Ship Of Death! The Mackay-Bennett: Titanic Recovery Ship

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The Mackay-Bennett, 1884-1965.

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Blog Created: 7-5-2025

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The Cable Ship Mackay-Bennett was a transatlantic cable-laying and cable-repair ship registered at Lloyd's of London as a Glasgow vessel but owned by the American Commercial Cable Company. She is notable for being the ship that recovered the majority of the bodies after the sinking of the Titanic.

Design and build ~

The ship was commissioned by the USA-based Commercial Cable Company from then noted River Clyde-based warship builders John Elder & Co. at their Fairfield Yards. The company incorporated a number of then new and original features into the cable ship. It was one of the first ships built from steel rather than iron, and she had a relatively deep keel design to both accommodate as much cable as possible and to keep the ship stable in the Atlantic Ocean swells. The design was also very hydrodynamic to keep her fuel efficient and fast in operation. The hull design included bilge keels to keep her stable, and she had two rudders, one fore and one aft, to maximize manoeuvrability.

Operations ~

Named for two founders of the Commercial Cable Company, John W. MacKay and James G. Bennett, she was launched late in 1884. Mainly based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she first arrived in March 1885, she was also often used for operations on the European side of the Atlantic, based out of Plymouth, England. The Canadian author Thomas Raddall worked as wireless operator aboard Mackay-Bennett and based some short stories on his experiences aboard.

In addition to carrying out numerous difficult cable repairs, many during times of wartime danger, due to the nature of her work and resultant position in the Atlantic, Mackay-Bennett performed many rescues. Typical was the rescue of the crew of the sinking schooner Caledonia on 12 February 1912.

Recovery of bodies ~

In April 1912, she was berthed at Halifax during a period of long-term work maintaining the France-to-Canada communications cable. Of the three ships in Halifax at that time only Mackay-Bennett had a hold capable of holding the 125 coffins and ice forming part of the exercise to recover bodies. The ship became notable as the main vessel contracted by the White Star Line to carry out the difficult task of recovering the bodies left floating in the North Atlantic, after the Titanic disaster. The task was further motivated by Vincent Astor's announcement of a $100,000 reward for the ship recovering the body of his father J. J. Astor. Her captain, Frederick H. Larnder, took on board a combination of specialists and an effective mobile mortuary. Both additional and specialized personnel and supplies were taken on board for the assignment. These included:

~ Canon Kenneth Cameron Hind of All Saints Cathedral, Halifax.

~ John R. Snow, Jr., the chief embalmer with the firm of John Snow & Co., the province of Nova Scotia's largest undertaking firm, hired by White Star to oversee the embalming arrangements.

~ Sufficient embalming supplies to handle 70 bodies.

~ 100 coffins.

~ 100 long tons (100 t) of ice, in which to store the recovered bodies.

Coffins stacked for Titanic victims.

The crew were paid double pay for the grisly task. There was a hierarchy to the mortuary details as the ship could never hope to bring all back: first class passengers were embalmed and placed in coffins; second-class were wrapped in linen winding sheets; third class passengers and crew member's bodies were weighted and buried at sea (116 in total, 60 of which were unidentified).

The ship left Halifax at 12:45 P.M. on Wednesday, 17 April 1912. Due to severe fog and rough seas it took the ship nearly four days to sail the 800 nautical miles (1,500 km; 920 mi) to the scene of the disaster. The captain instructed the ship's crew to keep their logbooks complete and up to date during the voyage and subsequent recovery operation, but only two logbooks are presently known to have survived: seven pages from the logbook of engineer Frederick A. Hamilton, now kept in the National Maritime Museum, England, and the personal diary of Clifford Crease, a 24-year-old Naval artificer (craftsman-in-training); much of the detailed account of the recovery operation is today traced to Crease's diary, now held in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia.

