Napier, St. Saviour's Anglican Church

Abstract

Photographs and information of the bell of St. Saviour's Anglican Church, Napier. The St Saviour’s Church is a small Anglican church in Napier that forms part of the Parish of Bredasdorp. In a bell frame in front of the church, hangs a bell, inscribed as follows on one side MARIE-ELISE 20 MAI 1876. On the other side is inscribed CHANTIERS D’AGDE ALLEMANDE CONSTRUCTEUR. The Marie-Elise was a French barque built at the D’Agde shipyard on the French Mediterranean coast. She was wrecked on 6 November 1877 on her maiden voyage at Ryspunt in the Cape Agulhas area. She was sailing back from St Pierre in Reunion with a 500 ton load of sugar, destined for the north west coast of France. According to the report of the commission of enquiry into the accident, the captain mistook the beacon at Ryspunt for the lighthouse at Agulhas and made a course adjustment that landed his vessel on a rock ridge where it was stranded. Fortunately no lives were lost. It is not known how the ship’s bell became the property of the church. Reference. Grobbelaar, Jeanette (2012). Golgotha van die Oseane: Skeepsrampe aan die Agulhas-kus (Golgotha of the Oceans: Shipwrecks on the Agulhas coast). Inset Publishers, Eversdal, Cape Town.