The Historical Ponderings Society

[EverySongbirdSays]

Following on from the thread "What questions do you have about stuff from History or am I the only one?" Which is here

Ever wondered how we got from the clothes of Cave people to the clothes of today?

Who was the first person to make and eat Cheese? Or cake?

How ideas became widespread

Why the Aztecs didn't have the wheel?

Why Elizabeth I never married?

How accurate historical fiction is?

Then this your thread and we are your people.

PROCEED HISTORY LOVERS

I'm pretty sure there were wreckers in Wales too, esp around Anglesey.

Smugglers and Pirates are different things though? For wrecking, you'd certainly need a treacherous bit of coast, but I think there is some debate about whether ships were ever deliberately wrecked or if it was more locals taking advantage of a high incidence of naturawrecks in their area?

Sandy Bean, now there's a character that fascinates me. Is there any evidence he was real, or just folk law?

Blackbeard came from Brizzle, The Hole in the Wall is meant to be the pub The Spyglass in Treasure Island and possibly the Llandoger Trow is the Admiral Benbow. Llandoger Trow also appears in Robinson Crusoe.

And yep, I am from from roun' these yer parts.

I find 'purposeful' wrecking a difficult concept. My own experience of seagoing communities is that they're both respectful of boats and the sea and fiercely superstitious e.g. About 'things catching up with you'. I can quite see that if a ship did founder, that anything that came ashore was fair game - but deliberate wrecking? That's a difficulty for me, even with a dirt poor community on shore.

Yes I don't think we were wreckers down here, just very aware of the coastline and risks for ships in bad weather. We just took advantage of the opportunities nature provided rather than manufacturing them.

I only lived in Somerset until I was 8 years old but I still get a little bit ooh arr when I'm drunk or speaking fast.

I recently went through a few months of being obsessed with pirates and reading every book about them I could find - Marcus Rediker was the author I liked best as he's clearly on their side and writes about them like misunderstood Robin Hoods of the sea, despite the fact that every other historian accepts that they were violent criminals. (This is why I studied English rather than History - I'm far too susceptible to putting a pleasing narrative before the actual facts )

Sawney Bean - thanks autocorrect!

Weeds do you mean the Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean?

They had a bit on him in the Edinburgh Dungeons when we visited, although being a tourist attraction that's trying to scare people, it may not be the most reliable proof of his reality....

X-posted.

I can't imagine whole communities being wreckers, but isn't it possible there were small groups of particularly violent and ruthless individuals, just like with, say, drug barons today? I know nothing about it and if it's a case of there simply not being evidence, fair enough, but I am not sure I would accept 'no one would do a thing like that' as a convincing argument against it, iyswim?

I was listening to the "stuff you never learned in history" podcast the other day and they discussed Sawney Bean - they said there's no evidence to suggest that he or his cannibal family actually existed, as the first mention of him is in a paper known for printing entirely made-up "news" for shock value.

I don't know, Countess. Just don't know. It's possible of course.

There's also a thing that locals might not actually advise a seafaring captain of hazards out there. There might be a sucking in of breath and a 'He shouldn't have done 'X' .........' but then leaving the boat to its fate. That would have been acceptable, I think.

Deliberately wrecking, though? I don't know. It just doesn't sit well with me.

Apparently so, Star. Apparently so.

Sorry. star.

Now I am wondering if 'I think there is some debate' was a polite way of saying 'no evidence at all, almost certainly a load of old bollocks'

X-post. The concept of the halfway stage is an interesting one.

Not at all countess . The theme of wrecking appears in novels, but no contemporary accounts as far as I am aware. People obviously helped themselves to stuff from wrecked ships, if the chance arose. But, to me, the whole concept doesn't make sense - in the novels villainous locals hang out lights, ship sails towards it, founders on rocks. If you have a lighthouse, that's telling the sailors there are dangerous rocks and sandbars in the area, so wouldn't you steer well clear, not head straight for it?

You hang a light further back, or have it be smaller than it should be, so sailors think OK, the dangerous rocks are all the way back there when in fact they are right here.

In theory.

I haven't done it.

Thanks, Trills. You explained the theory better than I could have.

I've always been a bit confused how deliberate wrecking was supposed to work.

But quick google and it seem you're all right - it didn't happen - no false lights in fact the opposite.

A Bahamian wrecker, when asked if he and his crewmates made beacons on shore or showed their lights to warn ships away from the land at night, is reported to have said, "No, no [laughing]; we always put them out for a better chance by night".

In Devon Corwall - In 1735 a law was passed to make it an offence to make false lights, but no one was prosecuted as a result.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(shipwreck)

Part of how lighthouses work is that people know where they are along the coast - I have a vague memory they have different light patterns, so you know where you are because it's two long flashes, not a steady light or whatever, and you know to set your course to avoid it.

If you're a wrecker, you go to another cliff top and set a light with the same pattern, causing the ship to set its course from what is actually the wrong place, and thereby drive it on to the rocks, because it's five miles west of where they thought they were, if they'd navigated from the real lighthouse.

This doesn't mean it actually happened, just that others have explained how it could happen. However, humans will stoop to all sorts of lows, so I can quite believe that there would have been someone who did do it, even if the majority of people reliant on the sea had a lot of respect for it (and still do, going by the sailors I know.)

(I'd like to thank authors like Enid Blyton and J Meade Faulkner for my extensive knowledge of how wreckers wreck ships.)

And then everyone else posted more reliable information while I was correcting all my phone's crap spelling.

It wouldn't likely be happening - whatever may actually have happened - with a well founded boat, on calm seas and during daylight, either.

Imagine if you're captain of a wooden boat, nighttime, X souls on board, appalling weather, taking water, difficulty steering etc etc etc. You need to get to land rather than head out to sea. And there's your problem.

A man forced his pig and he died!

Oh my lord, that's brilliant. No idea what it means but i'm going to work it into some conversations.