2-888-237 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Wrecks on the Rocks at Tynemouth [North Shields] - sketched from below the Spanish Battery, 1850. '...the wind increased into a gale, the sea running high... a Hanoverian galliott, the Luna, laden with grain, missed her helm, and ran on to the rocks at Tynemouth, under the Spanish Battery. The Minuet, a Swede, ran on the Black Middens about the same time. The Vigilant schooner followed her, and now lies with her bottom knocked out. At 4 p.m. the Mary Anne, of North Shields, a laden collier [coal ship], likewise struck on the rocks...such a smashing and crashing, and tearing away of yards and spars, and breaking in of stems and bulwarks, and carrying away of bowsprits, &c., took place as never was witnessed in the harbour of Shields...We regret to learn that, notwithstanding the vigilance of the river police, there was great plunder, the wreckers being mostly Irish...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.