Famous Events - The SS Politician Sinks
Iain Lundy, Editor

Editor's Note: From this edition of the newsletter onwards, we’ll be taking a look at a story or event that happened in Scotland on that particular month.

Kicking off the series is the remarkable tale of the SS Politician which sank off the west coast with a cargo of whisky and inspired a book and a Hollywood movie. The following account appeared in the Scotchwhisky.com magazine.

On the morning of 5 February 1941, the SS Politician was heading north past the Outer Hebrides, having cast off from Liverpool two days earlier. Its final destinations? Kingston, Jamaica, and New Orleans.

After passing the Isle of Man, the weather had worsened, the winds had risen to gale force and the ship’s Captain, Beaconsfield Worthington, changed course as a result. This was an unwanted distraction and difficulty for a crew anticipating a winter crossing of a U-Boat-infested Atlantic.

Then things got considerably worse. As the winds drove SS Politician further off-course, at 7.40am a lookout glimpsed land; in desperation, the ship swung away, only to founder on the unseen sandbanks off Rosinish Point on the Isle of Eriskay.

Events moved quickly after that. The ship’s fuel tanks were ruptured, and its engines gave up minutes later, leaving the crew to await rescue – and salvage of their cargo. To the locals, beset by the privations of war and rationing, this was too good an opportunity to miss. Unofficial local ‘salvage parties’ began to form, with the men even donning their wives’ old dresses to prevent their own clothes becoming stained by incriminating ship’s oil.

The SS Politician was carrying all manner of trade goods, from cotton to medicines to biscuits, but the ship is best remembered for the contents of Hold Number 5: some 264,000 bottles of Scotch whisky.

People came from as far afield as Lewis and, according to reports at the time, few if any regarded what they were doing as stealing; the foundering of the ship made its cargo theirs to save under the ‘rules of salvage’.

The authorities, however, did not share this view, not least because the whisky was destined for the United States – and so no duty had been paid on it. There followed a second, attempted, land-borne salvage operation, with the police raiding villages and crofts in an effort to recover the liquid cargo – and the locals secreting their ill-gotten gains wherever they could. Or else they just drank them.

Some, however, ended up in court, with a few even serving short jail sentences, but many of the estimated 24,000 bottles of whisky ‘salvaged’ from the wreck by the islanders were never seen again.

As official salvage operations were called off, the ship’s hull was dynamited to destroy any further temptation to explore its contents; but the odd bottle was still washed up on nearby beaches, and a local diver found eight bottles of whisky in the wreck as recently as 1987. Two of these were sold for just over £12,000 by Scotch Whisky Auctions in 2013. So far, so familiar. It’s an obviously romantic tale, and one which inspired the 1947 book Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie and the 1949 film of the same name directed by Alexander Mackendrick and one of the most enduring and loved of the Ealing comedies (bizarrely retitled Tight Little Island in the US).

How much of the whisky was taken by the sea, and how much fell prey to the impromptu salvage operations mounted by the locals of Eriskay, Barra, North and South Uist, and Lewis? We will almost certainly never know.

Five other February dates:

• 2 February 1782 - Birth of James Chalmers in Arbroath. He went on to devise the adhesive postage stamp.
• 5 February 1723 - John Gifford, who later signed the US Declaration of Independence, was born in Gifford, East Lothian.
• 8 February 1587 - Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle.
• 11 February 1895 - Scotland’s coldest temperature recorded, -27.2C at Braemar.
• 17 February 1540 - A law was passed by King James V which recognised Scotland’s gypsies.

Around 65 Society members and guests enjoyed a hugely successful Burns Supper on Saturday 29 January in the side room of Fibber Magee’s Irish bar in Chandler. As befits a traditional Burns Night, there was a great deal of merriment and laughter.

There were speeches and toasts in celebration of the Scottish Bard and, by all accounts, healthy sales of whisky and other beverages. Exactly the way a good Burns Supper should be.

The gathering was well entertained by piper Neil Bacon, who kept our toes tapping with a string of good stirring Scottish tunes. Scotsman Robert Nee, who had traveled from Idaho, gave the traditional Address to the Haggis.

Ian Warrander delivered a thoughtful and witty Immortal Memory to Burns; and the comedy turns of the evening were Tim Wallace with his Toast to the Lasses; and his wife Sue with her Reply on Behalf of the Lasses. All our contributors were excellent.

So, Burns was well and truly toasted in the Valley. A good start to the Society’s 2022 event calendar.