Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

I am trying to find information on James McMillan, born 1840 in Maryport, Cumberland, to James and Isabella . His father died in 1841 in Liverpool, he and his mother moved to Liverpool. When he was sixteen,In 1857, he was signed on In Liverpool as an apprentice on the ship “John Spencer “ owned by Boadle + Co. The vessel sank with all hands lost the following year,1858,on the home voyage from Calcutta to Liverpool, in the Bay of Bengal. I can find no information about this.Can anybody help?

There is not a great deal of information to be found on the loss of the John Spencer.

Press reports (late September 1858) say simply " The John Spencer, Harrison, sailed from the Sand Heads on the 30th March last, for Singapore, and has not since been heard of".

The Registers Of Wages And Effects Of Deceased Seamen lists the crew, all supposed drowned 30/3/58 "Vessel lost".

Thank you, retiring type, for your help. I have tried following up the shipowners, Boadle + Co, they were a Whitehaven company, with other vessels with the suffix “Spencer”, but no ‘John’. I traced it through Lloyds Register, and it appeared in the 1858 volume, but not after that. It is interesting to find she was sailing for Singapore, when lost.