Charles Neill, Robert’s eldest son, first went to sea as an apprentice at the tender age of twelve in 1844, and passed his master mariner's certificate at Belfast in 1853. He then assumed command of the Triton. Built at Rendsburg in North Germany in 1822, the Triton, 128 net registered tans, was acquired at same date between 1850 and 1852 by Robert Neill with three other shareholders - Charles himself, James McCall (who may have been a relative) and P. Lindsay, of a well-known local family. 'Lloyd’s Register' of 1855, the first of two in which she appears, has her employment entry- 'Ayr coaster' amended to 'Liverpool - Baltic,' and it was an another such passage that her end came.
On 12 April 1856, Liverpool Custom House entered the outwards cargoes of two schooners bath bound far Riga with salt, the Balmarino, Captain Corkhill, and the Triton, Captain Neill. For the former it was just another voyage in a career that was to continue until 1894, but for the owners of the Triton the following telegram to Lloyd’s of London was bad news:
'MEMEL (received 26 May 9 a.m.) the Triton, Neill, of Belfast, from Liverpool for Riga, salt, stranded night of 22nd, 4 miles north of Libau, no further particulars. Weather fine here.'
This was followed a few days later by information to Lloyd's that the Triton ' . . . is to be considered totally lost, there not being the least prospect of getting her off; she is full of water and her cargo seems to have been melted away.'
Libau (now called Liepaja) is a Latvian port some 100 miles south-west of the Gulf of Riga. Thus Charles Neill and his crew were deposited in Russia just three months after the conclusion of the Crimean War, but no animosity seems to have been experienced: 'We have first-rate lodgings. . .the people here are much pleasanter and agreeable than at some parts of Britain’ writes the young skipper in a letter home' that, wonderfully, has survived. A reply to letters from Bangor, it is dated Friday June 20, 1856, and by this time Charles had clearly written off ‘my old craft’, but had to remain in Libau for the auction of her remains and equipment. He is gloomy about this '…the landlord that holds the property abreast of where she is lying has all the materials in his charge and he claims one-fourth… with surveys and one thing and other the Russians will get all I believe' - and evidently bored, wishing he could find a ship to fetch home. However, the most poignant note is struck by the wistful: 'I thought I was in the Bay last night with the Triton but it was all a dream.'
Too long to quote in full here, the letter is reproduced as an appendix. An intriguing feature is that the use of ‘we’ in the postscript clearly implies that Charles shared the enjoyment of the letters from home. Adding to this the fact that he sends good wishes to all his family except youngest brother James, it could be construed that James, who would have been just fifteen, was with him on the last voyage of the Triton.
The Neills had not insured the Triton and must have lost heavily, especially as they had installed a complete new deck in 1855. Just at this time, though, Robert Neill, won the lucrative contract to supply with coal, the workhouse in Newtownards, administered by the Newtownards Poor Law Union, which took in the Bangor area.
Far from deterred from shipowning, Charles and the second son, John, who by now was also being described as a master mariner, purchased the brigantine Frances on 17 September 1857 in conjunction with James Cochrane, apparently their sister Jane’s husband. The Frances, 78 tons, was engaged in the coasting trade until November 1868 when she was wrecked without loss of life in Kilstay Bay, near the Mull of Galloway. One wonders if the name chosen by John Neill for his second son, Francis, was simply the male version of the name of his vessel?
By the legal convention of the time, a ship's ownership was in 64 shares or any division thereof. Shareholders were recorded on the registry document and as all Neill sailing vessels were registered in Belfast, these papers can still be consulted. Robert Neill purchased all 64 shares in the brig Corfu in 1858, but the acquisition of the schooner Syren, 85 tons, in 1860 began a much more typical pattern of ownership that applies to most of the fifteen sailing vessels acquired between then and Robert's death in 1873. Robert would own these in partnership with at least one of his sons, often all three, and occasionally another relative. Sixteen shares in the Syren, for example, belonged to Ferris Campbell, and he also held similar interests in the Caroline and Huntress. A farmer of Cottown House, Ballygrainey, Campbell (1808-89) was very closely linked with the Neills as his daughter Jane married John Neill and, rather later her younger sister Mary Bella married James Neill, whose first wife, the Cumberland girl Sarah Mulcaster, had died in childbirth in 1873.
