Thomas Keir diary - 15 January 1864 entry [National Library Micro-MS-0837]

Friday 15th – Blew hard last night. The
fore lower top g studding sailyard broke through
the middle. It moderated in the morning and
the all the sails were again put up. Sailed
about 6° since yesterday.

STANDARDISED

Friday 15th

Blew hard last night. The fore lower studding sailyard broke through the middle. It moderated in the morning and all the sails were again put up. Sailed about 6° since yesterday.

HENRY SCHOFIELD DIARY

Jan[uary] 15th v fine

Very rough last night blew away stansail & broke mast. Saw a many stormy petrels & mother Cary chickens[1]. 8 knots an hour. For dinner boulli & rice, for tea bread & preserves. A row between Dick & Crow[2] about candles.

Notes

1.Mother Carey’s Chickens: another name for storm petrels.  Mother Carey is a supernatural figure personifying the dangerous sea, and seen as a harbringer of storms. [Wikipedia]

2. Schofield has mentioned Crow before, on 6th December. He was most likely paying his own way in steerage. But who was Dick?  Was it a surname, or a nickname for Richard? And which Richard?

Mother Carey and her chickens

Mother Carey and her chickens, by John Gerrard Keulemans. Lithograph from Ornithological Miscellany, Volume II, part VI, edited by George Dawson Rowley, published January 1877, London, pp104-5 [Biodiversity Heritage Library]

Crow Thomas Keir