—— Original Message ——
From: jsdingle@icloud.com
To: Tywardreathparpc@btinternet.com
Sent: Thursday, April 24th 2025, 11:04
Subject: William Dingle
Dear sir madam
I am writing to you , in hope, that in some way you may be able to assist me, with our families long standing historic story ?
My great great grandfather was a schooner boat captain from Par, Cornwall, he sailed the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to the US and further.
His name was William Dingle.
On one of his many trips across the Atlantic William stumbled across a stricken ship, in very treacherous seas!
The ship was in distress, the vessel had its mast broken, the deck was almost broken in two and was sinking!
William and his crew set out their longboats and attempted a rescue.
In very difficult seas, the longboats bridged the gap between the two vessels and all of the crew from the ship were saved, several of the crew from the lizzie were injured during multiple rescue attempts!
This rescue took place on Christmas Eve, 1892
William took the men he saved to the Azores then the Island of Madeira, dropping them off in port before continuing on with his journey
We understand that the vessel and crew which captain William saved was called the lakefield and was Norwegian
We are very proud to say that William was presented with a pair of binoculars by Oscar the king of Norway and Sweden (at the time) in 1893
As we understand captain William Dingle died at sea
We have the binoculars, they have been a very proud and permanent fixture on the dresser in my parents house for my whole life !
We also have an oil painting of the lizzie, carrying out the rescue! This was painted by a artist living in Cornwall, Reuben Chappell
We have researched the story and have some information but I was hoping to find out more about our relative captain William Dingle and the ship the Lizzie
if possible with your help any information about this amazing story or recommend another source of information would be greatly appreciated
As you can imagine, we are very proud of the the act that was carried out on that day back in 1892
Permission is given to pass this writing on, to assist the further investigation of the history of this story
Yours sincerely
James Dingle