The Story of How “Women and Children First” Came to Be

00:00:10
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people, and we love your story. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. They’re some of our favorites. Our next story comes to us from a man who’s simply known as The History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy is also a regular contributor for us here at Our American Stories. Today, The History Guy remembers the Birkenhead disaster and explains where the protocol ‘women and children first’ was first used.

00:00:53
Speaker 2: Hopefully, you’ve never been in a shipwreck before, but if you did, you know the first rule of loading the lifeboats: ‘children first.’ But did you ever wonder where this protocol came from? Well, that’s a great question for The History Guy, and so today we’re going to talk about an extraordinary story of bravery in the face of horrible circumstances: the Birkenhead Disaster of 1852. The Birkenhead was an iron-hulled, steam-driven, paddle-wheeled troopship of the British Army, launched in 1845. She was a modern vessel—larger, more comfortable, and faster than the typical wooden, sail-powered troop ships of her time. She had a top speed of ten knots, able to make the trip from Britain to the Cape in just thirty-seven days. She was safe, too. Her iron hull included twelve airtight compartments separated by strong bulkheads, two hundred ten feet long with a thirty-seven-foot beam. She had a crew complement of one hundred twenty-five and room for more than five hundred passengers. In January of 1852, the Birkenhead left Portsmouth with troops from ten different regiments on board, headed for South Africa, where the troops were desperately needed as reinforcements in one of the many South African border wars. She had several women and children on board, families of the officers. On the trip, three babies were born. She sailed through a strong Atlantic windstorm, and yet her passage was the fastest of any troopship to date—the urgency of getting reinforcements to the frontier. On February twenty-third, she left Simonstown at about 6:00 p.m., headed for Algoa Bay and Port Elizabeth around the Cape. She had some six hundred forty-three men, women, and children on board. She was in a hurry, so she hugged the coast and steamed at full speed in calm seas and clear skies. She was making eight and a half knots. Shortly before 2:00 a.m., the Birkenhead struck a submerged rock off, aptly named Danger Point, near Gansbaai, South Africa. Ironically, the barely submerged rock was easily visible in rough seas but not readily apparent in calm conditions. Ensign G. A. Lucas of the Seventy-fourth Foot, just twenty years old at the time, later wrote, “I was awakened by three distinct shocks. I stood up immediately. It struck me that we were stuck on a rock. There was a gash in the hull. Seawater rushed in.” At least one hundred soldiers were immediately drowned, trapped sleeping in their bunks. Ship Captain Robert Salmon rushed on deck, shouting orders in a clear and firm voice. He ordered the lifeboats on the quarterdeck lowered. The women and children were placed in the ship’s cutter, a small boat. The distress rockets were fired, but there were no vessels nearby to see. Sixty men were detailed to go below and operate the chain pumps to pump water out of the hull, and sixty more were meant to man the tackle on the two large lifeboats, each able to carry one hundred and fifty people. But when they pulled on the tackle to lift the lifeboats, the ropes broke. The equipment hadn’t been maintained; the ropes were rotten, and the one hundred fifty-person boats were so heavy they could not be lifted on their own. Because of the tilt, several other lifeboats couldn’t be lowered, and the Birkenhead only had three operable lifeboats—the cutter and two other small boats—not nearly enough for everyone on board. The ranking officer on board, Lieutenant Colonel Seaton of the Seventy-fourth Foot, arranged the remaining soldiers to stand in ranks on the poop deck, using their weight to lift the bow of the ship. In the pitch-black emergency, the men maintained their discipline. Captain Salmon ordered the engines in reverse, thinking he could pull off the rocks. It was a mistake. She struck again on the stern and tore another gash. It flooded the engine room and killed the boilers. The men sent below to man the pumps were instantly drowned. As the ship broke in half, Salmon ordered the horses thrown overboard in the hopes that they could swim for shore. Eight of the nine made it. Then Salmon gave a final order. “All the men who could swim should jump off and swim for the lifeboats!” But that’s where the story takes its extraordinary turn. Colonel Seaton realized that all the men swimming were way too much for the small lifeboats at sea, and so he shouted to his men, “The cutter with the women and children—it will be swamped! I implore you not to do this thing! I ask that you stand fast!” And so they did. They stood bravely at attention as the ship broke up around them in what became known as the Birkenhead Drill. One of the few officers to survive the disaster, Captain Edward Wright of the Ninety-first Regiment, wrote of that moment, “Everyone did as was directed, and there was not a murmur or cry among them. All received their orders and carried them out as if they were embarking instead of going to the bottom.” Rudyard Kipling immortalized the moment in his poem, “Soldier and Sailor Too.” “But to stand and hold still to the Birkenhead drill is a damned tough bullet to chew.” “But they did it, the Jollies, Her Majesty’s Jollies—Soldier and Sailor Too!” The Birkenhead sank within twenty-five minutes of striking the first rock. Many were sucked down with the ship, and many more were horribly taken by the great white sharks, which are prolific off Danger Point. The next day, the schooner Lioness discovered the cutter with the women and children and rescued everyone who had been in the lifeboats. They returned to the scene of the wreck and found forty more survivors still clinging to the wreckage. About another one hundred had managed to make it to shore. Out of six hundred thirty-eight on the Birkenhead, one hundred ninety-three survived, including all of the women and children. The conduct of the soldiers aboard the Birkenhead became known as a model for discipline and self-sacrifice. It so impressed the Emperor of Prussia, Frederick William IV, that he had an account of the conduct aboard the Birkenhead read out to every regiment in his army. There are several monuments to the victims of the Birkenhead, both in England and in South Africa, and the people of Gansbaai, South Africa, still hold a memorial every year—a memorial to remember people who deserve to be remembered because of their sacrifice for others.

00:07:09
Speaker 1: And a terrific job, as always, by our own Greg Hengler on the production and editing, and a special thanks, as always, to The History Guy. The story of where the protocol ‘women and children first’ was first used here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I’m inviting you to help Our American Stories celebrate this country’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday, coming soon. If you want to help inspire countless others to love America like we do and want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories told here about a good and beautiful country, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Our American Stories. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the ‘Donate’ button. Any amount helps. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give.