Our job today is still to offer refuge to seafarers from the storms of life
Just over 192 years ago, on 4th May 1818, the former Royal Navy gunship HMS Speedy moored up for the last time at Wapping New Stairs on the River Thames, London, England.
The Speedy had seen significant service during the Napoleonic wars. But now her gun deck was cut fore and aft to provide a place where pews were set instead of her guns. At the centre of the deck where the step of the main mast had been previously, there was now a pulpit. The Master’s cabin had become a vestry. Speedy was now transformed into The Ark, the first-ever floating place of sanctuary for sailors of the day. Henceforth it would fly the Dove and Star shown on the Bethel flag, the symbol that was to be recognised as a call to worship, and one that has endured over two centuries as the emblem of the Sailors’ Society.
Pirates and thieves flourished in the Thames reaches and in the docks of London. Pirates would ambush ships coming into the area and also steal outgoing cargoes. Gangs would roam the public houses, preying on the seaman just paid off and full with liquor.
Alongside The Ark laying in the aptly named Execution Dock was The Gibbet where criminals condemned in London to capital punishment had for centuries been executed for their deeds! The ships of life and death – lying side by side. The merchants, ministers and mariners who founded The Ark deemed their juxtaposition appropriate! These were certainly black and white times.
The years after the Napoleonic Wars were extraordinarily hard for those who went to sea. Hundreds of vessels had been seized or sunk. Many sailors had spent years in French jails. Trade was nearly at a standstill. For seamen in between billets on the ships, there was only what was called the Crimp — a system in which gangs offered a bed, but in reality they pushed hard drink, prostitution and gambling to fleece the sailor of what little money he had.
The Ark offered a refuge from such storms of life. It offered these stranded seafarers a place of companionship, prayer and fellowship beneath the Bethel flag where the Spirit moved upon the waters.
By 1820 there were similar facilities in Leith, Greenock and many other ports around the UK – the start of a movement which grew into the Sailors Society ministering to seafarers around the world — and led to its global outreach today through its Chaplain’s actively caring for seafarers’ practical and spiritual needs in some 100 ports in 30 countries around the world.
One of the original promoters of The Ark was the Revd Edward Irving of the Scots Kirk in Regent Square. In an early sermon onboard the ship, he preached from Matthew ch8. v26 — “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith”. With faith, he said, there is no need to fear shipwreck either at sea or in the storms of life.
The work of the Chaplains of the Sailors’ Society goes on.