Despatch (brig)

{{One source|date=January 2022}}

{{EngvarB|date=November 2014}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}

{{Infobox ship begin}} {{Infobox ship image | Ship image= | Ship caption= }} {{Infobox ship career | Hide header= | Ship country=United Kingdom | Ship flag={{shipboxflag|United Kingdom|civil}} | Ship name= Despatch | Ship owner= Crossthwaite | Ship ordered= | Ship builder= Thomas Kirk, Whitehaven | Ship original cost= | Ship laid down= | Ship launched= 28 February 1801 | Ship acquired= | Ship commissioned= | Ship decommissioned= | Ship in service= | Ship out of service= | Ship renamed= | Ship struck= | Ship reinstated= | Ship honours= | Ship honors= | Ship captured= | Ship fate= Wrecked 10 July 1828, near Isle aux Morts, Newfoundland | Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics | Hide header= | Header caption= | Ship class= Brig | Ship tonnage= 187 gross tons | Ship length= | Ship beam= | Ship draught= | Ship draft= | Ship hold depth= | Ship propulsion= | Ship sail plan= | Ship complement= 200 passengers, 11 crew | Ship armament= | Ship notes= }}

Despatch was a brig noted for having shipwrecked near Isle aux Morts, Newfoundland, and for the subsequent heroic rescue of many of her passengers and crew.

Despatch was partly owned by William Lancaster of Workington, England. On 29 May 1828 she set sail from Derry, Ireland en route to Quebec with eleven crew and 200 passengers, almost all of whom were Irish emigrants hoping to escape the poverty then prevailing in Ireland.

The ship ran aground 10 July 1828 on a small, bare rocky island near Isle aux Morts off the south coast of Newfoundland. A seventeen-year-old girl from the area, Ann Harvey, along with her father, her twelve-year-old brother and a dog, rescued 163 people from the wreck between 12 and 15 July. As a result, Ann Harvey became known as the Grace Darling of Newfoundland.{{Cite web

|title = Brief History of the Workington brig Despatch / Dispatch

|accessdate = 2012-04-07

|url = http://www.mightyseas.co.uk/marhist/whitehaven/despatch.htm

|url-status = dead

|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20120204074306/http://www.mightyseas.co.uk/marhist/whitehaven/despatch.htm

|archivedate = 4 February 2012}} The English government later awarded them a medal and a sum of money for their heroic feat.

Survivors were taken to Halifax aboard HMS Tyne.