Pat Regan: The Southport/Blackpool Lifeboat Disaster and Birkdale Palace Hotel

Fourteen heroic Southport lifeboatmen were provisionally laid to rest at the site of the Palace Hotel after being drowned, trying to save lives on December 9, 1886.

A German vessel called the Mexico was driven aground off Southport in the famous Southport and Blackpool lifeboats disaster.

Eliza Fernley, the Southport crew’s lifeboat, had been launched from Southport in response to distress signals from the Mexico’s crew. At eleven o’clock that night the Eliza Fernley managed to come within about twenty yards of the Mexico. However, she was capsized by a huge wave.

Some hours later, the stricken Eliza Fernley was found approximately three miles from Southport at Birkdale. Fourteen of her sixteen-man crew perished.

Blackpool lifeboats also went out on that fateful night in a bid to save lives.

The "News of the World" magazine, (12th December 1886) covered the disaster like this:

LIFEBOAT DISASTERS

‘A distressing catastrophe occurred off the Lancashire coast early on Friday. It seems that during the gale which raged on Thursday a large barque, the Mexico, of Hamburg, from Liverpool to Guayaquil, was seen to be at anchor in a dangerous position off Ainsdale. During the evening she dragged her anchors, and drove on the beach. The Southport lifeboat, Eliza Fernley, was launched about 11 o'clock, and manned by a crew of 16 hands, pulled gallantly through the raging sea in the direction of the wreck, which could be plainly seen by the lights of her signals. Two of her masts were gone, and her crew, lashed to various parts of the vessel, were shouting wildly for help. After a fierce battle with the wind and sea, the lifeboat was seen to get within about 20 yards of the wreck, and her success seemed assured. Just at this moment she fell off with the force of the wind, and before she could be brought up again a terrific sea struck her, and she was capsized, all the crew being thrown into the water. Instead of righting herself, as she ought to have done, she remained bottom upwards, and was blown onto the beach. Three of the crew managed to get hold of the upturned boat and drifted ashore with her in safety; but the other 13 were drowned, three of the bodies being found entangled under the boat when she touched the beach. The remaining ten bodies were washed ashore during the course of Friday morning. Of the 13 deceased 10 were married, and many of them have large families. The men saved were Henry Robinson, John Jackson, and John Ball. The last-named died on Friday night in the infirmary, thus making 14 deaths.’

The bodies of the crewmen were viewed by a jury from the hurriedly convened coroner's investigation held at Birkdale's Palace Hotel. In respect for the departed heroes the public house later built on the Palace Hotel site was named 'The Fishermans Rest.'

Above: The Fishermans Rest

As a teenager I would frequently set lines to catch fish on Birkdale beach at night near the pub. Birkdale beach after dark is quite a foreboding place, especially when the fog comes down and it’s snowing in winter. I can well imagine what a terrible night, for the ill-fated crewmen, that must have been.

I feel an immense affinity for the Southport heroes that died that tragic night and the epic Southport lifeboat disaster still brings tears to my eyes.

So what is my own particular attachment to the Palace Hotel?

Well, my Swiss/German grandfather on my mother’s side was a man called ‘Eugene Gshwinder.’ He was the Head Waiter at the Palace Hotel in the 1920s.

Above: staff at the Palace with my grandfather (front row right).

Eventually the Mexico's crew were saved by the Charles Biggs's crew from Blackpool's Lytham area. Another lifeboat, the Laura Janet, was sunk and all her crew lost to the raging sea.

27 lives were lost in the great disaster that terrible stormy night. To date, this is the worst loss of RNLI crew in a single incident.