The ship arrived at the scene during the night, so recovery of bodies began at 06:00 on 20 April. CS Mackay-Bennett was anchored close to but not within the recovery area, using her sea anchor to stay with the drifting bodies and wreckage, and she offloaded her skiff lifeboats. Crews then rowed into the recovery area and manually recovered the bodies into the skiffs. After recovering as many bodies as they deemed safe for the return journey (51 corpses), the crews then rowed back to the CS Mackay-Bennett. The captain noted that there was neither sufficient space aboard to store all of the recovered bodies nor enough embalming supplies aboard. As the Canadian Government and associated burial and maritime laws directed that any bodies carried had to be embalmed before a ship enter a Canadian port, the captain agreed to a system whereby:

Mackay-Bennett crew taking a body from the ocean.

~ First-class passengers were embalmed, placed in coffins, and stored in the rear cable locker. These included the bodies of: John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man aboard, body No.124 recovered on 22 April, identified by his unique diamond finger ring and the initials sewn on the label of his jacket.

~ Architect Edward Austin Kent, body No.258.

~ Isidor Straus, owner of Macy's Department Store.

Second-class passengers were embalmed, wrapped in canvas, and stored in the forward cable locker.

Third-class passengers and crew were buried at sea, a total of 116 bodies. In October 2013, a photograph taken by Fourth officer R. D. "Westy" Legate came up for auction, which captured the Canon ministering over a ceremony of multiple burials at sea on board the ship.

Services were conducted for victims buried at sea.

The body of band leader Wallace Hartley, found fully dressed with his music case strapped to his body, was transferred to the Arabic and returned to England, where on 18 May he was buried in Keighley Road Cemetery, Colne, Lancashire.

The body of 19-month old Sidney Leslie Goodwin (known until 2008 only as "The Unknown Child"), a third-class passenger and the fourth body recovered, was saved by the crew and stored in the hold.

Sidney Leslie Goodwin.

At 19:00 on 23 April, CS Mackay-Bennett lay briefly alongside the Allan Shipping Line's Sardinian (en route to Saint John, New Brunswick), to collect additional canvas.

Just after midnight on 26 April, CS Mackay-Bennett rendezvoused with the Anglo-American Telegraph Company's CS Minia to get extra embalming supplies, before departing for Halifax at dawn that day.

After a seven-day recovery operation, the CS Mackay-Bennett had:

~ Recovered 306 of the 328 bodies found from among the 1,517 who perished aboard Titanic.

~ Buried 116 at sea, of which only 56 were identified.

~ Set sail for home with 190 bodies on board, almost twice as many as there were coffins available.

~ Arrived in Halifax on 30 April 1912, began unloading her cargo at 09:30, and transferred the bodies to the ice rink of the Mayflower Curling Club.

Hearses lined up on Halifax wharf to carry Titanic victims to funeral parlors Halifax Nova Scotia, Canada. 6 May 1912.

The crew split the $100,000 reward for Astor's body (around $2500 each). Using some of that money they paid for the burial of the body of the unknown child and his headstone monument - the casket was marked by a copper plaque reading "Our Babe". The entire ship's crew, together with the majority of the population of Halifax, attended the child's burial at Fairview Lawn Cemetery on 4 May 1912. With improved DNA testing, on 30 July 2007 Canadian researchers at Lakehead University announced that testing of the body's mitochondrial DNA had revealed that the child was 19-month-old Sidney Leslie Goodwin.

Sidney Goodwin's grave.

After his death in 1961, Clifford Crease's body was interred only a few steps away from the grave of "Our Babe", a site he had visited on every anniversary of the tragedy during his lifetime.

Mackay-Bennett Seamount, one of the Fogo Seamounts southeast of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic Ocean, is named after Mackay-Bennett for her involvement in the Titanic disaster.

Retirement and scrapping ~

The ship was retired in May 1922, anchored in Plymouth Sound to be used as a storage hulk. During The Blitz on England in World War II, she was sunk during a Nazi Germany Luftwaffe attack but later refloated. Her hull was finally scrapped in 1965.

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FROM:

Titanic crew member’s weathered skeleton key sells for $131K at auction ~

By Rebecca Lau, Global News. Posted September 27, 2023.

