Commerorative medal engraved by Isaac Parkes
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The Ouzel Galley
Never let the truth get in the way of a great story.
The story goes that in 1695 the Ouzel Galley, a Dublin merchant ship set sail from Ringsend carrying Irish goods to trade in the Levant with a captain and a crew of 39. She was owned by Dublin Company Ferris, Twigg & Cash and was due to return the following year. When three years had passed and there had been no news on the ships fate the insurance on the vessel was paid out.
Two years later in the autumn of 1700, the Ouzel made an unexpected reappearance in Dublin by sailing up the River Liffey. The crew claimed that they had spent five years in captivity at the hands of Algerian privateers who used the ship and crew to participate in acts of piracy but that they had eventually gained back control of their ship.
The ship’s owners had already received their insurance, not to mention that some of the sailor’s wives had turned elsewhere for comfort, and the crew wanted the proceeds from the ill-gotten cargo. But now the insurers claimed that they owned the ship as they had paid out on the insurance. The previous owners of the ship claimed that the booty was theirs. This led to a court case which looked like it would deplete any of the money the cargo would have raised. A panel of Dublin merchants came together to settled the question, the ship was sold and the interested parties were compensated. The balance was used for charitable purposes.
No contemporaneous accounts of the Ouzel Galley's adventures have been found to date.
In 1705 the panel of merchants which had arbitrated in the case of the Ouzel Galley was formally established as a permanent arbitration body to deal with commercial disputes. It was hoped that the new body could resolve such disputes without seeking recourse to the courts. Not only did the Society take its name from the famous vessel, but its membership was also regulated to match that ship's complement of forty men and the Ouzel Galley Society was formed. Lots of its member were merchants who lived in the area including John George from Thornhill, Stillorgan and Patrick Byrne Darcy from Drummartin. The Dublin Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1783 by collective bodies including the Guild of Merchants and the Ouzel Galley Society established in 1705.
In 1859 a second Ouzel Galley ship owned by the Wilson family of Westbury House in Stillorgan disappeared. In 1876 a book called "The Missing Ship" by W H G. Kingston was published with a very similar theme which probably gave credence to the story. However, prior to the publication of the book, the following paragraph appeared in a Dublin newspaper in October 1829.
‘Early in the year 1700, the case of a ship in the port of Dublin excited much controversy and legal perplexity without being brough to any satisfactory decision. To put an end to this delay and expense, it was finally referred to an arbitration of merchants, whose luminous investigation was highly approved of, and satisfactory decision cheerfully acquiesced in by all parties. In the utility of this precedent, a society was founded for determining commercial differences by arbitration. The vessel was called the Ouzel Galley, and the society adopted the name as their appropriate designation’.
A terrible pity the didn’t explain what was meant by ‘controversy and legal perplexity’.
The Ouzel Society closed in 1888 and 100 years later it phoenixed. Today the members of the society are former Dublin Chamber presidents.
Ouzel Galley Society members
1739 - 1747 John Porter (captain in 1739)
1748 -1757 John Macarrell (captain 1848-1857)
1756 - 1757 John Joshua Pim
1762 - 1796 Travers Hartley (captain 1791-1796)
1757 - 1758 Charles Howison (captain 1757-1758)
1768 - 1772 Matthew Weld captain (captain 1769-1772)
1772 - 1791 Theophilus Thompson (captain 1772-1791)
1774 - 1779 Christoper Deey - Stillorgan
1796 - 1799 John Lynan (capatin 1796-1799)
1799 - 1800 Henry Bevan (captain 1799-1800)
1800 - 1802 Samuel Dick (captain 1800-1802)
1800 John Hendrick - Stillorgan
1800 - 1833 Nathaniel Sneyd - Stillorgan
1800 - 1822 George Drevar - Stillorgan
1800 - 1815 Peter Alexander Leslie - Stillorgan
1805 Williams Rawlings
1802 - 1814 Henry Howison
1802 Abraham Wilkinson
1802 - 1814 Peter Wilkinson
1802 George Hoffman
1802 William Cope
1802 William Digges La Touche
1802 - 1814 Peter Digges La Touche
1802 Charles Ward
1802 Daniel Geale
1802 Randle Mac Dobekk
1802 - 1822 William Alexander
1802 - 1805 Frederick Geale
1793 - 1814 Valentine O’Connor – Stillorgan
