The 1927 Tahiti-Greycliffe
Disaster
In fine clear weather in 1927 the 7600
tons, 460 feet S.S. Tahiti collided with the 125-foot
Three years later when 450 miles off
The Story of the Greycliffe:
By Steve Brew
At the time of
writing [late 2002], the Tahiti-Greycliffe
Disaster remains the deadliest shipping accident ever to have occurred on
Greycliffe took a broad cross section of the
community to the bottom of the harbour with her. Amongst them were six school
children, aged eleven to fifteen, and the Science Master of
She was the regular
Typical of the
Weathered white
bulwarks ran the length of the 125-foot vessel at deck level, encircling
varnished wooden outdoor seats. These in turn surrounded segregated men’s and
women’s saloons; the men’s forward, over the boiler room, and the women’s aft,
over the engine room.
Above them lay an upper deck, where, like the main deck, both inside and
outside seating was provided. At each end of this deck stood the wheelhouses,
identical in every detail, except for the ferry’s bell which was mounted on the
port side of one.
Greycliffe slipped by Mrs
At
her wheel stood Captain William Barnes. At 52, Barnes had been plying the harbour some 30 years
and knew Port
As the ferry
departed
It was a beautiful
afternoon on the harbour. It was clear and sunny, and, although the westerly
breeze was too light to pick up a chop, it was fresh enough to keep the
temperature at a comfortable 71°F. Ahead of him, Barnes could see the ferry Woollahra
coming towards him from
To his rear,
however, unbeknown to Barnes, Greycliffe was
also being approached by the Union Steamship Company’s graceful passenger
liner, R.M.S. Tahiti. Bearing over 300 passengers and crew bound for
Displacing almost
7600 tons, she measured some 460 feet in length. Her gleaming olive-green hull
stood in stark contrast to her shining white above-deck cabins. A neat row of
covered lifeboats hung from davits along the length of the upper-most deck on
each side, and a single, plump red funnel with a black top stood above them,
amongst a clutter of ventilators.
A buff-coloured mast
stood at each end of the vessel. They were supported by a complicated system of
rigging, each almost a work of art in itself. They were surrounded by derricks
which serviced her generous below-deck cargo holds, whilst a small crow’s-nest
was perched about a third of the way up her foremast.
On the bridge,
Captain Basil Aldwell casually chatted with the pilot
assigned to the vessel that afternoon, Captain Thomas Carson. The two Captains
had known one other for some ten years and had an amicable respect for each
other. They shared the bridge with the helmsman, Quartermaster Roderick McLeod,
and with the Third Officer, Harold Litchfield, who was stationed by the
engine-room telegraphs.
A charming Scotsman
of personable nature, Carson was in his late forties and beginning to grey.
Although some nine years Aldwell’s junior, the Master
Mariner had almost twenty years experience as a Pilot and was previously at
sea, having circumnavigated the globe under both sail and steam. His career
with the Pilot Service began in Sydney, but he subsequently spent several years
piloting in Newcastle. He returned to Sydney in 1923, and had been stationed at
Watsons Bay ever since.
Aldwell was a Union Steamship man who had
spent almost his entire career with the Company. A Master Mariner with over 30
years experience at sea, the 57-year-old Englishman was by no means new to Tahiti.
He first captained her in 1919 and, having been her permanent master since
1922, he felt quite at home on her bridge.
Only a relatively
short distance away, just outside Sydney Heads, Carson’s duty to oversee Tahiti’s
navigation down the harbour would be done. There, as was the procedure, Carson
would hand over command to the Captain, transfer to the pilot steamer Captain
Cook II and return to the Pilot Station at Watsons
Bay.
For Captain Aldwell, however, this was the point where the voyage
began. Beyond the Port Jackson lay his distant ports of call—Wellington,
Rarotonga, Papeete, and finally San Francisco.
Tahiti made a proud
picture as she moved down the Harbour in the afternoon sunshine. Built in
Glasgow in 1904, the 23-year-old steamer originally wore the name Port
Kingston on her stern. When acquired by the Union Steamship Company in
1911, she was renamed Tahiti and put into the trans-Pacific passenger
and mail service. Her career was interrupted during World War I when she served
the Commonwealth as a troopship. Most of her luxurious furnishings were removed
for the purpose, but she was returned to her original glory in the months after
the War and resumed her former role in the Pacific early in 192.