The Cumberland connection arose directly from the coal business. Robert Neill thought it a good policy to keep one son in Cumberland, one of his duties being to urge skippers to sea once they were loaded and not loiter with excuses! Sadly, the daughter that Sarah Neill died in bearing, named Sarah after her mother, survived a mere 21 months. Charles Neill, in contrast, married the Bangor girl Olivia Halliday.
Ferris Campbell, of Ballygrainey, was now also the father-in-law of an interesting figure who features quite strongly in the Neill story - Captain John Nicholson. Captain Nicholson had married Robert Neill's elder daughter Isabella, who died in Switzerland while attempting to fight T.B. in 1862, so like James Neill he was left a widower at a young age. He married again - Eleanor 'Ellen' Campbell in 1865. Since 1863, he had been employed by the Neills as master of their most ambitious vessel yet, the barque Alma, 250 tons. He was the son of a shipowner and merchant, another John Nicholson (1792-1875) and was born in Bangor in 1830. The Alma was his first deep-sea command. She had been built at Weymouth, Nova Scotia, in 1854, and was named - as were scores of other vessels - after the Crimean War battle of the time. Acquired from Canadian owners in 1862, her shareholders were the most varied of all the Neill vessels, with six of the family involved - Robert and his three sons, plus their mother Agnes and sister Jane Cochrane. The fact that Charles Neill was the leading shareholder with 24 suggests that he may have skippered her initially, but John Nicholson certainly took over in 1863 and commanded the Alma in the North American trade mainly, a hard slog for ship and crew especially braving the winter Atlantic. One passenger on the Alma who did not take to the seafaring life was Eleanor Nicholson, whose honeymoon was spent on the barque, on a voyage to Spain and farther afield.
A year later, on 20 October 1866, the Alma struck a reef in the Straits of Canso, off the Nova Scotian coast, while bound from Conway to Quebec. She floated off again, but, crippled, was driven ashore in freshening weather and left high and dry when the tide ebbed. Obviously a total loss, her hull and equipment were sold just a few days later and Captain Nicholson was on his way back to his home, 44 Ballymagee Street, Bangor. It seems likely that Captain Nicholson and the Alma must have been well-known in the North Wales port of Conway, for within a few months he was off to sea again in the barque Volta, which he had purchased in partnership with the Lewis family of Llanwrst near Conway. With him as bosun on the Volta sailed Captain Nicholson's younger brother Samuel, who was to die in Rio de Janeiro in 1876.
Following the sale of the Volta in 1871, John Nicholson commanded another barque of the Lewis's, the Chatham, and then in 1874 acquired 24 shares in a new barque, the Muriel, the other 40 being registered by Messrs. P. & H. Lewis. Captain Nicholson and his family resided for a time in Conway and his third son was named Lewis after his father's associates. Another son was William P. Nicholson, who became a widely renowned evangelist. Captain Nicholson's links with the Neills were even more tangible than being related by marriage to both John and James, for he had shares in the vessels Huntress, Syren, Just and Caroline, not relinquishing his interest in the latter until 1881, the year of the great division in the Neill family and fleet. This, however, is running away with the story!
The 1860s were a crowded and progressive decade for the Neill family. Until then, all the interests had been firmly centred in Bangor, but Robert's second son John struck out on his own in Belfast when he set up as a coal importer at 17, Coal Exchange, Queen's Quay, in 1862. Aged 25, John Neill thus entered business in the more animated surroundings of the Lagan coal quays, which saw literally scores of colliers arriving every week with cargoes for such prominent suppliers of the growing city as William Barkley, Hugh Craig and Alexander King. John and his wife Jane established a home at 4 Dock Street, where most of their seven children were born. Robert, the eldest boy, later sailed in the family's vessels, as we shall see, while second son Francis Campbell, 'Frank', Neill, born a year later in 1862, was destined to take over his father's business. John Neill only very gradually began to establish his own fleet of colliers and generally continued to be involved in family purchases. His first acquisition came in 1869, the schooner Mary Jane, 72 tons, built at Clare, Nova Scotia, in 1842, which John bought from James Tedford and Martin Harper, of Belfast. He ran her until she was broken up in 1883.
