Fatal Signals of 51 Years Ago: Schooner Days DCXLV (646)

by C. H. J. Snider

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FOR a boy head over heels in love with the timber drogher Albacore (then owned by Capt. John Ewart of Cobourg, and engaged in carrying coal to Toronto from Fair Haven, N.Y.) the leafy month of June in the gay nineties meant only one thing—end of the term at the T.C.I., as the successor to the old Grammar School was known, and a chance to go sailing again in the big bluff-bowed fore-and-after with the jaunty raking mainmast from whose truck soared the late flying jib of the crack yacht Oriole. This was a second hand "fancy sail" used as a maintopmast staysail by the beloved black-and-red schooner.

Something happened in June, 1893, to alter the parental attitude towards sailing in the Albacore, or sailing at all. Before laughing at this as overcautiousness, please remember that in the peaceful reign of the good Victoria, the loss of a British battleship was a greater upset to the established order of things-as-they-ought-to-be than earthquake, pestilence, or votes for women.

What happened this June was all the worse in that the victim was a ship bearing the almost sacred name of the Queen herself. It was a collision between two "iron clads" as we then called them. Our world was not yet reconciled to the displacement of sail driven wooden walls by these new fangled teakettles loaded with armor-plate and with bows that jutted out ahead under water instead of gracefully overhanging the wave with tons of beautiful but useless figureheads, trailboards and scrollwork.

Steam had been in the Royal Navy for half a century, but We still placated Aeolus and Boreas and other wind gods by carrying masts, gaffs, booms, yards—and sails on them—even in our battleships. The ram bow, imitating the beak of the ancient Athenian galleys, was as much a contradiction of the established order as making iron to float or a ship to go directly against the wind. The ram bow of the Camperdown shed the heart's blood of the poor Victoria, and there were not wanting those who said it was a "judgment" for going back to the heathen ways of heathen days, instead of fighting yardarm to yardarm, broadside to broadside, with scuppers running red with brains and blood and the wounded torn and tormented with splinters of riven oak besides grape and roundshot of lead and iron.

We shall always regret not sailing in the Albacore in the summer of 1893, and the cause. It was all brought back by a letter this week from an old man-of-warsman, or rather marine, of the navy of the nineties — and of the Great War, too — Mr. Charles Keen, 54 Granby Street, late Cr. Sgt. R.M.L.I., Portsmouth Division, 1898-1911, 1915-1919. He said:

"I WAS a corporal then in the Royal Marines serving aboard the Sans Pareil, Capt. Sir A. K. Wilson, V.C., in the Mediterranean. The time was 22nd June, 1893, about 3.30 p.m. It was a beautiful day and being Thursday we were enjoying what was known as "make and mend clothes" watch below. Suddenly we heard a disturbance on deck and this is what we saw when we ran up.

"The Mediterranean Fleet was steaming in to anchor off Tripoli (not the Tripoli in North Africa but another on the coast of Asia Minor). We were in two divisions, in line ahead, the starboard line led by the flagship Victoria, Admiral Tryon. The port line led by the Camperdown flying the flag of Admiral Markham. The signal had been made by the flagship to alter course eight points inwards, which meant to turn inwards (that is, towards one another) in succession and continue to turn until we were going in the opposite direction.

"This signal remained flying until every ship had acknowledged it by hoisting the answering pendant and the hauling of it down was the signal to move.

"Through some error which was never really explained, this brought the two leading ships on the same spot at the same time. The lines were just six cables apart and the turning circle of the ships was three cables. A great thrill ran through us all as we saw the Camperdown ram the Victoria slantwise in the bow just abaft the starboard anchor bed, and the force of the impact carried them round locked together. Then the Camperdown backed clear, and the Victoria, entirely out of control, commenced to settle.

"I remember how perfectly discipline was observed. First 'Clear Lower Deck' as for evolution, then seeing them rush to 'collision stations' aboard the Victoria, the marines providing the collision mat which is triced up diamond fashion and then lowered over the hole and pulled into position by fore and afters and bottom line. But it was all too late and the men working were washed off their feet as their ship went down.

"During this time the Victoria, still the flagship, had hoisted the signal 'Negative Boats' and we could only stand by with derricks topped and launches hooked on, waiting for the signal to be countermanded.

"Then they appeared to get the order to abandon ship and save themselves. Lowering her one boats was out of the question, as she was nearly on her beam ends. Men began to pop in the water and she gradually turned over and went down bow first. The last we saw was her stern almost upright, then she took her final plunge.

"But before this the signal 'Negative Boats' had been ignored and all ships' boats in the fleet raced away to pick up the survivors swimming amongst spars and wreckage that had broken loose. As I remember it about 200 were saved out of a ship's company of about 600.

"Among the survivors was Commander J. R. Jellicoe who commanded the Grand Fleet in the last war and fought the Battle of Jutland. The Camperdown was able to return to Malta with an escort carrying the survivors. She was badly damaged, her stem was cut right through, but she was repaired in Malta Dockyard. The other ships dispersed to various points on the station to carry out drills and give leave."

Admiral Tryon and 358 officers and men of the Victoria were drowned.

HE SAW IT—Cr. Sgt. CHARLES KEEN, Royal Marines, now living in Toronto.

H.M.S. CAMPERDOWN IN DRYDOCK AT MALTA, SHOWING THE NEW "RAM BOW" WHICH RIPPED HER CONSORT.—(From contemporary pictures in the Illustrated London News.)

H.M.S. VICTORIA CAPSIZING AND SINKING AFTER THE COLLISION