The white and gilded female head and left shoulder only, with indications of classical dress, broken off from what was probably a full-length figurehead. It comes from a four-masted iron barque which, quite literally, struck the Bishop Rock lighthouse early one summer evening in 1901. She was 135 days out from Tacoma, Washington State, with wheat, when she carried broadside onto the Rock in a south-westerly gale, her mainyard striking the lighthouse tower. She drifted for half-a-mile before she went over on her beam ends. Her port-side boat was launched and 25 crew with the master’s wife and child got away safely. The master, mate, steward and three seamen where drowned as the ‘Falkland’ suddenly lost buoyancy after her charthouse roof was blown off by the pressure of air inside her. They had unsuccessfully been attempting to launch the starboard boat which at first jammed and then fell out of its stowage. The 27 survivors and their boat were then taken in by the St Agnes lifeboat, ‘James and Caroline’.

‘Falkland’ details at time of wreck. Four-masted iron barque of 2,867 tons, registered in Liverpool. Built by W. H. Potter & Sons, Liverpool, 1889. Dimensions (in feet and tenths): 317.8 x 45.3 x 24.9. Owner: ‘Ship Falkland’ Co. Ltd (Macvicar, Marshall & Co). Registered voyage: Tacoma to Falmouth. Cargo: wheat. Master at loss: G. S. Gracie. Wrecked: 22 June 1901.