The Yarn of Captain Bushby

Wow! Randy's cousin Linda just knew I would love this picture! The faded carte de visite picture has to have an amazing story, right?  It was a challenge to my Google detective abilities and fun to find out all I could about Captain T. Bushby from the few clues written on the picture.  It was among the picture collection of Linda and Randy's grandmother Elsie.  First was to find where Coquimbo is and it turns out it's a port on the north end of Chile in South America. 

In the mid 1800's, copper ore was mined in the Norte Chico District of Chile and sent back to England for smelting.  The boats were then loaded with coal for the return trip to Chile to help with the mining process.  That's why Captain Bushby was on his way to Coquimbo.

A helpful site here links to a book that recounts the shipwrecks on January 21, 1860.  There were actually four of them listed but only one started out at Swansea, Wales and was heading to Chile with a load of coals.  The ship called "William Marsland" was built in 1853 in Shoreham and was identified as having a capacity volume of 350 tons. Charles Cheesman was the owner.

Not the actual ship but one similar credit to T G Purvis [Public domain]

It was classed as a "Barque" which Wikipedia says is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore-and-aft.

The report in the February 1, 1860 edition of the Morning Chronicles in London says the barque foundered after colliding with another ship, the Stalk, and 11 of the 12 crew and passengers on board were drowned.  The location is described as 100 miles west of Lisbon at 38.5 N 12W.  The collision with the ship carrying barley happened at 2:00 am in a strong wind on a heavy sea.  Many of the crew and passengers from the Stalk were saved by getting into their "jollyboat" along with one miner from the William Marsland by name of William Mill from Redruth, Cornwall.  There is no mention of T. Bushby and was it not for the picture and the writing on it, he may have been lost to history as well as to the Atlantic Ocean.  

But who was T. Bushby?  Great Grandfather James was born in 1852 so he would have been 8 when the accident occurred. There is a Thomas Bushby born 1825 on this page but I haven't yet found any records for him.  I am led to guess this may have been James' uncle, a brother to his father Henry (1819-1877) and son of Frances Bushby (1784-1843) and his wife Frances Artlette (1785-1860). 

The landlocked members of the Bushby descendants that I am familiar with are so far away from their English coast ancestors.  I am glad to be able to find parts of this story and any further information would be most welcome!