FETCH ME A ROPE! SHOUTED THE BUTCHER

The Victoria Disaster Continued

Every minute during the first hour, a body would be laid out on the river bank. The Princess Louise, now anchored just offshore, was used as a morgue. Some 200 died that day. A staggering loss for a city of 19,000 people.

Blazing bonfires and petroleum torches helped enable recognition of the bodies for the scores of relatives and friends who had heard of the accident and come to the scene. People were laid out dressed in their Sunday-Best.

But the farmer who owned the land was far from charitable and ordered everyone to leave his property. That’s when a giant of a butcher, one of the rescuers, looked him in the face and eyed an overhead tree branch, and yelled “Fetch me a rope!”

The farmer quickly melted away.

But there were other nasty people there, too—thieves. They stole watches, jewellery and cash from the bodies whenever the overworked police were not looking. They even stole items from the rescuers’ clothes laid on the bank.

Some took advantage of the shortage of wagons and cartage services to charge exorbitant fees to deliver bodies to homes in the city. A few drivers, finding no one at home, deposited the dead on the veranda with a bill tucked in a pocket.

The next day, just about every man wore a black armband and women black dresses. Flags were at half-mast, and the endless processions of funerals began making their trips to the cemeteries.

Undertakers called on colleagues in nearby towns for assistance. The supply of caskets soon ran out and they, too, were imported from all around the area.

TODAY

Most of the victims were buried in Woodland Cemetery and Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

Woodland provided a special tour of its grounds May 23, 2015. Small flags were placed at graves of the victims: red for adults and white for children.

London historian Dan Brock spoke to about 150 persons inside the mausoleum where an actual copy of an old newspaper listed the dead, complete with heavy black rules. Paul Culliton, general manager of the cemetery, displayed the cemetery record book of that day. Brock then took the visitors on a tour of the flagged graves.

But Brock saved for the last, a most surprising announcement—the story of a victim who wasn’t.

Sarah “Sally” Walker, 14 years of age and her cousin Elosia Lawson had agreed to take the Victoria together. At the last minute, however, Sally decided to go on a picnic with her boyfriend instead, in defiance of her father’s wishes. Elosia didn’t tell either of the parents. She became one of the victims.
Today, according to Sally’s granddaughter, Jane Blake (Simpson), Sally often had premonitions. Here’s part of her account of what happened that day so long ago:

“As she waved goodbye [at the pier] to Elosia, she felt a wave of terror wash over her— something — but what? Perhaps it was her fear of being ‘found out’?  It haunted her throughout the day.
“Towards dinnertime, as they made their way back to town, several buggies rushed past them, raising clouds of dust, the horses panting from the exertion.  Closer to town, there was pandemonium— hysteria – screams that ‘the Victoria had capsized – the boiler exploded - hundreds are dead’…
“Sarah and her beau made their way up the river to the site of the disaster.  For hours, they helped pull bodies from the water, and piled them (like cordwood) on the bank.  It was said her mother fainted when Sarah finally emerged from the crowds, soaking wet and covered in mud – but alive!  Her father, brothers and sisters stared at her in stunned surprise.  My grandmother must have been an aspiring actress.
"Sarah escaped not only death, but detection that day, although my aunt and I both agreed that her mother ‘sensed the truth’, but was so relieved to find her alive that she had not been punished.  She must have flinched every time a family member described her miraculous survival.
“Her cousin, twenty-one-year-old Elosia Lawson and her two friends were among the estimated 180-200 victims that day.  Sarah’s beau’s entire family were also among the dead.
“One wonders if she really did have a premonition of the disaster, or if, plain and simple, she preferred a solitary date with her new beau – something that a fourteen year old young lady would never have been allowed to do  (especially without a chaperone) – unthinkable!”


White flags indicate graves of children and red of adults killed in the disaster.

Paul Culliton, Woodland Cemetery, shows where wife
and three children, one only 8 months, are buried.

Elizabeth Lawson is related to Elosia, who died.

