Birkenhead survivors

John Smith

PRIVATE JOHN SMITH  was a young man nineteen years of age aboard the Birkenhead serving in the 2nd Queen’s Royals afterwards the West Surrey Regiment.  A native of St. Ives, on returning there in after years of military service, was given the name of “Bushman” presumably because of his asso­ciation with the bush in South Africa.  He had enlisted in The Queen’s at Westminster in 1851 and was stationed in Ireland when the drafts were sent out early in the following year. This is his story of the wreck ….

  “I was asleep below when I was aroused by a tremendous crash. I at once realised that something serious was amiss, and calling to my mate, a Romford man, I told him I thought we must be ashore. We ran up on deck with the rest and afterwards I stood at the gangway and assisted to hand the women and children into the boat. The men all stood back until they had been got safely away but there was no ‘falling in’ on the deck. When the vessel went down I was in the long boat. There were about a hundred of us in it altogether but when the ship broke in two the falling funnel caught our boat and smashed it throwing us all into the water”.

He was in the water clinging to a raft for fourteen hours before finally drifting ashore.

Later he served  under Sir Harry Smith and Sir George Cathcart in the Kaffir War 1852-53 and returned to England in 1861 on the Belvedere.  He was employed by the Great Eastern Railway Company for 37 years.

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