Edinburgh Ex-Footballer Shipwrecked
Yet another George Wilson: How a Scottish sportsman and famous newspaperman survived a disaster at sea
George Wilson was a long way from home. He was in a small sailing ship on a foggy night off the Pacific coast of Baja California, Mexico. It was the winter of 1898, and the Scottish sportsman was a helpless passenger as angry waves battered the vessel and drove it relentlessly towards looming danger. Then, with a sickening crash, the boat struck rocks. Newspapers would later publish the story under the headline: “Edinburgh Ex-Footballer Shipwrecked.”
George Scott Wilson was born in Edinburgh around 1875. His father was Hugh Wilson, a shipbuilding engineer-turned-newspaper editor who co-founded the Edinburgh Evening News and became its principal proprietor. George was educated at George Watson’s College, a private day school, and played for Watsonian FC, a rugby union club that still exists today but back then drew its team exclusively from current and former pupils, or “Old Watsonians”. (At the time, both soccer and rugby were referred to as “football”, having evolved from the same rulebooks.)
As well as representing the Watsonians and the city of Edinburgh in rugby, George Wilson played tennis, golf, and curling and was a keen angler. Like his father, he was interested in journalism, but he didn't follow his brothers, into the family business. Instead, he travelled to America to seek his fortune, probably early in 1898. Several months later, he was shipwrecked.
Wilson left San Diego on 16 November 1898 in a 12-ton, 36-foot schooner named the Santa Barbara. “She was rather small for our purpose,” Wilson noted in a letter, “but was the only boat we could get at all suitable.” He travelled as a land surveyor and was accompanied by three companions: T Mickel, also from Edinburgh; James Edwards from New York; and C Nigel Stewart, from London. Stewart was the survey party’s leader.
They were headed to a property on the Pacific coast of Baja California, around 500 miles south of San Diego. Stewart, Wilson and the others were going to survey a lucrative ranch founded by the millionaire pioneer Joseph P Hale to harvest orchilla—a lichen found in the region and used in dye production. But they would never get there.
The Santa Barbara was fitted with an auxiliary engine and carried 600 gallons of gasoline, but those aboard expected to sail on prevailing winds. Its commander was Captain Amsbury, and he was the brother of the boat’s owner, out of San Pedro (now part of the city of Los Angeles). The other crew members were an engineer and, according to Wilson, “a Mexican whom we picked up in San Diego, and who professed to know the coast thoroughly.”
The voyage began uneventfully, on a smooth and peaceful sea. By the following morning, the Santa Barbara had reached the port of Ensenada, where the crew and passengers were detained for several hours, waiting for clearance papers from the Mexican authorities. Wilson and Mickel killed the time fishing from the boat and caught a six-foot shark.
With papers obtained, the Santa Barbara left Ensenada at around 4.30 that afternoon. Conditions remained calm, although not calm enough for Edwards, who Wilson said was “a very bad sailor”. Edwards insisted on sleeping on deck, despite the cold, so the party made up a berth for him in a small rowing boat that was lashed to the midship.
“The following day passed quietly with little incident,” Wilson recalled. “We saw a whale or two and some seabirds.” But the sea was getting rougher. “There was a fairly heavy ocean swell all day. Edwards and Mickel were not feeling very well, but Stewart and I were all right. I went to bed about nine o’clock, little dreaming of what was coming.”
It was about 1 am the following morning when Wilson was awakened by a shout from Captain Amsbury: “Breakers ahead!”
“I rushed on deck,” Wilson recalled, “and found a stiff breeze blowing and a heavy fog. The sound of breakers seemed to come from all round us.” Breakers form when the ocean swells over shallow rocks or reefs. The Santa Barbara was supposed to be several miles from land, but instead was perilously close to running aground. Wilson hurried below and began to put on his clothes. “I had hardly commenced dressing,” Wilson said, “when there was a bump and lurch which nearly upset me, and I knew that we had struck.”
Wilson estimated there had only been three or four minutes between the captain’s alarm call and the ship striking the rocks. The engineer started the engine and attempted to back the boat away. But this was impossible, as the sails were raised and the strong winds thrust the Santa Barbara back towards danger. “The captain had apparently lost his head,” Wilson said. “He made no attempt to lower the sails until we had repeatedly shouted to him to do so.”
As Wilson and the others grappled with the sails, suddenly, “we struck harder than ever.” Manouvereing was useless, and they stopped the engine. “Then the seas began to strike us, and water was coming aboard thick.” Wilson went down to finish dressing — in the dark as the lights had been extinguished for fear of igniting leaking gasoline — then climbed back on deck. “It is hard to reckon time on occasions like these,” he said, “but shortly after I got on deck again, a very heavy sea struck us.”
The Santa Barbara tipped on its heel, and the captain yelled another alarm: “Man overboard!” Edwards had disappeared over the rail. Then Mickel was swept out after him. Wilson, who had been clinging to the main boom, rushed to the side of the ship. “And I don’t know how it happened, but I suppose the wave carried me over — l found myself on the wrong side of the rail, in the water.”
