Paul has nicely explained the risks Captain Lord faced. Here's how things panned out.
LORD AND THE COURTS
As events unfolded, Captain Lord found himself in a peculiar legal situation. Some rather wild statements have been made his supposed lack of legal representation and Lord Mersey’s alleged condemnation of him. The court transcript reveals the facts.
On Tuesday 14 May, before Lord and other Californian crew appeared. The barrister Robertson Dunlop asked Mersey for permission to appear on their behalf.
“Will your Lordship allow me to appear on behalf of the Leyland Line - the owners, master and officers from the “Californian,” who are to be examined today?”
Mersey denied his request, permitting him only to observe proceedings.
“In the meantime, what you can do is to watch, and, if you find any attack is made upon your clients, then you can ask me to allow them to go into the box.”
However, after others had questioned Captain Lord, Dunlop rose to question him and Mersey made no objection. From that point on, Dunlop acted for Lord and others and questioned all the witnesses from Californian, though the transcripts from 17 May onwards only show him as watching proceedings.
“MR. C. ROBERTSON DUNLOP watched the proceedings on behalf of the owners and officers of the s.s. “Californian” (Leyland Line). (Admitted on application.) (17 May, day 10, onwards)”
Mersey allowed Dunlop a free rein, though he occasionally cautioned him against going over old ground and putting words into the witnesses’ mouths.
“You are falling into the error that the Attorney-General warned you not to fall into. You are putting the words into the man’s mouth. You might as well hand your proof to him and tell him to read it out.”
The transcript shows Dunlop had statements from the witnesses over and above those taken by the Board of Trade. Though somewhat rushed, he had time to consider his work.
On 28 June, Dunlop was allowed to sum up his defence of Lord. This he did at considerable length. In the process, he introduced most of the stock defence used by Lord’s apologists ever since. I named them “Dunlop‘s decoy ducks”. To quote myself-----
“Dunlop’s decoy ducks fall into four broad species: navigational evidence designed to show that Californian was at a great distance from Titanic throughout the sinking; the possibility of company signals having been seen; discrepancies in the accounts of lights seen from both ships and the claimed presence of other ships in the area of the disaster. For good measure, he attacked the credibility of Ernest Gill and Charles Groves, calling Groves’s story an example of ‘...imagination stimulated by vanity.' Rather carelessly, he attributed Gill’s story to the excitement of arriving in New York and meeting its newspaper reporters. Boston and New York are not readily confused.”
It is instructive to carefully read Mersey’s report with a lawyer’s eye. Whatever he said during the hearings, in the report he was careful not to condemn Lord by name. It is always “the Californian” that shoulda, coulda, woulda. We may speculate that Mersey was trying to leave the door open to a prosecution of Lord and/or Herbert Stone in a magistrate’s court. The Board of Trade soon considered this course. Again quoting myself----
“Mersey’s report was hot from the press when the Board of Trade began to consider the question of prosecuting him for failing to render assistance to Titanic. Sydney Buxton’s request for advice on the matter reached the desk of Sir Robert Ellis Cunliffe, solicitor to the Board of Trade, on 1 August. On the same day, Sir Robert wrote a brief note that summed up his objections to putting Lord on trial. It combined legalism with sympathy (and bad punctuation).
‘Captain Lord gave his version of what happened in the witness box here and in America, he might have taken the objection that he declined to reply lest he should incriminate himself; he did not do so & though the Wreck Commissioner did not accept his views explanations or excuses I would not advise a prosecution of Captain Lord under section 6 of the above Act [Maritime Conventions Act 1911] under the circumstances. I need hardly add that his punishment is already very great. Moreover he was in ice and stopped by the ice to a certain extent for I believe the 1st time.’”
On 10 August 1912, Lord took a curious step. He wrote to Sir Walter Howell, the head of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade. He told his version of events on the night of 14 April, deflected blame onto Herbert Stone and rather stretched the truth about his actions on the morning of 15 April. Another quotation-----
“Lord concluded with a curiously vague request. The Board of Trade was asked to ‘... do something to put [his] conduct on the night in question, in a more favourable light, to [his] employers and the general public.' What on earth did he want? A retraction from Lord Mersey? Should Sir Walter Howell issue a statement declaring Mersey wrong? Lord can hardly have expected Mersey’s court to reconvene and reconsider his case. Least of all could he have wanted to stand trial for his extra master’s certificate.”
