Wreck of the Hornby, Great Orme's Head, Llandudno
The Hornby, Captain Wade, which sailed from Liverpool on the 27th ult. for
Rio de Janeiro, had been totally wrecked on the rocks of the Great Ormshead,
and only one person (John Williams) saved. The individual so miraculously
preserved states, that they were at one time so far down as far as Point Qynas,
another at Black Comb, and on Thursday morning at Puffings' Island, near Anglesey,
where, after making a stretch to the northward, with the wind N.W. or W.N.W.
The captain intended to keep an offing and to run for Liverpool in the morning.
They did not think they were so near the land until about ten minutes before she
struck. When they perceived it, they were standin in with a close reefed main
topsail, foresail, and trysail. He (John Williams? was then ordered out to loose
the jib to wear her; when finding himself over a shelf of a rock, he dropped
upon it, and seeing no more of the vessel, nor hearing any noise, he supposed she
had backed off, and did not know the vessel had gone to pieces till morning, by
which time he had managed to reach the top of the cliff, where his story was for
some time misbelieved, more from the impossibility they thought there was of his
getting up the precipice, than from the way he mentioned being thrown upon a rock.
The cargo was valued at from fifty to sixty thousand pounds, very little of which
has been saved; even the little which has been cast ashore has for the most part
been plundered by the country people, hundreds of them flocking to the coast, and
carrying off all that could be found.
(Shrewsbury Chronicle. 25.January,1824)
"Eight persons have been committed to Carnarvon county gaol, from the neighbour-
hood of Llandudno, charged with plundering from the wreck of the Hornby, lost on
the Great Ormshead.
(Shrewsbury Chronicle. 5. March, l824)
CARNARVON ASSIZE.
William Davies of Bryn Llandudno, charged with plundering the wreck of the
Hornby, on the 2nd of January,l824, twelve months imprisonment.
John Jones, John Jones, William Davies, and John Griffiths, charged with ditto,
nine months hard labour.
John Roberts, Robert Jones, Owen Owens, Edward Jones, and Griffith Griffiths,
charged with ditto, six months hard labour.
William Roberts, and Robert Williams, charged with ditto, discharged on their
recognizances of thirty pounds each.
(Shrewsbury Chronicle. 25. April,l824)
