Behind the photograph - John Hindley
This photograph of a twelve year old boy looks like a standard Victorian portrait of a young boy but if you look carefully you can see that there is something behind his eyes, an emotion that is easily missed. John’s family had just been killed in one of the worst shipwrecks of the nineteenth century.
John Hanley, who is often misidentified as Hindley (hence the title) has the unique distinction to be the only child to survive the wreck of the White Star Line’s SS Atlantic on the 1st April 1873 off Nova Scotia’s Golden Rule Rock. It was an event that would claim five hundred and thirty five people including all one hundred and fifty six women and one hundred and eighty eight children.
On 20th March 1873 the Atlantic left Liverpool on her latest route to America and amongst the Steerage passengers below decks was Patrick Hanley, his wife Mary Burke Hanley and his two sons Michael (17) and John (12) on their way to America to join their daughters Brigid and Mary who were residents of New Jersey.
I’m just going to give a brief overview of the Atlantic disaster - I fully intend on writing something about it at some point in greater detail but I’m just going to set the scene for the young John.
The Atlantic had changed course and was heading to Halifax, Nova Scotia, as Captain James Agnew Williams was led to believe the coal levels were too low by his Chief Engineer who had been trying to conserve the amount so the Captain wouldn’t waste it. As the voyage had continued Chief Engineer John Foxley had realised he was caught out in a lie but could not back down or face disciplinary action. Yes it would look bad on the White Star Lane that their vessel had had to redirect but on the other side it meant that they wouldn’t have run out of coal mid Ocean and have to rely on sail power. In Foxley’s defence the vessel had been caught in a storm and rough weather which slowed their progress.
In the darkness of the night of the 31st March the Atlantic was ploughing north when Captain Williams called it a night with strict orders to wake him in a few hours, an order that Second Officer Metcalffe did not carry out, he would also ignore the Quartermaster’s advice that he could not see the lighthouse at Sambeo Lighthouse and that they should heave to.
At 3:15 a.m. breakers were sighted and the vessel tried to take avoiding action but it was too late and she broke her back on the rock before partially capsizing. Chaos descended quickly as all of the lifeboats were washed into the rocks or hull killing the occupants. With the waves pounding the ship hard regularly and many who had managed to get up on to the deck were washed away. Some people managed to climb up into the rigging and hold on hoping for rescue but most died from exposure.
On land several local residents rushed to get boats out to try and help the people in the water whilst the Third Officer, Cornelius Brady and Quartermasters Speakman and Owens managed to erect ropes from the wreck to the shore to help the survivors try to get to safety.
John Hanley survived by one of those bizarre twists of fate.
Normally in the passenger liners the steerage passengers were separated by gender with single women at the aft end, married couples in the centre with young children and the single men in the fore. This was in the belief that the married families would form a barrier from inappropriate behaviour or mixing. However John begged his mother to go and sleep with his older brother rather in the midship.
This seems fairly inconsequential however as the ship foundered and began flooding below deck very few of the married couples or single women managed to get up to the deck. As the confusion and panic set down John was separated from his brother and was caught up in a crowd heading for the deck but they only reached the upper steerage decks where a pothole was smashed and people tried to escape through that. John was pushed through by one of the other men and Richard Reynolds, another passenger, took hold of him and pulled him out of the ship. John would never see his brother again.
Legend has it that Reverend William Ancient, the celebrated hero of the rescue efforts had personally saved John but this is not the case.
In the chaos that followed John, with the other survivors was spotted by a haberdasher, William Neal, in Halifax where he was given dry and fitting clothes. He was then taken for posed photographs at Wellington Chase and William O’Donell’s photographers with the prints sold to raise money for John from well meaning members of the public as an act of charity.
This was on the 4th April… three days after the twelve year old John had gone through the massive tragedy of losing his parents and brother in the worst seabourne disaster of the age. The shock and trauma that he was going through must have been immeasurable, especially that he was now in a strange country surrounded by strangers and was desperate to meet his family in the US. Contemporary Newspapers suggested that he seemed little affected by the loss but he was probably in deep shock and how do you react to this sort of traumatic event?
After finally being reunited with his sisters John was invited to join P. T. Barnums circus as a curiosity whilst White Star Line offered to adopt him and pay for his education before giving him a job which was turned down. According to “The Atlantic’s last stop” by Bob Chaulk John’s life continued to be a tragedy with him unable to escape the horror of that night. It is believed that he would later turn to alcholism and that he died at the age of thirty five after being stuck by a train at 10:00 p.m. on the 16th September 1897 with suggestions that it was an accident because he was walking along the track or that he may have been drunk or suicidal.