
The Marlborough: A Mystery Still Unsolved
The Marlborough was a Hugh was an iron-built two-decked merchant sailing ship which disappeared in 1890. The ship spent its time at sea travelling between Britain and New Zealand. The ship made many successful voyages in its time and mainly carried wool and frozen meat! A few months after the ship left port in New Zealand in January 1890 carrying its usual cargo and 33 crew members, the Marlborough failed to arrive at its destination in Britain and was reported missing!
At the time many people thought that the Marlborough had been sunk has she passed through cape horn which is a hot spot for ship sinking icebergs! 23 years after the ship was last seen a Singapore newspaper claim that the Marlborough had been discovered near cape horn!
It’s here were the creepy mystery starts as the Marlborough was found shipped wrecked on an extremely craggy island. When a crew of another ship boarded they were horrified at what they found! There was said to be around 20 skeletons on board, what was believed to be the capital was found under the wheel, one was found alone on the ship bridge, some were found by the ladder leading below the deck, 3 were found in the ships hatch way and the rest were found in the ships mess room.
The skeletons are what makes this mystery creepy and strange as there were no signs of foul play and why the skeleton was spread all over the ship makes it weirder. Investigators believed that they must of all died at around the same time as if this wasn’t the case the people that were alive at the time wouldn’t have just left the bodies there to decompose and they would have moved them. Also, because they were scattered around the ship it isn’t believed that they were gathered by an attacker and killed. It is also a mystery Why the captain that was believed to be the skeleton found under the wheel was there in the first place.
Another thing, if the ship had just run a ground surely the crew would have just left the ship and gone onto land to try and survive?! So, why they were all dead! And the ship was missing for so long is a truly creepy mystery! The Marlborough’s sister ship the Dunedin also went missing in the same year and to this day has never been found! Strange eh?