The Severn Trow Jonadab

Built 1848, Newport, Monmouthshire

By Richard James

The Early years, 1848-1894

Originally built in 1848 by John Johns at Newport, Monmouthshire for John Davies, a builder, she was an open moulded trow of some 59 tons.  First registered at Newport this changed in 1856 to Bristol when she was bought by her then Master, James Facey.

According to the Customs Register she was then purchased ‘at twelve noon’ on the 30th August 1894 by Mrs Laura James and rebuilt in 1895 at Saul Junction on the River Severn in Gloucestershire as a flush-decked vessel (also known as ‘boxed’). This raised the freeboard which would enable her to venture further afield from the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel and handle the strong seas off Ireland and the South and South West Coasts of England.  She was also given a trow rig which may suggest that originally she might have been square rigged.

Middle age, 1894-1920

Between 1894 and about 1920 she was worked by Laura James and her husband, Captain W.J. (Billie) James, later joined by their son, Stuart.  She traded mainly between the various Severn Estuary , Bristol Channel and West Coast ports of Devon, Cornwall and South and West Wales, but occasionally sailed around into the English Channel (Falmouth, Looe, Fowey) and across to Southern Ireland (particularly Waterford).  She would have carried general cargoes including coal (from the Forest of Dean), stone bricks, livestock and animal feedstuffs.

Third age, 1927-1960s

Records show that she then passed into the hands of ‘Desperate’ Dan Gower of Cardiff just after the First World War, probably about 1920.  Subsequently she received a major re-fit in Carver’s Yard, Bridgwater in October 1927.  Further major repairs were carried out in February 1932 again at Bridgwater following a collision in Cardiff Docks.  In 1934 she lost her mizzen mast in a heavy squall in the Bristol Channel, also the topmast on the main so she then carried a sloop rig until unrigged and motorized in 1949 in dry dock at Saul, with her timbers also being strengthened.   In the interim she had passed into the ownership of Silvey’s of Bristol, a major Coal Merchants in the City and eventually came to be used as a dumb barge, again probably for coal mined in the Forest of Dean.

And finally . . .

She remained in work for a further ten years or so until coal production in the Forest gave out in the 1960’s but then Jonadab, like so many of the other Severn Trows, was laid up on the banks of the River Severn, although still in fair repair.  Although still in very good condition in 1973 and with several projects proposed to restore her (including interest from the Maritime Trust) her condition then gradually declined.  At some point she floated off at a spring tide where the current took her to Sharpness where she blocked the docks entrance.  She was towed back close to Lydney and beached high up on the foreshore where she gradually deteriorated.   Several of her timbers were salvaged and were incorporated in the construction of the bar in the Lydney Sailing Club.