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Amazing Coincidences - Edgar Allan Poe foresaw Cannibalism!

Amazing Paranormal Coincidence
HOW EDGAR ALLEN POE FORESAW REAL LIFE CANNIBALISM

Craig Here's a weird story for you to chew over. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has also experienced strange coincidences connected with this tale. Are there any Dudley's or Stevens's out there who were related to the cannibals in the story? Did a strange coincidence bring you to this page?

"There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvelous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them".

Edgar Allan Poe, The Viking Portable Poe

Cannibal Castaways Coincidence

Arthur Koestler was a famous writer and researcher who bequeathed his fortune to found a chair for the study of the paranormal at Edinburgh University. In 1974 he offered a prize for the most extraordinary coincidence to be sent him. My cousin Nigel won. But the weird story he unearthed was only the start of a run of peculiar events that have plagued our family ever since.

Video about the Amazing Coincidences surrounding this story:

Craig talks about Amazing Coincidences on the radio

STRANGE COINCIDENCES
Radio Interview about Richard Parker

WEIRD COINCIDENCES
Radio Interview about Coincidences

CLICK THE LINKS TO HEAR AMAIZING COINCIDENCES INTERVIEWS

Dinner on 25 July 1884 will always be remembered in our family because of the unusual main course, my grandfather's cousin, a 17 year-old cabin boy called Richard Parker.

Our family roots are in Woolston on Southampton Water. And, like many of my family before and after him, Richard ran away to sea. He boarded the Mignonette, a ship built on the Thames for an Australian millionaire who wanted to explore the Great Barrier Reef.

Edgar Allan Poe section cannibal Tom Dudley The captain of the vessel, Tom Dudley, had trouble commissioning a crew for her long voyage, so to avoid delay her owner went on ahead by ocean liner. Later the Mignonette, with Edwin Stephens as mate and Edmund Brooks as hand, left Southampton, their last port-of-call, for the long haul to Australia.

It was Richard Parker's first voyage on the high seas. Thomas Dudley was a sturdy and resourceful captain, Stephens and Brooks went about their duties efficiently but Richard had problems.

They were 1,600 miles from land when the South Atlantic hurricane broke. The Mignonette was hit by huge waves and sank. In the panic to board the lifeboats the crew were unable to salvage any provisions or water except two small tins of turnips.

The crew had very little to eat or drink for 19 days and became desperate. Richard Parker drunk sea water and became delirious. Captain Dudley considered drawing lots to choose a victim to feed the remaining crew. Brooks was against any killing whatsoever, Stephens was indecisive so the Captain decided to kill the boy as he was near to death and had no dependants.

They said some prayers over Richard's sleeping body. Dudley shook then him by the shoulder and said "Richard my boy, your time has come". The three sailors dined and survived on Richard's carcass for 35 days until rescued by the aptly named vessel S S Montezuma- named after the cannibal king of the Aztecs.

The resulting court case fascinated Victorian society and became the best documented study of cannibalism in this country. Dudley, Stephens and Brooks were each sentenced to six months hard labour and later emigrated.

And it gets more amazing...

But the story has a strange twist in its tail. Half a century before the grisly events, in 1837, Edgar Allan Poe wrote The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. This book tells of four shipwrecked men who, after many days' privation, drew lots to decide who should be killed and eaten.

The cabin boy drew the short straw. His name was Richard Parker!

My cousin Nigel Parker was the first to notice the link between the Poe story and actual events which Arthur Koestler published in The Sunday Times of 5 May 1974. The author of a book about strange coincidences tells how sometime after the news story, he casually mentioned it to John Beloff at the University of Edinburgh, who had, that day, written about it in his journal.

Nigel's father, Keith, thought that Richard's story would make an interesting theme for a radio play and began to plan a synopsis. At that time, to supplement his writer's income, he reviewed books for Macmillan publishers. The first book to arrive through the post was The Sinking of the Mignonette. A few weeks later he was asked to review another play, among a collection of short plays, called The Raft. It was a comedy for children with nothing sinister about it at all, apart from the cover illustration. Three men seemed to threaten a young boy, which is completely out of keeping with the play's tone. The Raft was written by someone called Richard Parker.

In the summer of 1993, my parents took in three Spanish language students. My father told them about Richard Parker one evening over supper (probably in an attempt to keep the food bills down) The television was on in the background. All conversation stopped when a local programme started talking about the remarkable story. Dad went on to break the silence by saying how weird coincidences always occur whenever Richard's tale is mentioned. He told them about Edgar Allan Poe.

Two of the girls went white. "Look what I bought today" said one. She reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of the Edgar Allan Poe story. "So have I!" said the other girl. Both had gone shopping that day and independently bought the very same book containing the Richard Parker story. And as if events are trying make my story totally unbelievable my father told the same story to his language the following year. Again one of the girls pulled a copy of the Poe book from out of her bag!

Last month I received a letter from a man who had read another article I wrote about Richard Parker. Immediately after he'd read it he gave professional advice to a friend, who was complaining about his employer. His employer he discovered had been researching his family tree and said to the person who wrote to me "Well, I reckon this riding roughshod over legal procedures is in his blood. This guy is into tracing his ancestors, and one of them was a sea captain Dudley who was done for eating a cabin boy and cheated at drawing lots...."

Copyright Craig Hamilton-Parker

Grave Coincidences

To the memory of Richard Parker Aged 17 who died at sea July 25th 1884 after nineteen days dreadful suffering in the open boat in the tropics having been wrecked in the yacht Mignonette

Though He slay me yet I trust in Him.
JOB 15

Lord lay not this sin to their charge
ACTS 11.60

Although Richard Parker's body was buried at sea, a headstone was erected in his memory at Pear Tree Churchyard near his birthplace in Woolston, Southampton. Captain Dudley is said to have paid a local family to keep the stone clean in perpetuity. They were so ashamed of accepting his legacy that they asked for their name to be kept secret and would only clean the stone in the dead of night.

Thomas Dudley had left the legacy after emigrating to Sydney Australia where he set up a chandlers. Locals knew him as Cannibal Tom. Dudley was to make history a second time: He was the first Australian to die of Bubonic Plague!

Copyright Craig Hamilton-Parker

Coincidence of the Mignonette

mignonette

This is the only known painting of the Mignonette now owned by Barbara Boon from Yarmouth whose grandfather's cousin (Thomas Hall) was the solicitor who owned the boat from 1875-1882. They had trouble finding a crew because the repairs on the boat were bogged. Apparently, the wood around the stern was rotten and was repaired using screws instead of the copper bolt.

The man who was called in to make the repairs objected but nonetheless did the job as instructed. He said later that he would carry his guilt to the grave. "I just wonder whether there isn't some kind of debt to pay over the loss of Richard Parker, the death of Dudley (who was honest about the whole affair) and the guilt of the old boat builder." says Barbara. "And I wonder what Dudley's descendents feel and what did his children feel as they grew up surrounded by such a haunting story?"

(The Mignonette had a sister ship called the Peregrine)

Copyright Craig Hamilton-Parker