The saga of the Grosvensor 1782 shipwreck.

[Crow]

Greetings all shipwreck enthusiasts. Grab and ale sit back and enjoy the yarn of Grosvensor.

The wreck of the Grosvenor, an East Indiaman, occurred on 4 August 1782 on the Pondoland coast of South Africa, north of the Umzimvubu River. The shipwreck was close to the place where the Portuguese ship São João had gone down more than two centuries earlier on 8 June 1552.

The Grosvenor was a three-masted ship of 729 tons on her return voyage to England when she was wrecked, carrying a crew of 132 and 18 passengers (12 adults and 6 children), and a cargo valued at £75,000. Of the 123 survivors, only 18 reached Cape Town and were repatriated, the remainder dying of their privations or joining with tribes.

Four survivors, Robert Price, Thomas Lewis, John Warmington, and Barney Larey, eventually got back to England,

To be continued.....


Crow

 

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[Crow]

The Grosvenor shipwreck became a legend. The Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld. : 1906 - 1954), Thursday 4 October 1945, page 8

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TREASURE SHIP

Another attempt will be made to find the famous treasure ship sunk off' the Pondoland coast of South Africa more than 160 years ago. It Is the East India merchantman Grosvenor. wrecked in
1782, when carrying from Cevlon 19 boxes of diamonds, rubles, sapphires, and emeralds, 420 bars of gold, 1450 bars of silver, and several millions in specie.

Legend says that the ship also carried a gem-studded peacock throne, looted from Delhi, and valued at many millions. Grosvenor Is believed to be burled only 80 yards from the shore, but all previous attempts to reach it have been defeated by heavy rollers, which beat almost continuously.

This why treasure researcher have to do intense research to get at the truth. Newspapers are good for information but also bad as some reporters sensationalized such stories. The Grosvenor shipwreck was one such story.

To be continued.....

Crow

 

[Crow]

A website (coxonclub.com) maintained by family members of the ship’s captain, John Coxon, claims that there were 2 600 000 gold coins on board. This we believe is a largely exaggerated and an unsubstantiated number of coins. Here is picture of john Coxton below.

A study up to 2013 on artifacts found on the Grosvenor by S. Valentine of the East London Museum was published and comments “Several hundred gold artefacts were recovered. These included a pocket watch, several gold buckles as well as personal jewellery. But most were gold coins; star pagodas, Venetian ducats and Indian mohurs”. Below.

To be continued......


Crow

 

[Crow]

In 1880, an article appeared in the Natal Mercantile Advertiser that mentioned that numerous gold and silver coins had been picked up on the beach near the wreck. But the truth was rather different.

That belief happened that The Grosvenor, an East Indiaman, was wrecked on 4 August 1782 on the Pondoland coast of South Africa. The association of the Grosvenor with treasure goes back a long time. Some believed the ship carried large quantities of gold, silver and precious stones and even the so-called Peacock Throne, the jewelled seat of the Mughal Emperors of India.

The first attempt at salvage was reported on 20 May 1880 by the paper Natal Mercury, in an article stating that Captain Sidney Turner and a friend, Lieut Beddoes, of the Durban Volunteer Artillery, had set off for Port St Johns in the vessel Adonis, had proceeded to the wreck and commenced blasting the rocks with dynamite, retrieving Indian coins and Venetian ducats as well as several ship's cannon, two of which were later displayed at the Local History Museum in Durban.

In 1896, a further 340 gold and silver coins were found. In 1867, Turner and his brother-in-law, Walter Compton, had bought 600 acres (2.4 km2) of undeveloped Crown land on the Natal South Coast between Umkomaas and the present village of Clansthal, and called the property Ellingham.

In 1881, from the profits of his salvage, Turner floated a company and commissioned the construction of a small coastal steamer, the Lady Wood, built in Greenwich. Another investor was George Hall Rennie, son of shipping magnate John T. Rennie, who came into possession of one of the Grosvenor's cannon. Turner also had a local silversmith produce a goblet from recovered silver rupees, an item which also found its way to the Local History Museum.

By the beginning of 1885, a local chief Mqikela, who had become disaffected with the British government and wanted to develop his own harbour, concluded an agreement with Turner, in which Turner was granted 20,000 acres of land, including the coastline on which the Grosvenor had foundered.

