Fredrick Fleet

Photo Credit: Find A Grave

On this day in the year 1887, Fredrick Fleet was born in Liverpool, England. Fleet was a lookout on the Titanic and was on duty when she struck an iceberg and sank approximately two and one half hours later. Unfortunately, Fredrick Fleet would be among the Titanic survivors who would eventually end their own lives. He committed suicide in 1965 after the death of his wife a couple of weeks earlier. He's buried in Hollybrook Cemetery, located in Southampton.

Love Me Tender

The Nomadic lying in dry dock in Belfast waiting for restoration to begin.
Photo Source: Belfast Telegraph

According to an article in BBC News, police were called in when the Nomadic Preservation Society removed two ornate doors from the historic tender. A spokesperson for the Nomadic Preservation Society said it had purchased the doors in Paris and claimed they possessed proof of ownership. The society now wants an apology from the Nomadic Trust, which is the government-appointed body which called the police and eventually described the event as a misunderstanding.

There is also a dispute between the Nomadic Preservation Society and the Nomadic Trust over a lifeboat that once belonged to the Nomadic, with the Nomadic Preservation Society claiming it bought the lifeboat, and the Nomadic Trust claiming it had been gifted to the Trust.

The two entities are also arguing over the multimillion pound project to restore the Nomadic. Members of the Nomadic Preservation Society are reluctant to hand over the funds they have raised to the Nomadic Trust because it is unclear what the Trust intends to do with the funds. The doors are now in storage and it is unclear when they will be reunited with the tender.

According to an article in the Belefast Telegraph, an expert in restoration projects has offered to step in and act as mediator to help resolve issues between the Nomadic Preservation Society and the Nomadic Trust.

According to another article in the Belefast Telegraph, the restoration of the Nomadic, the tender that ferried first and second-class passengers on board the Titanic from Cherbourg, will begin in the spring of 2010. There had been concerns of a funding shortfall, and it was beginning to look doubtful that the tender would be reopened to the public ahead of the 100th anniversary of her launch. Thanks to a grant from the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, there are now sufficient funds in place for restoration of the Nomadic to begin. (Other funders who have contributed to the project include Belfast City Council, Belfast Harbour, Titanic Quarter Ltd, Ulster Garden Villages, and the Better Belfast project.) Both the Titanic and the Nomadic were launched from Harland and Wolff, located in Belfast, in 1911.

Check the following link for some nice pictures of the Nomadic when she was docked at Le Havre, France, and after coming home to Belfast, Ireland. Notice the photo in which the White Star Line company flag is flying proudly from her stern.

Department for Social Development

A Queen Is Launched

September 26th marked the 75th anniversary of the launch of the R.M.S. Queen Mary in Scotland. Here, courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, you can see a short (about one minute and ten seconds) but amazing video of her launch.

Video

Ismay Arrives In Liverpool

I found this little gem while digging around in some boxes that were in the basement of a charming little used book store in New York. As I was looking through the boxes, I came across a copy of a magazine called "Home Life" magazine on the cover of which someone had written "1912" in what looked like colored pencil. Needless to say, I was curious, so I opened it up and had a look inside. Toward the beginning of the magazine is a section called "In The Wake Of The News." In this section is a picture of Ismay and his wife arriving in Liverpool. I'll post another interesting little tidbit from this issue in a future blog entry.

The following caption reads:

"TITANIC SURVIVORS AT LIVERPOOL
In this picture J. Bruce Ismay, the president

of the company owning the ill-fated Titanic,

and one of the first men to take a place in the

lifeboats when he knew the ship was in danger,

is seen coming down the gangway with his wife

at his side. The Ismay smile would not seem

to indicate that he has felt the sting of the

criticism that has been leveled at him. Preceding

them is Sir John Hare, the English actor, returned

from a recent trip to Canada."

This shows the picture came from Volume Twenty-Two, Number Seven, dated August, Nineteen Twelve.

George Whitelock's Response to Mellor - Part VI (final part)

To read from the beginning, please see blog entry dated June 9, 2009.
To read Part II, please see blog entry dated June 11, 2009.
To read Part III, please see blog entry dated June 21, 2009.
To read Part IV, please see blog entry dated July 15, 2009.
To read Part V, please see blog entry dated August 8, 2009.

