1910: Lauderdale Betrayed by Government

June 28, 2022

By AHNZ

Today in history, 28 June, 1910, the SS Lauderdale was evacuated on the Blaketown Beach, Greymouth. It had spent the previous day failing to cross the bar into the Grey River and deciding to call it quits.

Remains of the wreck were still there when I visited today at low tide and will be for another hundred years to come.

The government’s Harbor Master instructed the steamship to go ahead to its doom. Despite taxing shipping to supply a rescue tugboat the government didn’t keep it ready for use. When minutes count the government is hours away…

“The captain made repeated requests, for assistance, but when there was no appearance of a tug from Greymouth, ho decided to anchor the Lauderdale in a safe position, and as close to the shore as possible. About noon Captain Clark was advised that no assistance could be given,..” – Otago Daily Times (1931;) Papers Past

“Captain Clark…took the signals rightly and when the mishap occurred, did the correct thing. If the tug had been available, the steamer would have been saved. Greymouth was about the only port in the Dominion of any importance that did not keep the fires banked on the tug. It was incredible to think that a vessel which had received the signals
of bar workable at 12.30 and met with a mishap could not be rendered assistance from a port that kept a tug…useless.” –

“If a tug had come in reasonable time, the vessel would have been saved, as she could have been taken up the river and beached at Cobden. Up to two hours after the witness signaled for the tug, the vessel could have entered the river”

“He did not think that the harbour officers were justified in giving the signal to take the bar when the vessel was drawing thirteen feet.”

““We are also of opinion,” says the judgement, “that could the tug have been got in readiness within half an hour’s notice the Lauderdale might have been brought safely into port, and the court emphasizes the fact that in view of many accidents which have happened at the port in recent years, it is in their opinion imperative, in the interest of shipping and the public generally, that a fireman should be kept on board the tug night and day so that she might be got in readiness at short notice.”” – quoted in Kokshoorn (2011)

“The harbor master stated that the [Hawea] wreck was a nuisance to the port, and it was resolved that the Union Company be informed that the Board can offer no advice in the matter, as the Hawea is an obstruction, and must be removed.” – Evening Star (1909;) Papers Past

The captain was exonerated and saved everyone’s lives, his own last, at the cost of the ship.

It seems pretty clear from the historical records that government was to blame. It was The State, in the form of the Harbour Master for the Port of Greymouth, that took responsibility and taxation payment for keeping the entry safe. The instruction to proceed was foolish and deadly. Secondly, the Port also taxed shipping to pay for a rescue tugboat that was useless. Certainly it cannot be argued that Greymouth, of all ports, couldn’t get its hands on a plentiful supply of coal to run a steam tugboat in 1910!

As in the case of the Mikhail Lermontov, the government had led another ship to its doom.

What did the Lauderdale in was that it smacked into a submerged object in the Grey bar. This was in all probability the wreck of the SS Hawea that had been wrecked under the instruction of the same port authority on 30 October 1908 (which they also got away with.) Despite identifying the wreck as an ‘obstruction’ and a ‘nuisance to the port’ it was apparently left lying in wait 2 years later.

This is government failure. Or, perhaps a deliberate attempt to sabotage the Port of Greymouth by driving away shipping traffic to other ports and to the rapidly expanding railway?

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Image ref. LAUDERDALE–27 JUNE 1910, The Golden Grey: West Coasters 1860-2010, Kokshoorn (2011)
Image ref. Lauderdale wreck, AHNZ Archives (28 June 2022)
Image ref. SS Hawea foundering on the Grey Bar, 1908

Note: In 1908 there was good reason to think the Otira Tunnel would soon be finished which would complete the final rail link between the West Coast and the rest of New Zealand. The major competition to great wealth streaming through this expensive government railway line was the Port of Greymouth. So there would be much to gain in sabotaging the port by ‘accidentally’ and ‘incompetently’ blockading it with shipwrecks. After Hawea and Launderdale all international and coastal shippers must have thought twice about wanting to risk their capital and their men visiting such a death trap. Well, perhaps that was the plan?

Note: There is a government information panel a little south of the wreck. Being State history it doesn’t implicate government failure. Perhaps it should say something like ‘Go tell to Sparta, thou who passest by, that here, obedient to her laws, we lie.’ Or, ‘Go tell the government, thou who passest by this wreck, that here, obedient to her stupid laws she rusts.’

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