Feature: John Lambert
Published: 4 August, 2011
by DAN CARRIER
Norway, December, 1816.
The box was washed up on a deserted beach and was recovered from the tide by farmers who were beach combing.
They had heard of the wreck of trading vessel The Mercator, lost in a storm off the coast, and those living nearby wanted to salvage all they could.
However, the chest didn’t reveal any riches, but instead a series of notes, letters and personal possessions from a family in St Pancras.
The wooden box had come from an English ship – and further inspection showed they were the property of a John Lambert, who had chartered The Mercator to trade for cod liver oil from the northern reaches of Norway.
Now the box of personal effects, including five letters, books and clothing, has reappeared after being left in a dusty storage area of the Norwegian government’s archives for the best part of 200 years – until Norwegian historian Maria Press, came across it recently.
They reveal a fascinating picture of a Camden family who lived just a year after the fall of Napoleon.
Ms Press’s research shows that Lambert took his two sons and a son-in-law on the trip with him.
They left their home in Britannia Street, off Gray’s Inn Road, and chartered a ship at the Thames docks in the summer of 1816, before heading out to the North Sea.
We know from the letters that he owned a building company but the Napoleonic wars, which had cost the country dear, had decimated the building trade and he seems to have needed to expand his business.
According to Ms Press, he appears to have left St Pancras with little notice.
“He left in a hurry, without even telling his daughter about the trip,” she says.
“But in the autumn storms along the Norwegian coast the ship sank, probably on its way back from northern Norway, where the men had been trading with cod liver oil. Nobody knows what actually happened.”
After being washed up, the box had been taken to a farm in the coastal town of Ørlandet, and was delivered to the county’s town hall.
“They advertised in the newspapers to find the owners, but didn’t get any response,” Ms Press explains.
We know Lambert left London in haste as his daughter was in service in the town of Mettingham, Suffolk, when he left and only knew he had gone once the trip was underway.
“Mettingham, June 23 1816: My Dearest Father,” the letter reads.
“I have just received your Letter and will leave you to judge how surprised I was to see by its contents that you were on Board a Ship, going so far from home…”
She admonishes him, saying he was too old for such an adventure and he should have sent her brother Charles in his place. Her letter also reveals her husband also aboard the ship.
There are also letters from other family members: John’s mother, wife, son and daughter-in-law all wrote.
The letters reveal that John’s son, John Junior, had become a father to a girl, Lucie, while away: but the letters also say the daughter was sick.
John is warned off drinking too much brandy on board and there is a request to bring clogs home with them.
The final letter, written on July 30, 1816, by John’s other son Fredric, describes life in Camden at the time.
He says the Napoleonic depression is still gripping the economy and there is little work to be had.
It describes social unrest as the economy struggles – including a demonstration by Cornish miners at the gates of the Prince Regent’s home.
There is no easily traceable record of the loss of the ship at Lloyds, who would have listed the ship and insured it, and though the letters are enlightening, the story is not yet complete. Who had John Lambert been trading with and when and where did the ship sink? What happened to the family he left behind?
The archives do not reveal what the fate of the traders was: however, a trawl through the Camden Local Studies Archives shows that John Lambert paid rates on his St Pancras home in 1817 – suggesting he survived the sinking and made it safely home.
But whether this was as a grieving father or a fortunate trader, the mists of time have obscured.