Built to be unlucky? The French battleship Suffren

The splendidly-expressive Yiddish word “schlemiel” describes a person who is invariably unlucky and  whose endeavours are doomed to failure – “so inept that even inanimate objects pick on them”. One does come across such unfortunate individuals – who are usually likeable – but in reading naval history one is often struck by the fact that certain ships also have exactly the same characteristic. One such was the French pre-dreadnought battleship Suffren.

The Suffren - a handsome but unlucky ship

Launched in 1899 but not entering into service in 1904 – a year before the construction of HMS Dreadnought made all previous battleships obsolete – the Suffren  was “an instant dinosaur”. Not a good start! Shortly before commissioning  the Suffren was to participate in a hair raising (or wool-raising) test of new steel armour.  A 22-inch thick plate was attached to the side of the forward turret and a succession of 12-inch shells were fired directly at it by the battleship Masséna, which was anchored only 100 yards away. The test was successful: the first three were training shells and merely struck splinters off the armour but the last two, fired with full charges, cracked the plate. The turret and its electrical fire-control system remained operational however. The Naval Minister, Camille Pelletan, who was observing the trials from the Massena, was lucky not to have been killed by a 110-lb splinter that landed next to him. The real heroes of the occasion were however six sheep who had been placed (presumably involuntarily) inside the turret. They were reported to have been unharmed but one does wonder about their subsequent hearing abilities and mental state.

Henri IV - note the 5.5-inch turret superimposed over the 11-inch rear turret

It might be observed in passing that sheep living close to a French naval shipyard in the early 1900s could not rely on life being a bed of roses. The battleship Henri IV, which entered service in 1903 was the first warship to have one turret superimposed over another – in this case a 5.5-inch weapon above the ship’s main after-turret, which carried a single 11-inch weapon. The effects of firing the smaller weapon on the occupants of the turret below were unknown. Doubts were resolved in this case also by herding a number of sheep into the lower turret, while that above blasted away merrily. These sheep were also reported as having survived the ordeal without ill effects. Since hundreds, if not thousands, of warships were subsequently to employ superimposed turrets, naval architects the world over owe these unfortunate animals a debt of gratitude.

Back to the Suffren and the misfortunes that would bedevil her career. In 1906, during fleet exercises, she rammed the early submarine Bonite . The impact was a glancing one but enough for the frail craft to tear a gash large enough to flood two of Suffren’s compartments – which said a lot about her underwater integrity. The Bonite was even more badly damaged – not surprisingly – but managed to stay afloat by dropping her detachable keel, a feature of her class. There were no casualties on either vessel.

On 12^th March  1907 the Suffren was to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was in drydock in Toulon close to the pre-dreadnought Iéna when this vessel’s magazines exploded accidently.  The Iena was ripped apart, hurling burning fragments that started a small fire aboard Suffren, though no serious damage was done.

Democratie - collided with Suffren in May 1914

The following year, 1908, saw the Suffren’s port propeller fall off – which says a lot about the quality of her shafts – and two years later the starboard propeller followed suit. In 1911 and anchor chain broke (more metallurgical problems), killing a sailor. Another narrow escape was to follow in May 1914 when the Suffren lost power during fleet manoeuvres and collided with the later pre-dreadnought  Démocratie, fortunately with only slight damage.

Suffren off Gallipoli - watercolour by Norman Wilkinson 1915

Given her unfortunate record it is surprising that the Suffren not only delivered effective shore-bombardment service at Gallipoli in 1915 but that she survived some fourteen hits by Turkish shells, some as large as 9.2-inch, albeit with damage and deaths. She returned to Gallipoli after repair and during the evacuation of Allied troops in early 1916 she managed to collide with, and sink, the British horse-transport steamer Saint Oswald. She sustained serious damage herself and had to return to Toulon for repairs, after which she was deployed to the Salonica Front, where she saw no action.

Suffren bombarding Turkish positions,Gallipoli - watercolour by Norman Wilkinson 1915

Due for a full refit in late 1917 she was routed to the French naval base at Lorient, on the Atlantic coast of Brittany. She put in at Gibraltar, where she was delayed by bad weather, before setting out again, without an escort.

The Suffren’s luck, what little she had of it, had now finally run out. On the morning of 26^th November, some  50 nautical miles off the Portuguese coast near Lisbon, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-52, which was en-route to the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Cattaro. The U-52 had form – she had already sunk the Royal Navy's light cruiser HMS Nottingham in the North Sea on 19^th August 1916 and was to sink over 30 vessels in the course of her career. She was no less lethal on this occasion. Her torpedo detonated a magazine and the Suffren sank within seconds, taking her entire crew of 648 with her. U-52 searched the scene but found no survivors.

