A few years ago, I was searching for information about my husband’s great-great uncle Andrejs Blezurs and his life as a sailor. I knew Andrejs had sailed with the UK Merchant Marine by at least 1918 and was working on a steamer ship from Hull to America in 1920.
Searching through online crew manifests in the UK national archives I came across a listing for Andrejs on the ship Speedwell in 1914. The Speedwell’s crew manifest included the name of the last ship he had served on: the Pax. Researching this ship uncovered a fascinating journey around the world and helped to shed light on an old family mystery.
The old family story was that a Zekants uncle had made it down to Australia to serve on a pearl-diving boat in the town of Broome on the Western Australia coast. The date of this was hazy, but most likely this was well before WWII. Over time we narrowed down and confirmed that this uncle was Karl Zekants. Based on an old newspaper passenger list we knew that Karl was leaving Western Australia in 1920. But how did he get there and when?
The Journey
The Pax was a steel-hulled 3-masted sailing barque that had been built back in 1891 in Glasgow by Russell & Co. shipbuilders. The Russell & Co. shipyard at the port of Glasgow was world-renowned for its incredible output and its quality ocean-going vessels. It was originally built for German owner J. H. Hustede, but between 1901 and 1910 was British-owned. In 1912, the ship was bought by M.H. Gundersen of Tvederstrand, Norway and in 1913 was part of A/S Westfalen company owned by H. Berntsen, also out of the port city of Tvedestrand, Norway.
The Pax is listed in the Lloyd’s Shipping register for 1913-1914 with J. Jensen as the captain and Westfalen as the owner. It was 236.5 feet long, 36.1 feet wide and 21.8 feet deep with a tonnage of 1428 grt.
The captain of the Pax was one Johan Jensen, a 43-year-old master sailor from Norway. The crew would have included a number of Norwegians, but also a scattering of sailors from elsewhere in Europe. I contacted archives in Norway looking for a ship’s crew list but it seems it no longer exists. Were there any other Latvians on board? Quite possibly but that would require further research and may never be known.
Although the great age of sail was almost at an end, in mid-October 1913 at the port of Antwerp, the Pax was getting ready for its months-long voyage to the other side of the world.
These grand ships, powered by nothing but the winds, were a dying breed. But there were still jobs to be found for sailors like Andrejs Blezurs and his cousin Karl Zekants. The ship would be heading from Antwerp to Buenos Aires and then on to Western Australia before heading back to Europe.
The hold of the Pax would have been full of important trade goods for Argentina; things like agricultural machinery, iron, steel, and tin cans. If all went well, they would be at sea for three months before heading into port at Buenos Aires where they would pick up cargo such as leather, oils, rubber and food stuffs for Australia.
I was able to track the Pax through digital archives of Norwegian and Australian newspapers. I know that it pulled into the port of Geraldton in Western Australia at the beginning of March 1914 after sailing for 46 days from Buenos Aires. Surely this was the furthest these men had ever been from Latvia.
The Pax in Australia
Not long after the Pax anchored at the isolated Geraldton jetty, the crew were informed that a local worker’s strike was underway. The men hired to load wheat were demanding higher wages and a settlement had not yet been reached. It would take a few days to unload the cargo they had brought from South America, and then if the workers still refused to work, there was sure to be a delay before the Pax could head home. Just like back in the Russian Empire, workers here were uniting and demanding better pay and working conditions. Unlike the Tsar’s deadly crackdowns on such behaviour in the recent past, however, here in Australia, democracy allowed workers’ voices to be heard and a deal was expected to be announced any day.
In other news, local officials and business leaders were excited to let Captain Jensen know that they would be testing two brand new grain-loading elevators that had recently been installed on the jetty. There were several newspaper articles about this momentous event at the time.
After just one week, the Pax had been unloaded and the new elevators had been fully tested. They were so effective that they were able to load 20 bags of wheat into the ship every minute with few mishaps. This was great news for the people of Geraldton and Captain Jensen was so impressed that he invited the upper crust of the city to a party in his private quarters on board the ship. As soon as the strike was over, the loading of the 28,000 bags of wheat destined for the hold would be accomplished in record time.