Although the vessel
afforded accommodation for over 500 passengers in three classes, as she slid
down Sydney Harbour that afternoon she carried less than half that number. Out
on deck, first class passengers lined the rails alongside second and third
class passengers as they savoured a last long look at the city.
Carson ordered the
engines to be put to ‘half ahead’ across Circular Quay and routinely sounded
the horn. He ordered ‘full ahead’ as they passed Bennelong
Point, and the ship began to increase speed as they swept past Fort Denison and
approached Garden Island.
Aldwell and Carson surveyed the familiar scene
around them while they chatted with each other. Both lived in Sydney and knew
the harbour well. They noted the Watsons Bay-bound
ferry, Greycliffe, which had just departed
Garden Island, running down the harbour ahead of them, a few points off their
starboard bow.
Department of
Navigation regulations stipulated the course they must take down the harbour.
Carson knew this meant his path would cross Greycliffe’s
before long but he felt confident the ferry was aware of his presence. He
directed the helmsman to steer for the north end of Shark Island.
A little ahead of
them, on their port side, the Circular Quay-bound ferry, Woollahra
approached from the opposite direction. In moments, she would pass the liner
down her port side. Carson kept a close eye on the two ferries, steering
more-or-less parallel courses to take Tahiti between them.
To their rear,
another ferry followed. Manly-bound Burra-Bra had left Circular Quay a
few minutes after Tahiti swept past.
Still picking up speed, the ferry was belching thick black smoke as she worked
up to nine knots.
Rolling through Tahiti’s
wake, slightly to her port side, Burra-Bra’s helmsman, Rupert Nixon, saw
Woollahra coming directly for him. He ported his helm and moved to
starboard, out of her way. Now squarely astern of Tahiti, and almost
abreast of Fort Denison, he saw Greycliffe
ahead, off the liner’s starboard bow.
Second Officer
Gibson came onto Tahiti's bridge as the vessel passed Garden Island,
having gone to his cabin to change his coat for the evening ahead. He stepped
inside just as Carson cried out in alarm. Gibson swung around to see Greycliffe steering a course which would surely
bring her into collision with the liner.
Aldwell raced to the starboard wing of the
bridge and froze. There was little he could do but watch whilst Carson barked
orders. They had little immediate effect. At the speed the liner was doing, she
would run several hundred feet before she would begin to turn away, let alone
stop. Carson seized the lanyard to the funnel’s steam horn and pulled on it
hard, twice.
Astern of them,
aboard Burra-Bra, Rupert Nixon was just as helpless as Aldwell. Greycliffe kept
on her course, apparently unaware of Tahiti’s presence. He watched as
the gap between the two vessels quickly diminished; Greycliffe
raced in to meet Tahiti’s bow, like a magnet drawn to steel.
Aboard Greycliffe, inside the smoky Men’s Saloon, Fred
Jones, known to many of the passengers as ‘Curly’, was busy collecting fares.
Navy Officers and businessmen chatted together sharing the day’s events, or
read a newspaper while enjoying a pipe or cigarette.
Jones looked up
momentarily and glanced out the saloon’s port-side windows. He caught his
breath. His attention was instantly captured by a large ship, barely 100 yards
away, heading straight towards them. Judging by her large creaming bow wave,
she was moving at a considerable speed.
Immediately
recognising the danger, he ordered the startled men around him to get out, then
ran for his two mates in the engine room.
Taken aback by this
unexpected interjection, passengers hurried over to the ferry’s port side and
could not believe what they saw. Their eyes widened in horror as they saw a
passenger liner over three times the ferry’s size, almost upon them. Her sharp
steel bow was already abreast of Greycliffe’s
funnel, and barely three or four feet from of the aft gangway.
Businessman Erik Dahlen sat in the stern of the upper deck, facing aft. He
glanced up momentarily as he turned a page of his newspaper and was startled to
see huge liner almost on top of them.
