The Sinking of the SS Deutschland

 The steamship SS Deutschland sailed from Bremerhaven on December 4th, 1875 with 123 passengers on board. Its destination New York. It would never make it. On the night of December 6th, 1875 bad weather conditions made the ship deviate from course and collide with the Kentish Knock, a shallow sandbank on the eastern coast of the British Islands, just a few miles from the safety of the port of Harwich. There the SS Deutschland waited for the rescue its captain, Eduard Brickenstein, and crew were sure would come soon.

As narrated in several of the newspaper articles included in the collection Newspaper Accounts of the Wreck, the SS Deutschland was passed by several ships. Given the dangerous conditions, however, none of them dared approach it and attempt a rescue. Thus, the passengers and crew waited for hours, tied to the ropes in the rigging, in an effort to maintain their hold and avoid falling into the treacherous waters—an effort that was, for many of them, entirely futile, as the increasing violence of the sea, the rising tide, and the intense cold took the lives of 78 people, most of them women and children.

Among the casualties were the five Franciscan nuns, led by Sister Henrica Fassbender, to whom Hopkins dedicates his poem. The five sisters were emigrating from their home in the convent of Salzkotten, Germany, to the city of Saint Louis, Missouri, following Otto von Bismarck’s declaration of the Anti-Catholic Falk Laws. 

You can learn more about the shipwreck at the Historic England website.