I’ve been diagramming the Lalla Rookh’s standard trajectory on a piece of scrap paper. I’ve traced a deep, dipping arch from England south, down the near full length of the Atlantic, around Cape Horn and on, making a brief stop in San Francisco and then across the Pacific to New South Wales and ports in the Indian Ocean including Calcutta. This was the course it had taken since being built in St. Hillier, Jersey in 1839 by Edward Allen (or Allan) and appears to have made annually up until1855, after which it disappears from Lloyd’s Register. On that tragic day in November of 1850, the Lalla Rookh was not “bound to London from the Brazils” as stated in The London Illustrated News narrative. The barque had just left London on its way to San Francisco, the beginning of its regular journey.

At the Greenwich Maritime Museum Archive, I found the Lalla Rookh in the various records of Lloyd’s of London Insurance Company. In 1850, Lloyd’s listed the Lalla Rookh as “A1.” It was still owned by its builder E. Allen and its Master, W. Hains (or Haines), had taken command in 1849. According to Lloyd’s List (the record of ship’s movements throughout the globe), the Lalla Rookh left Gravesend for San Francisco on November 18, 1850. On November 22 it passed out of the Thames River heading for Plymouth only to return on November 29th “in tow of a steamer.” By December 2nd, it had been “assisted back leaky, and with loss of mainstay, etc.,” a description echoed in the Shipping & Mercantile Gazette, Maritime Extracts, of November 28, 1850.

“The Lalla Rookh, Hains, from London for San Francisco, and not as before reported, put back to the Downs this afternoon, with loss of mainmast, &c., and leaky. She was towed in by the steamer Goliath, and will proceed to the river to repair damages.”

There are scant entries for the ship in Lloyd’s List beyond 1850 and while the Lalla Rookh is registered up until 1855, the last entry in the “list” dates from November of 1852, recording an incident at sea of a month earlier.

“Lalla Rookh, Haines, from Sydney, NSW, for San Francisco, via Honolulu, short of provisions, and supplied enough for 15 days, 36 N 14 W by the Euphrasine, at San Francisco.”

Appropriately, the Lalla Rookh simply vanishes from the records, out there, mid ocean, back into the void. For the fishermen of Worthing, that ship must have seemed to come from out of such a void, a menacing void beyond the security of Worthing and their homes and families just in from shore at Broadwater. For a brief instant, a vessel emerges out of an expanding global empire and devastates the intimate relationships of a community.

Lalla Rookh. The name is unusual. Probably unfamiliar to many today. In 1850, however, the reference would have been obvious — Thomas Moore’s “blockbuster” epic poem of 1817, a romantic tale of deception and redemption. In 1850, there were half a dozen vessels registered with Lloyd’s as Lalla Rookh, a testament to the popularity of Moore’s exotic “Orientalist” fantasy.

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