He heard shouts from
below, when, almost simultaneously, the deafening roar of the big ship’s horn
abruptly shattered the idyllic scene. Heads whipped around as a second
thunderous blast exploded from the liner’s horn. Startled by it’s close
proximity, passengers were even more horrified to see the tall steel bow of a
large ship towering over them, higher than the ferry’s upper deck.
Passengers jumped up
in fright and ran in panic to wherever they felt would be safer. Pandemonium
broke out as schoolgirls screamed and mothers instinctively snatched up their
children. There was little time to think; people ran in every direction in a
vain effort to escape the tons of steel bearing down on them.
Incredibly, up in
the ferry’s forward wheelhouse, Captain Barnes had, until that moment, been
completely unaware of Tahiti’s presence. The sudden, unexpected snarl of the
two horn blasts so near made him jump. He spun around to look aft through the
starboard wheelhouse window, but saw nothing.
Stepping across to
the port side window, he peered out. To his shock, he saw Tahiti’s bow just feet
from the ferry’s side. Clearly too late to avoid the inevitable, he
instinctively sprang for the wheel and swung it hard to starboard with all his
strength. With a dull thud, the liner’s bow struck the ferry by the aft
gangway. The little ferry had not even had time to react to her Captain’s helm.
At first, it seemed
Tahiti would simply push Greycliffe aside, but within
seconds the ferry’s bow wheeled around until she lay perpendicular to Tahiti’s
course. Accompanied by the screams of her panicking passengers, the surge of
liner’s bow wave thrust Greycliffe through the water
ahead of her, pushing the ferry over enough to submerge her starboard rail and
put several feet of water over the main deck.
As she listed, Stan Whalley climbed up over the ferry’s port railing and
crawled forward, along the outside of the vessel. As he passed the gangway, he
glanced down momentarily at the panic-stricken faces of those fighting to
escape the cabins—an image which haunted him all his remaining days—then he
continued forward until he reached the bow propeller.
John Corby, on the
upper deck, dashed for lifebelts for his wife and daughter. Balancing
awkwardly, he turned to see them for a split second holding hands at the top of
the stairs. Then Greycliffe rolled over and
they were gone.
With the sickening
creak-and-snap of splintering timber, Tahiti's sharp steel bow burst through
the wooden ferry like an axe, and split her in two. The decks of the Greycliffe came tumbling down and passengers were
flung in all directions, recounted one witness. Barely faltering, the momentum
of the 8000-ton liner carried her on through the debris, portions of the ferry
passing down each side.
Terrified passengers
in the saloons fought to escape, thrashing desperately against the force of
seawater as it burst in towards them. Those on deck were sucked deep into the
underwater darkness as the ferry’s broken body sank to the bottom.
Cold water found Greycliffe’s furnaces. With a roar, the bow heaved
as the boiler imploded. With a gush, a great cloud of steam shot into the air,
intermingled with flying pieces of timber. Water boiled and hissed as it closed
intermingled with flying pieces of timber. Water boiled and hissed as it closed
over the ferry’s pitiful remains.
Stan Whalley held onto the bow near the forward propeller as the
ferry sank. He went all the way down with her and felt her hit the bottom.
Although holding his breath, he found his chest expanding and contracting from
the water pressure. It tore muscles in his chest and he wanted to scream in
pain. Panicking, the non-swimmer fought and kicked upwards. His leg numb from a
blow he could not remember, he shot to the surface.
Initially knocked
unconscious by the impact, 14-year-old John Carr was quickly brought around by
the cold harbour water, and swam for his life. Schoolgirl Gene Wise opened her
eyes under water only to see Tahiti’s propeller coming straight for her,
but swam out of its path before it whooshed by.
Erik Dahlen broke the surface gasping for air. Finding nothing to
cling to, he sank again, but then, surfacing a second time, he came upon a
lifebelt and grabbed it to support himself. Exhausted, he hung on with all his
strength.
