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Trawler Tragedy, February 1935
When the Hull Trawler Edgar Wallace returned from Bear Island .... a round trip of well over 3,000 miles, and within shouting distance of its home port, everyone aboard must have thought all
those dangers they had faced and come through were in the past. Sadly, by a quirk of fate, nothing could have been further from the truth. This is how the Hull Daily Mail reported it on 14th February 1935
Saw his Mates Drowned
Hull Daily Mail Thursday 14th February 1935
Edgar Wallace
survivor's story
Winteringham Inquest
A trawler fisherman told how he saw seven or eight of his mates swept from the sinking Edgar Wallace, at the inquest
at Winteringham, near Scunthorpe, last night, on one of the drowned men, John Clinton Desmond, aged 21, of 17, Brunswick-avenue, St George's-road, Hull.
The witness, William Cameron, of 156,
Coltman-street, Hull, said after the ship turned over, on striking the sandbank, off Hessle, he clung to the top of the mast. From there he saw seven or eight of his mates, who were standing on the forecastle,
snatched away from the vessel by the fast running tide. One of them was Desmond.
The mother, Elsie May Desmond, a widow of 17, Brunswick-avenue, St George's-road, Hull, said she could identify her
son by the space between his front top teeth, a scar on the right shin, and moles on the neck and back.
Mrs Desmond said she last saw her son on December 20, the day on which he sailed for Bear Island.
Although she could not identify the clothing, she was satisfied that the body was that of her son.
RECOVERED BY SLOOP SKIPPER
The body of Desmond was taken from the water off Winteringham Haven
by Harold Hanson, sloop skipper, of Wellington-lane, Hull.
The Scunthorpe Coroner, Mr G. E. Davy, recorded a verdict of "Death from misadventure." Mr Davy, who told Cameron, one of the three
survivors, that he must have had a horrible experience, said it had exercised his mind whether or not to send the body to Hull, for the inquest to be held there.
THIRD VICTIM FOUND
Body Recovered
Near Hessle
Another body of a member of the Hull trawler Edgar Wallace, was washed up on the foreshore at Hessle this morning.
It has been identified as that of John Edward Maloney, chief
engineer. Maloney was 48 years of age, and lived at Maud-parade, Carlton-street, Hull. He had been going to sea for 30 years, and left a widow and five children, three of whom are still at
school.
The body was seen by a civilian, and the police were informed and took charge of it.
The inquest has not definitely been fixed, but it may be held to-morrow.
Two bodies of members of the
Edgar Wallace crew have already been recovered and identified - one on the foreshore near Hessle on January [sic. Belived should be February] 11, and the second near Winteringham Haven yesterday.
A
verdict of "Accidentally drowned" was returned at the inquest at Hessle yesterday, in the case of the first body recovered.
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