'Joe Rogers' (Guze Ruggier)
'Hero of the Royal Charter'
Royal National Lifeboat Institution Gold Medal 1859
-
Andy Birchall, the great, great grandson of Thomas taylor, the captain of the Royal Charter, is fundraising for the RNLI in memory of the passengers & crew of the Royal Charter.
- The 150th anniversary of the Wreck of the Royal Charter will be in 2009, and further details are available here (from the 'Moelfre' website) and from the RNLI website.
Guze Ruggier (often anglicised as 'Joe Rogers') was a Maltese seaman born to a seafaring family from the 'Three Cities' (Cottonera) in Malta.
His name is intimately linked with the tragedy of the shipwreck of the Royal Charter in 1859 when he exhibited great courage.
His father and probably at least three of his brothers /in-laws were seamen. His first name Guze or Guzi is the diminutive of Giuseppe (Italian) or Giuseppi (Maltese).
The image alongside shows him in his later years. Although his father mainly plied the central Mediterranean,
including
the hitherto notorious Barbary coast, Guze (Guzi)
wanted
to sail further afield. He travelled to various locations and then
became
an able seaman on the auxiliary steam clipper Royal Charter.
His name was anglicised to Joseph or Joe, Rogers or Rodgers, ( but he has also been very mistakenly referred to in some accounts as Joie Rodriguez).
The Royal Charter was a sailing clipper with an auxiliary steam engine and an iron hull built at the Sandycroft works in Flintshire on the River Dee, not far from Chester.
This clipper was intended specifically for sailing from Melbourne, Australia to Liverpool, and on it he completed five trips.
The painting reproduced below shows the Royal Charter at her best. Note the small chimney just behind the main mast.
On the last leg of a trip from Melbourne to Liverpool in which she had done very well until then in terms of speed and performance, her luck changed. Unfortunately on the night of the 25th / early morning of the 26th October 1859 the Royal Charter was caught in a terrible storm - arguably the worst of that century, ironically as she was nearing her destination (Liverpool) after a brief stopover in Ireland.
The ship was blown towards the rocky coast of the island of Anglesey (Ynys Mon) in Wales by a very powerful North Easterly hurricane.
.
Attempts to slow her inexorable movement failed - the anchor lines broke, attempts at chopping off sails, rigging and masts were not enough, and eventually the propellor stopped (perhaps fouled by the rigging which had been cast adrift)
The outcome was that the vessel was shipwrecked on the coast of Anglesey just off Lynas point between on the one hand Dulas bay and Lligwy Bay and on the other hand Red Wharf Bay, not far from the village of Moelfre.
The ship sent out repeated distress signals (cannon, flares, and
lights) but the conditions were so atrocious that the Moelfre lifeboat,
based only about a mile away, could not be launched.
Guze Ruggier volunteered to swim from the vessel to shore with a rope.
This act was portrayed for posterity by the Victorian artist Henry Nelson O'Neil in 1860 in his painting entitled 'A Volunteer'. A detail of the painting is shown above. The Maltese seaman Guze Ruggier is seen with Mr Stevens the Chief Officer (according to the booklet researched and compiled by John Hughes) just before his leap of faith into the stormy sea. In the top left are the rocks with the men of Moelfre ready to assist, whilst to the right are some of a cluster of hapless passengers.
'Joe Rogers' succeeded in reaching the rocks, probably through a blend of courage, strength, skill and knowledge of the behaviour of the sea, and luck too. On reaching the rocks he was caught and hauled (badly injured) by men from Moelfre who also braved the terrible conditions.
This effort permitted a bosun's chair to be rigged, and slowly this provided a veritable lifeline for passengers and crew.
However the ship rapidly broke up by the force of the
storm, and the hawser broke (as had the ship's anchors before it).
Thus
in the event only thirty nine lives were saved, and by
all accounts more than four hundred perished as the ship very rapidly
disintegrated in
the
very heavy seas.
According to the Bradford Observer at the time, the survivors were:
Christopher Anderson, William Ferris,
Thomas Gundry, James M'Capper, Henry Carew Taylor,
James Dean, John
Bradbury, Samuel Grenfell, Samuel Gapper, John
Judge,
James Russell, William Draper, Edward Wilson, George
Gibson, David Strongman, Tom Tims, Patrick
Devine,
James White, George Pritchard, Thomas Cunningham,
William
Barton, Thomas Cormack, John O'Brien, Joseph
Rogers,
George Suiacar, Walter Hughes, William Foster, Owen
Williams,
Henry Evans, Thomas Griffiths and William M'Carthy.
A memorial overlooks the rocks where the ship was wrecked
(see
the photo
alongside taken in April 2002).
'Joseph Rogers' was honoured by the Royal
National Life Boat Institution (RNLI), by the Board of Trade, by
other
bodies
and the public as a hero and dubbed 'Rodgers of the Royal Charter'. 
The photograph alongside shows the original entry in the minute book of the Royal National Life Boat Institution dated the 3rd November 1859 in which the resolution was recorded:
"That the Gold medal and £5 be presented to Joseph Rogers in testimony of his heroic conduct in swimming ashore with a line from the Steam Ship Royal Charter, whereby many lives were saved, on the occasion of the unfortunate wreck of that vefsel, during a very heavy gale of wind on the Anglesey Coast on the night of the 25th October 1859."