This article may be read in its entirety at George Whitelock, Damages For Death By Negligence At Sea – The Titanic, 49 American Law Review, 75 (1915).

(continued from Part V)

Now the issue of negligence vel non not having been yet adjudicated in America, what then may result to the death claims if the Company presses its petition for limitation of liability under American law? To repeat: A statute has never been adopted by the American Congress for recovery of damages for loss of life by negligence on the high seas, and no present right of recovery therefore exists either by the general maritime law of the United States, or by federal statute. If the fund of $91,805.54 is finally distributed under the petition of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, Ltd., the cases of The Hamilton and La Bourgogne will be controlling authority to admit the death claimants to participation therein.

But if, on the other hand, the application to limit the liability of the Company is finally disallowed because of the Company’s own negligence, will there be any redress at all for the death claimants? They cannot, as shown, recover under American law; and the period of time limitation under Lord Campbell’s Act will preclude the institution of new suits in England. Will American Judges relieve the asperity of the law of their own forum by applying for the benefit of such claimants, in direct suits for damages, the law of the flag (that is, of Great Britain), as American Judges applied the law of France to the case of La Bourgogne in proceedings to limit liability? The future can alone determine. Thus far the Supreme Court has dealt only with the remedy; it has said nothing about rights. Its wisdom is indisputable in holding that persons who elect to sue in American Courts are limited in recovery by the American Statute irrespective of foreign enactment.

Two phases of existing law of the United States merit special comment here. First, the omission to provide a clear and direct right of recovery of damages for death by negligence at sea; secondly, the establishment of the present maximum of pecuniary liability as that of the value of salved property plus freight pending. The world disaster of the Titanic throws strong light on both of these propositions, and the necessity of reformatory legislation.

Six years ago I sought to demonstrate the need of a remedial statute by Congress to assimilate the law of the United States to that of Europe in respect of the right of dependants to recover damages for death of a relative by negligence at sea. It is not expedient to repeat my reasons here.

Since my original address was delivered at Buda-Pesth the Maritime Law Association of the United States and the American Bar Association have continued their earnest advocacy of the proposed reform, the arguments for which have been so tragically reinforced by the case of the Titanic. The American Congress seems at last aroused; and it is believed that the Peters Bill introduced on June 17, 1913, in the House of Representatives, and favorably reported with amendments from the Judiciary Committee on December 22, 1913, will be duly enacted as the law of the American Courts of Admiralty. It is entitled “A Bill Relating to the Maintenance of Actions for Death on the High Seas and other Navigable Waters.”

But it is obvious, I think, that neither the foreign law nor an American Statute can do adequate justice in American Courts so long as the standard established by the Act of 1851, furnishes the limit of a shipowner’s liability. The subject of the limitation thereof has been considered in international conference and the draft of an international convention has been already distributed. That draft looks to international unification of the rules relating to the limitation of shipowners’ liability in the case of sea-going vessels; the only method by which justice can be rendered both exact and uniform. In this reform, too, the Maritime Law Association of the United States is actively interesting itself. An able committee was appointed at its last meeting in New York on May 1, 1914, to consider the general subject of limitation of the liability of shipowners with special reference to the proposed draft convention and to report thereon to the Association. This great and salutary reform is at least in posse.

George Whitelock

(The text of the Peters Bill was also included in a footnote.)

George Whitelock's Response to Mellor - Part V

To read from the beginning, please see blog entry dated June 9, 2009.
To read Part II, please see blog entry dated June 11, 2009.
To read Part III, please see blog entry dated June 21, 2009.
To read Part IV, please see blog entry dated July 15, 2009.

This article may be read in its entirety at George Whitelock, Damages For Death By Negligence At Sea – The Titanic, 49 American Law Review, 75 (1915).

