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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
marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect
has been unable to receive them".
Edgar Allan Poe, The Viking Portable
Poe
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.
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.
 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.
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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.
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
>>MORE: The Gravestone.
Why was it only cleaned at night?
More
about this story is in my book The Psychic Casebook
>>Coincidences
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