'Into the Ditch' With H.M.S. Victoria: Schooner Days DCXLVII (647)

by C. H. J. Snider

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YES, it's a small world after all.

Charles Keen, after many years' service in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, wrote Schooner Days about the almost forgotten ramming of H.M.S. Victoria by H.M.S. Camperdown on manoeuvres 51 years ago, on the anniversary of the disaster, June 22nd. He had witnessed it from the deck of H.M.S. Sans Pareil in the Mediterranean squadron. The eagle eye of Able Seaman Tom Cox, 1130 Ossington avenue, fell on the figures "1898" in the account of Color-Sergeant Keen's commencement of services. Yo ho! thought he, this smacks of the gift of hindsight, for the Victoria went down in 1893, five years earlier, and I ought to know it.

So he wrote a good-natured letter to Mr. Keen, and incidentally mentioned why he, Tom Cox, knew the date was 1893—for he himself was one of the survivors of the ill-fated Victoria!

Sailors always enjoy "telling it to the marines," but this marine wasn't having any this time. He pointed out politely that the date he had given for the commencement of his services was 1890, not 1898, which The Telegram can confirm.

In 1898 appeared it was a typographical error for which neither Schooner Days nor Mr. Keen are to blame. But it is not to be regretted, for it has brought out the fact that we have a Victoria survivor living here in Toronto, and able to tell a clear story of the disaster. Seamanlike, he sticks to his own ship, even after she has left him in the ditch, as he calls it. That is to say, he argues that it was the other ship's fault, although his own ship gave the order which proved impossible of execution, and was fatal to nearly four hundred men.

Not to question such an authority as Mr. Cox, it was established that his commander, Admiral Tryon, ordered the turning movement which brought the two ships together, and that there was not room for them to complete the movement. Admiral Markham's "hesitation," as evidenced by his query to Admiral Tryon "Do you intend to carry out the evolution?", would rather tend to avert the disaster, instead of precipitating it, one might think.

But it was all over 51 years ago, and let us get on with the interesting story of the Toronto survivor of the greatest sea loss in Queen Victoria's golden days:

"On Thursday afternoon, June 22, 1893, we were steaming into Tripoli for the after a cruise in the straits (Mediterranean). Most of the seamen were lying about the upper deck as we had been given the afternoon off for 'make and mend'. Sharp at 3:30 p.m. a signal went up from Victoria to alter course eight points to starboard.

"At the same time, the starboard division, headed by Camperdown, was ordered eight points to port. The two divisions were steaming toward Tripoli about two cable lengths apart, much closer than the usual four cable lengths. When Victoria altered course a few of us got up and watched her come about. We could see Camperdown bearing to port and in a few minutes it was evident that a crash was inevitable.

"Camperdown's commander hesitated before completing the evolution, and he was unable to clear our bow. The crash was terrific. I was knocked on my back but I wasn't hurt and got up to see what was happening. Victoria's captain ordered full steam ahead but the bow of the ship dipped deeper into the water and the bulkheads couldn't hold. She went down in 15 minutes. Meanwhile I had jumped from the deck into the 'ditch'. I was in the water swimming about for a few minutes when I was picked up by a small boat from another ship, a cutter belonging to H.M.S. Collingwood, Capt. Jenkins.

"It came out at the court martial aboard of the Hibernian in Malta Harbor that if Markham had obeyed the signal when it was made instead of asking 'if you intend to carry out the evolution' at so close quarters, it was possible everything would have come through all right. You know.

Tom Cox, who is 72 and hale and hearty, was born in Norwood, Surrey, England, and came to Canada 36 years ago. He joined the Royal Navy as a lad of 15 in 1889. He was rated as a "boy, 2nd class." His first naval training was in Portland, a shore establishment, and his first pay was six pence per day. However, most of the money was withheld "for my own good," and he netted three-pence per week.

He joined Victoria when she was commissioned in January, 1893, and served in her until she went down. In 1906 he left the navy but signed up with the RCN at the outbreak of the first Great War, and served in Niobe off the east coast until 1919. Since that time he has taken a keen interest in sea cadet work in Toronto.

"The first ships I served in were square riggers," he said. "Every morning we were ordered to line up on deck and report for duty. The first command was 'get aloft,' and we boys clambered up the rigging as fast as we could go. The last boy to reach the top was 'rewarded' with six raps on the hind end with the cane a few times, but certainly no oftener that I could help.

"In those days discipline was much stricter than now. The cane was commonplace in life at sea - and believe me, it was effective. Early in the Great War a Canadian boy was caned for misconduct and his father, a Halifax alderman, protested to Ottawa. Shortly after, the Royal Navy officers were instructed not to cane Canadian boys. But the English lads got it just the same."

H. Laborde, Toronto newspaperman writes:

"Cr. Sgt. Charles Keen's story about H.M.S. Victoria being rammed by H.M.S. Camperdown is more interesting to me, since he saw her sink to the bottom in the Mediterranean while I saw her perhaps a year later in England.

"That is 50 years ago and I do not recall all that my father told me about the tragedy. However, he was lieutenant of the dock yard in Chatham, with quarters on one of the old wooden hulks of sailing battleships that were then used for officers and men attached to the dockyard.

"I spent some six weeks with him, convalescing from an illness. They were not altogether happy weeks, for he saw to it that I did some lessons, and he was a disciplinarian.

"But I had the run of the dockyard, and with all kinds of things to see and do.

"The most vivid picture in my mind of the Victoria is as she lay in dry dock. After she sank in the Mediterranean divers were sent down and greased all her machinery and guns. That would be a much simpler operation than nowadays, when warships are a mass of machinery and guns. But it was so doubt a tough job for the divers of those times, when diving equipment was much less efficient and reliable.

"Whether she was patched by divers or raised with pontoons I do not remember. Nor whether she was broken up or refitted in Chatham dockyard.

"But I do recall the huge shear-legs that hoisted her guns, These shear-legs consisted of an enormous tripod of three hollow steel tubes. Mounted on a platform alongside the dry dock, the shear-legs leaned out far over the ship, so that the hoisting tackle from the top of the shear-legs got a vertical lift.

"The Victoria's big guns weighed, I think, 100 tons. Later big guns, my father used to say, were much lighter, only 80 tons, for they were made of high-tension wire wound around a comparatively light gun-barrel."

HE CAME OUT ALIVE

TOM COX, of Toronto, survivor of the Victoria-Camperdown tragedy of 1893, is still a live wire in naval affairs.