What do a few rotting remains of an old ship sunk deep into the silt near the mouth of the river Severn in Gloucestershire have to do with a quiet residential village some six hundred miles or so to the north, at the mouth of the river Spey in Moray, Scotland?

Plenty, if you only know where to look and can trace the links, because those bones on Severn shore are the remains of the Dispatch, a 119 ton topsail schooner built at Kingston-on-Spey in 1888 and almost the last of more than 800 sizeable ships built there in the nineteenth century. And the story of how the link was made and what happened to the ship – both in myth and fact – from the time of its launch in Moray to its final resting place in Gloucestershire is an intriguing one.

The detective story begins with Paul Barnett, an ex-merchantman, now maritime historian settled in Gloucester. For many years Paul has been fascinated by the so called Purton Hulks, a ships graveyard containing the remains of over eighty vessels beached there to consolidate the adjacent bank of the Gloucester-Sharpness ship canal against the scouring of the tide in the Severn Estuary. Among the relicts were noticed the remains of massive planking reinforced by diagonal iron banding, a wooden frame reinforced by iron, and special adjustable Fells Patent iron, such that the hull could be braced under load, making it immensely strong.

Built on Speyside by James Geddie Jr, and the last ship rigged by Alec Irving, who was the foreman and manager of the Carny sail and ropework. Alec Irving rigged every ship that sailed out of the Kingston yards for nearly forty years and his name was on all their sails, so that although he never left Scotland, his name was known throughout the world. The wooden 100 ton topsail schooner had been a mainstay of the country’s transport system before it was revolutionized by railways and such boats were built in huge numbers all around the coasts of Britain and across the world.

That said the Spey shipbuilding trade was to be eventually eclipsed in the latter part of the 19th century. Firstly the railways took over much of the bulk transport and the 1870s saw the cost of building iron and steel ships plummet as a result of the Bessemer process. This in turn resulted in the flight of trade to Clyde and Tyne who were proficient in that method of ship construction. As a result the 1880s saw many of the Spey shipyard workers relocate to the booming yards of Clydeside or leaving Scotland altogether for Canada or South Africa.

Undeterred both of Alec Irving’s son and son-in-law became apprentices and trained as shipwrights in the Kingston yards. Once completed however both sought fortunes elsewhere with one moving to work on Clydeside and the other left the town as a ship’s carpenter on a barque. Indeed research has now shown that almost the entire Geddies clan eventually emigrated to South Africa upon the completion of the Dispatch. Fortunately however and due to his mature years unable to retrain, Alec Irving took to travelling around the ports of the Moray Firth selling his ropes.

Today nothing remains for the casual observer of the seven shipyards where so many ships were built, the steam sawmills, the rope walk, the many sheds and all the paraphernalia of shipbuilding at Kingston. The yard where Dispatch was built is now a car park, the place where the timber was stored is now a golf course, a reed bed has almost obscured the slipway down which Dispatch slid, bow first as was the Spey way. Even the rope walk where Alec Irving made his ropes and sails is now a bus stop, a road and a jumble of modern houses.

In the beginning it is believed that Dispatch made her maiden voyage to Morocco, probably with salted fish from Newfoundland, and spent the first period of her working life running across the Atlantic with salt fish from the Grand Banks in Newfoundland, renowned as the greatest fishery in the world (Sea Breezes IV (NS) p. 120) . Business was brisk and for many years, up to the end of World War I, she remained in the ownership of McLeman who hailed from the little port of Avoch in the Black Isle. It is in fact known that the family had a great pride and affection for the sturdy ship and commissioned a fine oil-painting of her which was handed down thought the generations where it was recently seen in the ownership of Mrs. Mackintosh, the second owner’s daughter, at her family home, still in Avoch.

1918 saw the Dispatch leave her base in Inverness and pass into the hands of welsh owner W.A Jenkins who retained her original Inverness registry whilst employing the little lady to transport Swansea coal. Research has also shown that she may also have worked for a short time shipping slates around the country from Porthmadoc during the inter-war housing boom.

