PS Lelia

PS Lelia was a steamship built during the American Civil War for use as a blockade runner for the Confederate States of America. She sank in Liverpool Bay in 1865 in an incident which caused 46 fatalities.

Lelia was built by William C Miller & Company of Toxteth as one of a trio of blockade running sister ships ordered for the Anglo-Confederate concern, William G. Crenshaw & Company. She was a 252' paddle steamship of 640 BRT. Her hull was built of steel, an unusual and expensive material for shipbuilding at the time. The engines and other machinery were built by Fawcett Preston & Company and rated at 300 nhp. (The Confederate States Navy warship, CSS Florida, had also been built at Miller's yard.)

She left the River Mersey, with a largely Liverpool-based crew, and several prominent Confederate naval officers, on her maiden voyage on 14 January 1865 bound for Wilmington, North Carolina via Bermuda, aiming to run the Union blockade.

Lelia was heavily laden, and when she hit bad weather off the coast of North Wales, large waves knocked her anchors loose and through the deck, swamping her. She sank near the lightship "Prince" off the Great Orme.

Two boats were able to leave the stricken ship, but one capsized and only 12 survivors (out of 51 on board) reached the safety of the lightship.

The next day an RNLI lifeboat went to the scene, but was itself swamped by waves, with the loss of 7 out of its 11 crew.

See also

• List of United Kingdom disasters by death toll
• Naval battles of the American Civil War

Further reading

• Chris Michael - "Lelia" (Countyvise Ltd, 2004) ISBN 1-901231-47-X
• Ivor Wynne Jones - America's Secret War in Welsh Waters (1976)

External links

• "When Liverpool was Dixie" on "Lelia"
• The story of the tragedy of the Lelia and the wreck of the lifeboat which was an adjunct of the disaster.