The Lady Isabella was a 1396nt iron barque, built by A McMillan & Son of Dumbarton and launched in August 1882.
Her final voyage begain on 27 August 1902 when she set sail from the French settlement of Tehio, New Caledonia, with a cargo of nickel ore bound for the Clyde. It was to be her first trip home since 1882. She was under the command of Captain McKinlay and carried a crew of 23. Her voyage was tragically fated from the start; by the time she reached the Clyde some four months later she had jettisoned 100 tons of her cargo which had shifted during a storm, and lost a member of the crew overboard off the west coast of Scotland during another storm.
During the night of 17th/18th December she passed Arran under a favourable but increasing breeze, escorted by the tug Flying Phantom. Just after 3am the captain sighted the lighthouse of Little Cumbrae and set a course for it but on the approach to the island the steady south west wind suddenly increased, becoming a violent squall veering to the north west. The crew struggled to regain control of the uselessly flapping sails and lost steerage way. The Lady Isabella was driven relentlessly towards the rocky south west coast of the barren island. The captain ordered anchors away in an attempt to save his vessel from the impending disaster, but to no avail. The Lady Isabella struck the seabed 50 metres from the shore and immediately began to fill with water.
The distress rockets were fired but as it appeared that they were in no immediate danger, they decided to remain aboard until morning when they could, more safely, make their way ashore in the ship's lifeboat. Captain McKinlay was on the poop deck examining the position of his ship when her stern shifted suddenly as a wave swept over her. He was washed overboard and would almost certainly have drowned had the next wave not miraculously swept him back onto the Lady Isabella where he managed to grab hold of the mizzen mast and rigging. The same wave smashed the ship's lifeboat, marooning the crew on the wreck. Anderson, the sailmaker, courageously volunteered to swim the 50 metres to the shore with a rope, in order to tie it to the shore and provide his shipmates with a safety line to pull themselves in. One by one, the crew made it safely ashore, with Captain McKinlay being the last to land.
The ship's carpenter examined the Lady Isabella shortly before coming ashore and reported every hold full of water, meaning that successful salvage would be very unlikely. Subsequent surveying by divers reported severe damage to the keel and hull plates, plus four holes in the starboard side. She was abandoned to the sea and quickly broken to pieces. Over the next few years, she was extensively salvaged by James Gush of Greenock.