(continued from part IV)

But it may be here pertinently observed that while the issue of fact has not yet been determined in the Courts of America, a jury in England has already awarded damages for the death of four of he steerage passengers of the Titanic, having found negligence of the Company. The verdicts were rendered in the cases of Ryan et al. v. Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, brought under the provisions of the English Death Statute, called Lord Campbell’s Act. On review before the Court of Appeal upon application for a new trial, a re-hearing was refused and the appeals were dismissed on February 9, 1914. Lord Justice Vaughan Williams, speaking for the Appellate Court, said: “There was one question common to all these cases – namely, whether the loss of the Titanic was due to negligent navigation; and the jury found that it was.” Considering the question of negligence in fact, his Lordship further said that “there was no doubt that the Captain of the Titanic had diverted his course and adopted anther way of precaution to avoid ice of which he was warned by marconigrams from the Caronia and Baltic, but his Lordship thought it impossible to say that there was no evidence upon which the findings of negligence could be based, and added: “I think that the danger in this case was neither unforeseen or unforeseeable. There was warning, to my mind, of dangerous ice ahead, and the jury might reasonably come to the conclusion that in the circumstances a prudent master ought thereupon to have slowed down, or even to have stopped, and if the master failed to perform this duty he cannot say, ‘I am excused because the state of things which the ship afterwards encountered was unforeseen or unforeseeable,’ as the accident might not have happened if he had slowed down.”

And Lord Justice Kennedy, who also delivered judgment, arrived at the same conclusion that the appeals should be dismissed.

(To be continued in Part VI of George Whitelock’s Response to Mellor.)

George Whitelock's Response to Mellor - Part IV

To read from the beginning, please see blog entry dated June 9, 2009.
To read Part II, please see blog entry dated June 11, 2009.
To read Part III, please see blog entry dated June 21, 2009.

This article may be read in its entirety at George Whitelock, Damages For Death By Negligence At Sea – The Titanic, 49 American Law Review, 75 (1915).

(continued from part III)

(We left off with a quote by Justice Holms and now continue with Whitelock’s response.)

The far-reaching significance to the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company of this preliminary victory will be appreciated when it is noted that the application of the British standard of limitation of liability – fifteen pounds per gross ton – would have provided for distribution among claimants a fund of $2,500,000, as against the trivial sum of $91,805.54, thus determined to be the limit of liability if the owner of the Titanic is in fact entitled to limit its responsibility – an issue not yet decided by the American Courts, and whose determination depends on proofs to be hereafter adduced. Thus far the Supreme Court has merely sustained the Company’s contention that the American statute and not the British will furnish the gauge of the amount for distribution, provided the Company is not precluded by the conditions of the American law from availing itself of the right of limitation. It is to be borne in mind that the right of a shipowner to limit liability under the Act of Congress is predicated on the fact that the negligent act committed was done without his privity or knowledge. In the case of a corporation, the privity or knowledge of the president, or other high officer, would of course be the privity or knowledge of the corporation itself, and would defeat its right to the exemption. Here the Company has appropriately alleged in its petition that “the collision aforesaid and the loss, damage, injury and destruction resulting therefrom were due to inevitable accident, and were not caused or contributed to by any negligence or fault on the part of the petitioner, or of those in charge of the steamship Titanic, and were occasioned and incurred without the privity or knowledge of the petitioner.” But if it be ultimately established that the Compnay itself was at fault, and that the accident in fact occurred with its privity and knowledge, then the Company’s petition must be dismissed, and in such event its liability will be unlimited. The press of New York is authority for the statement of one of counsel for the claimants, made since the decision at Washington, that the claimants will contend that there was not only negligence in the navigation of the Titanic, but that J. Bruce Ismay, the executive head of the Company, knew of the dangers, was privy to them and nevertheless permitted the vessel to continue her course and speed. It is hardly necessary to say that the Company, on the other hand, expressly “claims exemption from liability, as owner of the steamship Titanic, for the losses, damages, injuries, and destruction occasioned or incurred by the collision and sinking aforesaid, and for the claims for damages that have been made, or hereafter may be made, and it alleges that it has valid defenses thereto on the facts and under the provisions of the contracts for the carriage of the cargo and of the passengers and their baggage.”

(To be continued in Part V of George Whitelock’s Response to Mellor.)