In return for this, Turner was to select a suitable site for a harbour and undertake the necessary construction work. The site chosen for this new venture was at the mouth of the Mkweni River, close to the site of the Grosvenor wreck. Turner named it Port Grosvenor.

As Port Captain and harbourmaster, Turner collected customs dues and managed the harbour and pilotage. Turner was obliged by his financial circumstances to resign himself to this situation as he, by 1884, had a family of seven children and a wife to support. Despite objections from the Cape Government the port was officially opened.
wife to support. Despite objections from the Cape Government the port was officially opened.

The Cape Government later declared Turner's concession illegal under tribal law, and he forfeited the land, his home and his position. The family moved to Port St Johns and Port Grosvenor faded into obscurity.

But dreams of treasure and dame fortune lured others to try their luck.

To be continued....


Crow

 

[Crow]

But that's all it was. A legend. An extravagant falsehood invented to tantalise fortune-seekers to invest in the Grosvenor Bullion Syndicate Ltd in 1923, along with several other syndicates and salvage companies formed over the past several decades.
In one such treasure hunting project was to dig a tunnel to the wreck site. how insane is that?

Here is the picture below.

East London Museum director Gill Vernon is certain that the Grosvenor never carried the Peacock. Nor was it transporting the annual profits of the British East India Company in diamonds and rubies - although there were certainly several wealthy merchants aboard.

Vernon, John Gribble of the South African national monuments agency and a team of Hungarian divers, are anxious that the Grosvenor should be seen now in a new light - not as a monetary treasure ship, but as an archaeological treasure trove which provides a "window" on the past.

The museum hosted a press conference last week at which the media was given a sneak preview of some of the 5 000-odd artefacts recovered recently by a joint venture company comprising the Argos diving company of Cape Town and the Hungarian Octopus maritime archaeological association.

Octopus was formed in 1995 by a group of investors and Budapest divers with a keen interest in maritime history - but with no ocean of their own to explore. Though they spent some time exploring the wreck of the Dutch battleship Bato in Simon's Town a few years ago, their imagination was captured by the myths and legends of the Grosvenor.

And in July 1999 they started work in the Transkei after obtaining an excavation permit from South Africa's national monuments agency.
It's an expensive and demanding venture - and though they are legally entitled to 50 percent of the artefacts they find, the Hungarians insist they are not treasure-seekers.

Even if all the recovered artefacts were sold, the Hungarians say they would be lucky to break even.
Excavation costs are rumoured to cost several thousand dollars a week, and the sea conditions at the excavation site are so terrible that they have only managed to get in 18 days of diving over the past three months.

Fortunately, the wreck site is relatively shallow - varying between 6m and 8m. But adding to their problems is the fact that most of the wreckage has literally been encased by the ocean floor. Most of the artefacts are glued into rock-like concretions caused by the chemical reaction of metal and calcium - so they had to be chiselled out carefully and then painstakingly removed and cleaned up on land.

Apart from the coins, they've also turned up a wide assortment of items - ranging from cannon balls to lice combs, to a brass pistol, shards of glass and porcelain, sewing pins, navigational dividers and brass bowls. All this is being carefully classified and logged in relation to the position of discovery.

The eventual plan is to house at least 50 percent of the items permanently in East London Museum, while some could be used for exhibition purposes aboard a full-scale replica of the Grosvenor.

For me the story of Grosvenor is story of tragedy and greed and poor research and how such cargoes can become sensationalized. Being a researcher one must sort out facts from the fantasy. And have a serious business head in knowing what is an achievable and what is financially sound project

Crow

 

[enrada]

There is a book called CALIBAN"S SHORE written by Stephen Taylor about this wreck. An excellent read and can be read on books.google I think. This book is in my shipwreck library.

 

[cannonball]

A website (coxonclub.com) maintained by family members of the ship’s captain, John Coxon, claims that there were 2 600 000 gold coins on board. This we believe is a largely exaggerated and an unsubstantiated number of coins. Here is picture of john Coxton below.