It was a tragic end to a career that had started inauspiciously and which had lurched from one accident to the other. Few ships can have been more consistently unlucky than the Suffren.

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How the “humorous” magazine Punch saw WW1

Belgium bars the way - August 1914

Amid the many commemorations now in progress about World War 1, “The Great War” as it was known to its contemporaries, there is a strong tendency for us to look back and see events according to the values and views prevalent today. It can therefore be jarring to be confronted with the views that many educated and “establishment” figures held at the time. I was reminded of this in the last week when I looked again in a book I had found some years ago in a second-hand store. This was “Mr. Punch’s History of the Great War”, published in 1919, and it brought together samples, including cartoons, of the “Punch” magazine’s coverage of the war. Founded in 1841, Punch was to continue publication until 1992, with a brief re-animation from 1996 to 2002.

Ireland and Britannia - Punch's view

Often been described as a “Great British Institution”, Punch offered an allegedly humorous and often satiric commentary on the events and personalities of its time and was instrumental in creating both the political and the humorous cartoon in the form we know it today. When one does however look in detail at its material in the late 19^th and early 20^th century one is struck not only by how wholly unfunny, but often also how downright nasty, it was, especially as regards its perennial targets. These included women (usually foolish), the lower orders (generally naïve), servants (especially stupid) and Irish (often portrayed as chimpanzees in cartoons reminiscent of those in Julius Streicher’s “Der Stürmer”).

Punch’s cartoons during the Great War fell into two categories. The first type were serious, political and heavily symbolic. The most notable from the first weeks of the war, in which plucky little Belgium is standing up to the German bully.  Though many of this sort were later over-pious for modern taste in exaltation of the Allied cause, or too ponderously satiric as regards the Central Powers, the draughtsmanship was of a high order and the odd cartoon of this type still has the power to move or impress.

It is from the second category, the “humorous” cartoons, essentially illustrated jokes, that the modern reader is most likely to recoil.  Here Punch returns to its favourite targets – women, lower orders and Irish – and the humour, if it could be dignified as such, is cruel and even vicious, and when it was not it was frequently insultingly patronising. Even allowing for changes in values over the last century one cannot but think that the butts of Punch’s humour would have been wounded and resentful.  It's hard to imagine any of these cartoon's bringing a smile, other than one of smug superiority, to a reader's lips. Contempt and ridicule is never welcome – and even less so when a nation is supposed to be united in a war effort.

 The reader may draw his or her own conclusions from the random sample I've taken from“Mr. Punch’s History of the Great War”,shown below.

Women: patronised and ridiculed even when volunteering for land-service 

Another woman - stupid, of course - who has volunteered for land service

Irish soldier in the trenches - stupid but at least not simian!

Always good for a laugh - the naive female servant

"Comic" Royal Marine - absolutely hilarious!

The Lower Orders in Uniform - dishonest when not stupid

Women - naive when not stupid

Stupid women - the ever-reliable stereotype

Women and Air raids - another hilarious joke

The Scots recruit - yet another national stereotype

Irish ape's assessment of the cost of casualties

And to finish on a sentimental note...

The SS Arctic Disaster 1854

In my recent blog about the loss of the steamer SS Utopia in Gibraltar harbour in 1891 I commented on the fact that for almost a century insufficient provision of lifeboats a major factor in marine tragedies. Only the Titanic loss in 1912 was to evoke a sufficient measure of outrage for the problem to be finally addressed, even if the rules are not always enforced today. The spectacular loss of the SS Arctic in 1854, some 60 years before the Titanic was one of the maritime disasters that should have led to much earlier reform – and to the saving of countless lives. But it didn’t.

SS Arctic as seen in a contemporary illustration

In her time the Arctic, and her three almost identical sisters, represented the pinnacle of comfort, speed and modernity on the North Atlantic routes between Britain and North America. She belonged to the American “Collins Line” and carried both mail and passengers in direct competition with the prestigious British “Cunard Line”, a company which survives, and thrives, up to the present day. The company’s owner, Edward Collins (1802-1878) had grown his shipping company over three decades and the building, with government subsidies, and in American shipyards, of the Arctic, Pacific, Baltic and Atlantic allowed maintenance of a reliable regular-sailing schedule.

