The Unknown Child

 

The CS Mackay-Bennett was a cable repair ship that operated primarily in the North Atlantic, between 1884 and 1922. Now, mending underwater cables is not a terribly interesting subject to be writing about, I agree; but it is the Mackay-Bennett’s role in the aftermath of one of the twentieth century’s most infamous tragedies, for which she is remembered today.

 

The ship was commissioned from John Elder & Co, a ship builders based on the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Launched in September 1884, she incorporated a number of innovative features. Being a cable ship, an abnormally deep keel was required to be able to store as much cable as possible. Bilge keels, which aid stability in rough seas, were added to either side of the hull, to help cope with the notoriously treacherous Atlantic Ocean, and she was also fitted with two rudders; one at the front, in addition to the traditional one at the rear, to increase manoeuvrability. The CS Mackay-Bennett was also one of the first ships to be built from steel.

 

The CS Mackay-Bennett

 

The ship operated mainly out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, but occasionally also from Plymouth, England, when working on cables on the European side of the Atlantic. Being designed to cope with rough seas, and often working far out into the Ocean, she was also able to assist in a number of rescues of stricken vessels, saving many lives in the process. However, it is not for one of these rescues that the CS Mackay-Bennett sealed her place in history.

 

In April 1912 she was carrying out maintenance on the France to Canada communications cable, when she was requisitioned by the White Star Line, to undertake a far more sombre task. On the night of the 14th April 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage, and rapidly sank. Of the approximately 2,200 passengers and crew, only 706 would survive the disaster. This meant there lay a grim task ahead; the recovery of as many bodies of dead passengers and crew as possible.

 

The CS Mackay-Bennett returned to Halifax , emptied her cable stores, and in place of the usual load, took on board 100 coffins, 100 tons of ice for storing the recovered bodies, and embalming supplies for 70 corpses. In addition they also took with them Cannon Kenneth Cameron Hind of All Saints Cathedral, Halifax, and John R. Snow, chief embalmer of Nova Scotia’s largest undertaking firm.

 

Departing Halifax on Wednesday 17th April 1912, the ship encountered rough seas and thick fog, and as a consequence, took nearly four days to reach the site of the sinking; a distance of around 800 nautical miles. Recovery of the bodies began at 6am on 20th April, when lifeboats were offloaded and rowed into the area where the Titanic went down. The lifeboat crews were both surprised and disturbed by the number of bodies, and hauled as many as they deemed safe into the boats. They returned to the ship with 51 corpses. Over the course of seven days, the lifeboats would recover a total of 306 bodies.  Only 328 bodies were ever recovered from the scene of the disaster, making the CS Mackay-Bennett responsible for over 90% of  those reclaimed from the water.  However, there was a problem.

 

Recovering Bodies From The Freezing Water

 

It soon became apparent to the captain, that there was insufficient space aboard to store all of the recovered bodies. He, therefore, introduced a system that would be regarded as elitist and wholly unacceptable by today’s standards. Namely, that first class passengers would be embalmed and placed in coffins, second class passengers would be embalmed and wrapped in canvas, and third class passengers would be buried at sea. This approach was deemed appropriate at the time, and whist clearly biased in favour of the better off, nevertheless solved the storage problem.

 

Embalming Bodies on Deck

 

Among the first class passengers recovered were Isidor Straus, owner of Macy’s Department store, and John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man on board the Titanic. They also recovered the body of Wallace Hartley, the band leader who continued to play on as the ship sank. Most poignantly, however, the remains of just one third class passenger was saved by the crew and stored in the hold. It was the body of a small boy, aged approximately two years. Of the 306 bodies recovered, 116 were buried at sea, and 190 were brought back to Halifax, where they arrived on 30th April 1912. It is largely thanks to Clifford Crease, a crewman of the CS Mackay-Bennett, that we have such detailed information of the recovery operation. His personal diary, detailing the events, is now held in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia.

 

Clifford Crease (1888-1961) and an Excerpt From His Diary

 

Sadly, the body of the child remained unclaimed, and so the unknown boy was laid to rest in Halifax, with the crew of the CS Mackay-Bennett paying for the burial and headstone, from their own wages. In addition, the coffin was marked by a copper plaque, inscribed “Our Babe”. The entire crew, and most of the population of Halifax, attended the child’s funeral on 4th May 1912. Almost a century later, the copper plaque was to play a pivotal role in the identification of the unknown child. When the body was exhumed for testing, it was the remains that had been preserved underneath the plaque, that yielded sufficient DNA for identification purposes. On 30th July 2007, the child was revealed as Sidney Leslie Goodwin, a 19 month old from Wiltshire in England. His entire family had perished in the sinking.

 

Unknown No Longer

 

The CS Mackay-Bennett was retired in May 1922, and anchored in Plymouth Sound, where she was used for storage. She was finally scrapped in 1963.

 

Clifford Crease never forgot the child he had helped to bury. During his lifetime, he visited the grave on every anniversary of the tragedy. When he passed away in 1961, he was interred only a few metres from the boy whose name he never knew.

 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS_Mackay-Bennett

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/388224430350007190/