Meet the Grosvenor – A Ship Built for Empire, Lost to the Wild Coast
Before she was wrecked on South Africa’s remote shoreline in 1782, the Grosvenor was one of the proud workhorses of the British East India Company: a three-masted East Indiaman built for long voyages, heavy cargo, and imperial ambition.
Launched in 1770, the Grosvenor completed four successful voyages between England, India, and China, ferrying silks, spices, porcelain, and treasure back to British shores. She was more than a merchant vessel, she was a floating fortress, heavily armed to deter pirates and rival powers. These ships were the beating heart of a global empire, carrying goods, people, and power across oceans.
By the time she set sail on her fifth and final voyage in 1782, the Grosvenor had already proven herself a survivor of storm, war, and mutiny. But she would not survive the wild and uncharted coast of southern Africa.
With a cargo capacity of around 800 tons, she carried trade goods from Madras: ivory, indigo, spices, calicoes, and prized Chinese porcelain. On board were 140 souls: crewmen, soldiers, passengers, and servants, including families returning home to Britain after years in India.
But it wasn’t just cargo she carried, it was wealth. Rumours have long swirled about the Grosvenor’s hidden treasure: gold, jewels, and the private fortunes of East India Company officers. Some believe part of it still lies buried beneath the shifting sands of the Pondoland coast.
Her wreck sparked one of the most harrowing survival journeys in maritime history: an odyssey of hunger, resilience, and encounter that would change lives and leave scars on the landscape and memory of southern Africa.
Captain John Coxon was a man of the old East India Company mould - formal, aloof, and steeped in discipline. In his fifties, with a youthful, almost feminine face and powdered wig, he cut a proud but somewhat faded figure, still clinging to the trappings of rank: a blue coat with brass buttons, white breeches, and polished boots. His manner was stiff and imperious, accustomed to command and not easily questioned. He was, at heart, a man past his prime, more comfortable with routine than uncertainty, and increasingly out of touch with the shifting seas and the younger men around him. In the crisis of the Grosvenor's wreck, his confidence faltered, revealing a captain unable to adapt, and too proud to yield.
History Hidden in the Dunes. The Grosvenor castaways called it the “Sandy Desert.”
Today, we know it as the Woody Cape Nature Reserve. A hauntingly beautiful stretch of dunes, 40km long and 4km wide.
But for the desperate survivors of the wreck, this was no paradise. It was their final test. Starving. Exhausted. Chased by time.
Of the 23 in Page's group who entered these sands…
Only 6 made it to Cape Recife alive.