The Last Sail from Bermuda: HMS Atalanta and the Atlantic Gale of February 1880

On the morning of Saturday 31 January 1880, HMS Atalanta cleared the Royal Naval Dockyard at Bermuda for Falmouth, England. She was a 26-gun Spartan-class sixth-rate wooden frigate, launched as HMS Juno at Pembroke Dockyard on 1 July 1844, renamed HMS Mariner on 10 January 1878, then HMS Atalanta on 22 January 1878, and converted for sail training in 1877 to 1878. Captain Francis Stirling was in command. She carried 281 souls: 15 officers, 250 men, 2 boys, and 14 Royal Marines. The contingent was a training company of ratings, boy seamen, and ordinary seamen, with a Royal Marines detachment, not formally rated naval cadets.

She had left Portsmouth on 7 November 1879 on her third training cruise. Yellow fever in the West Indies cut the Caribbean leg short. She reached Bermuda on 29 January 1880 and sailed again two days later. She was never seen again.

Between 12 and 16 February 1880 a severe gale crossed the North Atlantic. The Norwegian barque Caspaei survived only by being thrown on her beam ends for nineteen hours on 12 February. The Admiralty later told Parliament that Atalanta “must have been about 300 miles to the eastward” of that position when she met the same system. By April 1880 the Admiralty was fielding more than 150 telegrams and 200 personal calls from relatives. HMS Wye and HMS Avon searched the probable track; Avon reported “immense quantities of wreckage” near the Azores but identified no piece. A Committee of Inquiry reported on 29 December 1880 and returned no reliable cause.

What became of HMS Atalanta, the training ship that sailed from Bermuda on 31 January 1880 and met the documented mid-Atlantic gale of 12 to 16 February, with the wreck never located and the inquiry stopping short of a verdict?

The ship

HMS Juno was launched at Pembroke Dockyard on 1 July 1844. She measured roughly 131 feet overall, 40 feet 3 inches in the beam, with a depth of hold of about 10 feet 9 inches, and 923 tons builder’s old measurement. She was a full-rigged ship with an original complement of 240 and an armament of 18 32-pounders on the upper deck and 8 32-pounder gunnades on quarterdeck and forecastle.

As Juno she served on the Pacific and Australia Stations between 1845 and 1857, annexing the Cocos (Keeling) Islands to the British Empire on 31 March 1857, and was relegated to a water-police role in 1862. She was renamed HMS Mariner on 10 January 1878 and HMS Atalanta on 22 January 1878, two weeks later, and converted to a sail-training ship across 1877 to 1878. The conversion stripped most of her armament and re-fitted her internally for boy seamen and ordinary trainees. The exact tonnage and rig after conversion, the precise post-conversion crew accommodation figure, and whether any auxiliary steam was fitted are not confirmed in the sources accessed; every secondary source describes her as a pure sail training ship, and no source mentions auxiliary steam.

The training-ship establishment

In the late 1870s the Royal Navy ran sail-training cruises for ordinary seamen and young ratings on converted older frigates. The programme sat inside a wider service tension. Steam and the ironclad were already the future of the fleet, but the Sea Lords held that boy seamen and ordinary seamen still needed traditional sail and rigging work to be made into competent ratings, and the cheapest way to teach it was on hulls that had outlived their fighting role. The training squadron was therefore built around old wooden frigates fitted out internally for trainees, run hard across the Atlantic in winter, and asked to absorb the entry of fresh ratings into the service each season.

The class was already controversial. HMS Eurydice, a 26-gun frigate of effectively the same generation, capsized off the Isle of Wight on 24 March 1878 with only two survivors out of 319 aboard. The loss prompted public criticism of the training programme and parliamentary questions, but the programme was not stood down, and the Admiralty’s working answer was to keep the cruises running with adjusted ballast and stowage. Atalanta, refitted that same winter, became, in effect, the replacement for Eurydice in the training establishment, and she sailed her first cruise as a training ship within months of the Eurydice inquiry. By the time she cleared Bermuda in January 1880, she was on her third such cruise in roughly two years.

Command and the cruise

Captain Francis Stirling was appointed in command of Atalanta on 17 September 1878. Lieutenant Philip Fisher, younger brother of the future Admiral of the Fleet Lord “Jacky” Fisher, was among the officers aboard.