Sarah "Sally" Walker
at 14.

Granddaughter Jane
Blake at 14.

Granddaugher Jane Blake
today.

Where visitors climbed up from river wharf.

Today, remains of the steps as seen
from Greenway Park.

Elosia Lawson died but her cousin didn't.

A hearse of the type used in the 1880s was provided by Joe O’Neil of O’Neil Funeral Home.

SINKING OF THE S.S. VICTORIA IN LONDON

Victoria Disaster, Toronto Litho Company (from Western University).

Plaque in Greenway Park marking where it happened.

View today of where the ship sank in 1881.

Forks of the Thames today.

May 24, 1881 dawned a perfect day for a picnic at Springbank Park, a few miles down the Thames 

River from London. However, that Victoria Day—the Queen’s Birthday—would take a horrific toll on the city of 19,000, one that would be noted in newspapers around the world.

Crowds of families with their picnic baskets gathered near the city’s Sulphur Springs Bath House at the Forks of the Thames. Three flat-bottomed steam boats were ready to take them there: the Princess Louise, the Forest City and the Victoria.  A steamboat ride excited everyone. Ladies wore their Sunday-best dresses, long garments that almost touched the ground.

The crowds jostled and pushed as they paid their 15 cents for the round trip. But soon, everyone was onboard, the whistle blew and the Victoria chugged away to deliver them to Springbank Park.

Late in the afternoon when it was time to return to their homes, crowds were milling about the Springbank wharf. But there had been some difficulties with the Forest City  with the result that only the Victoria showed up at the wharf.

  Captain Donald Rankin couldn’t maintain order. Young men at the dock scampered over the ship’s rails, people complained. The captain tried ordering people off the ship but to no avail. The ship was soon overloaded by from 200 to 400 passengers it was later learned. The captain finally reversed the ship into the channel for the return voyage.

Only a few minutes later, the low-riding ship struck a large rock, creating a gash in the hull. Water began pouring in. Each time the passengers shifted position from one side to the other, she almost turned on her side. A bunch of unruly teens began making things worse by rushing from side to side singing, "One More River to Cross." The captain admonished them, but they simply jeered at him.

The voyage was beginning to become seriously frightening. The captain planned on running his ship aground on a sandbar just ahead. In the meantime, he refused to stop at Ward’s Hotel and later at the wharf at Woodland Cemetery—much to the chagrin of those awaiting the ship.

But a few hundred yards beyond the cemetery landing, the passengers were greeted by two racing sculls that put on a race for the ship’s passengers. As they swiftly swept by, the crowd rushed to the starboard (right) side to watch. The ship almost turned over. Terror-stricken, the passengers, in an attempt to straighten the vessel, rushed to the port or left side. Aided by the sloshing water from the gash in the hull, it was too much. The ship rolled over on her left side—the side facing away from the closer south bank.

Next, the 60 horse power steam engine's boiler, mounted rather flimsily on the lower deck, broke away and slid  across the deck amid clouds of scalding steam that seriously injured some passengers and then before dropping into the river took with it the wooden posts that supported the upper deck. 

Those already struggling in the water were now trapped under canvas, netting and other debris.

People attempted to climb over those above them by pulling on their legs—all of this happening just a few metres from the shoreline.

There were acts of bravery. One grandfather holding his wife against his body and a granddaughter in each arm and an infant’s dress between his teeth, made it to shore.

The long dresses soaked with water dragged many down to their deaths

According to London historian Dan Brock, two young men were found nude, lying among the dead. He theorizes that the two had been skinny-dipping when the accident occurred and had exhausted themselves to their deaths rescuing survivors.

A newspaper report of the time said, “a woman who had escaped had her babe torn from her breast by the falling of some of the timbers from the upper deck. She was taken to shore and in a few minutes saw her child float on top of the water. With a wild shriek she threw herself into the stream and saved the child, when she was with difficulty revived a second time herself. Scores of such incidents were noticed.”
Two hundred died. 

To be continued.