An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the Earl of
Abergavenny East Indiaman, Captain John Wordsworth, off Portland, on the
night of the 5th of Feb. 1805. By a Gentleman in the East India
House.
Inside Cover; "The contents of this Narrative
are from the actual communications of the survivors, and the official documents
laid before the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company. [Signed
W. D.] New Inn 10th February, 1805. Printed by W. Lane,
Leadenhall-Street [Lane, Newman & Co., London, 54 pages]."
British Museum Reference-8807.c.20.(1). (Also Weymouth
Library)
Note courtesy of Jonathan Roberts:
The Bodleian Library, Oxford, has both the 2nd
and 3rd editions which are more of less identical, however there is a
key difference between these and the 1st edition, which is they omit the key
claim that ‘Mr. Gilpin used every persuasion to induce him (John) to save his
life; he did not seem desirous to survive the loss of his ship’.
The change to the text was as follows; “After the hull
was under water, Captain WORDSWORTH was observed by Mr. GILPIN hanging to the
quarter brail of the mizzen. That gentleman made every effort to save him,
but was unsuccessful”.
The mainstay of Jonathan’s article is that scholars who
have written on this event (particularly McAdam & Ketcham) have not been
aware of this revision in the second edition, and have therefore concluded that
Charles Lamb lied to brother William about the content of the pamphlet because
William could not face up to the facts concerning his brothers death. This
revised edition shows that there was no cover up on the part of Lamb or William
_______________
EARL OF ABERGAVENNY, East Indiaman. An
Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the Earl of Abergavenny,
East-Indiaman, Off Portland on the night of the 5th February, 1805.
To which is added:- A return of the Passengers, Officers, Ship’s
Company, Troops &c. with the Age Description, and Birth Place of every
Officer and Seaman. Showing at one view the fate of every Individual
Corrected from The Official Returns at East-India House, 49
pages, Printed for J. Stockdale, Piccadilly, and Blacks and Parry, Leadenhall
Street London, February. 1805. British Museum Reference-1424.g.4. (Also
Weymouth Library)
_______________
A Correct Narrative of the Loss of the Earl of
Abergavenny, East Indiaman, J. Wordsworth, Esq. Commander, which foundered
in Weymouth Roads, On Tuesday Night, February the 5th, 1805. By
G. A. Burgoyne, Esq. Cornet in the 8th Regiment of Light Dragoons.
Weymouth: Printed by M. Virtue, for J. Harvey, at the Library, Esplanade.
Price Sixpence. (Weymouth Library).
_______________
The Loss of the Earl of Abergavenny, East Indiaman:
A Poem with notes. By John Barlow - Teacher of Languages, Geography and
the Globes. Printed by M. Virtue, Weymouth, Price, 1s. 6d. (Weymouth
Library)
_______________
Loss of the Abergavenny, Pocock, Weymouth Library.
_______________
Correct Statement of the Loss of the Earl of Abergavenny,
East Indiaman, Feb 5, 1805, [Thomas Tegg, London, 1808]. Attached is a folding
print entitled ‘Part of the Crew of the Abergavenny, East Indiaman,
delivered from their Perilous Situation’.]
_______________
A Narrative of the Dreadful Loss of the Earl of
Abergavenny .. as communicated to the Directors of the India House by One of
the Survivors. (Printed by J. Scales, London). Contains a print of
the calamitous wreck with a figure leaping half naked into the waves.
_______________
Archibald Duncan published an account of the Abergavenny
in the weeks following the wreck the relevant “Mariner’s Chronicle” is
advertised in the Times, 15th Feb., 1805). Article not yet
traced.
_______________
Huntress, Keith G., “Narrativesof Shipwrecks and
Disasters, 1586-1860”, Iowa, 1974.
_______________
"Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea or Historical
Narratives of the most noted calamities and providential deliverances, which
have resulted from Maritime Enterprise: with a sketch of various expedients for
preserving the lives of mariners."
Vol. III of three volumes, pages 414 to 423. Printed by George Ramsey
& Company, for Archibald Constable and Company, Edinburgh, and Longman,
Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London. 1812.
_______________
Grocott, Terence, “Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary
and Napoleonic Eras”, London, 1997.
_______________
Letters of John Wordsworth, 50 Letters in the care of the
Wordsworth Trust Library, Grasmere.
The Letters of John Wordsworth, Edited by Carl H. Ketcham,
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1969.
