Sailing ships out of Ulster
by Brian Mitchell

We owe a great deal of gratitude to Eric Ruff, curator and director of the Yarmouth County Museum, Nova Scotia, Canada for bringing to the attention of Liverpool-based author Sam Davidson that one of the paintings in their collection, of "The Barque Lois of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia entering Belfast Lough", was signed "Josha Sempill Derry & Belfast 1876."

 It set in motion a train of events that led to the publication of this glorious book that is, in effect, a tribute to the work of Ulster's first successful residential ship portrait painter.

 On June 21, 1869 Joseph Joshua Semple, born in Scotland and working as an artist in Belfast, married Rachel Griffith, the daughter of William Griffith, gunsmith and "collector of curios" of Ferryquay Street, Londonderry, in the city's St Columb's Cathedral.  This began an association with the city that lasted until his death at the age of 47 on June 1, 1877.

 I was fascinated to read that the artist's association, by marriage, with the Maiden City seems also to have been marked by a change in the spelling of his  surname, in his portraits before 1869 the artist generally signed his surname as Semple and after 1869 as Sempill or Semphill!

 The artist is buried in Londonderry City Cemetery in an unmarked  grave.  This book, however, will stand as a monument to Joseph Semple's achievements.  At least 65 ship portraits have been identified in private and museum collections on both sides of the Atlantic, a number which is sure to increase.  Amongst those illustrated are two emigrant ships, the Minnehaha and Village Belle, which belonged to Londonderry merchants William McCorkell & Co.  Interestingly, these ships are portrayed, "in full sail with the main 'course' in the process of being furled," as entering Belfast Lough, off Whitehead, even though they operated out of Londonderry on Lough Foyle.

 On first receiving this book, I was mesmerised by the sheer number and quality of colour reproductions of sailing ships and cross-channel paddle steamers painted by Joseph Semple and other lesser known Ulster artists.  For example, William H.ÊWeaver painted four ship portraits for William McCorkell & Co, namely the Hiawatha, Minnehaha, Oweenee and Village Belle.

 Each of the ship portraits is accompanied by detailed footnotes which are full of insight.  The author says of Joseph Semple's maritime paintings that "technically his ship portraits are accurate and aesthetically they are pleasing even to the uninitiated."

 This book also serves another purpose by relating and portraying the rich maritime history of both 19th century Belfast and Londonderry.  In the modern age, this story has largely been forgotten.  This book and the paintings in it illustrate the once very close maritime links between Londonderry, Belfast, Liverpool and Glasgow.  The majority of Semple's portraits depicts ships on the approaches to Belfast Lough, the Mersey and the Clyde.

 For many this book will also be a revelation of the very close trans-Atlantic links, forged in the 18th century and strengthened in the 19th century, between Londonderry and the maritime provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in Canada and the state of Maine in the United States.

History of the McCorkell shipping line

 William McCorkell, born in Scotland in 1728, was the founder of the Londonderry shipping line, William McCorkell & Co in 1778.  Initially, the company acted as agents for American-owned ships in the passenger trade from Londonderry to North America.  In 1815, they bought their first ship, the Marcus Hill, for the passenger trade.  From 1815 until 1897, when their last vessel, the Hiawatha, was sold, the McCorkell Line owned 26 ships.

 In the 1860s McCorkell & Co demonstrated that first-class sailing ships, such as the Minnehaha, known in its New York, East River berth as "the green yacht from Derry", could compete with steam on the North American passenger run.

 The situation, however, could not last.  In 1873 the Minnehaha made the last passenger voyage by a Londonderry-owned ship to New York.  Emigrants from Londonderry were now carried down the River Foyle in paddle tenders to Moville where they joined the steamships of the Anchor and Allan Line.

 The Baltimore grain trade, however, enabled the McCorkell Line to prosper through the 1870s and 1880s despite the loss of the passenger trade.  From 1873 to 1889 McCorkell & Co bought seven ships, principally for the grain trade.  At its peak in 1881 the firm had a fleet of eight ships, importing some 20,000 tons of grain, employed in the Baltimore grain run.
With increasing competition from steamers and foreign sail in the late 1880s, together with the loss of three of their ships through shipwreck, it was only a matter of time before McCorkell & Co withdrew from the Atlantic trade.  The sale of the Hiawatha in 1897 marked the end of the company's involvement in the shipping trade.

 The final years of the McCorkell Line were blighted by tragedy.  The Oweenee, sailing to Philadelphia in the spring of 1882 was never heard of again, it is assumed she struck an ice flow.  In severe weather in January, 1884, the Nokomis, an iron barque, anchored in the relative safety of Lough Foyle, off Greencastle, was blown over the shallow sand banks, when her anchor broke, at the entrance to Lough Foyle.  All 13 crew members and the pilot, Neal Gillespie, were drowned.

The Osseo, a steel barque built in Londonderry by Charles Bigger of the Foyle shipyard, was lost near Holyhead, in severe gales, on December 31, 1894; no one survived the wreck.  The Osseo, with her crew of 24, six of whom lived in Londonderry, were completing a voyage of 18 months which had taken them around the world to destinations such as Rio de Janeiro and Newcastle in New South Wales. 

 The story of The Osseo, remembered in verse, is very much part of Londonderry's maritime folklore.

Marine Art & Ulster: A Chronicle of Sail, Steam & Flag Codes
by A.S. Davidson.

Published by Jones-Sands Publishing (2005)226 pages. £38.95.
The author and publisher can be contacted for further information at:Richard Sands Jones-Sands Publishing Email: Richard@jones-sands-publishing.com or A.S. Davidson (Sam)Email: samdavidson@bigfoot.com.
Brian Mitchell is genealogical manager at The Geneaology Centre, Londonderry