Defending Captain Lord: A Titanic Myth (Part Two)

In 1912 Captain Stanley Lord was officially blamed by both the British and United States inquiries into the loss of the White Star liner Titanic for failing to rescue the 1,500 people who died when the ship sank after colliding with an iceberg. Nearly fifty years later the release of A Night to Remember prompted renewed public interest in the disaster, and led Captain Lord to seek the help of the Mercantile Marine Service Association in protecting his reputation.

Leslie Harrison as General Secretary of the MMSA took on responsibility for his defence, setting out to prove that it was a series of coincidences which brought about Lord’s unwitting involvement in the disaster.

Defending Captain Lord is a powerful sequel to A Titanic Myth, containing a wealth of new background information to the case.
Included is an account of an extraordinary confrontation between Leslie Harrison as Captain Lord’s advocate and the formidable Captain Sir Ivan Thompson, in 1961 President of the MMSA, who for personal reasons was determined to put an end to the Association’s support for Captain Lord.

The book leads up to a critical analysis of The Ship that Stood Still (1993), undoubtedly the most exhaustive attack on Captain Lord yet published. In it, Sir Ivan Thompson is relied upon as a witness to Captain Lord’s alleged blameworthiness, but Harrison
convincingly demonstrates the unreliability of his ‘evidence’, and that of many others.

Also included are some reflections on the conduct of the British Inquiry of 1912, which officially condemned Captain Lord while
denying him effective legal representation or the right of appeal against their verdict. After over eighty years, this still remains an internationally controversial topic dividing Captain Lord’s supporters and critics.