A key used aboard the Titanic that was recovered in the aftermath of the ship’s sinking has sold at auction for US $131,250, after being passed through four generations of a crew member’s family.

A key once owned by 1st class saloon steward Alfred Arnold Deeble, who died in the Titanic sinking, has fetched $131,250 US at auction. Provided-RR.

The weathered skeleton key with a brass plate inscribed with “PANTRYMAN” belonged to first-class saloon steward Alfred Arnold Deeble, and was found on his body.

Boston-based RR Auction sold the lot through online bidding that concluded this past weekend.

On April 14, 1912, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the cold Atlantic about 700 nautical miles from Nova Scotia, killing 1,497 of the 2,209 passengers and crew on board.

Deeble’s body was recovered by Halifax-based cable ship, the MacKay-Bennett, one of 337 bodies plucked from the Atlantic after the tragedy.

He was buried at Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, and part of the auction lot includes a 2011 photo of his great-niece, Linda Jo McNulty Davis, visiting his gravesite.

Alfred Deeble’s remains were recorded as body no. 270 and recovered by the MacKay-Bennett. Nova Scotia Archives.

The White Star Line wrote to Nova Scotia’s deputy provincial secretary to ask for Deeble’s effects on behalf of his sister. Nova Scotia Archives.

McNulty Davis’s grandmother, Lily Deeble, was instrumental in bringing the key home to her family.

Not only did she lose her brother Alfred in the sinking, but her fiancé John Herbert Strugnell — another Titanic steward — also perished.

“Any Titanic artifact with a well-documented lineage is of the utmost desirability. That this originates directly from the family who witnessed dual tragedies in the deaths of saloon stewards Alfred Arnold Deeble and John Herbert Strugnell makes it all the more poignant,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice-president with RR Auction, in a statement.

An express package from Nova Scotia ~

Deeble, was born in Clerkenwell, London in 1877, had served in the Royal Navy and had a career as a singer.

In 1912, he was employed by the White Star Line and was on Titanic’s maiden voyage.

Documents on the Nova Scotia Archives’ RMS Titanic Resource Guide tell the story of Deeble’s key — and his sister Lily’s efforts to get it back.

On a piece of yellowed paper documenting his death, Deeble was marked as body no. 270. Initially, he’s unidentified and listed as wearing black pants, a white coat with buttons and a green raincoat.

His effects include a gold watch, a gold ring, and “one bunch keys.”

In pencil, someone later notes the keys say “Pantryman” and “Chief Storekeeper,” but Deeble’s name appears to be misspelled as they try to identify him.

Months later, a letter from White Star Line to Nova Scotia’s deputy provincial secretary, Frederick F. Mathers, on Oct. 4, 1912, asks for his belongings.

“Our Southampton Office has received a request from both the Board of Trade and the sister of this member of the crew for the effects found on the body,” the message begins.

“They ask us if we will place the matter before you, so we ask you to kindly give the case your consideration.”

On Oct. 8, 1912, Mathers wrote White Star Line back to say he had indeed sent the items, which he valued to be $30.

“The effects in this case are of little value, and I am therefore sending you today by express a package containing these effects,” he wrote.

From then on, the key remained in the family and was first passed down from Lily to her daughter, according to RR Auction.

The auction house called the artifact “remarkable” and said it now “transitions into a new chapter of its storied journey.”

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An original photograph of the Mackay-Bennett dated April 22, 1912. This picture was used by various news agencies to report that it had left the home port of Halifax with coffins and embalming supplies in an effort to locate bodies. The report states in part, "When she returns from her search she will land the bodies of the dead in Halifax and they will be shipped hence to New York."

CS Mackay-Bennett in Dry Dock at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

An original cabinet photo showing the officers of the Mackay-Bennett. The cable ship Mackay-Bennett found most of the recovered bodies; retrieving over 300 bodies that perished aboard Titanic. Mackay-Bennett found so many victims that embalming supplies ran out, forcing Captain Frederick Larnder to bury 116 bodies (mostly 3rd class) at sea.