Atalanta sailed from Portsmouth on 7 November 1879 with 280 aboard (15 officers and 265 men and boys) on her third training cruise. Yellow fever broke out in the West Indies. Stirling shortened the timetable and ran for Bermuda, arriving on 29 January 1880. The exact ports of call in the Caribbean are not confirmed in the sources accessed; the original itinerary had her returning home around 4 April 1880.

David F. Raine, in the review of his book published by The Royal Gazette (Bermuda) on 9 February 2011, states that Stirling submitted “a damning report” on the ship’s condition after the outbound voyage and that the Sea Lords overruled him. This is a single-author claim and is reported here only with attribution to Raine; the original report has not been independently surfaced.

She sailed from the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda, on 31 January 1880, bound for Falmouth, England. Falmouth is named in every source consulted as her destination, although the original Admiralty sailing order should still be verified.

The silence and the gale

The ship was never seen again. The presumed loss is dated to a severe Atlantic gale documented from 12 to 16 February 1880, the worst weather system on the North Atlantic that winter. The Norwegian barque Caspaei reported being thrown on her beam ends for nineteen hours on 12 February in a “most terrific gale.” On Mr Shaw Lefevre’s 21 May 1880 Hansard reply for the Admiralty, Atalanta “must have been about 300 miles to the eastward” of the Caspaei’s position when she met the same system, which placed her on the broad eastbound track Falmouth-bound vessels worked across the Atlantic that winter. The official date of death recorded for the ship’s company is 4 June 1880.

Admiralty concern grew through March as her published arrival window passed without word from Falmouth, the Western Approaches, or any Atlantic port. Through early April the building’s working assumption shifted from delay to loss. By April 1880 the Admiralty was fielding more than 150 telegrams and 200 personal calls from relatives, most of them from the families of trainees and ratings. The press picked up the story; The Times carried datelines on 15, 20, 21, and 27 April 1880, and again in early October, marking it as a national event rather than a service matter, and the loss became a recurring subject of Commons questions for the rest of the parliamentary session.

HMS Wye and HMS Avon were tasked along the probable track, working east from Bermuda and the Azores toward the Western Approaches, sweeping the latitudes where she would have run before the February system. HMS Avon reported “immense quantities of wreckage floating about” near the Azores, “in fact the sea was strewn with spars etc.,” but no piece was positively identified as Atalanta’s. The wreckage was consistent with the foundering of a sail vessel in heavy weather; it was not, on the available examination, proof that any specific ship had been lost. The Admiralty’s working conclusion, set out in Parliament in May, was that Atalanta had been overwhelmed by the same system that nearly took the Caspaei, that the searches had returned nothing identifiable, and that the case was now closed to surface evidence. The wreck has not been found in the 146 years since, and no further physical material has been recovered and tied to the ship.

Inquiry and Parliamentary debate

The loss became a sustained political issue in the spring and summer of 1880. The Hansard record carries a series of Commons exchanges.

On 21 May 1880 Mr Otway, on behalf of Mr Gourley, questioned the Admiralty about search instructions and the ship’s ballasting. Mr Shaw Lefevre, Secretary to the Admiralty, replied that Atalanta had carried “40 and a half tons of iron ballast and about 2 and a half tons of cement” plus 109 tons of fresh water in iron tanks (24 to 25 tons of tankage) firmly fixed in the hold and refillable with sea water. He described the Caspaei gale and concluded that Atalanta had been overwhelmed by the same system.

On 25 May 1880 Mr W. Holms and Mr Jenkins pressed for an independent commission rather than an Admiralty-internal inquiry. Mr Gladstone, as Prime Minister, said the committee’s instructions would not be finalised until 8 June.

Edward J. Reed, the naval architect and Liberal MP, argued in debate that the question was not the honour of naval officers but the appropriateness of naval officers investigating themselves. He is recorded as saying he did not believe “the immemorial usages of the Navy were suited to modern life.” The exact wording and date have not been verified verbatim against Hansard.

The Committee of Inquiry reported on 29 December 1880, finding no reliable trace of the cause and stopping short of a finding of structural unseaworthiness. The committee’s exact title, full membership, terms of reference, and the precise wording of its conclusion remain to be confirmed against the file at The National Archives.