As far as is known 'Joseph Rogers' is the only person who was not a lifeboatman / member of the RNLI to have been awarded its gold medal.
I am grateful to Mr Brian Wead, Service Information Section Manager at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution Head Quarters in Poole for very kindly allowing me access to minutes of the Institution and other documentation pertaining to the wreck of the Royal Charter.
The next photograph shows the Royal National Life Boat Institution citation presented to him with the award of the Gold Medal.
A copy of this citation has been donated by 'Joseph Rogers' family to and is exhibited at the Seawatch Centre (Gwylfan) in Moelfre, which also exhibits his name on a plaque above other recipients of the RNLI gold medals.
In spite of the horrendous loss of life with only about one in ten of the people on board the Royal Charter surviving, it is probably part of human nature to seek out a hero, act of heroism or instinct for survival, as well as some comfort and 'good news' out of the terrible tragedy.
Although he shunned publicity and fame, 'Joseph Rogers' was acclaimed by the press far and wide.
Thus, 'Joseph Rodgers' was featured in the the Illustrated London News of the 26th November 1859,and an archive in Liverpool provides access to an image of a page from this periodical, (located in the Liverpool Central Library), showing 'Joseph Rodgers' with a rope around his chest in a posture presumably demonstrating his initiative and action.
The Royal Charter was a famous wreck because of the loss of life, especially among the passengers, and also because she was carrying large quantities of gold bullion as ingots or in coins (the product of the Australian gold rush).
A large piece of the ship's iron hull as well as a number of other artefacts are also exhibited at the Seawatch Centre (Gwylfan) in Moelfre, which is an important visitor attraction in Moelfre.
Most of the bodies which were recovered lie buried in St
Gallgo's church (Llanalgo). The church and the churchyard is well
worth a visit. There are many graves and other links to the sad event.
Particular credit is due to the vicar of the church at that time the Reverend Stephen Roose Hughes who worked assiduously to bury the bodis of the bereaved with dignity and to help their distraught relatives. Until a few years ago his grave had been terribly neglected but has since been lovingly restored.
Charles Dickens gave an account of the shipwreck very soon after the event in Chapter II - 'The Shipwreck' from 'The Uncommercial Traveller'. This publication helped raise money to build the memorial in the Llanalgo church.
The website of that church provides further details such as the names of the men of Moelfre who tried to rescue the victims from the shore.
Other bodies were buried in various churchyards in Anglesey such as at Pentraeth.
An obelisk in the churchyard of Llanalgo church commemorates the sad event.
A photo of one of the inscriptions on this memorial is shown below.
The most accessible current definitive account of the loss of the Royal
Charter
and of the intrigues of recent salvage attempts is in the book 'The
Golden Wreck' by Alexander McKee (Avid
Publications). The front cover of the latest edition is shown
alongside.
A book published more recently for the first time is " Life and Death on the Royal Charter
- The true story of a treasure ship wrecked on Anglesey" by Chris and Lesley Holden.
Besides the painting of 'The Volunteer' shown above, the wreck of the
Royal Charter and the actions of 'Joe Rogers' have been the subject of a
number of paintings over the years.
A shorter account (in Welsh) of the wreck of the Royal Charter appears in 'Ofnadwy Nos' by T Llew Jones (Gomer Press). 'Ofnadwy Nos' means 'Awful Night' - which it was since well over 100 ships sank throughout British waters that night and about 800 lives were lost - more than a half of them on the Royal Charter.
A short article about the Royal Charter tragedy appeared more recently in the Spring 2002 edition of the Lifeboat magazine, based on 'Gold Medal Rescues' by Edward Wake-Walker. In referring to 'Joseph Rodgers', the article says that "The first Gold Medal to be awarded after the establishment of the Lifeboat journal was not to a lifeboatman but was for an act of individual bravery ...".
As far as is known Guze Ruggier never married and was childless. He was still working at the age of 65 on a small steam vessel which travelled the Mersey River, and by some accounts did save at least one other life from drowning, decades after his heroism on the Royal Charter.
Guze Ruggier died on the 10th September1897 aged 68 years at the Northern Hospital in Liverpool, where he was taken after a 'bronchial attack'.
On the death certificate shown above his name is quoted as "Joseph Rogers", his occupation is stated as
'Merchant Seaman' (with an address in Wellington Dock) and his cause of
death as "Pneumonia, Heart
failure". The name and qualifications of the certifying medical
practitioner are difficult to make out but seem to be Dr Pearce LRCP or
possibly FRCP (coincidentally both being amongst the qualifications of
the author of this web page). The
registration district of the death was Liverpool in the sub-district of
Islington in the County of Liverpool and the informant appears to be a
"Jas Moffatt" (with an address in Orwell Road Kirkdale) .
He is buried at Ford Roman Catholic Cemetery in Liverpool.
The image alongside shows the inscription exhorting us to
pray
for the
repose of his soul. It was erected by the Evening Express several years
after his death.
Footnotes with reference to relevant sites:
