Going to Sea is Dangerous!

Doing a One Name Study alongside my own family history has thrown up some interesting people and stories and I hope one day to have links from them into my own family.
This week's efforts have centred on a family of mariners originating around the mouth of the River Tyne in North East England. In County Durham we have the town of South Shields while in Northumberland we have North Shields, both home to seafarers for many, many years.
George Chicken, baptised in July 1769, grew up in Gateshead, south of the Tyne. He became a glass and pot maker in South Shields, married and had four children. His eldest son, William, became a sailor. He worked hard and learned how to navigate and manage a ship, gaining his master's ticket. 
William married and continued his seafaring life while his wife continued to live in South Shields and bring up their nine children. She must have had a hard life at times, but she was part of a community of mariner's wives who would support each other emotionally as well as with childcare and other practicalities. William survived his life at sea, eventually dying of bronchitis aged 73. The seafaring life was obviously attractive to young boys growing up and William's sons were no exception.
Their eldest, Robert Mackreth Chicken, became a Master Mariner like his father but unfortunately succumbed to scarlatina at the age of 33, leaving his widow with two young children.
The second son, George, followed in his father's footsteps but again tragedy struck and he was lost at sea off America at the age of 18 when he "accidentally fell from the rigging" according to the press reports of his death.
Their third son, William Thomas, also went to sea and gained his master's ticket becoming captain of SS Said, a collier that took coal from Newcastle upon Tyne to London for the Gas company. On 11 December 1883 he stopped the loading of coal before the hold was quite full so that he could be sure of catching the tide. The Tyne pilot took the ship to the harbour bar and then handed back to the Captain. That was the last that anyone saw of the Said or Captain Chicken. A violent gale in the Boston Deeps was assumed to have overwhelmed the boat and all 18 crew were lost.
Bournhall Chicken, their fourth son, became a sailor and was drowned at sea off Harrisburg at the age of 20.
Their fifth son died as a baby so didn't have chance to make a choice of career.
The tragedies of families losing sons, husbands, brothers, fathers in an untimely fashion must have been a constant background for the communities of Tyneside.
Not what I expected to discover when I started researching this group.

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