Southport and St Anne's lifeboats disaster
1886 ship wreck
The Southport and St Anne's lifeboats disaster occurred on the evening of 9 December 1886, when 27 lifeboat men lost their lives trying to save the crew of the German barque Mexico.
14 of the 16 crew members aboard the Southport lifeboat Eliza Fernley drowned, along with all 13 of the St Annes lifeboat Laura Janet. The 12 crew of the Mexico were rescued by the Lytham lifeboat Charles Biggs.
Disaster
On 9 December 1886, Mexico, a Hamburg-registered barque with cargo bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador, from Liverpool, England, was being driven by a full west-north-westerly gale. The ebb tide was running directly into the wind, considerably increasing the very heavy sea, making it extremely dangerous to boats. Approaching a sandy shore, with two anchors dragging, Captain Burmester ordered the fore and main masts to be cut down to reduce windage. At about 3:00 pm, the anchors held. At 9:00 pm, with the ship drifting again, she showed distress signals. She went aground about three miles west of Southport. Around 9:15, the St Annes lighthouse watchman, alerted by the signals, fired the call-out gun.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7570989. Authority coordinates are 53.653, -3.015. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1886.
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