'MEMEL (received 26 May 9 a.m.) the Triton, Neill, of Belfast, from Liverpool for Riga, salt, stranded night of 22nd, 4 miles north of Libau, no further particulars. Weather fine here.'
This was followed a few days later by information to Lloyd's that the Triton ' . . . is to be considered totally lost, there not being the least prospect of getting her off; she is full of water and her cargo seems to have been melted away.'
Libau (now called Liepaja) is a Latvian port some 100 miles south-west of the Gulf of Riga. Thus Charles Neill and his crew were deposited in Russia just three months after the conclusion of the Crimean War, but no animosity seems to have been experienced: 'We have first-rate lodgings. . .the people here are much pleasanter and agreeable than at some parts of Britain’ writes the young skipper in a letter home' that, wonderfully, has survived. A reply to letters from Bangor, it is dated Friday June 20, 1856, and by this time Charles had clearly written off ‘my old craft’, but had to remain in Libau for the auction of her remains and equipment. He is gloomy about this '…the landlord that holds the property abreast of where she is lying has all the materials in his charge and he claims one-fourth… with surveys and one thing and other the Russians will get all I believe' - and evidently bored, wishing he could find a ship to fetch home. However, the most poignant note is struck by the wistful: 'I thought I was in the Bay last night with the Triton but it was all a dream.'
Too long to quote in full here, the letter is reproduced as an appendix. An intriguing feature is that the use of ‘we’ in the postscript clearly implies that Charles shared the enjoyment of the letters from home. Adding to this the fact that he sends good wishes to all his family except youngest brother James, it could be construed that James, who would have been just fifteen, was with him on the last voyage of the Triton.
The Neills had not insured the Triton and must have lost heavily, especially as they had installed a complete new deck in 1855. Just at this time, though, Robert Neill, won the lucrative contract to supply with coal, the workhouse in Newtownards, administered by the Newtownards Poor Law Union, which took in the Bangor area.
Far from deterred from shipowning, Charles and the second son, John, who by now was also being described as a master mariner, purchased the brigantine Frances on 17 September 1857 in conjunction with James Cochrane, apparently their sister Jane’s husband. The Frances, 78 tons, was engaged in the coasting trade until November 1868 when she was wrecked without loss of life in Kilstay Bay, near the Mull of Galloway. One wonders if the name chosen by John Neill for his second son, Francis, was simply the male version of the name of his vessel?
By the legal convention of the time, a ship's ownership was in 64 shares or any division thereof. Shareholders were recorded on the registry document and as all Neill sailing vessels were registered in Belfast, these papers can still be consulted. Robert Neill purchased all 64 shares in the brig Corfu in 1858, but the acquisition of the schooner Syren, 85 tons, in 1860 began a much more typical pattern of ownership that applies to most of the fifteen sailing vessels acquired between then and Robert's death in 1873. Robert would own these in partnership with at least one of his sons, often all three, and occasionally another relative. Sixteen shares in the Syren, for example, belonged to Ferris Campbell, and he also held similar interests in the Caroline and Huntress. A farmer of Cottown House, Ballygrainey, Campbell (1808-89) was very closely linked with the Neills as his daughter Jane married John Neill and, rather later her younger sister Mary Bella married James Neill, whose first wife, the Cumberland girl Sarah Mulcaster, had died in childbirth in 1873.