1802 - 1836 Sir Robert Shaw
1802 - 1805 Alexander Kirkpatrick
1802 - 1805 Charles Ward
1802 - 1805 Hans Blackwood
1802 - 1822 Richard Litton
1802 - 1805 George Lunnell
1802 - 1805 Joseph Wilson – Stillorgan
1802 - 1818 William Alexander Shaw
1802 - 1805 Denis Thomas O’Brien
1802 - 1822 Archibald Hawksley
1802 - 1814 George Maquay
1802 - 1805 James Hartley
1802 - 1822 John Patrick
1802 - 1805 Hugh Crothers
1802 - 1814 Alexander Jaffray
1802 - 1805 George Godfrey Hoffman
1803 - 1822 Joshua Pim (captain 1803-1822)
1802 - 1822 William Colvill
1802 - 1825 Leland Crosthwaite (captain 1822-1825)
1805 - 1822 Nathaniel Hone
1802 - 1822 Arthur Stanley
1802 - 1822 John Leland Maquay
1802 - 1822 William Harkness
1802 - 1822 William Snell Magee
1805 - 1827 Joseph Pim (captain 1825-1827)
1802 - 1833 Joseph Goff
1805 - 1822 Arthur Guinness of Harcourt Street
1805 - 1814 John Steward
1802 - 1822 Robert Alexander
1805 - 1814 Randal Mac Donnell
1805 - 1814 Bartholomew Maziere
1805 - 1814 George Carleton
1805 John Allen junior
1815 - 1822 John George - Thornhill, Stillorgan
1810 - 1844 William Cosgrave - Secretary and Registrar
1812 - 1846 Thomas Wilson - Westbury
1814 - 1822 Francis Beggs
1814 - 1822 James Chambers
1814 Richard Darling
1814 - 1822 John Lindsey
1814 - 1822 William P Lunell
1814 - 1822 William Alexander Shaw
1814 - 1822 John Todhunter
1818 - 1819 Michael Law, Stillorgan
1818 - 1822 Robert Law, junior
1818 - 1822 Joseph Hone
1818 - 1822 Robert Hyndman
1818 - 1822 Handcock Stanley
1818 - 1822 John Stewart
1824 Henry Daniel Brooke
1818 - 1870 Thomas Crosthwait (1828-1870)
1818 - 1822 Robert Roe
1818 - 1822 William Sparrow
1818 - 1822 James McCall
1818 - 1822 T McDonnell
1818 -1822 Thomas Maxwell
1818 - 1822 Robert Orr
1818 - 1822 Paul Patrick
1820 Henry Roe
1867 Dr John Dunne
1870 Patrick Byrne Darcy - Drummartin & Monkstown
1870 Nathaniel Callwell
1886 James C Colvill
1886 Edmuns D'Olier
1870 - 1887 George Pim (captain 1870-1887)
© June Bow & Karen Poff - January 2025
Never let the truth get in the way of a great story.
The story goes that in 1695 the Ouzel Galley, a Dublin merchant ship set sail from Ringsend carrying Irish goods to trade in the Levant with a captain and a crew of 39. She was owned by Dublin Company Ferris, Twigg & Cash and was due to return the following year. When three years had passed and there had been no news on the ships fate the insurance on the vessel was paid out.
Two years later in the autumn of 1700, the Ouzel made an unexpected reappearance in Dublin by sailing up the River Liffey. The crew claimed that they had spent five years in captivity at the hands of Algerian privateers who used the ship and crew to participate in acts of piracy but that they had eventually gained back control of their ship.
The ship’s owners had already received their insurance, not to mention that some of the sailor’s wives had turned elsewhere for comfort, and the crew wanted the proceeds from the ill-gotten cargo. But now the insurers claimed that they owned the ship as they had paid out on the insurance. The previous owners of the ship claimed that the booty was theirs. This led to a court case which looked like it would deplete any of the money the cargo would have raised. A panel of Dublin merchants came together to settled the question, the ship was sold and the interested parties were compensated. The balance was used for charitable purposes.
No contemporaneous accounts of the Ouzel Galley's adventures have been found to date.
In 1705 the panel of merchants which had arbitrated in the case of the Ouzel Galley was formally established as a permanent arbitration body to deal with commercial disputes. It was hoped that the new body could resolve such disputes without seeking recourse to the courts. Not only did the Society take its name from the famous vessel, but its membership was also regulated to match that ship's complement of forty men and the Ouzel Galley Society was formed. Lots of its member were merchants who lived in the area including John George from Thornhill, Stillorgan and Patrick Byrne Darcy from Drummartin. The Dublin Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1783 by collective bodies including the Guild of Merchants and the Ouzel Galley Society established in 1705.
In 1859 a second Ouzel Galley ship owned by the Wilson family of Westbury House in Stillorgan disappeared. In 1876 a book called "The Missing Ship" by W H G. Kingston was published with a very similar theme which probably gave credence to the story. However, prior to the publication of the book, the following paragraph appeared in a Dublin newspaper in October 1829.
