seto Inland Sea (Japan) on a previously unknown underwater rock and sank. Of the 185 people on board, only 43 survived.
November 17, 1874	Cospatrick	467	The British sailing ship Cospatrick caught fire with 470 people on board while sailing from London to Auckland in the South Atlantic , about 640 km southwest of the Cape of Good Hope, and sank. Only two boats with about 60 people were able to escape. A boat carrying five people, two of whom died after being rescued, was found ten days later by the British Scepter , the other boat disappeared without a trace. The rescued had survived through cannibalism on the deceased from the boat. Half of the victims were women and children.
February 24, 1875	Gothenburg	113	On a trip from Darwin in northern Australia to Adelaide in the south of the country, the passenger steamer Gothenburg on the Queensland coast was surprised by a cyclone and hit rocks on the Great Barrier Reef . The ship was stuck on the rocks and slowly flooded. Most of the passengers were washed ashore and drowned. Only 22 people survived.
May 7, 1875	Schiller	335	On May 7, 1875, the German sailing steamer Schiller ran aground on the reefs off the Scilly Isles on its voyage from New York to Hamburg . Only 37 people could be saved.
June 1, 1875	Vicksburg	47	The passenger steamer Vicksburg of the British Dominion Line drove into an ice field on a voyage from Liverpool to Québec near Newfoundland and ran into an undersea iceberg shortly before midnight on May 31, 1875 , which severed the propeller and tore open the hull. The ship sank the following morning. 47 of the 91 passengers and crew members on board were killed.
November 4, 1875	Pacific	273	The paddle steamer collided with the sailing ship Orpheus southwest of Cape Flattery on the coast of the US state of Washington and sank. There were too few lifeboats and those that were launched all went under. Only two men survived the accident, 273 passengers and crew members died, including all women and children.
December 6, 1875	Germany	57	Due to a navigation error, the steamer Germany ran onto a sandbank in front of the Thames estuary and broke.

See also

• List of disasters

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Deister and Weser newspaper Hameln from January 23, 1855