Between 1999 and 2009 the French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FSAT or TAAF) issued at least six stamp booklets showing scenes connected to the islands that make up the Territory. All the stamps in these booklets show no postage values. The first four booklets are based on paintings and the last two on photographs. The stamp showing the wreck of the STRATHMORE comes from the booklet issued in 2005.
The designer of the stamp has used a photograph and inserted an image of a sailing ship being wrecked. Whether the image is of the STRATHMORE I do not know but on the stamp there is a master image of the ship plus three ghost images. This could be a printing error but I would need to see other images of the stamp to confirm this.
The STRATHMORE, a full rigged ship, was built at the shipyard of Brown and Simpson of Dundee and launched on January 22, 1875. .Length 74 meters, width 10.50 meters, tonnage (I have seen three tonnages quoted - 340 tons – 1550 tons - She was built for the Dundee Clipper Line whose director was David Bruce. (Miramar gives 1551 ton.)
The STRATHMORE sailed from Gravesend, on her maiden voyage, on 17 April 1875 for Dunedin with 51 passengers and 38 crew.
On 30 June she encountered fog. Captain MacDonald, a master mariner with a sound reputation, saw no cause for alarm but set a sharp lookout as he continued on expecting to pass south of the Crozets. Despite the precaution, at 0345 on 1 July the STRATHMORE became wedged between 2 rocks off the inhospitable shores of Grande Île. The whole of the STRATHMORE's hull was soon under water with the exception of the foc'sle head. As no lifeboat drills had been conducted during the voyage south, panic ensued. The captain and the mate were washed overboard and drowned; the second mate and several others launched one of the lifeboats, with 19 people on board. Two other lifeboats were found to be jammed and unuseable. Several people were on the roof of the deck house, and others clung in the rigging. The single lifeboat made several trips taking off passengers and crew. Of the 89 people who were on board, 40 drowned, and the other 49 sought shelter on a near sheer cliff face. Amongst the survivors was a solitary woman, a widow, Mrs Wordsworth, who was travelling with her son Charles.
For more than 6 months the survivors of the Strathmore sheltered under sail canvas and behind walls made of rocks. They killed albatrosses and wrapped the carcases around the feet of those suffering frostbite. They ate whatever little vegetation was edible, supplemented with eggs scavenged from the burrows of the seabirds nesting on the island. They killed and skinned penguins, using the skins to make clothing and footwear. The carcases were used to fuel a fire. The conditions were extreme driving some men mad in their desperation for food, shelter & warmth. Several of the castaways died. To maintain mental strength, the castaways related their dreams to the group each day "served up to breakfast like the newspaper" wrote Robert Wilson in the journal he was keeping. It seems extraordinary that, given their dire circumstances, most of the castaways survived to be rescued! Particularly so as Grande Île was little more than an oversized rock.
Whilst the desperate survivors waited for rescue, at least 2 ships, the Helen Denny and the White Eagle, passed Grande Île without responding to distress signals from the island. However, on 14 January 1875, their signals were seen by the American whaler Young Pheonix, David L. Gifford master, which lowered 2 boats and agreed to take the castaways off. Gifford already had 30 survivors from another ship on board. The Young Pheonix met the Sierra Morena bound for the Dutch East Indies on 26 January 1875, and transhipped 20 of the survivors. The Sierra Morena put in to Galle in Ceylon. The Young Pheonix was bound for Mauritius, but before reaching there, met the ship Childers to which she transferred the rest of the castaways. Most of the survivors were landed at Southampton on 5 April 1876 almost a year after their departure.
French Southern and Antarctic Territories 2005 sg574, scott?
Sources:-
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... STRATHMORE
http://www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg ... --1----0--
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi ... 1----0-all
http://slbplone.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/ ... 1----0-all
http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/w ... -nid.shtml
http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-B ... d1-d1.html
http://slbplone.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/ ... 1----0-all
Peter Crichton