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history
Making History
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Begins Tuesday 18 October 2005 , 3.00-3.30 p.m
Sue Cook and the team answer listeners' historical queries and celebrate the way in which we all 'make' history.
Series 12
Programme 8
6 December 2005

Listen to this programme in full

The Sinking of the SS Daphne

Making History listener John Durham contacted the programme from his home in Inverness. From information found on the internet he had discovered that John Manson, a first cousin of his great-grandfather, James Durran, had died at Linthouse Shipyard on the River Clyde. On receiving a transcription of his death certificate, he expected to find that John Manson had been killed in an accident involving his work, which was as a ship carpenter. It came as a surprise that the cause of death was drowning. In addition, there was an entry on the side of the certificate referring to "RCE, Vol. 4, Page 89". The letters RCE refer to the Register of Corrected Entries. On death certificates this tends to indicate that the death was not natural and, on looking at the Register, John Durham discovered that, in addition to John Manson, at least a further 38 people had been drowned as a result of an accident at the launch of the SS Daphne on the River Clyde.

It was on 3 July 1883 the Clyde shipyards suffered one of their worst disasters. The launch of a modest 460-ton cross-channel steamer intended for working the route from Glasgow to Ireland should have been straightforward. She was launched at 11.24am, but by 11.27 she had capsized in the effluent-ridden waters of the Clyde with over 200 men and boys from the finishing trades on board. One hundred and twenty-four lost their lives.

Making History consulted Bill Black of the Glasgow Museum of Transport and the Business Archives Council of Scotland at the University of Glasgow. Bill Black explained that railings had been fitted on only one side of the ship and that they naturally wobbled from side to side as the ship raced into the water. It is thought that for some reason the men all went to one side of the ship - most probably where there were railings - and then it was hit by the force of the tide coming up the river. This, combined with the movement of the ship and the weight of the men, pushed her over.

A joiner called Kinnaird who survived wrote:
"I was busily engaged on the deck, and felt the vessel moving on the ways, and nothing occurred until she had taken the river. Then an extraordinary scene happened, and tremendous shouts arose from those on board. I felt the vessel toppling over to the right, and in a moment every person on board was hurled into the water. The shrieks and cries were terrible. I, along with some others, scrambled on to the bottom of the vessel, which was turned upside, and retained a hold. In a few moments a man came round with a small boat, and asked me to jump into the water. I did so, and was rescued. There would be about twenty persons besides myself who clung to the bottom of the vessel, and also succeeded in getting into the boat. Round about I could see a large number of people struggling and shouting in the water. Prior to the accident there were so many men and boys on deck that it was difficult to move about. I believe that over two hundred people were in the vessel. I cannot possibly describe the heart-breaking scenes which I witnessed."


Useful links 

Glasgow Museum of Transport

Business Archives Council of Scotland

The Making of the Bayeux Tapestry

Jeremy Wall listens to the programme online from his home in the Philippines and has come across a new book, Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France? by George Beech, which claims that the Bayeux Tapestry was made in France and not in England as previously thought. He asked Making History to clarify this.

Making History consulted Dr Richard Rex at Queen's College Cambridge, who has recently translated what is probably the best scholarly account of the Bayeux Tapestry, by the late Lucien Musset, from French into English.

George Beech argues that the Bayeux Tapestry, long believed to have been made in England, came from the Loire valley in France, from the abbey of St Florent of Saumur. This is based on a number of different kinds of evidence, the most important of which is signs of a St Florent/Breton influence in the portrayal of the Breton campaign in the tapestry, about a tenth of the whole. Dr Rex dismisses this, preferring the consensus view that the tapestry was of English manufacture, probably the work of English needlewomen working in or near Canterbury. It is generally thought that it was probably commissioned by Bishop Odo as a gift for his cathedral at Bayeux, which he was just finishing rebuilding. As Odo was at that time Earl of Kent as well as Bishop of Bayeux, he is the obvious link man - and he is named more frequently on the tapestry than anyone other than William and Harold, the main characters. William the Conqueror himself attended the dedication ceremony of the rebuilt cathedral, and it seems likely that the tapestry might have been presented on that same occasion, as a compliment to him among other things.

George Beech, Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)

The Painted Ceiling of Huntingfield Church, Suffolk

A listener from Suffolk happened upon a church in the village of Huntingfield near Halesworth, in the north of the county, which has a magnificent painted ceiling. The story goes that it was done by the vicar's wife in the 19th century - but could she have embellished an existing medieval remnant?

Making History discovered that the ceiling was painted by Mildred Holland, the wife of the rector William Holland. Holland was a follower of the Oxford Movement, a group of Anglican clergymen who were fearful of what they saw as the growing secularisation of the Church of England. They wanted a return to the more Catholic doctrines and practices of the early Church, when painted ceilings and walls would have been quite common. The ceiling, then, is not a medieval remnant like the ones at Ufford near Woodbridge or Metfield near Harleston.

Making History consulted Felicity Griffin of Huntingfield Church, Suffolk historian Dr John Blatchley, and Peter Austin from the Wall Paintings Workshop. 

Useful links

St Mary's Church, Huntingfield

The Suffolk Churches Site (with photographs):
Huntingfield
Metfield
Ufford

Huntingfield Queens Oak (local website)

Wall Paintings Workshop

Aberdeen Typhoid Outbreak 1964

Further information about this can be found at the following address:
Department of History, University of Aberdeen, Crombie Annexe, Meston Walk, King's College, Aberdeen AB24 3FX
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/history/ddd/newproj.shtml
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Making History

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Vanessa Collingridge
Vanessa CollingridgeVanessa has presented science and current affairs programmes for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for BBC Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald. 

Contact Making History

Send your comments and questions for future programmes to:
Making History
BBC Radio 4
PO Box 3096 Brighton
BN1 1PL

Or email the programme

Or telephone the Audience Line 08700 100 400

Making History is a Pier Production for BBC Radio 4 and is produced by Nick Patrick.

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