The Arctic entered service in 1850 and at 2856 tons and 284 feet length was the largest vessel operating in the North Atlantic, being twice as large as the rival Cunard vessels. Paddle-driven, her two 1000 hp engines gave her a maximum speed of over 12 knots and allowed her to make Atlantic passages in ten days or less. Speed was however expensive and her engines were coal-hungry, thus threatening  the economics of the venture. A further complication was that her wooden hull was strained by the installed power and needed regular repairs. For the time her accommodation was luxurious and included steam heating, running water, bathing provisions and even a hair-dressing salon.

The Collins vs. Cunard Rivalry - contemporary cartoon

For four years the Arctic operated without major problems, establishing new standards of speed, comfort and reliability. In September 1854 however she left Liverpool for New York with 233 passengers, of whom 150 were first-class. Among them was Edward Collins’ own wife, with their son and daughter. Her crew amounted to 135 – not excessive in view of the fact that she could operate under sail as well as steam. The ocean passage went well until September 27^th, when she reached a point some sixty miles south-east of Cape Race, Newfoundland, where she encountered a dense fog. Blinded, she collided with a much smaller vessel which crossed her bows, the French steamer Vesta, which herself had almost 200 on board, including 147 passengers.

The Vesta was initially perceived to be sinking and many, both crew and passengers, rushed her boats with the idea of getting across to the Arctic. One boat sank immediately and another was swept under the Vesta’s counter, so that all 13 on board were lost, but it was soon realised that the ship was not as badly damaged as had appeared initially. The bows had been crushed but the forward bulkhead was holding. The captain lightened the ship by her head, shored up the bulkhead and set off for St. John’s, Newfoundland, which was reached without further loss.

The seriousness of the damage to the Arctic, initially under-estimated, was now becoming apparent. Three holes had been smashed in below the waterline and it was apparent that she was flooding so fast that the engines would be soon extinguished. Her captain, James Luce, headed her for Cape Race but within four hours of the collision the water reached the furnaces, stopping the engines. Sinking was now imminent.

Duc de Gramont -
Women and Children Last

Arctic carried six lifeboats only, capable of taking 180 persons, half of those on board. These boats were launched on Captain Luce’s orders but discipline broke down and there was no observance of “women and children first”. Members of the crew and able-bodied male passengers rushed to take most of the places. Antoine Agénor, Duc de Gramont (1819-1880), en-route to the United States to take up his appointment as French Ambassador, jumped into one of the last lifeboats. (This action doesn’t seem to have been held against him afterwards and he was later to reach high ministerial rank in the French government). The remaining passengers had to make do with makeshift rafts or went down with the ship.  

The statement made by Captain Luce soon after the disaster describes the chaos. Part reads “I resolved to get the boats ready, and as many ladies and children placed in them as possible; but no sooner had the attempt been made than the firemen and others rushed into them in spite of opposition. Seeing this state of things I ordered the boats astern to be kept in readiness until order could be restored; when, to my dismay, I saw them cut the ropes in the bow, and soon disappear astern in the fog. Another boat was broken down by persons rushing at the davits, and many were precipitated into the sea and drowned. This occurred while I had been engaged in getting the starboard guard boat ready, and placed the second officer in charge, when the same fearful scene as with the first boat was being enacted—men leaping from the top of the rail twenty feet, pushing and maiming those who were in the boat.”

Another boat was hanging by one tackle but Luce related that “a rush was made for her also, and some fifteen got in, and cut the tackle, and were soon out of sight. I found that not a seaman was left on board, or carpenter, and we were without any tools to assist us in building a raft, as our only hope. The only officer left was Mr. Dorian, the third mate, who aided me, with the assistance of many of the passengers, who deserve great praise for their coolness and energy in doing all in their power up to the very latest moment before the ship sank … we had succeeded in getting the fore and main yard and two top gallant yards overboard, and such other small spars and materials as we could collect, when I was fully convinced that the ship must go down in a very short time, and not a moment was to be lost in getting the spars lashed together to form a raft, to do which it became necessary to get the lifeboat – our only remaining boat – into the water. This being accomplished, I saw Mr. Dorian, the chief officer of the boat, taking care to keep the oars on board to prevent them from leaving the ship, hoping still to get most of the women and children in this boat at last. They had made considerable progress in collecting the spars, when an alarm was given that the ship was sinking, and the boat was shoved off without oars or anything to help themselves with, and when the ship sank the boat had got clear”.

Contemporary artist's impression of the Arctic sinking - note rafts in water

Two of the six lifeboats that left Arctic safely reached Newfoundland safely, and another was picked by a passing steamer which also rescued the few survivors on the rafts. Among these was Captain Luce, who had regained the surface after initially going down with the ship, though he lost hold of his own small son whom he held in his arms. After enduring appalling privations Luce and a few other survivors were rescued after clinging to pieces of wreckage for two days.  One of these survivors was a Frenchman lost by the Vesta. The other three boats disappeared without trace.

