LIVERPOOL MERCURY
25th January 1913
The Lambert and Holt Liner, VERONESE, went ashore at Leixoes, North of Portugal on the 16th, she was built in 1906, owned by the Liverpool and Brazil, River Plate, Steam Navigation Co. 15 lives have been lost.
3, 1st Class passengers, 2, 2nd Class passengers, 4, crew and 6, emigrants.
Crew include.
Mrs Florence STUBEL, Stewardess, 43 Beaumont St.
James PERCIVAL. A.B.
F. CAINE, A.B.
James MC MANN, Fireman
Joseph MURPHY, Fireman [ MURPHY’S body was washed ashore]
Crew injured and detained at Leixoes.
Ernest. V. HUGO, Chief Officer.
William JAY, A.B.
John PELSSON / PERSSON
H. BECKETT, Purser
Captain Charles TURNER, will return home after formalities have been performed.
MURPHY was buried at Mathozinhos, R. C. Cemetery. Survivors will be taken by train to Lisbon and will return on the AVON for Southampton.
Liverpool Mercury, February 1st, 1913
The Veronese disaster, Engineers story.
75 crew of the Lamport and Holt steamer VERONESE, which went ashore off the coast of Portugal during the recent gale arrived at Southampton last Saturday, by the Royal Mail steamer AVON, and were afterwards sent to their respective homes, mainly Liverpool.
Fred MACMAHON, the 5th engineer of Chestnut Grove, Birkenhead, told a graphic story of the disaster.
He was asleep in his bunk when the ship went into the rocks and it was the racing of the engines which woke him.
“I guessed there was something wrong in the engine room,” he said, “and slipping into anything that lay handy I went down below. At the bottom of the stairs I found myself up to the waist in water, which was almost up to the cylinder tops. I was washed off the gratings but managed to get up the steps to the deck. It was very dark and we could see nothing till daylight. Although we struck at 5 am, it was 4 pm before we could get the rocket apparatus in working order. They fired rocket lines from the shore, but the lines fouled on the rows of jagged rocks between the ship and the coast, and broke. We did not catch 1 in 12 fired.
About 22 persons were rescued on the Thursday, then the lines gave way. I heard there were 26 drowned altogether, most of them emigrants. The last man left the ship at 2.30 on Saturday and landed at Leixoes, where we were glad to have a rub down, hot coffee, wine and dry clothes. Both the Portuguese and British treated us very hospitably indeed; in fact, they could not have done more.
I lost everything except the clothes I stood up in, most of us were in a similar plight. Most of the passengers who were drowned lost their lives by being washed from the breeches buoy in transit to the shore in the boiling surf.
Some doubt attaches to the fate of two little girls named TURNBULL, I heard they had been rescued and taken care of by an English family, but no one seems to know what became of them, and it seems probable they were lost.
As far as we know 5 members of the crew were drowned, 2 firemen, 2 seamen and the stewardess.
On Saturday when the sea had gone down the Portuguese launched life boats and got the remaining crew off in 3 hrs, Capt TURNER had a terrible time having only 2/3 hrs sleep in as many days.
It is my first experience of a shipwreck and I hope,” he added devoutly, “It will be my last.”
Copyright 2002 / To date