The Cumberland connection arose directly from the coal business. Robert Neill thought it a good policy to keep one son in Cumberland, one of his duties being to urge skippers to sea once they were loaded and not loiter with excuses! Sadly, the daughter that Sarah Neill died in bearing, named Sarah after her mother, survived a mere 21 months. Charles Neill, in contrast, married the Bangor girl Olivia Halliday.
Ferris Campbell, of Ballygrainey, was now also the father-in-law of an interesting figure who features quite strongly in the Neill story - Captain John Nicholson. Captain Nicholson had married Robert Neill's elder daughter Isabella, who died in Switzerland while attempting to fight T.B. in 1862, so like James Neill he was left a widower at a young age. He married again - Eleanor 'Ellen' Campbell in 1865. Since 1863, he had been employed by the Neills as master of their most ambitious vessel yet, the barque Alma, 250 tons. He was the son of a shipowner and merchant, another John Nicholson (1792-1875) and was born in Bangor in 1830. The Alma was his first deep-sea command. She had been built at Weymouth, Nova Scotia, in 1854, and was named - as were scores of other vessels - after the Crimean War battle of the time. Acquired from Canadian owners in 1862, her shareholders were the most varied of all the Neill vessels, with six of the family involved - Robert and his three sons, plus their mother Agnes and sister Jane Cochrane. The fact that Charles Neill was the leading shareholder with 24 suggests that he may have skippered her initially, but John Nicholson certainly took over in 1863 and commanded the Alma in the North American trade mainly, a hard slog for ship and crew especially braving the winter Atlantic. One passenger on the Alma who did not take to the seafaring life was Eleanor Nicholson, whose honeymoon was spent on the barque, on a voyage to Spain and farther afield.
A year later, on 20 October 1866, the Alma struck a reef in the Straits of Canso, off the Nova Scotian coast, while bound from Conway to Quebec. She floated off again, but, crippled, was driven ashore in freshening weather and left high and dry when the tide ebbed. Obviously a total loss, her hull and equipment were sold just a few days later and Captain Nicholson was on his way back to his home, 44 Ballymagee Street, Bangor. It seems likely that Captain Nicholson and the Alma must have been well-known in the North Wales port of Conway, for within a few months he was off to sea again in the barque Volta, which he had purchased in partnership with the Lewis family of Llanwrst near Conway. With him as bosun on the Volta sailed Captain Nicholson's younger brother Samuel, who was to die in Rio de Janeiro in 1876.
Following the sale of the Volta in 1871, John Nicholson commanded another barque of the Lewis's, the Chatham, and then in 1874 acquired 24 shares in a new barque, the Muriel, the other 40 being registered by Messrs. P. & H. Lewis. Captain Nicholson and his family resided for a time in Conway and his third son was named Lewis after his father's associates. Another son was William P. Nicholson, who became a widely renowned evangelist. Captain Nicholson's links with the Neills were even more tangible than being related by marriage to both John and James, for he had shares in the vessels Huntress, Syren, Just and Caroline, not relinquishing his interest in the latter until 1881, the year of the great division in the Neill family and fleet. This, however, is running away with the story!
The 1860s were a crowded and progressive decade for the Neill family. Until then, all the interests had been firmly centred in Bangor, but Robert's second son John struck out on his own in Belfast when he set up as a coal importer at 17, Coal Exchange, Queen's Quay, in 1862. Aged 25, John Neill thus entered business in the more animated surroundings of the Lagan coal quays, which saw literally scores of colliers arriving every week with cargoes for such prominent suppliers of the growing city as William Barkley, Hugh Craig and Alexander King. John and his wife Jane established a home at 4 Dock Street, where most of their seven children were born. Robert, the eldest boy, later sailed in the family's vessels, as we shall see, while second son Francis Campbell, 'Frank', Neill, born a year later in 1862, was destined to take over his father's business. John Neill only very gradually began to establish his own fleet of colliers and generally continued to be involved in family purchases. His first acquisition came in 1869, the schooner Mary Jane, 72 tons, built at Clare, Nova Scotia, in 1842, which John bought from James Tedford and Martin Harper, of Belfast. He ran her until she was broken up in 1883.