A starboard bow view of the cargo steamer Earl of Lonsdale (1872) aground, listing to starboard close inshore off Saint Agnes, Isles of Scilly. Two rowing boats are alongside with a couple of people in each. More people are on the wreck. A sailing yawl with just the yawl lug rigged is halfway between the ship and the shore. The photographer was standing on the shore and has framed the wreck with a moss-covered rocky outcrop on the left and the grass and boulders of the foreground.

The Earl of Lonsdale was on passage from Alexandria to Portishead, when it ran aground in dense fog on the night of 7/8 June 1885. The crew were saved but the ship became a total loss, as water flowed into the ship on the rising tide. Part of the cargo of cotton seed and beans was salvaged by local boats. The ship had broken in two by 28 August 1885 and the stern fallen into deep water. Parts of the machinery were salvaged.