‘Early in the year 1700, the case of a ship in the port of Dublin excited much controversy and legal perplexity without being brough to any satisfactory decision. To put an end to this delay and expense, it was finally referred to an arbitration of merchants, whose luminous investigation was highly approved of, and satisfactory decision cheerfully acquiesced in by all parties. In the utility of this precedent, a society was founded for determining commercial differences by arbitration. The vessel was called the Ouzel Galley, and the society adopted the name as their appropriate designation’.
A terrible pity the didn’t explain what was meant by ‘controversy and legal perplexity’.
The Ouzel Society closed in 1888 and 100 years later it phoenixed. Today the members of the society are former Dublin Chamber presidents.
Ouzel Galley Society members
1739 - 1747 John Porter (captain in 1739)
1748 -1757 John Macarrell (captain 1848-1857)
1756 - 1757 John Joshua Pim
1762 - 1796 Travers Hartley (captain 1791-1796)
1757 - 1758 Charles Howison (captain 1757-1758)
1768 - 1772 Matthew Weld captain (captain 1769-1772)
1772 - 1791 Theophilus Thompson (captain 1772-1791)
1774 - 1779 Christoper Deey - Stillorgan
1796 - 1799 John Lynan (capatin 1796-1799)
1799 - 1800 Henry Bevan (captain 1799-1800)
1800 - 1802 Samuel Dick (captain 1800-1802)
1800 John Hendrick - Stillorgan
1800 - 1833 Nathaniel Sneyd - Stillorgan
1800 - 1822 George Drevar - Stillorgan
1800 - 1815 Peter Alexander Leslie - Stillorgan
1805 Williams Rawlings
1802 - 1814 Henry Howison
1802 Abraham Wilkinson
1802 - 1814 Peter Wilkinson
1802 George Hoffman
1802 William Cope
1802 William Digges La Touche
1802 - 1814 Peter Digges La Touche
1802 Charles Ward
1802 Daniel Geale
1802 Randle Mac Dobekk
1802 - 1822 William Alexander
1802 - 1805 Frederick Geale
1793 - 1814 Valentine O’Connor – Stillorgan
1802 - 1836 Sir Robert Shaw
1802 - 1805 Alexander Kirkpatrick
1802 - 1805 Charles Ward
1802 - 1805 Hans Blackwood
1802 - 1822 Richard Litton
1802 - 1805 George Lunnell
1802 - 1805 Joseph Wilson – Stillorgan
1802 - 1818 William Alexander Shaw
1802 - 1805 Denis Thomas O’Brien
1802 - 1822 Archibald Hawksley
1802 - 1814 George Maquay
1802 - 1805 James Hartley
1802 - 1822 John Patrick
1802 - 1805 Hugh Crothers
1802 - 1814 Alexander Jaffray
1802 - 1805 George Godfrey Hoffman
1803 - 1822 Joshua Pim (captain 1803-1822)
1802 - 1822 William Colvill
1802 - 1825 Leland Crosthwaite (captain 1822-1825)
1805 - 1822 Nathaniel Hone
1802 - 1822 Arthur Stanley
1802 - 1822 John Leland Maquay
1802 - 1822 William Harkness
1802 - 1822 William Snell Magee
1805 - 1827 Joseph Pim (captain 1825-1827)
1802 - 1833 Joseph Goff
1805 - 1822 Arthur Guinness of Harcourt Street
1805 - 1814 John Steward
1802 - 1822 Robert Alexander
1805 - 1814 Randal Mac Donnell
1805 - 1814 Bartholomew Maziere
1805 - 1814 George Carleton
1805 John Allen junior
1815 - 1822 John George - Thornhill, Stillorgan
1810 - 1844 William Cosgrave - Secretary and Registrar
1812 - 1846 Thomas Wilson - Westbury
1814 - 1822 Francis Beggs
1814 - 1822 James Chambers
1814 Richard Darling
1814 - 1822 John Lindsey
1814 - 1822 William P Lunell
1814 - 1822 William Alexander Shaw
1814 - 1822 John Todhunter
1818 - 1819 Michael Law, Stillorgan
1818 - 1822 Robert Law, junior
1818 - 1822 Joseph Hone
1818 - 1822 Robert Hyndman
1818 - 1822 Handcock Stanley
1818 - 1822 John Stewart
1824 Henry Daniel Brooke
1818 - 1870 Thomas Crosthwait (1828-1870)
1818 - 1822 Robert Roe
1818 - 1822 William Sparrow
1818 - 1822 James McCall
1818 - 1822 T McDonnell
1818 -1822 Thomas Maxwell
1818 - 1822 Robert Orr
1818 - 1822 Paul Patrick
1820 Henry Roe
1867 Dr John Dunne
1870 Patrick Byrne Darcy - Drummartin & Monkstown
1870 Nathaniel Callwell
1886 James C Colvill
1886 Edmuns D'Olier
1870 - 1887 George Pim (captain 1870-1887)
© June Bow & Karen Poff - January 2025