Draft:Archibald Oakley-Hill
British naval officer (1846–1925)
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Archibald Oakley-Hill (31 October 1846 – 24 April 1925) was a British Royal Navy officer. He is best known for surviving the 1871 shipwreck of HMS Megaera on St Paul Island in the Indian Ocean. He later served as a civil servant in South Africa.
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|  |
Archibald Oakley-Hill | |
|---|---|
 Oakley-Hill in 1895 | |
| Born | 31 October 1846 Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, England |
| Died | 24 April 1925 (aged 78) Barford St Martin, Wiltshire, England |
| Buried | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Branch | Royal Navy |
Rank | Lieutenant Commander |
| Known for | Surviving the wreck of HMS Megaera (1871) |
| Spouse | Julia Catherine Victoria Longhurst (m. 1886) |
| Children | 7 (5 survived infancy) |
Early life
Archibald Oakley-Hill was born in Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, the son of the Rev. Benjamin Hill and Catherine Anne Reed. His mother died of tuberculosis in 1852. The following year, his father took up a post as British consular chaplain in Valparaíso, Chile. Oakley-Hill and his siblings made the 8,750-mile voyage via the Darwin Channel and Tierra del Fuego, a route charted by Robert FitzRoy and Charles Darwin two decades earlier. The family lived in Valparaíso from 1853 to 1856; Oakley-Hill’s sister Annie died there aged seven.
The family returned to Britain in 1856. The long sea voyages, experienced at ages six and ten, gave Oakley-Hill a lasting interest in the navy. He entered naval college at age fourteen after passing competitive examinations.
Naval career
HMS Megaera shipwreck (1871)
On 28 May 1871, HMS Megaera departed Simonstown, South Africa, bound for Australia. On board were 333 people: 42 officers, 44 marines, 180 sailors, and 67 naval recruits. Oakley-Hill served as a young officer.
On 9 June, a marine fell overboard and drowned. The crew then discovered 17 inches of water in the hold. After five days of pumping, they traced the leak to missing rivets in the iron hull. The ageing vessel (built 1849) began taking on water faster than the crew could bail. Captain Arthur Thrupp changed course for the nearest land, the uninhabited St Paul Island.
On 17 June, Oakley-Hill, from the masthead, spotted land. The ship anchored, but the first two anchors failed and a third had to be laid. Divers inspected the hull and three engineers declared the ship unseaworthy. All aboard were safely landed on the island. The wreck subsequently became well known because nearly everyone survived.
The crew spent over two months on St Paul Island. Two French researchers occupying the island could not speak English, but a Channel Islander assisted with interpretation. The crew salvaged provisions, erected huts from ship materials, and distilled fresh water. The main food supply was fish; a typical day’s catch ranged from 120 to 180 pounds. On 1 August, a barrel containing 3,000 fishhooks washed ashore.
The Dutch ship Aurora took some of the sick to Java, alerting the British consul. The storeship Oberon arrived on 26 August, followed by HMS Rinaldo and the P&O steamer Malacca on 29 August. In poor weather, the passengers and salvageable cargo were transferred, and all were evacuated by 5 September. Captain Thrupp was court‑martialled on return to England and honourably acquitted. Oakley-Hill was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in December 1871.
The Oakley-Hill family preserved a framed photograph of Archibald, inscribed with the note that he climbed the mast, sighted land, and thereby saved the crew and passengers.
Andaman Islands patrol (1872)
In 1872, Oakley-Hill was part of a patrol in the Andaman Islands and Solomon Islands, tasked with preventing the capture of indigenous people for the slave trade. During this duty, he and three colleagues landed on an island inhabited by cannibals and left without incident.[1] He later wrote a detailed account of the experience titled “Among Cannibals.”
Marriage and later career
Oakley-Hill settled in South Africa and married Julia Catherine Victoria Longhurst (known as Katie) in 1886.[2] The couple had seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Their surviving children were Constance Maberly (Consie), Percival Langham (Percy), Dorothea Catherine (Dots), Henrietta Madeleine (later head of the Royal Naval School), and Dayrell Reed Oakley-Hill (a soldier, diplomat and author).[3][4]
In South Africa, Oakley-Hill attempted to run an ostrich farm, but the venture failed. He then entered the civil service in Kimberley.[5]
During the Second Boer War, the family’s home in Kimberley came under shellfire during the Siege of Kimberley (1899). A shell landed in the garden, shattering the windows of the room where the infant Dayrell was sleeping. Katie took the children and her mother to safety in England. Oakley-Hill remained in South Africa in government service for several more years, finally retiring to England in 1911.
Later life and death
In 1906, Oakley-Hill visited his family in England. A holiday in Malvern reunited him with his brother Ben (Father Edmund) and sister Connie. Oakley-Hill died on 24 April 1925 at his sister Connie’s house in Barford St Martin, Wiltshire, and was buried in Salisbury. His wife Katie died in 1955 and was buried at Wokingham.
Family and notable relations
Oakley-Hill’s maternal grandfather was John Theodore Archibald Reed, a vicar in Leckhampstead who promoted vaccination against cowpox. His mother’s sister, Anna Maria Hussey, and her sister Frances Reed were noted painters of fungi; each had a genus named after her. Anna Maria Hussey corresponded with mycologist Miles Joseph Berkeley.
Through the Hussey connection, Oakley-Hill’s uncle George Varenne Reed became tutor to Charles Darwin’s sons. All four Darwin brothers were later knighted for their scientific work. Oakley-Hill and his wife named their youngest son Dayrell Reed Oakley-Hill in reference to this part of the family.
Oakley-Hill’s half‑sister Amy Bland Hill served as matron of the Bath War Hospital during the First World War and was awarded the Royal Red Cross.
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