Built at Sunderland: Official No. 2666: Code Letters HQCR.

Owners: Curtis & Co; 1818 Hall & Co; 1821-27 S Rudgard; by 1853 Edward Granger, Robin Hood’s Bay, Whitby; 1854 Joshua Brayn, Jersey; 1857 London; 1860-68 Peter McKellar (coal merchant) Rochester; by 1875 James Roberts (Chatham Intra, Kent) Rochester; 1876 Dixon Taylor Sharper & John Hood, West Hartlepool.

Masters: 1810-12 S Gribble; 1819-21 M Cressy: 1822-27 R Andrew; 1853 Greenup Moorsom; 1854-57 G Wood; 1865 Stains; 1881 William Hogarth.

Bound from West Hartlepool for Sidmouth with a cargo of coal & iron & total crew of five Fortitude went to pieces on the coast at Towan Beach east of St Anthony’s lighthouse at the entrance to Falmouth Harbour on 20 October 1881. Five lives lost.

South Durham Herald 22 October 1881.

‘The old schooner Fortitude, after battling with the waves & time for getting on for a century, & which is jocularly said by the old salts to have been built “the year of Adam’s reign” has gone below. She left here (Hartlepool) a fortnight since last Saturday, bound for Sidmouth, with a cargo of gas coals, to be used at the gas works, & was wrecked yesterday, late in the afternoon, off Falmouth, losing all hands. Her last voyage but one was unfortunate, & during it she lost four anchors-an almost unprecedented occurrence. Last week she successfully encountered the first gale, & passed Dover on Monday afternoon with a fair wind all well. During yesterday’s gale, however, she must have become unmanageable for when wrecked she had been driven between 90 & 100 miles SW of her destination. She became embayed a little to the east of Falmouth harbour, & her progress shoreward was watched with intense anxiety, says a Plymouth correspondent. The rocket apparatus was brought to the spot where it was feared she would strike. But instantly she touched the ground a resistless sea broke over her, washing her crew off, & not one reached the shore alive. She is still lying entire however & it is stated all her cargo will be saved. 3 bodies up to the present time have been washed ashore. The Fortitude, which belonged to Messrs Dixon Taylor Sharper & John Hood, had recently a new inside put in her under the Board of Trade survey, & was in every way sea-worthy despite her age.’