Wordsworth Marine Brother. By Frank P Rand.
Copyright 1966, The Jones Library, Amhurst, Massachusetts. Printed by the
Newell Press, Amhurst, Massachusetts.
Wordsworth’s Shipwreck. By E. L. McAdam Jr.
Publications of the Modern Language Society, Vol. 77, no. 3, June 1962, pages
240 to 247.
The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: The
Early Years 1787 - 1805, by Ernest de Selincourt. Revised by Chester L.
Shaver, Oxford, 1967.
Letters of Charles Lamb, To Which Are Added Those Of His
Sister Mary Lamb. 3 Vols. Edited by E. V. Lucas, New Haven, 1935.
Home At Grasmere. By Penelope Hughes - Hallett.
Published by Collins & Brown Ltd, Mercury House, 195 Knightsbridge, London
SW7 1RE, 1993. ISBN 1 85585 111 3.
Wordsworth at Colthouse by Eileen Jay. Published in
1970 & 1981. ISBN 0950777102.
Wordsworth a Life by Juliet Barker. Published by
Penguin Group, ISBN 0-670-87213-X, 2000.
The Wreck of the Abergavenny by Alethea Hayter.
Published by Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-98917-1, 2002.
PROFESSOR CARL KETCHAM
The following noted from C. H. Ketcham, The Death of
Wordsworth's Brother John, The Cornell Library Journal, William Wordsworth
Bicentenary Issue Spring 1970, No. 11.
Chapter XX11 of Christopher Wordsworth's Memoirs of William
Wordsworth (London, 1851)
William Wordsworth, a Biography, Mary Moorman, 2 Vols.
(Oxford, 1965 to 66), particularly 'The Set is Broken' & 'The Later Years'.
John Wordsworth and his Brother's Poetic Development, R. C.
Townsend, PMLA, LXXXI (1966), 70-78.
A Wordsworth Letter - William Wordsworth to Robert Southey
in Spring 1805, Jonathan Wordsworth, Times Literary Supplement, July 27th,
1967.
Letters of the Coleridge Circle - Sara Hutchinson to Mrs.
Cookson of Kendal, May 1805.
Letters of Mary Wordsworth, ed. Mary Burton (Oxford, 1958)
pages 2 to 3.
East Indiamen: The East India Company’s Maritime
Service, by Evan Cotton, edited by Charles Fawsett. London, 1949.
The Old East Indiamen. By E. Keble Chatterton, ,
Published by T. Werner Laurie Ltd, 8 Essex Street, Strand, London 1933.
The Honourable Company, A History Of The English East India
Company. By John Keay. Published by Harper Collins 1991, 77 - 85, Fulham
Palace Road, London W6 8JB. ISBN 0 00 638072 7
Trade in the Eastern Seas, 1793 - 1813. By C. N.
Parkinson, Cambridge University Press 1937.
The Trade of the East India Company 1709 to 1813, F.
P. Robinson, Cambridge University Press, 1912.
The East Indiamen. By Russell Miller and the Editors
of Time Life Books. Time Life 1980, ISBN 7054 0635 0.
Lords Of The East: The East India Company and its
Ships. By Jean Sutton. Conway Maritime Press Ltd, 1981. ISBN 0
85177 1696. Also 2nd Edition 2001
Diving For The Griffen. By Charles Daggett and
Christopher Shaffer. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London. 1990.
ISBN 0 297 81063 4.
WEYMOUTH REFERENCE LIBRARY LIST
Barlow, John - The loss of the Earl of Abergavenny,
East Indiaman: A poem with notes, Weymouth, Virtue, n. d., 30p, 20cm
BB 910.4 - BU.1.
Burgoyne, G. A. - A Correct Narrative of the Loss of the Earl
of Abergavenny, East Indiaman, J. Wordsworth, Esq. Commander, which
foundered in Weymouth Roads, On Tuesday Night, February the 5th,
1805. By G. A. Burgoyne, Esq. Cornet in the 8th Regiment of
Light Dragoons. Weymouth: Printed by M. Virtue, for J. Harvey, at
the Library, Esplanade. Price Sixpence. (Weymouth Library).
Glass Cabinet - BB 910.4 - BU.1.
The case of thirty Chinamen, Illus, Map. Chapter 9,
The Wreck Detectives by Kendall MacDonald, 1972.
Open Access - L 930.102804 - MA1.
Burgoyne, G. A. - Ditto of above, Photocopy
L 910.4 - BU1A.
