SURVIVOR OF ORPHEUS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1023, 14 July 1930, Page 16

SURVIVOR OF ORPHEUS

TRAGIC MANUKAU WRECK RECALLED MR. C. STURTRIDGE DIES I — ; — The tragic day when H.M.S. Orpheus I was wrecked with great loss of life 1 on the Manukau Bar is recalled by I the death on Saturday of Mr. Charles? Sturtridge, in liisl ninety-fifth year. J Ho was probably the last survivor of J the 71 men who were saved from the j ship's complement of 256 when the ! Orpheus grounded and went to pieces j on February 7, 1863. Almost until his death this naval i veteran was mentally alert, and with memories unclouded he could go back to his boyhood days in the Chatham dockyards, while every detail of his 1 adventurous escape from the sinking Orpheus has been told by him on many occasions. The thrilling story of how he lashed himself to a spar with silk handkerchiefs, and jumped overboard from the sinking warship, to be picked up near the pilot station nine hours later, lias been told previously by Mr. Sturtridge in The Sun. He was born in Scotland, but actually spent most of his early youth in Kent. Lured by the life on the s»ca, ho ran away from home and shipped as a seaman-stoker. This took him to the China naval station, and the Cape of Good Hope, when he was unfortunate not to have been one of those to help David Livingstone to make history. FIRST EXPEDITION At this time Livingstone left on his first official expedition to East and Central Africa, and he called for naval volunteers. Young Sturtridge, a sturdy fellow with fine physique, wished to be one of those volunteers to sail up the Zambesi, but his application was just a few days late. Mr. Sturtridge first came to New Zealand in the Orpheus, and was one of those on deck when the mishap ocurred as the vessel attempted to navigate the Manukau Bar. He has often graphically narrated the disaster“An additional warning to the ship was a gun fired from the station,” he once said, in telling the story. “Bradshaw, a captured deserted on board who from experience in sailing timber ships out of the lianukau knew' the channel as well as the pilot, warned the captain of the danger. He was clamped in irons for his pains. Five minutes later the ship struck and sank beneath the waves in 15 minutes.” JUMPED OVERBOARD -x saved my life by jumping overboard, he added. “1 clung to a spar for a time, and then lashed myself to it with silk handkerchiefs. ' After floating for nine hours, I was picked up by Gilbert Dobson and Mat Nixon who had put out in a boat from Muddy Creek in search of survivors ” Just as he had drifted ashore, so Mr. Sturtridge drifted like so manv Si ** lors into the timber mills at Muddy Creek, where lie rubbed shoulders with army and navy deserters, and ticket-of-leave convicts from Tasmania. , ®turtridge was typical of the hardy Scottish race. His memory was not impaired by age, although physically he was bent and frail.