View attachment 2161763

A study up to 2013 on artifacts found on the Grosvenor by S. Valentine of the East London Museum was published and comments “Several hundred gold artefacts were recovered. These included a pocket watch, several gold buckles as well as personal jewellery. But most were gold coins; star pagodas, Venetian ducats and Indian mohurs”. Below.

View attachment 2161762

To be continued......


Crow

Can you tell me more about the last coin on the right? I found this one on Jersey Shore shipwreck

 

[Crow]

Hello Cannonball

It Italian Venice Ducat and Zecchino 1333 to 1789.

That said the coin is one of most counterfeited coin. Even now you can pick them up on ebay.

The scene depicted on the front of these beautiful coins from medieval Venice include a kneeling Doge (a political figure of the time) receiving a gonfalon (a flag of religious importance) from a holy man (often a disciple of Jesus Christ). The back shows an image of Christ Himself encircled by stars.

With a theoretical weight of c. 2.2 g., the coin reached a purity of 98.5%, the maximum achievable with the technology of the time.

This purity guaranteed a wide acceptance as a means of international payment. The design of the coin was strongly influenced by the Byzantine iconography, with a Christ enthroned on the obverse and Saint Mark and the Doge holding a banner, on the reverse.

Around 1250, as trade in the Mediterranean world flourished and expanded, Genoa and Florence - Venice's commercial rivals - minted new high-value pure gold coins, the Genovino and the Florin, with a standard of approximately 3.5 grams. The florin quickly established itself as the new standard currency for international trade.

The success of this rival coinage would finally lead the Venetians in 1284 to introduce their own gold coin, the ducat. It had a theoretical weight of 3.53 grams and a purity of 99.5%, which would allow it to conquer a place as a widely accepted international currency and to compete successfully with the florin.

The obverse shows an upright figure of Jesus surrounded by stars, with the legend T[ibi] XPE (Christe) DAT[us] Q[uem] T REGIS ISTE DVCAT[us]. On the reverse we see St. Mark handing over a banner to the Doge.

Venice would continue to mint ducats of the same quality until the end of the Republic in 1797.

Crow

 

[cannonball]

Hello Cannonball

It Italian Venice Ducat and Zecchino 1333 to 1789.

View attachment 2162906

View attachment 2162907

That said the coin is one of most counterfeited coin. Even now you can pick them up on ebay.

The scene depicted on the front of these beautiful coins from medieval Venice include a kneeling Doge (a political figure of the time) receiving a gonfalon (a flag of religious importance) from a holy man (often a disciple of Jesus Christ). The back shows an image of Christ Himself encircled by stars.

View attachment 2162908

With a theoretical weight of c. 2.2 g., the coin reached a purity of 98.5%, the maximum achievable with the technology of the time.

This purity guaranteed a wide acceptance as a means of international payment. The design of the coin was strongly influenced by the Byzantine iconography, with a Christ enthroned on the obverse and Saint Mark and the Doge holding a banner, on the reverse.

Around 1250, as trade in the Mediterranean world flourished and expanded, Genoa and Florence - Venice's commercial rivals - minted new high-value pure gold coins, the Genovino and the Florin, with a standard of approximately 3.5 grams. The florin quickly established itself as the new standard currency for international trade.

The success of this rival coinage would finally lead the Venetians in 1284 to introduce their own gold coin, the ducat. It had a theoretical weight of 3.53 grams and a purity of 99.5%, which would allow it to conquer a place as a widely accepted international currency and to compete successfully with the florin.

The obverse shows an upright figure of Jesus surrounded by stars, with the legend T[ibi] XPE (Christe) DAT[us] Q[uem] T REGIS ISTE DVCAT[us]. On the reverse we see St. Mark handing over a banner to the Doge.

Venice would continue to mint ducats of the same quality until the end of the Republic in 1797.

View attachment 2162917

View attachment 2162918


Crow

Thank you Crow for the wealth of information. Would you be able to get a better date on my coin? It came up with a Spanish Pillar Dollar among other trinkets. Thank you for any input.

 

[Crow]

Hello Cannonball you have to look for the name of the Dodge (the leader) at the time of the coin being struck. It should be on your coin.

Here is link below where you can find the name of the dodge will give you the date of the coin. the date range with be with in the reign of that ruler.

Venetian Ducat

Crow