Cutting from the Times, 9-6-1965. Regarding an
antique cream jug exhibited in London and engraved in the base;
"Taken from the wreck of the Abergavenny, 1806. Available in
the Victor Adams Weymouth Cutting Book.
Glass Cabinet W3 - L 942.331 - AD1, p256.
The Earl of Abergavenny 1805: An outward bound
English East Indiaman. Pamphlet
L 910.4 - CU1.
Extract from the Hereford Journal, dated 13-8-1806.
Mr. Brathwayte's diving machine (presumably referring to the Braithwaite salvage
operations on the Earl of Abergavenny)
Pamphlet - L 910.4 - EA.5.
Extracts from The Monthly Magazine of 1806, concerning
salvage of the wreck of the Earl of Abergavenny. Illus, Pamphlet.
L 910.4 - EA.7.
An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the Earl of
Abergavenny East Indiaman, Captain John Wordsworth, off Portland, on the
night of the 5th of Feb. 1805. By a Gentleman in the East India
House.
Inside Cover; "The contents of this Narrative
are from the actual communications of the survivors, and the official documents
laid before the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company. [Signed
W. D.] New Inn 10th February, 1805. Printed by W. Lane,
Leadenhall-Street [Lane, Newman & Co., London, 54 pages]."
This is the 4th Edition - BB 910.4 - BU1.
Hanford, F. E. - With the Braithwaite's in Dorset, 1955,
Illustrations including portraits. Salvage operations on the wreck of the Earl
Of Abergavenny . In the Dorset Year Book for 1955 to 1956.
L 052.33 - DO55, pages 91 to 94.
Kerridge, Benjamin J. - Weymouth & Melcolme Regis.
Local Ratings, Volume 1, Manuscript 1866.
Glass Cabinet W3 - L 942.331, Ker. 1, page 204 continued on pages 217 to 232.
Kerridge, Benjamin J. - Weymouth & Melcombe Regis and
its environs. Manuscript 1858.
Glass Cabinet W3 - L 942.331 Ker. 3, pages 244 to 253.
Larn, Richard - The Earl Of Abergavenny. Extract
from Sub Aqua scene, May 1983.
MacDonald, Kendall & Cumming Ed & Barbara, Weymouth's Warship.
L 910.4 - EA.6.
The loss of the (Earl of Abergavenny), a new
song/poem. In Davey, George and others. Our Island Heritage, poems
& prose 1972.
L 821.91 - DA.1, pages 39 to 40.
The Monthly Magazine or British Register, Volume XXI, Part
1, 1806. Apparatus used in recovering the property lost in the Abergavenny.
L 910.4 - EA.9
News cuttings (1866), providing some details not in other
sources.
Kerridge, Benjamin J. - Weymouth & Melcombe Regis.
Local Ratings, Volume 1, Manuscript 1866
Glass Cabinet W3 - L 942.331, Ker. 1, pages 223 to 232.
Pocock - Pocock's Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the Abergavenny,
East Indiaman, John Wordsworth Esq. Captain, Off Portland, February 5, 1805.
L 910.4 - PO.3
Rhodes, William - Four men dive to disaster ship of 156
years ago. In the Dorset Evening Echo, October 14, 1961.
Wordsworth, William - Elegiac verses in memory of my
brother, John Wordsworth, Commander of the Earl of Abergavenny, in which
he perished by calamitous shipwreck, Feb 6, 1805. Extracted from:
The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, 1899.
l 910.4 - WO.1.
Braithwaite, W. R. - Raising of the Earl of Abergavenny
in the Journal of the Endeavour, 1805 to 1807.
L 910.4 - EA.10.
ILLUSTRATIONS AT WEYMOUTH;
Tomlinson, Cobold - Wreck of the Earl of Abergavenny,
5th Feb, 1805.
Photograph of an engraving. L 910.4 - EA.1.
Salvage operations on the wreck of the Earl of
Abergavenny, Weymouth Bay, 1806.
Photograph of an engraving 11 by 16 cm. Negative available.
L 910.4 - EA.3.
Salvage operations on the wreck of the Earl of
Abergavenny, 29th September, 1805. Photograph of an
engraving with description of the work in progress, 18 by 24cm.
L 910.4 - EA.10.
Dear Jane, A biographical study of Jane Austen by Constance
Pilgrim, William Kimber, London, 1971, SBN 7183 0022 X.
