Picture Credit to SecretSandLand.
Local historians and community members from across Southport have gathered at the historic Marshside Fog Bell today to mark the 157th anniversary of a shrimping disaster that claimed the lives of seven men.
The Marshside Fog Bell memorial stands on Marshside Road and was for many years a functioning audible guide to bring lost people back to safety when fog prevented them from knowing in which direction the shore lay if they found themselves on the coast.
The decision to erect a bell and bell ringer’s hut was prompted after a tragedy that occurred 157 years ago to this day (on 26th January 1869.)
Seven local men were out collecting shrimp and on their return home got lost in heavy fog. With no sense of which way the shore lay, they were caught by the incoming tide and all were drowned.
The men were ‘hand putting’ for shrimp. Working without a boat, they would have trudged up and down the beach and sand banks with their large shrimping nets. The nets were put under the surface of the sand and pushed along as they walked, trapping shrimp in the process.
Peter Aughton, Robert Wright, John Wright, John Rimmer, Peter Wright, William Hesketh and a second man called Peter Wright were the men tragically killed.
Shortly after the incident the people of Marshside and the surrounding areas began a subscription to raise financial relief for their widows and orphans. This was known as the ‘The Marshside Calamity Fund’.
Visitors today can see the fog bell on top of a tall pitch pine pole. Inspection with binoculars will show the mechanism whereby the bell was rung by a cable, and the sleeve that would have protected the cable running down the pole. The brick-built building beneath is a squarish block with a flat roof. A small extension was added to the back of it at some point.
On one side of the building there are two blocked doorways, and on the opposite side two blocked windows. On the front is a stone plaque that states ‘Rebuilt by John Geddes 1896‘.