Another contemporary impression of the disaster

All the women and children on board the Arctic perished and the 85 survivors consisted of 61 of the crew and 24 male passengers.  Edward Collins’ own wife and children died, as did six members of the Brown family, whose bank, Brown Brothers, had helped to finance the Collins Line. Scandalous as the circumstances were, no official enquiry was ever held into the disaster – had it been, the lesson about the shortage of lifeboats would, once more, have been apparent. Nobody was held accountable.

The Collins Line disasters were not at an end. Less than two years later, in January 1856, the Arctic’s sister Paciifc left Liverpool with 45 passengers and 141 crew. She was never seen again and no trace of her was ever found. Various theories were put forward as to the cause of her loss and over the years various messages in bottles purported to have been thrown into the sea by desperate passengers in her final hours. All appear to have been cruel hoaxes.

The SS Pacific - lost without trace

The Collins Line limped on for another two years and was finally declared bankrupt in 1858.It was a sad end to what could have been a noble endeavour had more attention been paid to the  to the value  of human life. There was nothing high-tech about lifeboats. The ship-owners just had to care enough to pay for them.

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Nelson at the Nile, 1798

Bonaparte's fury at the defeat!

Nelson’s stunning victory at Aboukir, off the Nile Delta, in August 1798 was to raise his reputation to a European level. In this battle Nelson brought his force of fifteen ships, of which thirteen were ships-of-the line, close inshore to attack the moored French fleet of thirteen ships of the line and four frigates which had escorted General Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion army to Egypt. The victory was a stunning one, from which only four French vessels escaped. It brought to an end Bonaparte’s ambitions to create a new empire in Egypt and Palestine as it isolated his army there without hope of re-supply. Bonaparte himself deserted his army and managed to escape to France to build his personal career.

"Nelson after the Nile" by Alexander Davidson

Nelson was however lucky to survive the battle. By this stage he had already lost one eye and one arm and he was now to receive a severe wound which left the skin of his forehead hanging down over his face. Captain Edward Berry, commanding HMSVanguard, Nelson’s  flagship, caught him in his arms and, like all around, including Nelson himself, thought that the wound was fatal. On being carried into the surgeon’s cockpit, already littered with wounded, Nelson refused immediate attention with the words, “I will take my turn with my brave fellows!” Convinced that he was dying, he sent for the chaplain, but when the surgeon came to examine and dress the wound, it appeared that it was not mortal. Nelson came back on deck in time to see the most spectacular event of the battle, the explosion of the French flagship, L’Orient.

The destruction of L'Orient by Thomas Luny

Nelson was to receive tokens of recognition of his victory not just from Britain but from her allies. A Victorian-era  book listed the awards made for his services in the Mediterranean in the 1798-99 period:

·         From King George III, a peerage of Great Britain and a gold medal;

·         From Parliament, for his own life and two next heirs, a pension per annum of £2,000;

·         From the Parliament of Ireland, a pension per annum of £1,000;

·         From the East India Company, £10,000;

·         From the Turkey Company, “a piece of plate of great value”;

·         From the City of London,” a magnificent sword”;

·         From the Ottoman Sultan: a diamond aigrette and rich pelisse valued at £3,000.

·         From the Sultan’s mother, a rose brooch set with diamonds, valued at £1,000;

·         From the Emperor of Russia, a box set with diamonds, valued at £2,500;

·         From the King of the Two Sicilies, a sword “richly ornamented with diamonds”, valued at £5,000;

·         From the King of Sardinia, a box set with diamonds, valued at £1,200.

In addition to these, all accompanied by complimentary addresses or letters, Nelson received presents from the Island of Zante, the city of Palermo, and private individuals.

The most remarkable – and useful – gift of all came however from Captain Benjamin Hallowell of HMS Swiftsure.  After the Nile battle he had the extraordinary idea of getting  an “elegantly-furnished” coffin constructed by his carpenter from L’Orient’s mainmast as a present  for Nelson. He appears to have valued it highly and he kept it upright in his cabin on Vanguard for several months. It was into this coffin that Nelson’s body was transferred after it arrived back in Britain after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It now lies inside Nelson’s marble sarcophagus in the crypt of St. Paul’s cathedral.

