This fountain in Cullercoats commemorates a lieutenant lost at sea, many thousands of miles away:

Erected by a few friends in memory of Bryan John Huthwaite Adamson, Lieut RN, Commanding HMS Wasp which sailed from Singa Pore Sep.10 1887 and was never heard of after. The site was given for this memorial by His Grace the Duke of Northumberland 1888

Bryan Adamson was born in Cullercoats in 1851, joined the navy at the age of 14, and became a Lieutenant at the age of 22.

HMS Wasp, which Adamson commanded on its final fateful voyage, was also a local, built at the Armstrong Marshall shipyard in the mid-1880s. The ship made it safely to Singapore, but was lost on a subsequent voyage from there to Hong Kong. In all, 80 people perished when the shipped disappeared without a trace.

HMS Wasp’s location remains a mystery to this day: it is supposed that it sank following a particularly violent typhoon, which is known to have damaged and sunk a number of other vessels.