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What is recorded here

Beatrice Catherine was a Bangor-built wooden smack carrying culm when the Royal Charter Gale drove her ashore at Porthor Bay on 25–26 October 1859. Passenger and crew all died: four people in total. Her long ownership record shows a local vessel with named Welsh connections, but no physical remains are confirmed at the mapped loss area.

The vessel and voyage

Built at Bangor in 1845, Beatrice Catherine was a 34-ton wooden smack, 46 feet long, with one mast and a standing bowsprit. Master David Davies and several north Wales owners held shares. She carried culm, a fine coal fuel.

How it was lost

The Royal Charter Gale reached force ten to twelve from the north-northeast on 25 and 26 October 1859. It drove the smack ashore in Porthor Bay, where the vessel was overwhelmed during the same storm that wrecked ships around the Welsh coast.

Deaths and survival

The one passenger and all three crew members died. The four-person loss gives this small wreck a complete human scale: every person aboard was killed, though the official summary does not supply all four names.

What remains

No archaeological remains have been confirmed at the official point, although wreck material may survive nearby. The location records the documented stranding area, not a positively surveyed structure or an object bearing the vessel's number 10892.

Why it mattered

Beatrice Catherine ties Bangor shipbuilding, shared local ownership, coastal fuel trade and the Royal Charter Gale into one loss. It also shows that the famous liner was only one part of a storm that erased entire smaller crews.