At Nelson's funeral in 1805
Seamen from HMS Victory take the flag off the coffin and tear it apart as souvenirs

The “Great Siege” of Gibraltar – and Heated Shot

Accounts of naval operations against shore fortifications in the “Age of Fighting Sail” make frequent references to the use of “heated shot” – cannon balls warmed to white heat in furnaces before firing. When used against wooden ships such shot was capable of setting their targets ablaze. For obvious reasons the ability of sailing vessels to respond in kind was all but impossible and heated shot remained the perquisite of shore batteries, many of which equipped with specially built furnaces. Each glowing ball was carried to the gun by two men, having between them a strong iron frame. The gun was loaded with a powder charge in the usual way, but with two heavy wads, one dry and the other slightly damped, to separate the powder and the ball. The chance of the wadding taking fire must always have been present and the consequences of this would have been deadly. Loading guns in this way must have been a nerve-racking business.

Gibraltar before the siege - seen from across the isthmus from Spanish territory (John Mace)

Heated shot was to play a decisive role in the “Great Siege” of Gibraltar (1779-1783). Gibraltar had been captured by Britain in 1704 (Click here for an earlier blog about this) and in the intervening years “The Rock” was heavily fortified, batteries and tunnels being hewn out of the rock itself. Its availability as a naval base in the Anglo-French wars of the mid-18^th Century was of major strategic value to Britain, lying, as it did, on the entrance to the Mediterranean. It was not surprising therefore that during the American War of Independence (1775-83) its capture was an objective of the greatest importance for Britain’s enemies. France had joined the conflict in 1778 and Spain was to do likewise in the following year. Plans were immediately put afoot to seize Gibraltar. Spanish troops constructed siege-lines across the mile-wide isthmus connecting Gibraltar to the Spanish mainland and a close-blockade was initiated by Spanish vessels operating out of Algeciras, across the bay from The Rock. A more powerful Spanish naval force – eleven line-of-battle ships and two frigates – was based at Cadiz, some 60 miles to the west so as to intercept British reinforcements.

British batteries hewn out of The Rock - which was seamed with tunnels

 British forces – some 5300 troops under Governor-General, General George Eliott, and including Hanoverian and Corsican contingents – had already begun strengthening the defences. This was to make an attack across the isthmus difficult and increased the importance of the naval blockade. General Elliott placed special emphasis on the value of heated shot and ordered building of more furnaces and grates for the purpose. However, strong the Gibraltar defences might have been, the nature of the terrain meant that its ability to provide sufficient food, whether vegetable or animal, was limited in the extreme. By the end of 1779 bread was being made available only to children and the sick, the rest of the garrison being fed with increasingly scarce salt meat, hard-tack biscuits and a little rice. Given this diet, and the shortage of vegetables, it was not surprising that scurvy should make its appearance.

King Carlos III of Spain, come to view the siege

Relief arrived in January 1780 when Admiral George Rodney, after defeating the Spanish Cadiz fleet in the First Battle of Cape St. Vincent, arrived with over 1000 reinforcements and sufficient supplies to allow Gibraltar garrison to continue to hold out, albeit still on short-commons.  The siege continued however through another increasingly hungry year, with indecisive fighting along the landward siege-lines and a few small fast blockade-runners carrying limited supplies from the British base at Minorca.  It was not until April 1781 that a massive British naval force – 29 ships of the line escorting 100 store ships – commanded by Vice Admiral George Darby reached Gibraltar despite Spanish efforts to intercept it. (The analogy with the huge “Operation Pedestal” convoy to relieve Malta in 1942 is very striking). The enemy was unable to prevent Darby carrying Gibraltar’s civilian population to Britain when he withdrew, thus reducing the pressure of “useless mouths” on food supplies.

"The Rock"

In late November 1781, fearing that the enemy land-forces were about to make an attack from the siege lines, General Eliot launched half the British garrison on a pre-emptive strike or "sortie". This succeeded brilliantly, carrying trenches, spiking batteries and destroying supplies. The British attackers then withdrew, having done enough damage to prevent an immediate assault. But the siege still dragged on.

"The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar" by John Trumbull

The climax was to come in September 1782 when combined French-Spanish forces launched a massive attack.  Some 35,000 Spanish and 8000 French troops, supported by heavy artillery, were dedicated to the land assault but the threat from seaward was even more daunting. Eighteen ships-of-the-line, 40 gunboats and 20 bomb ketches were deployed. The most notable innovation was however use of “floating batteries”, mounting 138 heavy cannon, which were towed into position to take Gibraltar’s shore fortifications under fire. Designed by an eminent French engineer, D’Arcon, these batteries were supposed to be impervious to red-hot shot.

