An Ocean Tragedy

William Clark Russell (24 February 1844 - 8 November 1911) was an English writer best known for his nautical novels. At the age of 13 Russell joined the United Kingdom's Merchant Navy, serving for eight years. The hardships of life at sea damaged his health permanently, but provided him with material for a career as a writer. He wrote short stories, press articles, historical essays, biographies and a book of verse, but was known best for his novels, most of which were about life at sea. He maintained a simultaneous career as a journalist, principally as a columnist on nautical subjects for The Daily Telegraph. Russell campaigned for better conditions for merchant seamen, and his work influenced reforms approved by Parliament to prevent unscrupulous ship-owners from exploiting their crews. His influence in this respect was acknowledged by the future King George V. Among Russell's contemporary admirers were Herman Melville, Algernon Swinburne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. LifeEarly yearsWilliam Clark Russell was born in New York in the Carlton House Hotel, Broadway, one of four sons of the English composer Henry Russell and his first wife, Isabella Lloyd (1811?-1887). It was from Isabella, "who was a relative of the poet William Wordsworth" and writer herself, that Russell inherited his love for literature and talent as a wordsmith. Additionally, he was the half-brother of the impresario Henry Russell and the conductor Sir Landon Ronald. A letter in the collection of Robert Lee Wolff provides a scalding vindication of Russell's father, stemming from his father's abandonment of his family. If you know who my father is, I shall feel obliged by your not saying so. Enough if I hint at the degradation of a second marriage, at the imposition of a ready-made family of active and talkative youth to explain why I wish that you will be absolutely silent on the subject of my paternal parentageWilliam Russell was never able to forgive his father for his second marriage and his abandonment of his initial family to raise a new one with his second wife. Russell continued this long held resentment against his father and his new family until his father's death in 1900. Not only did he avoid attending the funeral, but he also never acknowledged his half brothers. He was educated at private schools in Britain (Winchester) and France (Boulogne). At the latter, together with a school friend, a son of Charles Dickens, he planned to quit school to travel in Africa. A letter from Dickens dissuaded the boys, but Russell continued to crave a life of adventure. At the age of 13, Russell left school and joined the United Kingdom's Merchant Navy as an apprentice on the Duncan Dunbar. In 1894 he recollected: My first ship was a well-known Australian liner, the Duncan Dunbar. ... I went to sea as a midshipman, as it is termed, though I never could persuade myself that a lad in the Merchant Service, no matter how heavy might be the premium his friends paid for him, has a right to a title of grade or rating that belongs essentially and peculiarly to the Royal Navy. I signed for a shilling a month, and with the rest of us (there were ten) was called young gentleman; but we were put to work which an able seaman would have been within his rights in refusing, as being what is called boys' duty. I need not be particular. Enough that the discipline was as rough as though we had been lads in the forecastle, with a huge boatswain and brutal boatswain's mates to look after us. We paid ten guineas each as a contribution to some imagination of a stock of eatables for the midshipmen's berth; but my memory carries no more than a few tins of preserved potatoes, a great number of bottles of pickles, and a cask of exceedingly moist sugar. Therefore, we were thrown upon the ship's provisions, and I very soon became intimately acquainted with the quality and nature of the stores served out to forecastle hands....