Only two survived, one a hero: A look back at the sinking of the Loch Ard 140 years ago

An 18-year-old Dublin woman was one of only two survivors from the wreck of the Loch Ard when it sank off the coast of Australia 140 years ago this month, reports Robert Hume. The other, a boy from Tipperary, saved her life.

BY THE time they were climbing the gangplank to board the Loch Ard in Gravesend, Kent, on March 2, 1878, some passengers may already have heard the rumour that ships belonging to the Loch Line were cursed.

The five year-old iron-hulled clipper, carrying emigrants and a cargo of railway track, pianos and clocks to Australia, had already been wrecked twice.

Days before reaching Melbourne, it still had to traverse the infamous strait between the mainland and King Island, “Threading the needle”, as the old sea dogs would say.

Late on Friday, May 31, after 13 weeks at sea, and only a day before it was due to berth, the Loch Ard encountered a fog bank close to Cape Otway, Victoria, along what is now called the Shipwreck Coast.

Eventually, the fog lifted, but early on June 1, before anchors could be secured, the vessel smashed against the tall, sandstone cliffs of Mutton Bird Island.

“Abandon ship!” shouted the sailors, but the lifeboats were not ready for launching, so lifebuoys were brought up from the hold, and the women were strapped to them.

Within 10 minutes, the Loch Ard had sunk. Most of the passengers and crew were carried down with the ship, though some found themselves floating on pieces of wreckage, drifting helplessly towards the inaccessible shore. They dropped off one by one from exhaustion and drowned.

The captain, 28-year-old George Gibb, remained at his post and did what he could to save lives, but 52 people died, of which 36 were crew and 16 were passengers.

However, 18-year-old apprentice midshipman, Thomas Pearce from Tipperary, clung to an overturned table and was swept out to sea. Hours later, the tide brought him back in. As the waters calmed, he abandoned the table and swam towards a beach, which lay in a deep inlet, now known as Loch Ard Gorge.

Loch Ard Gorge, where Thomas was washed ashore.

From there, he heard the desperate cries of a woman. Tom swam out to the ship. A young woman was clinging to a floating chicken coop. Gripping her nightgown between his teeth as he swam, he struggled back to shore with her.

As she lay, “almost insensible” on the beach, he gave her brandy from a case that had been washed ashore, made a bed of rushes for her in a small cave, and climbed the cliff to look for assistance.

After several falls, he scrambled to the clifftop, where he discovered a track that he followed for several miles. Eventually, he came across a man, who worked on Hugh Gibson’s farm at Glenample. The man called his mates and a relief party set off for the beach immediately, but on reaching the cave, Pearce was shocked to find that Eva was missing. Apparently, when she heard the rescuers’ “coo-ee”, she thought they were savages and hid.

It was not until night that she was found lying under some bushes “in a comatose condition”, too weak to be moved. A fire was lit and food and clothing brought to her. The following day, she was pulled up the cliff by rope and carried to Mr Gibson’s farmhouse to be nursed by his wife.

A farm hand was despatched to the nearest town of Camperdown to alert the outside world what had happened. A few days later, the Loch Line sent a representative to interview Tom and Eva and assess the value of what was left of the vessel for insurance.

Eighteen-year-old Eveline Carmichael, the daughter of a ship’s doctor from Dublin, was migrating from Ireland to Melbourne with her parents, her sisters Rebecca, Annie and Margaret, and her little brothers, Evory and Thomas. All died and were buried along the clifftop with other passengers and crew.

Eveline Carmichael, aged 18. She died in 1934 and her ashes may have been taken to France to be with those of her husband.

Wreckers began to pilfer debris washed ashore, but one item — a porcelain figure of a peacock — was rescued and is now on display nearby at the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum in Warrnambool.

Journalists, meanwhile, descended on the scene, sleeping on the floor of the Gibsons’ farmhouse. The stories they published caused a sensation and provoked letters and telegrams from readers all over the world.

Several expressed concern that a young — unmarried — man and woman had spent the night together, unchaperoned, but most praised the brave lad’s actions. “After a hard fight for his own life he unhesitatingly risked it again at worse odds,” reported the Cork Examiner. The pair became celebrities and posed for Melbourne photographers. Even buttons picturing Eva and Tom’s heads were sold to collect funds for the two survivors.

Many found the episode hugely romantic, that God had brought them together for a reason. They hoped that Eva would marry the dashing young hero.

However, Eva and Tom decided to go their own separate ways. They came from two different social classes: She was the daughter of a doctor, whereas he was a humble ship hand. According to Eva, they had nothing in common and, besides, he already had a sweetheart in Scotland.

After six weeks recovering, Eva sailed back to Ireland on the steamer Tanjone, and settled in Garrycloyne, Co Cork, with her grandmother. Shortly afterwards Tom returned to sea, ending up a ship’s captain.

For his gallantry, he was awarded £1,000 from the government of Victoria, a gold watch, chain and locket, and the first gold medal struck by the Royal Humane Society of Victoria.

The two survivors never met again. Or so the traditional story goes.

Back in Ireland, Eva became briefly engaged to Captain Bolton Jones, but it did not work out.

Then, At Blarney Castle she met Captain Thomas Achilles Townshend, an aristocrat 13 years her senior. In 1884, they married, settled down and raised three children.

Did Tom and Eva meet again?

The Townshends moved to England, and lived in Cheltenham, Somerset, Bedford and London. After the First World War, Eva would accompany her husband on annual trips to the French Riviera. While they were in Monte Carlo in 1923, he suffered a heart attack and died.

Thomas Pearce, aged 18. He died in Ireland in 1909 and lies buried in the Old Cemetery, Southampton, England.

In 1934, a certain M Moseley wrote to the Melbourne Argus to say that two years after the death of Thomas Townshend, he had chanced to bump into “a well-built, fine featured woman” while playing bridge at the Hôtel des Colonies in Mentone, near Nice. Eva was there to tend her husband’s grave.

“Why didn’t you marry Tom Pearce?” Moseley blurted out.

The question shocked her: “It must be nearly 50 years since I have been asked that. Once, it was always being thrust at me.”

He was a seaman, she explained, and was engaged at the time of the wreck. Although he offered to break his engagement and marry her, she felt it would have been wrong.

Then came a startling revelation. When living on the Irish coast, she told Moseley, she had constantly been called out to help survivors from shipwrecks. On January 11, 1879, the Loch Sunart was wrecked on Skullmartin Reef, off Ballywalter, Co Down. Who did she rescue on that occasion? None other than Tom Pearce!

Preposterous? Maybe. But that’s what Eveline Carmichael claimed.