Contemporary illustration: View from the Spanish Lines, floating batteries exploding

This confidence was misplaced – the heated shot was about to come into its own. To supplement the usual portable furnaces, which were insufficient to supply the demands of the artillery, Eliot ordered large bonfires to be kindled. On these the cannon-balls were thrown – they were referred to by the gunners as “hot potatoes”. Heated almost to incandescence the shot was transported to the guns in wheelbarrows filled with sand.  

The floating batteries, unable to manoeuvre without assistance, proved to be highly vulnerable. Three took fire and exploded while another seven were so heavily damaged that they had to be withdrawn with high casualties. The Count d’Artois (1757-1836), brother of the doomed French King Louis XVI, and himself fated to reign as Charles X from 1824-1830, had hastened from Paris to observe this “Grand Assault”, in full expectation of a capitulation. He arrived instead in time to see the total destruction of the floating batteries and a large part of the combined fleet. The land attack was repulsed no less successfully.

Siege of Gibraltar by George Carter (note batteries burning)

Recognising that this “Grand Assault” had failed, the French and Spanish continued the siege as before, still in the hope of starving out the desperately poorly supplied British garrison. Measures were meanwhile afoot in Britain to send a large relief force –34 ships-of-the-line and 31 transports laden with  food and ammunition as well as further troop reinforcements – under Admiral Richard Howe. It arrived off Cape St Vincent in early October and the French-Spanish force sent to intercept it was fortuitously scattered by a gale, allowing Howe an easy entry into Gibraltar.

Howes's relief expedition arrives - by Richard Paton (click here for more)

Now strongly reinforced, the Gibraltar garrison held out until the end of hostilities in February 1783 the siege was lifted. With a duration of three years and seven months it was the longest siege in British history and the battle-honour of “Gibraltar” was to one of the most highest prized that any regiment might justly boast of.

The siege was recognised as an epic in its own time, as witnessed by the paintings made of it by several distinguished artists. The ultimate accolade was perhaps a “bardic song” about the relief set to music by Mozart and of which only a fragment remains. Unfortunately, Mozart didn’t like the style of the poem and never completed the work!

"The Siege and Relief of Gibraltar" by John Singleton Copley - art on a heroic scale!

To read, in Kindle or Paperback, about adventure and conflict on sea and on land a century later click on the image below:

Steerage-passenger conditions in the 1880s

In my recent blog about the disaster that overcame the SS Utopia in 1891, which resulted in the deaths of 562 Italian emigrants, I commented briefly on the bewilderment and trepidation with which these unfortunate people must have set out on the voyage in the first place. Added to this however must have been the extreme discomfort – not to mention health hazards – of overcrowding. The 350 foot- long Utopia carried 880 persons at the time of her sinking, 815 of whom were accommodated in “Steerage”.

Steerage in a small ship - probably a small sailing vessel - in the 1840s period

The term “Steerage” referred to a ship’s lower deck, originally that part aft through which steering tackles passed. With time it came to mean either converted cargo spaces, or specially designed accommodation, which provided the lowest cost and lowest class of travel. The great age of European emigration lasted almost a century, up to 1914, and through this time the standards applying in Steeerage improved slowly, but only however to levels which would be considered wholly unacceptable today. The “coffin ships” which carried refugees from the Irish Famine in the 1840s were obviously immeasurably worse than the liners of the 1880s onwards, but conditions were, at their best, still unpleasant, and unhealthy in the extreme.

Steerage in the 1840s or 50s - fugitives perhaps from the Scots Clearances or the Irish Famine

Some impression of what was involved can be deduced from an 1880s publication, The Sea, by Fredrick Whymper. He noted that in 1879 some 118,000 steerage passengers left the port of Liverpool for the United States. This figure was from one port only, the principal British one for emigration, but not the only one in the country from which emigrants departed. Ships were heading to Australia and New Zealand also, a voyage of months rather than weeks, and one which must have been particularly unpleasant in tropical latitudes. Emigrants were also streaming out from Scandinavia, Germany, Central Europe and Italy in this period, and large numbers were also going from Spain and Italy to South America.

German emigrants at Bremerhaven in the 1870s - similar scenes were seen all over Europe

Whymper noted that “the steerage of to-day is comparatively  decent; although it is not yet that which it should be, nor has the progress of improvement kept anything like pace with railway  accommodation of the cheaper kind. Yet one would think it to the interest of owners to make the steerage an endurable place of temporary abode.”

He goes on to describe some of the improvements referred to: "Latterly a considerable amount of attention has been given to the sub-division of the steerage space, so that, when practicable, friends and families may remain together. Married people and single women have now separate quarters. The sleeping accommodations are the weak point. They are simply rough wooden berths, and the passenger has to furnish his own bedding, as well as plate, mug, knife, fork, spoon, and water-can.”

