19th Century Cork Sutton Mariners, Sailing Ships and Crews

Fig. 2: Master’s certificate 1851, issued by the British Board of Trade to Captain George Sutton (b.1804) who was captain of Girl I Love of Cork on this date (Image copyright and kind permission to reproduce: Ancestry.com)

2. PREFACE

Genealogical research into my branch of West Cork Suttons revealed that my ancestors contributed four generations of master mariners to the nineteenth - century Cork sailing community. My family originally came from Clonakilty, Co. Cork and my great-great- grandfather, Captain George Sutton (b.1804), had four master mariner brothers born in Clonakilty between 1794 and 1814. They sailed largely out of Kinsale in their early years and migrated to Cork City during the 1830s. Sutton descendants and intermarriage with other mariner families resulted in more than fifty active sea captains on Cork ships in the nineteenth century. The family also comprised merchants, shipowners, steam tug owners, sailmakers, chandlers, ropemakers, ship agents and Cork harbour commissioners. The first part of my study (Section 3) details chronologically this multifaceted involvement of the Sutton family in the Cork maritime community. The Sutton extended family not only sailed extensively on Cork ships but also built a moderate-sized fleet of sailing ships, and a by-product of the present research has been an exploration of Cork sailing ships during their final century of prominence. Regardless of a depression in Irish shipbuilding following the Napoleonic War, Cork developed a good reputation as a shipbuilding centre. Initial research involved the type, size and origin of vessels in the Cork fleets, followed by ownership, management and trade patterns. Although the investigation had started with Sutton-owned ships, it soon expanded into a review of all nineteenth - century Cork sailing ships.