Earl Grey - a general history

Built at Sunderland: Official No. 23837: Code Letters NTHC.

Owners: 1831-36 N White & Son, Sunderland; 1845 Christopher & Isabella Davison (Hartlepool) & Charles Lester (Greenwich) Hartlepool; 1853 Representatives of the late Christopher Davison (Hartlepool) Isabella Davison (Homerton, Middlesex) Edmund Shaw (London) Robert Davison & John Whitbread (Middlesbrough) Hartlepool; April 1859  John Coverdale, West Hartlepool; May 1859 John Coverdale & William Henry Sayers, West Hartlepool; April 1864 John Coverdale, West Hartlepool.

Masters: 1831-36 J Bartram/Bertram; 1845-55 Jonathan Thompson; 1860-64 WH Sayers; 1864 BS Grainger.

She was insured with Hartlepool Mutual Marine Association in 1854-55.

Middlesex Chronicle, December 17^th, 1864:
Dreadful Sufferings of Ship's Crew. Intelligence was received at Hartlepool on Sunday respecting the brig Earl Grey, of Hartlepool, which was caught in a recent gale, was dismasted, and water-logged at Anholt. In the case of the crew their sufferings have been most bitter and intense. All hands were six days board the ship, while it was waterlogged, without the possibility of getting any provisions beyond few peas ; one lad actually died from starvation before help arrived. The master and all the others had been since landed at the isle of Lessoe, whence intelligence of their plight was tele graphed the owner, Mr Coverdale, of Hartlepool, by the British consul at Frederickshaven.
A letter received on Sunday night from the Captain (B. S Granger), stating that he passed Elsinore last Tuesday week, with every prospect of making a good passage, but on the following day, at 3.30 a.m., the ship came to ground on Anholt Reef, where she lay, the sea beating over her till nothing that could wash away was left standing. At 5 p.m. on Thursday she beat over the reef and was all afloat again, but a complete wreck—stern beaten out, rudder and stern-post gone, and both masts gone overboard—no compass left, no provisions left, and the ship full of water; and from that time until Monday, himself and six of crew had to remain under cover of a top studding, with nothing to eat but a few peas soaked with salt water - no water to drink but what was so salt it only increased the thirst they longed to allay.
On Monday afternoon they were rescued from this position by a small boat from the island of Lessoe ; but one hand, a boy named John Matthewson died shortly after he reached the shore. All the rest of the crew were cared for by the natives. Some portion of the cargo may be saved, and the surviving crew are rapidly recovering. 

The Earl Grey was got off in January 1865, and towed to Frederikshaven where she was condemed and sold as a wreck.

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