I AM looking for any information from your readership about Louisa and Ella Golightly and Sadie Greenwell, who were drowned in a boating disaster at Barmouth in North Wales on August 1 1894.

The Golightly sisters lived on Sunderland Road in Durham.

Their father was a prominent member of the Gilesgate Wesleyan Chapel, where they were buried.

Sarah (Sadie) Greenwell lived at Sherburn Hill; her father was a grocer/draper in the village. Sarah was buried at Shadforth.

They were on a week’s holiday in Barmouth with a party of some 20 members of the National Home Reading Union, organised by a Congregational Minister, Thomas Arthur Leonard from Colne in Lancashire.

On August 1, the party went on a boating trip on the Mawddach Estuary and ten of the group were drowned when two of the boats were swamped by high waves.

The Barmouth Disaster, as it became known, attracted national publicity at the time.

It will be the 125th anniversary of the disaster in August 2019 and I am researching the episode for a book to be published early next year.

I should very much like to hear from anyone that may have information about Louisa and Ella Golightly or Sarah Greenwell.

Perhaps there may be descendants of her family living in the Durham area?

I am particularly looking for any surviving photographs that I can cross reference with a photograph I have of the holiday group before the tragedy struck.

Readers can find out more about my research on www.douglashope.co.uk and contact me on douglas.g.hope@btinternet.com.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dr. Douglas Hope, Galashiels