More----
“Debate on action against Captain Lord continued until October. Captain Alfred Young [marine advisor to the Marine Department] expressed the opinion that he should have been tried for the 'gross misdemeanor' of neglecting to answer distress signals. He considered that that Sydney Buxton had treated Lord 'with very great consideration'. The Board of Trade's assistant solicitor, E Potter, advised his superiors that it was likely that a jury would not convict Lord of a 'gross act of misconduct' or find him unfit to hold his certificate through 'incompetence or misconduct' in terms of the Merchant Shipping Act. The matter was allowed to peter out, possibly because of the feeling that more public controversy would be unhelpful to the Board of Trade and the British merchant marine.”
Legally, Lord was in a bind. He had not been convicted of any offence, yet his reputation had been dragged through the mud on both sides of the Atlantic. Without a conviction, there could be no appeal to the courts. He and his supporters could only argue his case in the press.
One legitimate move seems not to have been considered. Lord may well have succeeded in libel actions. In his magazine, John Bull, Horatio Bottomley MP had written, among other slurs----
“Perhaps by this time you are heartily ashamed of yourself. Although you were called by the officer of the watch, by your apprentice Gibson, and through the speaking tube, and informed that a vessel was firing rockets of distress, you took no heed of the signal. No doubt it was a cold night, and it was not pleasant to turn out of a warm bed, to go on to the bridge, and drive through the ice, but surely you might have taken the trouble to instruct somebody to call up your Marconi operator, and get him to try and find out what was the matter, yet on your own evidence, you slept on, and largely through your action 1,500 fellow creatures have perished.”
The late William Stead’s paper, The Review of Reviews, had called Lord a “thousand-fold murderer”. However. Like Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and J “Brute” Ismay, Lord took no libel action. It may have been a matter of money, or just the way things were in 1912.
LORD AND THE COURTS
As events unfolded, Captain Lord found himself in a peculiar legal situation. Some rather wild statements have been made his supposed lack of legal representation and Lord Mersey’s alleged condemnation of him. The court transcript reveals the facts.
On Tuesday 14 May, before Lord and other Californian crew appeared. The barrister Robertson Dunlop asked Mersey for permission to appear on their behalf.
“Will your Lordship allow me to appear on behalf of the Leyland Line - the owners, master and officers from the “Californian,” who are to be examined today?”
Mersey denied his request, permitting him only to observe proceedings.
“In the meantime, what you can do is to watch, and, if you find any attack is made upon your clients, then you can ask me to allow them to go into the box.”
However, after others had questioned Captain Lord, Dunlop rose to question him and Mersey made no objection. From that point on, Dunlop acted for Lord and others and questioned all the witnesses from Californian, though the transcripts from 17 May onwards only show him as watching proceedings.
“MR. C. ROBERTSON DUNLOP watched the proceedings on behalf of the owners and officers of the s.s. “Californian” (Leyland Line). (Admitted on application.) (17 May, day 10, onwards)”
Mersey allowed Dunlop a free rein, though he occasionally cautioned him against going over old ground and putting words into the witnesses’ mouths.
“You are falling into the error that the Attorney-General warned you not to fall into. You are putting the words into the man’s mouth. You might as well hand your proof to him and tell him to read it out.”
The transcript shows Dunlop had statements from the witnesses over and above those taken by the Board of Trade. Though somewhat rushed, he had time to consider his work.
On 28 June, Dunlop was allowed to sum up his defence of Lord. This he did at considerable length. In the process, he introduced most of the stock defence used by Lord’s apologists ever since. I named them “Dunlop‘s decoy ducks”. To quote myself-----
“Dunlop’s decoy ducks fall into four broad species: navigational evidence designed to show that Californian was at a great distance from Titanic throughout the sinking; the possibility of company signals having been seen; discrepancies in the accounts of lights seen from both ships and the claimed presence of other ships in the area of the disaster. For good measure, he attacked the credibility of Ernest Gill and Charles Groves, calling Groves’s story an example of ‘...imagination stimulated by vanity.' Rather carelessly, he attributed Gill’s story to the excitement of arriving in New York and meeting its newspaper reporters. Boston and New York are not readily confused.”