It makes sense that Karl would have been on this ship. We have not found documentation of this but we know there was a strong connection between Andrejs and Karl and Karl had to make it down to Australia somehow! This timing makes perfect sense because it wouldn’t be long before WWI would break out and there would have been no way for Karl to travel to Australia until after that. But we know he was leaving Western Australia in October 1920.
So this is where the fates of Karl and Andrejs diverge. On Saturday morning of the 21st of March 1914, 24 workers arrived, having come to an agreement the day before with their employers. The ship was loaded using the new grain elevators and before he knew it, Andrew and the rest of the crew would have been ready to pull up anchor and head the Pax back to Europe via South American ports. If their return journey went smoothly, the ship would be back in Antwerp by the end of August.
The Return
After weeks at sea, having seen no land at all since South America, the sheer rocky cliffs of southern Ireland would have been a welcome sight. The Pax swiftly followed the undulating coast, and the violent dagger-like projections of rock that continued without end all the way to Cork. Eventually the cliffs opened up, welcoming the ship past Roche’s Point lighthouse and into the protective arms of Queenstown Harbour (modern day Cobh Harbour). Just over two years before, Queenstown Harbour served as the last port of call for the Titanic.
Andrejs, Captain Jensen and the rest of the crew would have quickly learned the terrible news: Germany had declared war on Russia. And just the day before the Pax came ashore, Great Britain had declared war on Germany. The words in the Cork daily newspaper were grim indeed: ‘tensions were extreme’ all over Europe and there no longer seemed to be a ‘ray of hope’.
Over the course of the next week, as the crew were waiting for the Pax to be unloaded and readied to sail on to Limerick, news of the war would have been the main topic of conversation. It was already affecting life in Cork. Military officials were commandeering horses all over the county, ships were having to be diverted from their original courses, German residents of Cork were being arrested as possible spies. Two German crewmen of the Pax had already been taken into custody for nothing more than being German nationals.
After surviving a late summer squall that caused the ship to run aground at Foynes Pier on the way inland to Limerick, the Pax arrived in its next port.
Due to the changing political climate and unexpected weather delays it had taken the crew almost a month just to go from Cork up the coast to Limerick. By the time they arrived in mid-September, the newspapers were reporting that there had been heavy fighting in East Prussia and Konigsberg. Andrejs would have been desperate for information about the welfare of his family back in Latvia.
By the end of September, while still in port at Limerick, reports coming from the Continent told of bombardment and fighting near Antwerp. Captain Jensen would have known that reaching that coastal port as originally planned might now be impossible. According to the scant evidence I could find, some men chose to be discharged in Limerick, but Andrew optimistically remained aboard. By the beginning of October, the remaining crew aboard the Pax was headed on to Cardiff in Wales.
Again, it took longer than usual to reach the next port. It was almost the end of October by the time they arrived in Wales. By this time the newspapers were reporting that Antwerp had been besieged and the Belgians had retreated. There were small rays of hope that the Germans were being pushed back but the reality looked grim. There was no possible way for the Pax to make it to Antwerp. What would this mean for the crew? Andrejs must have weighed the risks of continuing on and this is how he came to spend the next 9 years in the UK. Andrejs would find lodging in the Latvian boarding house run by Augustus Rismanis and his family in Butetown.
The Fate of the Pax
The Pax survived the war and continued to sail. There is a crew list for the Pax as it travelled to Australia in 1918 and Captain Jensen is once again the captain. Around 1920, the ship was bought by the French company Cie. Navale de l’Océanie and it was being used as a ‘nickel’ ship out of Noumea on the island of New Caledonia where there were lucrative nickel mining operations. In 1921 it was ‘hulked’ which means it was no longer fit for movement but instead used as stationary storage. Its towering masts, complicated rigging and huge sails would have all been stripped away. This newly converted ‘barge’ was in this case most likely for storing nickel ore. The ship met its operational end in 1934 when it was intentionally run aground on a beach in Noumea.
Although there are no longer any visible remains of the ship Pax, one of the last round-the-world sailing vessels, I am thrilled that I have been able to resurrect her story and realize the part it played in the Zekants family history.
