Great Empire of Japan Marine Rescue Group

The Normanton Incident (ノルマントン号事件, Norumanton-gō jiken^?) is the name for the set of events surrounding the sinking of a British merchant vessel named Normanton off the coast of what is now Wakayama Prefecture on October 24, 1886. The vessel was registered to the Madamson & Bell Steamship Company when it ran aground and sank, drowning all the Japanese passengers aboard. The event sparked a major uproar in the Japanese population when the subsequent court case in the British Court for Japan highlighted the unjustness of the unequal treaties that were levied on Japan at the time by the leading countries of the West.

On the evening of October 24, 1886, the 240-ton British cargo ship Normanton, laden with both goods and 25 Japanese passengers, left Yokohama Harbor and set sail for the port of Kobe around 8:00pm. However, en route to her destination she was caught in heavy wind and rains all the way from Yokkaichi in Mie Prefecture to the Cape of Kashinozaki in Wakayama Prefecture, where the vessel was wrecked. She ran aground on an offshore reef and was lost. The ship’s captain John William Drake and all European (ethnic British and German) crewmen escaped the sinking ship in lifeboats, leaving the non-European crewmen (twelve Indians and Chinese) and the 25 Japanese passengers aboard to fend for themselves. The Europeans were picked up by coastal fishermen who took them in warmly.

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