Wreck of HMS Birkenhead
South Africa
- Position
- About 34.6° S, 19.3° E (within about 10 km)
- Sank
- —
- Cause
- —
- Depth
- —
Protection status
Location generalised to protect military remains
The position shown is generalised to within about 10 km. The exact position is not published.
The wreck of a military vessel.
This wreck may be the last resting place of those who died aboard. Please treat it with respect.
How this was decided: Seadar's protection rules, from the sources we hold, confidence 85%. When in doubt, Seadar generalises the position.
HMS Birkenhead, also referred to as HM Troopship Birkenhead or Steam Frigate Birkenhead, was one of the first iron-hulled ships built for the Royal Navy. She was designed as a steam frigate, but was converted to a troopship before being commissioned. While transporting troops and a few civilians to Algoa Bay, the Birkenhead was wrecked on 26 February 1852 at Danger Point near Gansbaai, 87 miles (140 km) from Cape Town in the Cape Colony. There were insufficient serviceable lifeboats for all the passengers, and the soldiers famously stood in ranks on board, allowing the women and children to board the boats safely and escape the sinking. Only 193 of the estimated 643 people on board survived, and the soldiers' chivalry was one of the earliest known instances of the unofficial "women and children first" protocol when abandoning ship.
History from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA.
About this wreck
HMS Birkenhead is a recorded shipwreck site. Seadar shows wreck locations alongside live ship traffic, free, from Wikidata and public hydrographic records.
Use this data
This page is also available as JSON, free, with the source and licence of every section. Sections whose sources do not permit redistribution are listed as withheld.
GET /api/v1/wrecks/29680Using this data in code?
Every account gets a personal API allowance: 2,500 credits a month free, 25,000 with Pro. Pro adds internal business use; API plans add building the data into your own products.