Ken Horler found his leg tangled in rope as he reached the
surface and was dragged down again. Thinking he would not survive, a vision of
his mother’s face appeared before him. Then, in the next moment, he
disentangled himself. Choking on mouthfuls of salt water, he burst out into the
fresh air, gasping, coughing, and bleeding from cuts.
To his horror, John
Corby found himself in the water surrounded by bodies as they rose to the
surface. He frantically searched for his wife and daughter, but could not find
them.
All around him was
chaos. The water was alive with dozens of bobbing heads, spluttering and
screaming, hands groping for anything to keep them above water. Surrounded by
the remnants of what moments ago was a perfectly stable Sydney ferry, Ken Horler clambered to safety atop what he later discovered
was one of the two wheelhouses, and helped others aboard.
At this moment, the
Water Police launch Cambria rounded Bradleys
Head, travelling towards Circular Quay, on routine patrol. Sergeant William
Shakespeare, in command of the vessel, could hardly believe the unexpected
sight that lay before him. He increased speed and raced to the scene,
immediately ordering constables George Day and Ernest Maguire into the water. Passing ferries and all manner of other vessels rushed to
the scene. The Pilot Steamer Captain Cook II was dispatched from Watsons Bay; the Sydney Harbour Trust’s steam yacht Lady
Hopetoun hurried over; the ferry Kummulla,
which had just landed passengers at Taronga Zoo, immediately turned back; the
tug Bimbi rushed over from near Garden Island and the Naval Launch Sapphire
diverted from its course as soon as it saw the commotion.
The ferry Woollahra
turned from near Fort Denison and raced back to lower her lifeboats. As she
arrived at the scene, a man sprang from her deck to rescued an exhausted woman
floundering in the water. Then shouts from passengers drew the crew’s attention
to a person floating just below the surface. Two men dived in and brought an
unconscious woman aboard, where she was eventually resuscitated.
Greycliffe's Captain Barnes was found clinging to a
raft and was taken aboard the ferry Kurraba. He soon recovered
sufficiently to return in a lifeboat to help rescue others.
Woollahra's boats later brought seven survivors
ashore, including Captain Barnes, but they also brought in two severely
disfigured bodies. Bimbi retrieved twelve survivors and a body from the
water, whilst Sapphire was able to rescue another dozen. The Police
launch, Cambria, rescued eleven more and found the body of James Treadgold.
Many of the
surviving passengers and the bodies of those who had died were taken to the Man’o’War Steps, on the eastern side of the Fort Macquarie
Tram Depot. It became a temporary casualty clearing station where men of the
Central District Ambulance Service treated the injured, with the assistance of
the Police, civilians and workers from the depot.
As the news broke,
streams of anxious friends and relatives arrived at Bennelong
Point. Several hundred onlookers also lined the waterfront, hampering the work
of medical personnel and the police.
The dead were laid
out on the pathway by the Man o’ War Steps, where police prepared them to be
taken to the City Morgue for identification. Meanwhile, a relay of ambulances
rushed the injured up Macquarie Street to Sydney Hospital and returned for
more.
Distraught relatives
also gathered at the morgue seeking news of missing family. To their horror,
many soon found themselves standing before the body of a husband or
a wife—even worse a child—to identify them for the authorities.
On the harbour,
passengers on passing ferries jostled for the best view of the accident scene
in the fading dusk light. The water was littered with debris, and no-one could
believe so much wreckage had come from one small ferry.
Broken roof racks,
still containing lifebelts, gave grave testimony to the swiftness of the
accident. Barely distinguishable, the aft wheelhouse drifted aimlessly with the
tide. Here, amongst the mess of seats and broken wood, a handbag was seen,
there a briefcase. A child’s doll. A businessman’s hat.
As night fell, many
were still feared missing. In the twilight, Captain Carter and the men of the
Harbour Trust Fire Brigade, aboard the fire tug Pluvius,
continued the search by spotlight until well after 8.00 p.m. They were unable
to recover any further bodies, but great amounts of wreckage were taken aboard
to clear the harbour’s shipping lanes. Overnight, the accident site was marked
with a green buoy carrying a red flag and flashing light.
