The Wistow Hall

The Wreck of the Wistow Hall, Port Erroll, 1912

In January 1912, the 3,314-ton steamship Wistow Hall set out from Newcastle bound for Glasgow, carrying a crew of 57 men. Days into her journey, she was caught in a fierce North Sea storm that would become one of the most tragic shipwrecks along the Aberdeenshire coast.

Battling towering seas, the Wistow Hall lost her funnel and lifeboats as waves smashed across her decks. Seawater flooded the engine room, extinguishing the fires and leaving the ship powerless. For three days, the crew endured without food or fresh water, clinging together in the freezing dark while the storm drove them northward.

Near the Bullers of Buchan, the vessel finally struck the rocks at North Haven, helpless against the raging sea. Lifeboat men from Port Erroll launched a desperate rescue, but the surf was too violent to reach those trapped aboard. Local fishermen waded into the breakers, risking their lives to pull survivors from the wreckage. Only four men were saved — among them Captain Stoddart, who was found barely conscious after suffering serious injuries.

On the morning of January 18, 1912, fifty-three sailors lost their lives. Captain Stoddart did not survive his injuries, and his name was later added to the list of the dead, bringing the total death toll to fifty-four. Many of those lost were Lascar mariners from South Asia, serving far from their native shores. Their bodies were recovered along the shoreline and laid to rest in the churchyards of St. James’s Episcopal Church, and Cruden Parish Church, where large memorials still stand to their memory. The wreck of the Wistow Hall remains a somber reminder of the sea’s unforgiving power and the courage of the local community who rose to face it.

These memorial stones stand side by side in St James’s Episcopal Church in Cruden Bay and commemorate the loss of 54 lives on Thursday, 18th January 1912.

The Inscriptions on both stones are now dimmed with age, but their presence ever reminds us of the perils faced by those who go to sea.

Inscribed on the stone to the right (upon 3 of its sides)

In Memory of the crew of the Wistow Hall,
wrecked on the 18th of January 1912 of North Haven during a heavy gale.
When 14 European and 40 natives of India were drowned.
The bodies of the following 9 were washed ashore and are interred here.
Arthur Leslie Clark aged 32 2nd Officer, Thomas Alfred Macintosh aged 26 storekeeper, Officer William Night aged 33 Chief Engineer, Arthur Alexander Mcleod aged 40 Chief Steward, Walter Sidney Harris aged 28 4th Engineer, John Owen Robert aged 44 3rd Engineer, Thomas Spencer Rose aged 19 3rd Officer, Albert Johnstone aged 23 Quartermaster, James Edward Lister aged 25 Quartermaster.

Inscribed on the stone to the left

In Loving Memory of Thomas Spencer Rose aged 19 years, Son of Thomas and Mary Rose of Liverpool, 3rd Officer of the Wistow Hall who lost his life in the wreck of that vessel on the 18th of January 1912

In Memory

of the terrible disaster which occurred off Whinnyfold, on the Buchan Coast, resulting in the foundering of the steamship — FREDERICK SNOWDON, of ABERDEEN, on Wednesday, 17th January, 1912, when the whole of the crew, numbering 14 hands, perished.

Also, on the following morning, Thursday, 18th January, 1912, the wreck of the WISTOW HALL, of LIVERPOOL, at North-haven, beside the Bullers of Buchan, when out of a crew of 57 hands, only 3 survived.

By: JAMES GOWER

Oh, ye awe-struck gazers on the shore, keep well your vigils on the sea,
This dreadful storm foretells no good, great loss of life there’s sure to be.
Behold yon fearful mountain waves, try o’er their boiling tops to scan;
Could any ship live in that sea? nay, not yet built by hand of man.

Hark to the hideous whistling wind driving the ocean against the shore;
Do you not feel the driven sleet? do you not hear the wild waves roar?
The storm king is on his course, clapping his hands he leaps with glee:
“South-easterly, oho! I’ll have my toll, keep up the chase along with me.”

Come, oh Lord, to the perishing souls, just as you did at Galilee;
Bid the winds, be still for the orphans sake, the widow’s prayer appeals to Thee.
“No hope, no hope,” the clouds replied, like fiends wrapt in blankets onward flew.
Is there no hope? is all now lost? “All is in vain,” cries the lifeboat crew.

Ah, the brave Coastguard, God bless the men who trudge that dark and stormy beach,
In tempestuous darkness, there to rescue all within their reach.
But now they spy a ship struggling with the billows in great distress,
She is flaring lights. Oh God, bring help, she is somewhere near Buchan Ness.

Her lights are gone, she’s down near where Slains defiant castle stands;
“She is lost, she is lost,” the tempest cried, the Snowdon down with all her hands,
She’ll ne’er again cross the bar of the Silver City with golden sands.

Oh, mothers, dry your children’s eyes, and hush them safely off to sleep,
The day will come when they’ll arise to learn their father’s in the deep.
The city now is wrapt in gloom, with soothing tears she shows her grief,
But noble and generous she’s ever been, brought to the widows’ doors their kind relief.

South-easterly, oho! in the distance a doomed ship is flaring lights,
Rockets ascend through the spray, now they’re out, and all is dark as the darkest night.
Oh, patient watchers of North-haven shore, the grey dawn is breaking o’er the sea,
Thou shalt say within thyselves—“Ah, never more I hope this sight to see.”

Now, now, brave landsmen, run to the beach,
Now, brave Coastguard, she’s within your reach.
Oh my God, what a terrible shock,
She’s struck on the teeth of the Tempion Rock.

Oh heaven! what a scene in the morning air,
What wringing of hands in wild despair—
She’s down, she’s down with all her hands,
She is shattered with rocks, she is smothered with sands;
What screams, what weeping, oh what groans,
The sea fighting and battling with dead men’s bones.

A Family Memorial to the Wistow Hall

This simple wooden cross has been in the possession of Anne Bissett and several generations of her family, quietly preserved within the home while the fuller story of its creation has gradually faded from living memory. No written record survives to explain who made it or precisely when, yet family tradition and local knowledge point clearly to its association with the wreck of the Wistow Hall. Its unadorned form suggests it was never intended as a public monument, but rather as a deeply personal object of remembrance, created in response to a moment of profound loss.

The Wistow Hall was lost during one of the fiercest North Sea storms of the early twentieth century, wrecking at North Haven near the Bullers of Buchan on 18 January 1912. 54 of the 57 men on board perished. Many of the crew were Lascar mariners, thousands of miles from their homes, whose deaths added a further layer of tragedy to the disaster. News of the wreck spread quickly, and the event left a lasting impression on coastal communities along the Aberdeenshire shore, where the sea was both a livelihood and a constant danger.

In the days and weeks that followed, wreckage and bodies were washed ashore, and local residents were confronted directly with the human cost of the storm. It was not uncommon at that time for memorial objects to be fashioned from salvaged timber or made by hand as private acts of remembrance. The cross may have been carved from wood associated with the wreck itself, or created by a local resident, fisherman, or family member connected with the rescue attempts or recovery of the dead. Such items were rarely documented, instead being kept quietly within families and passed down as silent witnesses to tragedy.

Although the precise origins of the cross may never be fully recovered, its survival across generations speaks powerfully of the impact the Wistow Hall disaster had on ordinary people. It represents a quieter form of remembrance — one rooted not in stone or formal inscription, but in memory, loss, and respect for those who never returned from the sea.

The Bisset family now plans to lend the cross to the new Heritage Centre due to be opened by the Port Erroll Heritage Group in the Old Mission Hall, allowing this deeply personal memorial to be shared with the wider community for the first time.