Barque 'Clyde' Wrecks at Akaroa Harbour Entrance

The Culmer family is buried here, five of the eighteen people who were lost when the barque *Clyde* was wrecked in November 1884. The ship went down near the entrance to Akaroa Harbour, at a place called the Snufflenose in Horseshoe Bay.

Captain Edward Culmer was the master of the *Clyde*, which was bringing a shipment of sugar from Dunedin to Lyttelton, having originally sailed from Mauritius. His wife Margaret and their three children were also on board: six-and-a-half-year-old Mary Margaret, four-year-old Edward Thomas, and two-year-old Edith May. There were also a number of crew members.

Captain Culmer was an experienced captain, having sailed the east coast of the South Island for several years. But on this particular early morning, the sea was heavy, and the *Clyde* ran aground. A lifeboat was launched, with hopes of saving Margaret and the children, but it was quickly swamped.

There was only one survivor from the disaster, a boy named George Gibson. He walked several miles across the peninsula to Duvauchelle to send telegrams alerting the authorities. However, by the time ships arrived on the scene, all that was visible of the *Clyde* was the top of a mast.

It’s not clear if more than three bodies were recovered: Captain Culmer, ship’s boy Herbert Bohle, and an unidentified body with red whiskers. Bohle was buried in Akaroa. Inquests and customs inquiries were held, and young George Gibson repeated his harrowing story many times. The Culmer family, however, is memorialized here in Lyttelton, where the captain’s mother lived.