The following
morning, Sydney’s newspapers were filled with stories of the disaster. Every
paragraph was headlined with an emotional eye-catcher: 'Appalling Harbour
Disaster' - 'Caught in Wreckage' - 'Sisters Killed' - 'Piteous Scenes' -
'Missing Man' - 'Wife and Daughter Lost' - 'Crushed to Pieces' - 'Heartrending
Scenes' - 'Great Confusion'.
The Sydney Morning
Herald reported that the bodies of eleven people had been recovered. Twenty-six
were reported missing and more than 50 had been injured and treated in
hospital. Special editions gave readers updated casualty lists and the latest
details.
The unenvious task
of recovering those who did not survive was undertaken by Harbour Trust divers
Thomas Carr and William Harris. The day after the accident they were lowered to
the wreck, lying in about twenty metres of water, and cut their way inside.
It was dangerous
work and only slender ropes and thin air lines attached them to a pontoon on
the surface. Carr and Harris worked in 2-hour shifts, supplied with air by four
men constantly employed in turning the wheels of the air pumps.
The two divers used
hacksaws to remove decking which was impeding their search or endangering their
safety. Occasionally, there were tense moments when large
portions of decking broke away and shot to the surface, threatening their
lines. It was distressing work, and considered one of the most terrible tasks
performed in connection to the tragedy.
That first day,
thirteen bodies were recovered. Amongst them were Surgeon Lieut.-Commander Paradice, Dr. Charles Reid, and architect Alfred Barker,
who were found in the smoking saloon. The body of high school teacher Reginald
Wright was recovered, and Mary Corby was found with her young daughter held
firmly in her arms. Three others were found with no obvious wounds; sadly they
had simply been pinned down by lengths of twisted metal.
Under drizzling rain
the bodies were brought to the surface and taken aboard the lighter Delilah.
Ferries passing the scene of the accident lowered their flags to half-mast.
Several days later,
Sydney’s Lord Mayor, Alderman John Mostyn, convened a
meeting at the Sydney Town Hall to open the ‘Greycliffe
Disaster Relief Fund’ for the relatives of the victims. He announced the
receipt of three donations to start the fund, £50 from Amelia Marshall of
Waverley, £1 1s from L. H. Gray of Moore Park Pharmacy, and £1 1s from Sydney
Boys’ High School student Frank Little.
Within days,
contributions to the relief fund had risen to £986 11s, helped by a £15
donation from the Japanese Club of Mosman. The honorary treasurer of the fund
was Edmund Horler, Town Clerk of Vaucluse, and father
of accident survivor, 14-year-old Ken Horler. Others
members of the committee were Aldermen A. Charles Samuel, George Hooper, and
Harry A. J. Abbott.
Meanwhile the
recovery of bodies continued. On 10 November, the body of Charles Garrett
floated to the surface with two other bodies when a part of the ferry’s hull
was moved during salvage work. The two others were identified as those of
11-year-old schoolboy, Bernard Landers, and 70-year-old retired gardener,
William Jones, who was identified by an electricity bill he carried.
The following day,
four more bodies were recovered when they, too, floated to the surface around
the wreck site. They were subsequently identified as dockyard workers William
Barry and Frank Hedges, the latter of whom had a handkerchief in his pocket
embossed with the initials ‘FH’, Prisons Medical Officer Doctor Robert
Lee-Brown, patron of the Moore Park Golf Club, and retired
Master Mariner Captain John Ragg, who was identified
by a receipt in his name which was found on him.
Later that same
afternoon, diver Harris located the body of 15-year-old schoolgirl Betty Sharp.
Moving into a part of the hull which had previously not been searched, he was
startled when the form of a young girl appeared out of the darkness. His light
revealed the pitiful figure standing upright with outstretched arms, her
clothes in shreds; one of her feet was caught in some twisted steel.
By that evening,
eight days since the accident, the death toll stood at 35, whilst five remained
listed as missing.
On Sunday, 13
November, another two bodies were found floating near the accident site. They
were recovered by the Water Police and delivered to the Morgue where they were
identified as 37-year-old dockyard worker John Carroll, who was found wearing
his Returned Serviceman’s Badge, and 56-year-old spinster Eliza Asher. The
search continued for the remaining three people assumed to have been on board.