Memorial and aftermath

A memorial to the dead was installed in St Ann’s Church, Portsmouth, the dockyard church. Its inscription reads, in part, “H.M.S. ATALANTA / OFFICERS AND CREW / WHO WERE LOST IN / H.M. SHIP ‘ATALANTA’ TRAINING FRIGATE / ON HER PASSAGE FROM BERMUDA TO ENGLAND / EARLY IN 1880.” It records the dead as 15 officers, 250 men, 2 boys, and 14 Royal Marines, 281 in all. The loss contributed to the eventual abandonment of large-scale sail training in obsolete wooden frigates, although the specific Admiralty policy change is not pinned down in the sources accessed.

The evidence

Hansard Parliamentary record, May to August 1880 and August 1881 (official-record). The Commons debates of 21 and 25 May 1880, with further exchanges through the summer, set out the Admiralty’s working view, the ballast and tank figures, and the pressure for an independent inquiry.
Committee of Inquiry report, 29 December 1880 (official-record). Returned no reliable trace of the cause and stopped short of a finding of structural unseaworthiness.
St Ann’s Church memorial inscription and casualty roll, Portsmouth (physical). Records 15 officers, 250 men, 2 boys, and 14 Royal Marines: 281 total.
HMS Avon wreckage report, Azores area, spring 1880 (physical). “Immense quantities of wreckage floating about,” no piece positively identified.
German brig W. von Freeden sighting, 14 September 1880 (physical). A sunken wreck reported bow-up at 46 degrees 42 minutes N, 7 degrees 45 minutes W; identification never confirmed.
Two documented hoax message bottles (physical). Runcorn, 28 April 1880, signed “H. Smith”; Dalkey, 5 May 1880, signed “J. Steward.” Both shown false against the ship’s books.
Able Seaman John Varling, testimony to the inquiry (testimonial). Said the ship was “exceedingly crank, as being overweight,” had rolled 32 degrees in heavy weather, that Captain Stirling had remarked one more degree would have foundered her, and that only about 11 able seamen were aboard.
Caspaei master’s report, 12 February 1880 (testimonial). Norwegian barque thrown on her beam ends for nineteen hours in the same gale.

Hypotheses

Five readings of the loss survive in the contemporary and modern record. None has been conclusively established.

A. The mid-Atlantic gale of 12 to 16 February 1880 (the Admiralty position of May 1880). For: the Admiralty’s stated view, the Caspaei testimony, the Avon wreckage near the Azores, and the loss of other vessels in the same weather. Against: weather alone does not explain why Atalanta foundered while less crank and better-manned ships rode the same system out, and the Admiralty had institutional reasons to prefer it.

B. Structural failure of the aged hull. For: she was a 36-year-old wooden frigate, repurposed twice, and a carpenter’s evidence to the inquiry was that she had shown “symptoms of straining” from her first training cruise and made “a good deal of water even in ordinary weather.” Against: she had completed two prior training cruises, and the inquiry did not pronounce her structurally unseaworthy.

C. Top-heavy training-ship rigging and inexperienced crew, the basis of The Times’s “criminal folly” editorial. For: the Varling testimony, the Times editorial, the identical pattern to Eurydice two years earlier, and Reed’s parliamentary criticism. Against: the crew-handling testimony comes largely from one ex-crewman with an axe to grind, and on the same testimony the captain kept the deck through bad weather.

D. Collision with floating debris, a derelict, or an iceberg. For: known hazards on the North Atlantic steamer track. Against: no contemporary sighting of ice on her specific track is on record, and no Admiralty mention of ice appears in the published exchanges.

E. Combination (Raine 1997, Dawlish Chronicles, and the prevailing scholarly reading). A tired hull, top-heavy after conversion, crank in moderate weather, with a vast majority of inexperienced trainees, meeting one of the worst Atlantic gales of the decade. For: this reconciles the Admiralty’s “the gale did it” with Reed’s and The Times’s “the ship and the manning did it.” Against: it cannot be definitively proven without wreck location or a survivor.

What remains unknown

The wreck has never been located. No body or remains was ever recovered. The exact mechanism of loss (capsize, structural failure, collision, or progressive flooding) is not known and cannot be known on the present evidence. The Committee of Inquiry never delivered a verdict on cause, only on seaworthiness, and even there its terms were narrow.

The German brig W. von Freeden sighting of 14 September 1880 was never confirmed. The two documented message bottles (Runcorn on 28 April 1880 and Dalkey on 5 May 1880) were shown by the ship’s books to be hoaxes. The “criminal folly” editorial of The Times and Edward J. Reed’s parliamentary criticism of training-frigate policy survive as the strongest contemporary indictment.