| Notes |
- Master Mariner and former Harbour Master at Salcombe.
Died in Leixeos, Oporto, Portugal in December 1897 on board ship
Adams Hannaford Tolcher was born in 1839 in Salcombe. He was the second son of Joseph Jarvis Tolcher, a
ship-owner and sailor from Salcombe. Adams is recorded in the 1841 census of England and Wales as living at
Orestone Salcombe with nine other brothers and sisters including Joseph Jarvis Tolcher junior. In 1851 the
family is living in Salcombe at Bethel Place and Adams is recorded as a "Cabin Boy". So at 12 he had already
started a long association with ships and sailing.
His elder brothers Joseph and Richard had clearly passed up on the chance to go to sea, Joseph was an
apprentice ships carpenter but later seems to have worked shore side. Richard later leaves Salcombe to work in
the ship building industry in Liverpool as a shipwright. The younger brothers are still scholars at this time.
Their father was a Master Mariner and the family owned a company in which successive generations had
become involved. Two other brothers also went to sea, and his younger brother John was drowned in 1866 at
the age of just 22.
In 1878 the family lived at Valentine Place in Salcombe.
In 1881 census Adams is not at home on the census night. He is recorded in Cornwall as the master of the Lizzie
Garrow which was in port at Penzance. The family however, had gone up in the world and lived right on the sea
front at Salcombe in Custom House Quay. By this time the wealthier ship owners had build their villas in new
roads in Salcombe, so it was no longer the most advantageous of addresses but still relatively prestigious. This
seems to indicate a measure of success.
In 1863 Adams has married an Elizabeth Hosking Lidstone and they had seven children, only one of whom died
in infancy. This may well indicate improved health conditions in the area, but it may also indicate the relative
prosperity of the family as well.
Five of his children married and only three of the children moved away from Salcombe. None of them stayed in
the shipping business.
The reason for this may be twofold. Adams eventually died at sea, and maybe the hardship of a life where father
was always away on perilous voyages put them off, and the second reason might be that Adams is working out
of a dying port. Shipping and shipbuilding in Salcombe started to die by the mid 1850's and increasingly Adams
must have had to travel to find a ship. The family firm had long since ceased to exist. Probably it was absorbed
into another larger firm but Adams is certainly the last of the seafaring Tolchers of South Devon. Increasingly
Adams was working out of Cornish ports of Fowey and Penzance.
Adams's Board of Trade records reveal that he was engaged in significant voyages out of coastal waters to ports
including, Tenerife, Palermo, Madeira, Tarragona, Corfu and Cadiz.
Increasingly he also sailed to the West Indies; St Vincent, Nassau, and Barbados are all recorded.
Later he was not restricted to these fruit trade runs, with ports such as New York, Picton Nova Scotia, Cape
Town, St John's Newfoundland, Bremen and Rotterdam being recorded.
He changed ships quite frequently, and sailed on a ship owned by the family (Mary and Elizabeth) for a short
time. He spent a few years sailing on a ship the Argyra, and the Queen of the South, and spent short times with
Gauntlet, Morning Star, Netherton, Daring and the Island Queen. Later he is recorded on the Lizzie Garrow and
finally on the Pass By.
Adams is finally recorded as being lost at sea when the "Pass By" was lost in a storm off Liexoes in Portugal. He
was the master of the ship at the time.
The Pass By was a 148 ton sailing ship registered in Fowey in Cornwall. She was first registered in 1885. The
Board of Trade records state;
' Vessel stranded and become a total wreck at Liexeos on 30 12 97 - Certificate of Registry lost with
vessel- Registry closed this day 11.3.98.'
This rather bald statement officially records the loss of all hands, a total of eight men.
Liexoes is now the site of a port and an oil refinery near to Oporto, its port entry is surrounded by sandbanks.
The Salcombe shipping fleet flourished in the 19th century on the fruit trade with Portugal and the Mediterranean
and later with the West Indies. The ships were built in Salcombe and Kingsbridge, and were built in large
numbers. They were built for speed but not necessarily for safety and so a lot of these ships were lost. Salcombe
census returns return a depressing number of widows in the 19th century.
Nevertheless the profits were good if the cargo could be got up from Portugal to London in fast time. The money
made in the trade was good and Salcombe became rich on it for a while. In the 1880's the trade began to
decline problems with the fruit itself, changing tastes and the demand for bigger and better ships to carry larger
cargoes all added to the problems and Salcombe was unable to rise to the challenge.
The fact that Adams was sailing to Portugal and the Azores still when he died on 30th December 1896 is
indicative that the trade was still hanging on, but by this time many of the shipping families of the South Hams had
moved away. Some went to Plymouth to work on the Dockyards at Devonport and in Plymouth itself, and
others to other ports that still flourished and had a demand for shipwrights and sailors.
Adams own brothers bear testament to this. Liverpool was a popular destination and was where brothers
Richard Hannaford Tolcher, and Samuel Tolcher went, but others emigrated like his eldest brother Joseph who
went to South Australia. Younger brother William turned his hand to furniture and cabinet making in
Kingsbridge.
It is ironic that Adams died on the day before his 59th birthday. He is commemorated on the headstone of his
wife and son, Frederick
William who died in 1901, in Shadycombe Cemetery Salcombe. His wife Elizabeth lived on in Salcombe until
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1839 - 1898 (58 years)