In a letter to the
Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald on 17 November, survivor John Corby, who
lost both his wife and only child in the accident, wrote from his home near
Moree on behalf of himself, his parents and his parents-in-law. He expressed
his gratitude to the city of Sydney for it’s kindness, in particular that of
the Police Department and the Harbours and Rivers Department.
On 24 November,
another two bodies were located in the wreck, but only one of them could be
recovered and taken to the morgue. The well-decomposed body had spent three
weeks underwater and the pocket knife and coins found in it’s pockets offered
few clues to it’s identity. Some letters were also found but the ink had run
and they were no longer legible. Nonetheless, as only three people were still
listed as missing, the body was soon identified as that of 58-year-old Navy
Engineer Edwin Conner of Watsons Bay, who had boarded
Greycliffe at Garden Island. He was buried in
South Head Cemetery the following day.
The second body,
found wedged between wooden planks, could not be retrieved until a day later.
One of only two still listed as missing, the extraordinary amount of gold and
gem-encrusted jewellery found upon the body quickly confirmed it’s identity as
59-year-old German immigrant Eugen Wolff of Vaucluse.
He was buried at South Head Cemetery on Saturday, 26 November. Later that day,
in an unusual and unexpected twist, the remaining person on the list of the
missing turned up alive when he walked into the Water Police station and
assured police he was not on board.
Arthur Hardy was
believed to have been amongst Greycliffe’s
passengers as his attaché case and papers belonging to him were found floating
in the water amongst the wreckage of the ferry on 3 November.
He explained he had
in fact been on board when Greycliffe was
berthed at Circular Quay, awaiting a friend. However, when he failed to appear
before departure, Hardy jumped off again, just as the gangway was being hauled
aboard. In his haste, he left his attaché case behind, and naturally, when it
was found in the water after the accident, he was assumed to be amongst the
victims.
That same evening he
had left for the country and was completely unaware divers were searching for
his body. When he returned to Sydney on 26 November, he was surprised to hear
he was ‘missing’, and immediately reported to the Water Police to set the
record straight.
Police now believed
all the victims of the tragedy had been found, but nonetheless maintained
patrols in the area of the wreck site for a short time in case bodies of people
not reported as missing floated to the surface. Indeed no further bodies were
recovered and the official death toll was finally set at 40.
The victims of the
accident ranged widely in age; some were retired, some at the peak of their
careers, others in the prime of their youth. The communities of Vaucluse and Watsons Bay were devastated, whilst towns further a field
also grieved. Lives and perceptions changed forever and the effect on
individuals, families and their communities as a whole should not be
underestimated. Many a family lost their breadwinner and were forced to cope
with newfound financial difficulties.
Families mourned
their losses and suffered them in ensuing years. Though the physical wounds of
the injured healed with time, survivors carried emotional scars and relived the
nightmare of fighting for the surface as the ferry sank. In some cases, the
emotional strain also cost jobs.
In 1927, the ‘Greycliffe Disaster Relief Fund’ was set up to help them.
By the time it was wound up in March 1931, £6281 had been raised through
donations, complemented by an additional £536 earned in interest. Thirty-three
people received amounts of between £3 and £110 each to buy clothing or cover
funeral costs, whilst a further ten widows received assistance ranging from
£275 to £878, according to their circumstances and dependants.
Besides several
archived documents, a handful of photographs, and a short silent film clip held
by ScreenSound Australia, relics of the
tragedy are few.
Greycliffe’s engines were salvaged from the harbour
bed and sold to the Tirau Dairy Factory in New
Zealand. They were acquired by the Museum of Transport, Technology and Social
History (MOTAT) in Auckland in 1964, and are still there on display today.
The rest of the
vessel, however, was broken up and discarded. Over a two-week period in April
1928, Harbour Trust divers used explosives to destroy the ferry’s remains, her
funnel being one of the first things to be demolished.
