Auntie Vi and the Women of Mumbles Head (Mumbles Myths III)

Joan and Gladys, my grandmother, were two of eight Honey children; another was my great-auntie Vi. She taught me two things for which I am grateful. She taught me to how to swear while remaining ladylike – she was, after all, an ex-president of the WI - and she made sure I knew my local history. Or her version of it anyway. And she did that by teaching me a poem.

The point where Swansea Bay ends abruptly at Mumbles is marked by a lighthouse. It was built in 1794, to warn passing ships of the Mixon Sands and Cherry Stone Rock, two huge undersea sand banks. 

The last lighthouse keeper retired in 1934, but it was the daughters of a previous keeper who went down in history as heroines, commemorated in a poem, The Women of Mumbles Head. 

On a stormy morning in January, 1883, Mumbles lifeboat was launched to go to the aid of a stricken German ship. In the middle of the rescue, the lifeboat itself was capsized and its crew thrown into the huge icy-cold waves. 

The poem begins:
Bring, novelists, your note-book! Bring, dramatists, your pen!
And I'll tell you a simple story of what women do for men.

It goes on to tell how the two women, clinging to each other, scrambled into a ferocious sea to save a drowning lifeboat-man. According to the poem, soldiers who were stationed on the lighthouse island stood by and watched while the women risked their lives.

The story of the women’s bravery in contrast to the soldiers’ cowardice spread rapidly across the country. The authorities, in an attempt to check these stories, said that the National Lifeboat Institution was considering rewarding one “Artilleryman Hutchings for the assistance he rendered in saving the lives of two of the lifeboat crew”. 

They went on to say that the women “rendered all the tender assistance that could be expected of brave women in such an emergency - that is they held the poor fellows’ heads and ministered to them as only the hand of woman can do”.

Try telling Auntie Vi that,

Gunner Hutchings was awarded a certificate and £2 by the Lifeboat Institute; the women were not acknowledged. Nevertheless, they received numerous gifts from the public, including gold brooches from the Empress of Germany.

Another village myth? 

Clement Scott, the author of the poem, didn’t think so. And nor did my Auntie Vi.

P.S. The women, Jessie Ace and Margaret Wright, are today commemorated by a Blue Plaque at the top of the steps leading to the pier beach.