It was during the course of his researches into family history that Galen Bartholomew discovered that his great-grandmother, Agnes, and his great-aunt Jean were on board the SS Suevic when she ran aground during a storm off the Lizard on 17 March 1907. He presented the results of his researches to the Vale of Evesham Historical Society.

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On 30th January 1907, the Suevic was in Melbourne, about to set sail for Plymouth.  Agnes and Jean joined the ship at Durban.   On the evening of March 17th - due to a combination of circumstances including fog, poor weather and miscalculations as to the ship’s position relative to the Lizard lighthouse - the ship ran aground on the Menheere Reef between a quarter and a half a mile from shore.   After unsuccessful attempts to back the ship off the reef, distress rockets were fired and the local lifeboats went into action.

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The account of the rescue was thrilling.  Women and children got into three of the ship’s lifeboats. Two were lowered, but in the thick fog and in the absence of any certainty of the ship’s position, they remained close by.  The third boat, by some oversight, was swung out but left dangling in wind and rain for some 5 hours, before anyone remembered it and its passengers brought back on deck.

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The fog and lack of information about the ship’s position delayed the arrival of the RNLI boats; it was several hours before the first two, from the Lizard and from Cadgwith, appeared.  Getting into the RNLI boats involved climbing down a rope ladder in rain and rough seas, and jumping into the boat as it rose on the wave.  Just imagine doing this in modern clothes; and then imagine the ladies who managed this in soaking wet Edwardian garments!

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The RNLI rescued 456 of the 524 people on board.  The two ship’s lifeboats that had been launched were guided ashore and a skeleton crew was left on the ship, while the remainder of the passengers and crew were taken aboard the RNLI boats: included in the 456 were 60 infants under 3 years old, and two of the Suevic's crew, George Anderson and William Williams, were awarded RNLI silver medals for their courage and diligence in carrying toddlers and babies down the rope ladder to the boats (a journalist at the time asked what had to be done to earn a gold medal!).

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But the Suevic’s story didn’t end there. For a week after the grounding various attempts were made to free her from the rocks, but the weather deteriorated.  Many experts thought that salvage would be impossible, but though the bow was very badly damaged, the stern portion of the ship, containing the boilers, engines and most of the passenger accommodation, was relatively secure.  In what was the biggest salvage operation ever undertaken at the time, 150 feet of bow section was separated from 400 feet of stern section by the placing of small explosive charges round the hull. On 2nd April the stern floated free of the rocks and made the journey to Southampton under its own steam, backwards, guided by tugs.  The bow was broken up during a storm in early May. Meanwhile Harland and Wolff in Belfast, who had built the ship originally, constructed a new bow section which was towed to Southampton during mid-October. 

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The repairs were completed on 14th January 1908, and on 30th January 1908 the ship was on its way back to Melbourne!  So confident were the Directors of the White Star Line that the repairs would be completed in time that they had been taking bookings for a January sailing three months earlier. 

 

The Suevic continued her trips to and from Australia during WWI, carrying both refrigerated food and troops. She made one journey to the Dardanelles, carrying British troops.

In 1928 she was sold to a Norwegian company, converted into a whaler and renamed the “Skytteren”.  In 1940 she was interned in the neutral port of Gothenburg, and came to the end of her days when she joined nine other ships in an attempt to escape into British waters. They were intercepted by the German navy and the Suevic was scuttled.

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This was an amazingly interesting talk.  Tales of derring-do by the RNLI are always thrilling, and no one can be unmoved by the heroism shown by lifeboat crews.  But the story of the Suevic’s life after 1907 was also wonderful.  Galen really gave us a treat.