In all, nine bravery
awards were presented by the Royal Shipwreck Relief and Humane Society for
rescues made by individuals during the accident. These included two Silver
Medals, three Bronze Medals and four Certificates of Merit. In 1928 and 1929
awards were made to four of Greycliffe’s passengers, one of Greycliffe’s
crew, one of Tahiti’s crew, one of Woollahra’s passengers, and
two Water Police Officers. In September 1928, Water Police Sergeant William
Shakespeare, who had recently died, was also commended posthumously for his
role in rescuing Greycliffe’s passengers.
In memory of the accident’s victims, the ‘Greycliffe Memorial Gates’ to St. Peter’s Church in Watsons Bay were unveiled by the Right Reverend Bishop D’Arcy Irvine on 11 May 1929. The original gates, made of timber, no longer exist, but plaques to their memory can still be seen today on either side of the entrance.
|
|
|
© Steve Brew |
In memory of the accident’s victims, the ‘Greycliffe Memorial Gates’ to St. Peter’s Church in Watsons Bay were unveiled by the Right Reverend Bishop D’Arcy Irvine on 11 May 1929. The original gates, made of timber, no longer exist, but plaques to their memory can still be seen today on either side of the entrance.
Police
Officers Involved in the Rescue.
DAY, George
Frederick, 48.
·
Police
Constable with the Water Police
·
Aboard
Police Launch Cambria, one of the first to attend the accident on 3
November 1927; recovered several survivors and bodies from the harbour
·
Statement
of evidence given at the Coronial Inquest on 10 January 1928, SRNSW 2/10498,
pages 122-124
·
Awarded
a Bronze Medal by the Royal Shipwreck Relief and Humane Society of N.S.W. in
September 1928 for his rescue efforts
LAVELLE, Anthony
·
Detective
Sergeant with the Water Police
·
Gave
evidence regarding the death of one of Greycliffe’s
initial survivors at the Coronial Inquest on 7 February 1928, SRNSW 2/10498,
page 695
MAGUIRE, Ernest
Norbert
·
Police
Constable with the Water Police
·
Aboard
Police Launch Cambria, one of the first to attend the accident on 3
November 1927; recovered several survivors and bodies from the harbour
·
Statement
of evidence given at the Coronial Inquest on 10 January 1928, SRNSW 2/10498,
pages 109-111
·
Awarded
a Bronze Medal by the Royal Shipwreck Relief and Humane Society of N.S.W. in
September 1928 for his rescue efforts
SHAKESPEARE,
William, Sergeant, 53
·
First
Class Police Sergeant, based at the Sydney Water Police Station
·
Harbour
and River Master, Certificate No. 876, issued N.S.W. 19 March 1904
·
Skipper
of the Water Police Launch Cambria; one of the first to attend the
accident on 3 November 1927; recovered several survivors and bodies from the
harbour
·
Front
page picture printed in the Daily Telegraph News Pictorial, 5 November 1927
·
Statement
of evidence given at the Coronial Inquest, SRNSW 2/10498, pages 7, 8 and 45
·
Joined
the Police Force in 1900; died 24 May 1928, though unrelated to the Tahiti-Greycliffe
Disaster
·
Posthumously
commended by the Royal Shipwreck Relief and Humane Society of N.S.W. in August
1928 for his rescue efforts
The above information was researched by Steve Brew from Sydney, and no doubt
has taken many hours of reading and digging through the NSW State Archives at
Kingswood, and studying the newspapers from the year of this disaster, please
bear in mind that every statement and every occurrence mentioned in the text is
factual and as it occurred.
The above is only a condensed version, Steve has a full manuscript,
which includes biographies of the victims, passengers and crews, now numbers
over 330 A4 pages.
UPDATE: 15 October
2003
After many years of
hard work, Steve Brew will launch his book on the 6 December 2003 at the Australian
National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour. The book is called 'Greycliffe; Stolen Lives" and is well worth reading.
"Greycliffe; Stolen Lives"
is available on the shelves of the Justice and Police Museum, Corner of Albert
and Phillip Streets, Sydney NSW 2000, Telephone 02-9252-1144. This book is
well worth reading and will give everyone a better understanding of what happened
on that fateful day in 1927 that became part of Australia's History.