Roscoe: Laggan Bay, Islay, Atlantic

NR34NW 8008 unlocated

NLO: Islay [name centred NR 38 60]

Sound of Islay [name centred NR 43 71]

Loch Indaal [name centred NR 26 57]

Laggan Bay [name centred NR 295 520].

Possibly on map sheets NR24NE, or NR35SW.

23 January 1866, ROSCOE, 868 tons, of Liverpool, total loss, departed New Orleans for Liverpool, carrying cotton, timber and passengers, stranded in Laggan Bay, Islay.

Statement showing the Casualties that occurred on and off the Islands on the Western Coast of Scotland, between 1st December 1865 and 30th June 1866. Wrecking in the Hebrides.

Source: PP Abstracts Returns of Wrecks and Casualties on Coasts of the UK 1866 (1867 [3901] LXIV.235).

Greenock, 26th Jan. The mate and seamen of the ROSCOE, FORM: New Orleans to Liverpool, which put into Laggan bay 22nd Jan., arrived here from Islay this morning per ISLAY (s). Late reports state that the vessel was fast breaking up, but most of the cargo would be saved: the master remains at Islay.

Source: LL, No. 16,161, London, Saturday, January 27 1866.

Bowmore, 26th Jan. Sixty bales of cotton from the ROSCOE, Bowmaker, of and for Liverpool from New Orleans, totally wrecked in Laggan bay 22nd Jan., will be shipped off by a Liverpool tug to-day: at present about a 100 bales, with part of her sails and rigging, have been saved, and as she is all to pieces the cargo will easily wash out. [Another account states that her deckload of cedar had been thrown overboard].

Source: LL, No. 16,162, London, Monday, January 29 1866.

Laggan Bay (Islay), --- Jan. All the cargo of petroleum has been saved ex CONQUEST, Crocker, from New York, wrecked here 14th Jan.: and the salvage of cotton ex ROSCOE, from New Orleans to Liverpool, wrecked here on the 22nd, is being proceeded with. [Record received incomplete].

NMRS, MS/829/68 (no. 2313).

(Classification cited as full-rigged ship).

R Larn and B Larn 1998.

(No classification specified: cargo cited as cotton and timber, with passengers, and date of loss as 23 January 1866). Roscoe: this vessel was wrecked in Laggan Bay.

868 tons [unspecified].

(Location of loss cited as N55 40.00 W6 16.00).

I G Whittaker 1998.

The map sheet assigned to this record is essentially arbitrary. The extensive embayment of Laggan Bay is situated immediately S of (outside) the E side of the entrance to Loch Indaal. It offers no shelter, being open to the SW.

It remains uncertain whether this vessel stranded or foundered; the former appears the more probable.

The classification cited by Larn and Larn remains unverified, but is accepted.

The date of loss cited by Whittaker is at variance with that cited in the primary account. The latter is preferred.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 28 August 2002.