It is instructive to carefully read Mersey’s report with a lawyer’s eye. Whatever he said during the hearings, in the report he was careful not to condemn Lord by name. It is always “the Californian” that shoulda, coulda, woulda. We may speculate that Mersey was trying to leave the door open to a prosecution of Lord and/or Herbert Stone in a magistrate’s court. The Board of Trade soon considered this course. Again quoting myself----
“Mersey’s report was hot from the press when the Board of Trade began to consider the question of prosecuting him for failing to render assistance to Titanic. Sydney Buxton’s request for advice on the matter reached the desk of Sir Robert Ellis Cunliffe, solicitor to the Board of Trade, on 1 August. On the same day, Sir Robert wrote a brief note that summed up his objections to putting Lord on trial. It combined legalism with sympathy (and bad punctuation).
‘Captain Lord gave his version of what happened in the witness box here and in America, he might have taken the objection that he declined to reply lest he should incriminate himself; he did not do so & though the Wreck Commissioner did not accept his views explanations or excuses I would not advise a prosecution of Captain Lord under section 6 of the above Act [Maritime Conventions Act 1911] under the circumstances. I need hardly add that his punishment is already very great. Moreover he was in ice and stopped by the ice to a certain extent for I believe the 1st time.’”
On 10 August 1912, Lord took a curious step. He wrote to Sir Walter Howell, the head of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade. He told his version of events on the night of 14 April, deflected blame onto Herbert Stone and rather stretched the truth about his actions on the morning of 15 April. Another quotation-----
“Lord concluded with a curiously vague request. The Board of Trade was asked to ‘... do something to put [his] conduct on the night in question, in a more favourable light, to [his] employers and the general public.' What on earth did he want? A retraction from Lord Mersey? Should Sir Walter Howell issue a statement declaring Mersey wrong? Lord can hardly have expected Mersey’s court to reconvene and reconsider his case. Least of all could he have wanted to stand trial for his extra master’s certificate.”
More----
“Debate on action against Captain Lord continued until October. Captain Alfred Young [marine advisor to the Marine Department] expressed the opinion that he should have been tried for the 'gross misdemeanor' of neglecting to answer distress signals. He considered that that Sydney Buxton had treated Lord 'with very great consideration'. The Board of Trade's assistant solicitor, E Potter, advised his superiors that it was likely that a jury would not convict Lord of a 'gross act of misconduct' or find him unfit to hold his certificate through 'incompetence or misconduct' in terms of the Merchant Shipping Act. The matter was allowed to peter out, possibly because of the feeling that more public controversy would be unhelpful to the Board of Trade and the British merchant marine.”
Legally, Lord was in a bind. He had not been convicted of any offence, yet his reputation had been dragged through the mud on both sides of the Atlantic. Without a conviction, there could be no appeal to the courts. He and his supporters could only argue his case in the press.
One legitimate move seems not to have been considered. Lord may well have succeeded in libel actions. In his magazine, John Bull, Horatio Bottomley MP had written, among other slurs----
“Perhaps by this time you are heartily ashamed of yourself. Although you were called by the officer of the watch, by your apprentice Gibson, and through the speaking tube, and informed that a vessel was firing rockets of distress, you took no heed of the signal. No doubt it was a cold night, and it was not pleasant to turn out of a warm bed, to go on to the bridge, and drive through the ice, but surely you might have taken the trouble to instruct somebody to call up your Marconi operator, and get him to try and find out what was the matter, yet on your own evidence, you slept on, and largely through your action 1,500 fellow creatures have perished.”
The late William Stead’s paper, The Review of Reviews, had called Lord a “thousand-fold murderer”. However. Like Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and J “Brute” Ismay, Lord took no libel action. It may have been a matter of money, or just the way things were in 1912.
