The Wreck of the Amphitrite, a Women’s Prison Ship

This painting, _A Disaster at Sea_, by Joseph Mallory William Turner (made around 1835), renders a shipwreck in a storm with abstract brush strokes — the clouds and waves crash with hectic fury into each other and the boat, as the frenzied white foam takes over both sea vessel and the lower third of the canvas. Turner’s painting captured a historical event: the wreck of the _Amphitrite_ on August 31, 1833.

The tragedy was compounded in several ways. First, it was a near total loss of life, with only three crew members surviving and 133 dead. Second, the nature of the ship’s passengers captured the attention of Victorian English people. The _Amphitrite_ was a convict ship of women: they were being punished for their crimes by transport. The _Amphitrite_ was taking them to New South Wales when a terrible storm off the coast of France near Boulogne ran the boat into a sandbar. Many of the women were only serving light sentences, and there were twelve children on the vessel.

Finally, the shipwreck was extra tragic because, according to the survivor reports, the ship’s captain refused the help of the French who saw the boat sinking and offered to help save the passengers. He was worried, reports later said, that some of the women prisoners might escape their confinement if they made it to land.

Instead, none of them did. The French people ashore witnessed the sinking vessel and the women and children “uttering the most piteous cries” as the _Amphitrite_ split into two and sunk.