The 1930s proved to be lean times for Dispatch and indeed saw the end of the line for the British sailing merchant ship. Since 1919 she had been in the employ of Saul based owner and coal merchant George A. Watkins who put the sturdy vessel to work within the aggregate industry carrying everything from Lydney coal to Chepstow lime stone for bank protection.

Furthermore whilst at Kew, Hugh Conway Jones the Gloucester author kindly noted that he found documents relating to the schooner Dispatch of Inverness in the charge of a Capaint Evans at Gloucester Dock several times during 1932, each time loading 190 tons salt for an Irish port.

Why Gloucester? Well it was one of the countries last refuge for many a tied old vessel in part due to the sheltered waters of the Sharpness to Gloucester Canal and partly due to it being one of the few places in Britain where affordable insurance (provided by local farmers) could be cheaply obtained for old ladies like Dispatch.

Still this decade saw her shrug off two major collisions and live through a hurricane in the Atlantic in 1934. That said her crew faired less better as they were found almost starved to death due to being in out in the open sea without supplies for some five weeks.

1935 saw confusion reign, however what is known that the Dispatch was laid up as a grain hulk in Avonmouth Dock upon the sudden death of her former owner W A Watkins, only to be purchased by Gloucester Lighterman George Thomas Beard who had her shipped to his yard at Hempstead Bridge on the Sharpness to Gloucester Canal. Some time thereafter he had her cut down by Victor Gower and reregistered on 31st July 1940 having her name officially changed to the New Dispatch and her port of registry became Gloucester.

Both Lloyds Registry and the Mercantile Navy List appear to support this however it remains a mystery as to when the Dispatch actually died and when the New Dispatch was eventually born. What is known however is that almost fifty years after Alec Irving originally rigged her, Dispatch was refitted, stripped of her figurehead, masts and sails, and reborn as the towed barge New Dispatch carrying grain and general cargo in the treacherous seas and fast running tides of the Bristol channel. Indeed, during World War II, she was carrying munitions and other goods from Bristol to Gloucester, under serious risk of enemy attack – a very different fate from that of being a coal hulk in some backwater.

And so she continued as New Dispatch until after more than twenty years work as a dumb barge and seventy years after she was built, she was laid up at the little port of Sharpness in May 1958, tied up and forgotten as a floating platform.

Once again speculation reigns but it is believed that the New Dispatch was eventually towed into the River Severn some time in 1961 and run ashore to stabilize the river bank along with the other Purton Hulks for it was here she was once again recognised and recorded by the young David Wheeler. Ssadly her final days were not to be at peace as she has at no less than 7 times come to the attention of arsonist and vandals who with boots and hammers, fire and saws attempted to erase this grand old lady forever. This has culminated in the total destruction of her bow and stern sections through fire in August 19th 1984.

An ignominious end for a tall ship perhaps, and a far cry from the wild Atlantic seas she had sailed in her days of glory. Still, the memories remain among the dwindling band who once sailed in her, her photograph (taken off Par Sands in Cornwall) still hangs on the wall of the butt-and-ben house in Kingston where Alec Irving’s daughter and son-in-law ended her days, she is immortalized in at least two oil paintings, and once again is becoming recognized as a ship of great interest to maritime historians.

Dispatch’ winch is in the car park of the North Devon Maritime Museum in Appledore, Devon, her figurehead is proudly cared for by the descendants of a former shipwright and no doubt other parts of her are still around somewhere. And what remains of her hull, albeit damaged by vandals and decorated by dogs, is still helping to hold back the ceaseless scour of Severn’s tide to protect the ship canal where she sailed at the end of her days.

So a story that started on the banks of Spey in 1888 has not quite ended yet, and thus the Dispatch remains in gainful employment “still doing useful work even today”, as Paul correctly reminds us.