Royal Charter wreck - the gold ring on the beach

This poem about the Royal Charter disaster is printed at the back of An  Authentic Account if the Wreck of the Royal Charter Sream Clipper on her passage from Australia to Liverpool , October 26th 1859 with an Interesting Additoion of Subsequent  Events and Incidents Written During a Residence at Moelfra, the Scene of the Catastrophe (Dublin 1860.) The poem was inspired by an account of the finding of a gold ring on the beach at Moelfra  'by one of the peasants living in the vicinity of the wreck.'  With help from the local vicar the ring was restored to the father of the drowned owner - a Mr. Corry Fowler of Dublin. The ring had been worn by his son in memory of his departed sister whose name was inscribed on it. The poem is by a niece.

 Lines on a Ring cast on shore five months after the wreck of the Royal Charter.

Five moons the raging sea retained,
Within its secret hold, 
This ring, the sad and sacred type 
Of mourning manifold.

This ring, that to a brother's love,
A sister's death declared, 
Returneth, crying from the deep – 
"Woe! Woe! He hath not spared!"

Oh ring of mourning, ring of Fate
In what unfathomed scene
Of horror  unexplor'd and dark
Hast thou mute witness been?

'Lines on the Loss of the Royal Charter'

At least 800 lives were lost in the seas around the shores of Britain in the violent storms on the night of 25-26 October 1859. 223 vessels were wrecked: the biggest disaster of all was the loss of the Royal Charter off the coast of Wales, in which almost 450 people died. The ship was returning from Australia and the passengers included many gold miners, some of who had struck it rich at the diggings in Australia and were carrying large sums of gold about their persons. A consignment of gold was also being carried as cargo; it was insured for over £300,000 - about half a billion pounds in todays money. Many of the passengers were killed by being dashed against the rocks by the waves rather than drowned. Others were said to have drowned, weighed down by the belts of gold they were wearing around their bodies. The survivors, 21 passengers and 18 crew members, were all men, with no women or children saved. This poem on one side of a small  card was probably sold for a halfpenny or farthing just after the disaster. The address 'Trafalgar, Neyland' is nearby in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire. Of Maria Roberts nothing is known…

We also have a more accomplished poem about a gold ring washed up on the beach (to follow) but this poem was probably composed very shortly after the fateful night:

'Lines on the Loss of the Royal Charter.' Inscribed to Messrs Gibbs, Bright & Co., Liverpool

The mornings breeze came rushing o'er the bay,

Marshalling the sea-weed into proud array;

The towering billows, capped with shining foam

Like snow-clad summits on a Highland home.

The noble Charter – like a bird she flew;

Our sea-girt isle she made and kept in view;

Nearing the coast, from whence there came no sound,

But the high raging waves on ocean's bound.