A typical bill of fare is mentioned:

Breakfast: “coffee, fresh bread or biscuit, and butter, or oatmeal porridge and molasses”;

Dinner (apparently at midday): “soup, beef or pork, and potatoes—fish may be substituted for the meat; on Sunday pudding is often added”;

Tea: “tea, biscuit and butter”.

“Three quarts of fresh water” – six pints – were allowed daily. It is not clear if this allowance included provision for washing – one fears that it probably did.

It was also noted that “A passenger who has a few shillings to spend can often obtain a few extras from the steward, and many, of course, take a small stock of the minor luxuries of life on board with him.” No mention was made by Whymper about sanitary arrangements – one hesitates to speculate about what was involved.

Eating in steerage, 1890

A word of advice was also given by Whymper to those “of small means” who were contemplating emigration: “Intermediate (second-class) on board some of the Atlantic steamers to the States and Canada can be commended. For a couple of guineas over the steerage rates, excellent state-rooms, generally with four to six berths in each, furnished with bedding and lavatory arrangements, are provided. The intermediate passenger has a separate general saloon, and the table is well provided with good plain living. As the steerage passenger has to provide so many things for himself, it is almost as cheap to travel second-class.”

Regardless of class however the experience was likely to be a very unpleasant one indeed, especially in bad weather, when passengers could not go on deck. The imagination recoils from visualising the misery involved – and for many, as in the case of the Utopia disaster, and many others now forgotten, it was to be more terrible still.

Conditions improved only slowly. Writing in 1907, a quarter century after Whymper, the American photographer Arthur Steiglitz described steerage on the prestigious liner Kaiser Wilhelm II; He noted that “200 to 400 sleep in one compartment on bunks, one above the other, with little light and no comforts”. It was not surprising that “in rough weather, when the hatches are down … the stenches become unbearable, and many of the emigrants have to be driven down (off the open deck); for they prefer the bitterness and danger of the storm to the pestilential air below.”  

Kaiser Wilhelm II - Ocean greyhound, luxury hotel and floating slum

For all that the Kaiser Wilhelm II’s First Class opulence catering for Steerage passengers was wretched in the extreme: “The food, which is miserable, is dealt out of huge kettles into the dinner pails provided by the steamship company. When it is distributed, the stronger push and crowd, so that meals are anything but orderly procedures … the unsavory rations are not served, but doled out, with less courtesy than one would find in a charity soup kitchen”.

Steerage accommodation - 1890s

If these conditions applied on the 19,300-ton Kaiser Wilhelm II, which at one time held the “Blue Riband” for the fastest Atlantic crossing, then those endured by the doomed Italian emigrants on the humble SS Utopia can only have been immeasurably worse.

SS Utopia and HMS Anson 1891

In 1866, at the naval battle of Lissa, in the Adriatic, victory was secured by the Austro-Hungarian fleet over its Italian enemy by means of ramming. Though this was a unique event in a fleet-action, and made possible only by factors – such as short effective gun ranges – which were soon obviated by technical progress, naval architects where to be fixated in the decades at followed on designing ram bows into warships of all sizes.

Battle of Lissa; Italian Re d'Italia sinking after ramming by Austro-Hungarian Ferdinand-Max

Ram of HMS Polyphemus

In practice the ram was to prove more dangerous to friends than to enemies and caused four major disasters. Two of these catastrophes, the accidental sinkings of HMS Vanguard in 1875 (click here fordetails) and SMS Grosser Kurfürst in 1878 (click here for details) have been the subjects of blogs on this site. The loss of the battleship HMS Victoria through ramming by HMS Camperdown in 1893 was to be one of the Royal Navy’s greatest peacetime calamities. The fourth major incident of this type was in many ways the most horrific and tragic of all, yet the vessel which struck the mortal blow was at anchor at the time.

SS Utopia was a transatlantic passenger steamer, built in 1874, which saw service for the Anchor Line on Britain to United States and Britain to India routes until 1882. Thereafter she was dedicated to carrying immigrants from Italy to the United States.  Of 2,371 tons and 350 ft length she was capably of a maximum speed of 13 knots. Once in immigrant service her accommodation was converted almost entirely to steerage standard – 900 bunks, as compared with 45 places in first-class and none in second-class. Conditions must have been cramped in the extreme – as was to be seen in dreadful detail in the aftermath of the tragedy which would unfold.

