HMS Friday: The Legend of Hugh Williams
by Mark Lukach
On December 5, 1664, a ship sunk in the Menai Strait, a stretch of water with tremendous tidal swings off the coast of Wales. All 81 passengers died, except one. His name was Hugh Williams.
On December 5, 1785, another ship sunk in the Menai Strait, with again everyone aboard dying except for one man…named Hugh Williams.
And then again, on December 5, 1820, yet another ship sunk in the Menai Strait. Only one man survived, and he was named Hugh Williams.
This is an awesome legend, and the scope of the coincidence is staggering. Another source actually references two other British shipwrecks with the lone survivors bearing the name Hugh Williams, except they weren’t on December 5. In one of those wrecks, there were actually two survivors, an uncle and nephew, and both were named Hugh Williams. And so despite having two survivors, you could still technically say of the wreck “the only man to survive was named Hugh Williams.”
While the story can be found all over the web, explanations for it are nowhere to be found. Only one site includes source reference to the Hugh Williams legend, but those are little more than just re-tellings of the legend in books about Northern Wales.
I think above all else, this legend is a wonderful case study in the art of storytelling. The story is sensational, brief, and gets right to the point of the bizarre coincidence of the many men named Hugh Williams.
So I want to play Debbie Downer for a bit. This story under-examines many critical details that make it far less sensational, so let’s look at those.
First off, the coast of Wales is a really dangerous place for ships. It is one of the most weather-exposed areas of the United Kingdom, an island kingdom heavily dependent upon sea travel. The reason there are so many British shipwreck stories is because there were so many British shipwrecks, period. And a whole heap of them along the northern coast of Wales. More shipping leads to more shipwrecks, just pure and simple.
I unfortunately can’t get a higher resolution image of this map of shipwrecks along the North Wales coast, but even without much detail, you can clearly see that there are a lot of shipwrecks from over the years.
The legend makes it sound like there have only ever been 3 shipwrecks in the Menai Strait. The real number is probably closer to 300.
So, to update our legend, we should add the fact that we are addressing three shipwrecks out of hundreds that have occurred in this area.
Now, to the coincidence of the date. I can’t find a list to confirm this, but my suspicion is that most of shipwrecks in the Menai Strait occur during the winter. If you look at the typical seasonal climate of Wales, early winter is the most notorious time of year for wet, windy, and stormy weather. The ocean is also at its coldest. December 5 falls during the prime season for treacherous weather, with the coldness of the water increasing the likelihood of fatalities involved in any shipwreck.
To update our legend further, we should add that the shipwrecks occurred on December 5, during the most dangerous time of the year for shipping in an already dangerous area.
And finally, the name itself. It should be little surprise that the surname “Williams” is very prevalent in Wales. And “Hugh,” (actually “Hew” if we want to stick to the original Welsh) is a very popular first name, listed at every online resource I can find about Welsh names.
So the fact that these various survivors were all named Hugh Williams is not that strange. Not as strange as if they were all named, I don’t know, Ziggy Stardust.
What we have are three shipwrecks in the Menai Strait, a veritable graveyard of shipwrecks, occurring during a dangerous part of the year, which coincidentally happens to be the same day, and each of those shipwrecks left a solitary survivor with the same, popular name.
That’s a much less fun way to tell the story, isn’t it?
I beleaguer these details because I really, really want this story to be true. But I also want unicorns to be true. Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it so; it also needs to be believable. When you understand the prevalence of shipwrecks on the Welsh coastline, especially during winter, the legend becomes more believable. The same for when you think about how common the name Hugh Williams is.
I needed it to be less sensational, because then it’s easier for me to believe. When I tell the story to people, I’ll obviously stick to the sensational version. But I’ll be able to tell it knowing that there’s a good chance that it’s true.
For more about the The Menai Strait, see Welsh Icons – header graphic by Monkey Fist
Like you, I really want this to be true. It first came to my attention when I was 17 and a radio station in New York City put out a call for anyone named “Hugh Williams” to call in (without saying why). Well, I got through and they infected me with the story about my name. I’ve been looking for solid evidence ever since.
Just to join in on your “Debbie Downer” bit for a moment — a few years ago, I found out that the third incident probably took place on August 5, 1820 — not December 5.
In the end, though, it’s still a great story. I still self-servingly honor December 5 as “Hugh Williams Day,” though few others seem willing to join me…
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I read in a book that all of the 3 Hugh williams had Red hair…
[…] The moral of the story is: if you are going to sail off the coast of Wales on December 5th, you may want to change your name to Hugh Williams. But is this a true story? Any records from these incidences seem to be at least second-hand. I found a post at The Scuttlefish that may shed a bit of light on how “coincidental” the story really is. And be sure to check out the comment from Hugh Williams. Link […]
[…] Visto en HMS Friday – The legend of Hugh Williams. […]
[…] say that the second ship sank in August and not in December but all do report the same name, Hugh Williams. Pretty creepy if […]
I first read of this little story back in the 70’s in “The Book of List”
What makes it so Uncredible is the name of the ships that “Hugh” was on are conveniently left out of the story.
The name of the vessels would make it verifiable. I suspect none of it’s true.
[…] of the story one might think that only three boats sank in the Menai Strait over two hundred years. The number is probably closer to three hundred. The number of deaths by drowning is probably in the […]
I think the moral of the story is: If you are getting on a boat, any boat, check the passenger list. If a man named Hugh Williams is aboard: don’t do it!
Thanks for doing all of this interesting research. I would love to share this with my students.
*all best, christine
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