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 and a larger sailing vessel alongside the starboard quarter. More people are on the wreck. A sailing yawl is sailing away from the ship towards the shore. A lugger is under main sail approaching the port bow. 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.

This photograph is taken after G14276, as the tide has come in and some of the same boats are still in place.

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.