The Wreck of the «William Brown»: A True Tale of Overcrowded Lifeboats and Murder at Sea

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

The captain goes down with his ship. Save the women and children first.
These are just two clichés that walk the plank in this horrific tale of
shipwreck and murder in the Victorian era. To anyone familiar with the
Titanic disaster, the details sound strikingly familiar.

In 1841, a passenger ship named the William Brown struck an iceberg
while crossing the Atlantic. Because there were no laws regulating
passenger service at the time, there were not enough lifeboats for even
half the people on board. In the Titanic’s case, the captain and most
of the officers went down with their ship. In the case of the William
Brown, the captain and crew grabbed the only two lifeboats on board and
abandoned ship. Thirty-one passengers, 18 of them children, immediately
drowned as the ship sank but the horror did not end there. Of the two
lifeboats, only one was seaworthy. To ensure their own survival, the
crew of the faulty boat threw 14 more passengers overboard to die
ghastly deaths in the icy water.

In this book, author Tom Koch points out that had proper steps been
taken after the William Brown disaster in 1841, the massive death toll
from the Titanic 71 years later would have very likely been avoided.

Instead, Koch found strong evidence that there was a deliberate effort
by the authorities to absolve the captain, crew, and owners of the
William Brown of all blame. The business of ferrying paying passengers
across the Atlantic was just beginning to become lucrative, and a
powerful business lobby was able to shift the blame for 31 deaths and 14
murders onto one junior crewman—who, ironically, was the only sailor
to show courage and compassion for the passengers during the sinking. As
a result, no laws were passed to ensure passenger safety until after the
Titanic disaster more than 70 years later. This well-researched book
offers a refreshing new perception of the Victorian age that will
intrigue any history buff.