Site Record

Wreckage reported at the base of the cliff includes the engine.

Event and Historical Information:
The QUEEN was a wooden-hulled paddle steamer built by George Lunel & Co, Hotwells, Bristol, in 1838. Technical and configuration specifications are given as 498gt, 298nt; 150ft long x 23ft breadth x 14ft 8in depth; 1 deck; 2 masts, schooner rigged; square stern, false galleries, female figurehead; propulsion provided by a single boiler linked to a compound lever engine made by Bush Winwood, Bristol. The paddle steamer was owned at time of loss by the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company. The three Trustees of the company named on the ship's registry were Thomas Cole, George Lunell, and William Henry Marshall, all merchants of Bristol. The QUEEN was outward bound from Bristol to Dublin under the command of master Charles Cornelius Gardiner, when it grounded in thick fog on Skokholm Island near Marloes on 1 September 1843. One of the passengers was drowned in his berth, but the other 20 passengers and 16 crewmembers were rescued by the sloop HOPE of Milford.

Sources include:
Goddard, T, 1983, Pembrokeshire Shipwrecks, pg77.
Harris, G, 1993, Early Bristol Paddle-steamer Shipwrecks, pg86-96
Larn and Larn Shipwreck Database 2002
Port of Bristol Shipping Register 1835 - 1839, folio 168, Bristol Record Office 37908/1/5
UK Hydrographic Office Wrecks and Obstructions Database. ? Crown Copyright and database rights. Reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office and the UK Hydrographic Office (www.ukho.gov.uk).

Maritime Officer, RCAHMW, July 2009.