The Commision of Inquiry into Casualty to British Steamship “Empress of Ireland” commenced in a Quebec courtroom on June 16, 1914. Presiding was John Bingham, first Viscount Mersey, a retired jurist who was just two years removed from his role heading the British Board of Trade’s inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Presumably it was this experience that caused John Douglas Hazen, the Canadian minister of marine and fisheries, to summon Lord Mersey from England. Rounding out the commission were two Canadian justices, Sir Adolphe Basile Routhier and the Honorable Ezekiel McLeod.
Together the three men faced the unenviable task of sorting out the testimonies of over sixty witnesses—none of whom seemed to offer matching stories. Not only were Captain Kendall of the Empress and Captain Andersen of the Storstad both equally adamant that the other was to blame for the accident, but many times witnesses from the same ship offered contradictory testimony. Hence different crewmen from the Empress estimated that the ship had stayed motionless anywhere from several seconds to almost ten minutes.
As the inquiry progressed it became apparent that, at best, incorrect recollections had solidified in the minds of the witnesses, or, at worst, some were knowingly lying and could not be shaken from their statements. Like Occam’s razor, the three commissioners sought a way to cut through the complicated issues at hand. They realized that the central question was: which ship had changed its course prior to the collision? If they could answer this question, they would be able to assess blame.
Of course, even such a straightforward question as this was not easy to answer. Captain Kendall testified that he first spotted the Storstad at a distance of six miles. From his vantage point, it was clear that the ships would pass each other on their starboard sides. After a fogbank rolled in and reduced visibility, Kendall ordered the engines full speed astern. Suddenly out of the fogbank, the Storstad appeared headed directly at the Empress at a right angle.
On the other side, Chief Officer Toftenes told a very different story. He also saw the Empress at a distance of several miles. It seemed obvious to him that the two ships would pass port to port and not starboard to starboard as Kendall had testified. Toftenes slowed the Storstad and called Captain Andersen to the bridge. When he arrived the captain saw the lights of the other vessel cross their path. He immediately ordered full speed astern, but it was too late.
Faced with such different stories, there was nothing left to do but choose one. The commission reasoned that since the Empress had already steadied up for her voyage out to sea, it was unlikely that she would have been the turning ship. Therefore the Storstad, and specifically Chief Officer Toftenes, was to blame. Captain Andersen was so inflamed by this verdict that he swore to sue the commissioners, though he never did.
His was not an outrageous response. There was very little in the way of direct physical evidence, and, in fact, a later Norwegian inquiry would come to the opposite conclusion, blaming Kendall for not passing port to port as would be customary.
Throughout 1914 divers descended to the wreck, bringing up silver, mailbags, and, most importantly, the bodies of the dead. Finally, on August 20, they completed their work by saving the purser’s safe. They had to blow a large hole in the side of the ship to get it out.
Captain Henry George Kendall continued to lead a life of adventure. Seemingly shuffled off to a desk job in Antwerp, he was soon presented with another challenge as the German invasion of Belgium caused the British embassy to be flooded with refugees. Kendall packed the refugees onto the only two ships available: an old command of his, the Montrose, and the Montreal, an aged steamer whose engines were not working. Once the refugees were loaded on the two ships, Kendall assumed command of the Montrose and used it to tow the Montreal back to London.
As a reward for his heroism, Kendall was assigned as second in command of the Calgarian. He spent the war crossing the ocean on this liner until it was sunk by a U-boat on March 1, 1918. Kendall was picked up by a trawler and survived.
When he died in 1965 his obituary in the Times of London never mentioned the Empress of Ireland. Instead, the focus was on another remarkable event in his maritime career.
In 1908 Kendall was in command of the Montrose crossing from Antwerp to Quebec when he recognized one of his passengers as the notorious fugitive murderer Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. The captain took the unprecedented step of alerting authorities by wireless telegram. The chief inspector in charge of the case raced across the ocean in a faster ship and was waiting for Crippen in Canada. This was the first time that a criminal had ever been captured through the use of this new communication technology.
Captain Andersen remained in command of the Storstad until she also was sunk by a U-boat March 8, 1917. Andersen and all but four of his crew survived.
Every year, on a Sunday in May, the Salvation Army in Toronto holds a remembrance ceremony for the 159 Army members who died in the Empress of Ireland tragedy. One of the youngest survivors was seven-year-old Grace Hanagan. Both of her parents were Salvation Army members who drowned and Grace ultimately became the last living survivor of the tragedy until her passing on May 15, 1995.
Today the Empress of Ireland lies forty meters under the St. Lawrence River with the great gash in her starboard side buried in the silty bottom. The elegant liner is destined to remain there for eternity with the secret of her death never truly answered.