In 1906 Sir Frederick Treves in his admirable Highways and Byways in Dorset described Chapman's Pool, which lies to the west of St Aldhelm's Head, as 'a small round cove where a dip in the downs opens to the sea...[it] is merely a haven for fisherman, although none live by the harbour side. On the beach are tarred boathouses and huts, lobster pots and miscellaneous gear. At anchor in the haven are two or three piratical-looking fishing smacks. The place is sombre by reason of the hue of its cliffs. They are smoke-coloured, varying in tint from cinder black to a funereal blue...' It sounds a most delightful and tranquil place, despite the rather grim and forbidding nature of the cliffs, and it would have hardly changed some 14 years later when it was dubbed the 'Deadman's Pool' by one national daily newspaper after it became the scene of a shipping disaster which resulted in the loss of 36 lives. Ironically there had been a lifeboat station at that very place from 1866 until 1880, but this was discontinued because it had been launched only once in the whole 14 years.
The Treveal was a newly-built steamship of 5,200 tons owned by the Hain Steamship Company from St Ives in Cornwall. Its master was Captain C. Paynter, who also hailed from St Ives, and it carried a crew of 43. The vessel was on the last leg of its maiden voyage, which had taken it to the Far East, and it had left Calcutta bound for Dundee with a large cargo of jute and manganese ore. The weather in the English Channel was not particularly favourable and because there were no signs of any great improvement, the captain decided to put into Portland harbour to seek the services of a North Sea pilot. The Treveal arrived in the port shortly before six o'clock in the evening of 9th January 1920. Unfortunately no pilot was available and despite the captain's misgivings he was ordered by the ship's agents to proceed without one. The Treveal left Portland at eight o'clock after having been there barely two hours, which must have been a bitter blow to the crew as they had spent a long time away from England and a night in port would have come as a blessed relief, especially considering the weather conditions out in the Channel.
Once out of the shelter of Portland Roads the vessel encountered very severe weather and Captain Paynter radioed back to Portland asking for the assistance of a tug. For some unaccountable reason the Admiralty tug from the Naval dockyard was not then available, and the Weymouth tug was undergoing repair. Just an hour after leaving Portland the Treveal was fast being driven towards St Aldhelm's Head and within several minutes it struck the south-eastern edge of the Kimmeridge Ledges close to Chapman's Pool. Then followed an exchange of messages with the Coastguard at St Aldhelm's Head. The captain reported that his vessel was 'ashore hard and fast' and he asked the local Coastguard officer whether there was 'a good landing place' nearby. The reply was 'Yes, straight inshore but you had better wait till daylight'. Obviously the Coastguard man was referring to Chapman's Pool, which did indeed offer some safety providing one was aware of the local currents. The captain then asked whether the Senior Naval Officer at Portland could be contacted as the tug had still not arrived.
It was not until just before midnight that the Portland tug Pilot finally left port but in the darkness and such heavy seas its crew failed to locate the stranded vessel and the tug was forced to return to Portland. At about 5.30am the following morning the tug set out once again and this time was successful in its search, but because of the worsening weather and very heavy seas it was unable to come in close to the Treveal. But help was coming from another quarter. A Weymouth tug Petrel had managed to tow out the Weymouth lifeboat Friern Watch, which was a Watson 12-oared boat then considered to be the last word in lifeboat design. When the lifeboat finally arrived off Chapman's Pool the tide was on the flood and this, allied with the heavy seas, swept the lifeboat away from the Treveal and it was humanly impossible for the lifeboat crew to battle against such ferocious seas. In the end it was forced to leave the area and return, not to its home port, but to more settled waters further to the east of Poole.
Just after nine o'clock in the morning the Captain sent his last message to the Coastguard. It was an urgent and plaintive cry - 'For God's sake send us assistance!' He then signalled to the Portland tug, still standing by in the area, to try to pick up his crew as he had decided to abandon ship. Only two of the ship's lifeboats were serviceable, the other two had been destroyed by the heavy seas. There was still a strong possibility that the crew could have been saved if they had taken the passage between the rocks in Chapman's Pool rather than tackling the vicious currents that flowed off the beach, especially in stormy weather, though only the local fisherman and presumably the Coastguard would have been aware of these facts. But to the captain and crew, after having spent 12 hours on their stranded vessel in such atrocious conditions, it must have seemed only common sense to try to avoid such rocks at all costs.
Within minutes of being launched the two boats were forced broadside to the waves and almost immediately they were swamped with water, then they capsized, flinging the crew members into the raging waters. Despite their lifebelts most of the unfortunate seamen were pounded unconscious by the force of the sea and by striking the rocks. Just two local men were on the beach at Chapman's Pool to offer assistance - the Revd Horace Piercey, the young curate of the nearby church of Worth Matravers and a young fisherman, Frank Lander. They had responded to the dreaded boom of the Treveal's distress rockets. With utter disregard for their own safety they waded out in the angry sea in a valiant attempt to help the few wretched and exhausted survivors back to the beach. Reportedly the young curate was 'up to this neck in water and shingle for over an hour'. Subsequently they were awarded bronze medals by the Royal Humane Society. A short time later they were joined by some other local people, including two women, who were a great help in attempting to save some of the crew by artificial respiration. All told just seven seamen were rescued, one of whom was a 15 year old cabin boy. Many of the bodies recovered from the sea were in a quite pitiful state - heavily bruised, severely cut and some were even naked because their clothes had been torn off by the violence of the sea and rocks.
Only 20 bodies were finally recovered and they were placed in a Coastguard cottage at Worth Matravers to await burial in the local churchyard; but a day or so later the steamship company agreed to pay for the bodies to be returned to their families. In the end just two unidentified seamen were burried in the local churchyard and they provide the only memorial to this tragic shipwreck which resulted in the death of 36 officers and men, including Captain Paynter.
The wrecking of the Treveal did pose some serious questions about the inadequacies of the rescue attempts. The tardiness of the Admiralty tug to set out and its inability to find the vessel at its first attempt were strongly condemned. Perhaps the most serious criticism was levelled at the Coastguard Service, for it seemed strange that they had made no attempts to rescue the crew by using their rocket apparatus, especially considering that the vessel had been stranded for over 12 hours. It was also thought that the captain had been rather precipitate in abandoning his vessel in such terrible seas, for the two parts of the broken vessel were still on the rocks long after most of the bodies of the crew had been recovered. Indeed it was said that the gallery fire was still burning when the stricken vessel was boarded. The chief officer of the Coastguard at St Aldhelm's Head was court-martialled but he stoutly maintained that if only the captain had followed his instructions the boats would have safely made the shore. The court thought otherwise and he was found guilty of negligence and dismissed the Service.
