Filey - St. Oswald's Church

St. Oswald's Churchyard

Emulator

Another gravestone that records the loss the local fishing community has had to bear is that of the gravestone of Richard Cammish Jenkinson and his wife Mary Elizabeth, which records at its foot (shown above right) the loss of their son, William, and two of their grandsons,Thomas Castle Jenkinson and his cousin Richard Cammish Jenkinson, in the "Emulator" disaster of 15th April 1919.
The "Emulator" (SH164) an 81 foot 66 ton steam drifter was out fishing 26 miles off Flamborough Head when it struck a mine laid during the wartime. All the crew of 9 were lost:-

Matthew Crimlisk	47 years	Joint Owner	Skipper
his sons
Wilfred	19 years
Tom Robert	17 years
William Jenkinson	43 years	Joint Owner
his son
Thomas Castle	15 years
Richard Cammish Jenkinson	26 years	Joint Owner
Mortimer Scales	41 years
Matthew Cammish	29 years
Richard Baxter Cowling	48 years

The "Emulator" had been used on minesweeping duties off the Yorkshire coast during the war, and on that fateful day was on her first trip out after returning to fishing duties. The loss once again highlights the grief that a Filey wife and mother had to endure with loss of a husband and sons to the sea.
The irony of the disaster is that Richard Cammish Jenkinson had only recently returned from war service in the Mediterranean where he had skippered a minesweeper. For him to survive the dangers implicit in that work and then to come home and be killed by a stray mine must have been hard for his family to bear.

Memorial

The loss of the nine lives in the "Emulator" disaster is shown on the tablet, shown right, in St Oswald's Church that records the names of Filey fishermen who perished at sea and whose bodies were never recovered.

click here to see some photographs of the Crimlisk family, and one of the "Emulator".

S.S. Langleecrag & William Cammish Colling

The gravestone of Thomas Jenkinson Colling, son of Matthew Jenkinson and Ann Colling, records the death of his brother William Cammish Colling who lost his life in the incident that saw the break-up of the British freighter S.S. Langleecrag off Newfoundland on the 15th November 1947.
The Langleecrag, a 4909 ton British freighter with a crew of 43, was en route to Father Point, Quebec, from Hull, to pick up a cargo of grain when, at 05.50 G.M.T. on the Saturday morning, she ran ashore in dense fog. Her main boiler exploded immediately, and the ship broke her back.
The captain, Thomas Orford of Liverpool, thought they had struck an iceberg. He decided to wait for daylight before making an attempt to reach the shore.
When daylight broke it was found that they had come aground on what they believed was the northern tip of the northern Newfoundland mainland, near Boat Harbour. The ship was hard and fast on the rocks and for the moment was safe, although being bounded by hard waves. The weather was very stormy and the rescue ship, the whaler Olaf Olsen, got ready to leave St Anthony once the weather relented.
Captain Orford decided to get the crew and some provisions ashore. The aft end of the broken ship was on the rocks so the crew there went down the ladder with the intention of making a connection of steel wires and ropes from the fore end of the ship to the rocks on the shore. The first man down, F. Anderson from Hull, was washed from the ladder by a huge wave and drowned.
The first man working his way over with a rescue line to the shore was swept away by a wave and drowned. That man was William Cammish Colling from Filey.
The rest of the crew managed to get ashore without any further loss and found they were on the desolate island of Sacred Island.
It was not until the Wednesday morning, the 19th, that the weather was such that the Olaf Olsen could leave St Anthony for the wreck. The heavy sea made the rescue attempt difficult. A harpoon was shot from the Olaf Olsen to the shore and was fixed to the rocks. A lifeboat was sent along the line and thanks to the skill of the captain and crew of the whaler the survivors, a few at a time, were taken off the island. The rescue took twelve hours to complete.
The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Mercury reported on 21st November 1947: -
"Filey Mourns
Filey was a town of gloom yesterday when the death was made known of one of its most popular fishermen William Cammish Colling of Sand Hill Lane, drowned during the wreck of the Langleecrag. He was 28 and single. His father, mother, three brothers and many other relatives live in Filey. During the war he was for six years in the Royal Navy."

Reading the inscriptions on several other gravestones, you soon appreciate the price the fishing community have had to pay over the years. None more poignant than the gravestone that records the loss of five members of one Filey family in one disaster. They were part of a crew all of whom were lost when a vessel floundered on Smethwick Sands, Bridlington during a blizzard on the 25th November 1925. To lose one member of a family to the sea is bad enough but imagine the grief that family had to bear.
click here to read about that disaster

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