Utopia sailed from Trieste, on what would be her last voyage in February 1891. She took on further passengers at Naples and Genoa and was due to put in Gibraltar prior to her Atlantic crossing. By this stage she had 880 people on board, of which 59 were crew and the remainder passengers, of whom only three were in First Class. Of the 815 steerage passengers there were 85 women and 67 children and there appears to have been three stowaways. As was to be found in the case of the Titanic 21 years later, and as had been the case with numerous previous maritime disasters, the provision of life-saving equipment was criminally inadequate. It was later revealed by Utopia’s captain himself that his ship normally carried seven lifeboats. Together they could accommodate “up to 460 people in moderate weather" but on the night of the catastrophe to come one of these boats was missing.

One wonders at the mood on board this overcrowded ship. Many, if not most, of the passengers had probably never been more than a few miles from their home villages previously.  Poverty would have been a major driver. Their decision to seek a new life in a country they knew little of was little short of heroic and many would have been bewildered by the experience of travel by sea and might also have been worried by fears about an uncertain future.

HMS Anson - her pointed ram is invisible below the watrerline

On the afternoon of March 17^th 1891 the Utopia reached Gibraltar. Captain John McKeague was familiar with this anchorage and he headed his ship towards her usual mooring in the inner harbour. Light was failing and only too late did McKeague realise that two Royal Navy Battleships, HMS Anson and HMS Rodney were already there. At this time these two ships of the “Admiral Class” were among the most modern in the Royal Navy, each of 10,600 tons on a 330 ft. length and with four 13.5 inch guns as their main armament. More significant on the present occasion was that both had viciously-pointed rams extending below water level from their bows. A large armoured cruiser present, HMS Immortalité, was similarly equipped. The Swedish corvette Freja was also at anchor.

At this remove in time it is hard to understand how the Utopia could enter a confined anchorage in darkness without a pilot, and how the presence of three very large ships there, and a smaller corvette, had not been noted previously. In a later deposition Captain McKeague stated that he was briefly dazzled by the Anson '​s searchlight. Only when he was became accustomed to the glare did he "suddenly discover that the inside anchorage was full of ships". He claimed that he thought that Anson was "further off than she really was" and he tried to steer in ahead of her bow. The manoeuvre was an unwise one and wind and currently swept the Utopia along the Anson’s bow. Acting like a giant can-opener the ram tore a 16 foot gash below the Utopia’s waterline. Flooding began and engine power was lost immediately.

The sinking of the SS Utopia - sketch by eyewitness Miss Georgina Smith

McKeague now ordered lifeboats to be launched but, as they were, the Utopia suddenly listed 70 degrees to port, sinking the boats, inadequate as they were. Many were now clinging to the ship’s starboard side but hundreds more were trapped below. The ship sank 20 minutes after the collision, leaving her masts protruding as a pathetic last refuge.

Contemporary illustration - HMS Anson's rescue efforts

Darkness, atrocious weather and a strong current were major obstacles to the rescue efforts immediately initiated by the four warships and other vessels present. According to one report  "rescuers, blinded by the wind and rain, saw nothing but a confused, struggling mass of human beings entangled with wreckage." Illuminated by searchlights, rescue efforts continued for several hour, during which two seamen from HMS Immortalité, James Cotton and George Hales (they deserve to be remembered) lost their lives. Of the 880 persons on the Utopia 562 died. Among those saved was Captain McKeague.

Contemporary artist's impression - guesses hazarded at ships other than Utopia

Divers subsequently found that the Utopia’s interior was “closely packed with the bodies ... who had become wedged into an almost solid mass" and that "the bodies of many of the drowned were found so firmly clasped together that it was difficult to separate them." The horror these men faced hardly bears thinking off, especially as there were women and children among the dead. One wonders how many of the survivors did indeed reach their Promised Land of the United States, if they found happiness there and if any of their descendants might read this article.

Even after 12 decades these images move ; and on the right: "Asleep?","No, Sir - Dead"

The Utopia’s ability to cause havoc was not yet an end. Though warning lights were placed on her protruding mastheads another steamer, the SS Primula, collided with her and was badly damaged, fortunately without further loss of life. The Utopia was afterwards raised and scrapped.

Significant though the Anson’s ram bow was as factor in the accident, more important still was Captain McKeague’s recklessness.  The most criminal aspect of the entire disaster was however the provision of an inadequate number of lifeboats, and the fact that a passenger ship could ever be allowed to leave port in such a state. When one reads of maritime tragedies of the 19^th Century one is struck by how often this inadequacy was a common feature. It was to take the Titanic disaster in 1912 to get this scandal finally eradicated but it should not have needed a catastrophe of that magnitude to secure reform. The lesson had been taught for the best part of a century – but it was not learned, and thousands of innocents, like the immigrants on the misnamed Utopia, paid the price.

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