He attempted to swim back to the boat. “A few strokes and the backwash of the wave brought me within reach of the rail in time to see Edwards and Mickel clambering on board.” Wilson grabbed the rail and scrambled after them onto the deck. The boat was lying at a “fearful angle”, and Wilson and his colleagues were convinced it would sink. But, as they clung to the deck over the next few minutes, the Santa Barbara partly began to right itself. “We were safe,” Wilson said, “for the time being.”
Wilson went below deck to search for blankets, “being fearfully cold after my ducking.” The cabin was filled with water, and the bunks on the boat’s leaning side were completely flooded. “The water was more than knee deep,” he said. “It was evident we had a good-sized hole in the bottom of the vessel.” Wilson rescued a few dry blankets and took “a most welcome drop of whisky” before heading back on deck.
The boat continued to suffer a battering from the waves for an hour or two, during which “we again thought the boat would go over”. Stewart had spotted a large hill through the fog. Wilson thought it might be the mainland, but Stewart knew it was only an island. In any case, there was nothing they could do until the morning. So they huddled on deck, cold and wet. “I shall never forget those hours,” Wilson said, “waiting for sunrise.”
After “what seemed like an eternity”, the day dawned, and the men got their first proper look at the land they had glimpsed through the darkness. This was Isla San Jerónimo, a small island more than five miles from the mainland, surrounded by rocky cliffs and the dangerous Sacramento Reef. “In front us, the reef rose from the water, gradually sloping up to the island,” Wilson said. “All round, the sharp points of rocks rose from the water here and there.”
The waves were still crashing over the boat, but the men decided they had to try to get ashore. They loaded the small rowing boat with supplies, and all seven men climbed aboard and paddled towards the sheltered side of the island to look for a landing place, despite Wilson’s misgivings: “The boat was terribly overloaded, and I expected every minute to ship a heavy sea.”
As they rounded the point of the island, the sea began to calm. And there was more relief to come. “To our great joy, we espied a vessel at anchor less than half a mile away.” This was the Francine, a Chinese fishing vessel that was captained by an American, Captain Forrest. The shipwrecked men were welcomed aboard and given a cup of hot cocoa and a change of clothes. Wilson wore nothing but a short overcoat belonging to Captain Forrest, which he described as “a unique costume”.
“We now had time to look about us, and to speculate on the cause of the disaster,” Wilson said. San Jerónimo was inhabited only by seabirds and lizards, with no edible vegetation or fresh water. “We should have been in a fearful fix if the Francine had not been there.” As to the cause of the wreck, Wilson was convinced that “the Mexican” had been asleep at the wheel. And he blamed Captain Amsbury for the navigational error that brought the boat onto the rocks. “Our captain was no seaman,” Wilson said.
Over the next few days, the crew of the Francine helped get the Santa Barbara off the rocks and brought her around to the beach, where they patched up the damage with canvas. It was decided that she was seaworthy and could be sailed 40 miles north to San Quintín, although Wilson and his colleagues decided to make the journey aboard the Francine.
Five days after the wreck, Wilson, Mickel, Edwards, and Stewart arrived in San Quintín, where they could wash and change. Then, they set off on a 170-mile trek to Ensenada with a wagon, two mules, and two horses. They stopped at huts and ranches along the way, and spent one night in a haystack. “We had the most comfortable night there,” said Wilson. “I like haystacks, and even Edwards was warm for once.”
After another five days, the men arrived in Ensenada, limping and exhausted. They boarded a steamer, the St Denis, and reached San Diego on the following morning. Then, they travelled on, via Los Angeles, to San Francisco, where they lodged at the Grand Hotel. Wilson expected to make another attempt to reach the orchilla property, but party leader Stewart had been unable to make satisfactory arrangements. “It is a fearful place to get to,” he said.
Wilson travelled several times across the Atlantic and ended up back in Edinburgh, working alongside his brothers Robert and Hugh at the Edinburgh Evening News. George was appointed a director of the newspaper in 1909 and subsequently became the general manager — a role he held for 18 years. He continued to enjoy adventure. He was an aviation pioneer and among the first Britons to own an aeroplane.
Wison died on 30 December 1938, aged about 63. He was survived by his wife Marguerite and his daughter Ormond. Back in 1898, reflecting on his adventure off the coast of Baja California, he had concluded: “I would say that a shipwreck is all very well as an experience, but I can assure you that it is much better viewed at a distance. The amount of new experience does not compensate for the discomforts.”◆
Regular readers will be aware this is the sixth George Wilson I’ve written about in recent years. If you missed it, you can read a round-up here:
The Many George Wilsons
In 2019, I wrote a story about a professional walker or pedestrian from the early 1800s called George Wilson. He was from my hometown of Newcastle, and he became pretty much the most famous sportsman in Britain, despite being incarcerated in a brutal prison. That story’s called
Back next month with a brand new feature story published with my friends at Narratively. It’s an extraordinary true story involving flying saucers…
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Sources: George Wilson wrote a lengthy letter to his family following the shipwreck. It was published in the family’s Edinburgh Evening News on 20 December 1898 (without reference to the family connection). Other key sources include: San Diego Union, 26 November 1898; The Scotsman, 31 December 1938.
Great story well researched