The Boiled Barman of the Berengaria

There was a particularly gruesome accident that took place aboard Cunard's Berengaria that claimed the life of one extremely unlucky barman.

Commodore Robert G. Thelwell describes what happened in his 1961 autobiography, I Captained the Big Ships:

The barman had a passion for turkish baths, but the ship's turkish baths were, of course, strictly out of bounds to all members of the crew. That did not unduly worry the barman, however. In some way, he discovered the hiding place of the key and so was able to use the baths late at night at the end of his duty. Alone in the scalding steam-room one night, the barman collapsed, and the attendant next morning discovered what was more like a piece of boiled pork than the corpse of a barman.

Staff Captain C.M. Wray (nicknamed X-ray by the crew) felt responsible for what had happened. He felt that he should have done a better job at hiding the key, and so he started sleeping with it under his pillow for good measure.

What is particularly interesting about this is that it is not an isolated incident. The Queen Mary's log notes how in 1936 - shortly after her maiden voyage - a barman was found similarly boiled to death inside the Cabin Class Turkish baths.

References: Commodore Robert G. Thelwell, I Captained the Big Ships (London: Arthur Barker Limited, 1961), 55.

"They always said I would never make a steward."

Captain W.R.D. Irvine commanded the RMS Berengaria for much of the 1920s and was definitely a mariner of the highest quality. He also holds, however, the distinction of being perhaps one of the most peculiarly eccentric men to have ever commanded a Cunard ship. Commodore Robert G. Thelwell described him as one "who would accept no criticism, even implied, of anything that happened on any ship he commanded." This in itself is not too odd. Many others have certainly felt the same way about their vessels over the years - particularly of the great liners. But Commodore Thelwell then elaborates and explains why the nickname "Haughty Bill" stuck to Captain Irvine like glue:

[He] cared as little for the rank-and-file as he did for shipowners, managers and passengers. Pickets with sticks at Southampton determined once to prevent Berengaria from sailing because of a strike. Irvine drove to the dock gates in a taxi which was immediately surrounded by a milling crowd of men, their eyes full of menace. The captain alighted and surveyed the jostling throne with something like contempt. 'Stand back,' he shouted suddenly. 'You don't seem to realize that I am the captain of the Berengaria.' I doubt whether such tactics would be successful to-day but they were then. The pickets fell back and Haughty Bill was able to board his ship unmolested.

Commodore Thelwell then adds:

Passengers, too, sometimes caught of whiff of his contempt for the world at large. A short-sighted American woman passenger saw the erect uniformed figure of Haughty Bill on the promenade and unpardonably imagining him to be a steward ordered him to take her tea tray away. He was a man of the quickest possible reactions. He took the tray and dropped it deliberately a yard away from the passenger. 'They always said I would never make a steward,' he remarked as he strode away.

Many years later after Captain Irvine's retirement, the future Commodore Thelwell was looking through the Berengaria's chart room and came across an order book that bore his signature. The style of the writing "reminded [him] vividly of [Haughty Bill's] jutting chin and imperious manner." References: Commodore Robert G. Thelwell, I Captained the Big Ships, comp. Robert Jackson (London: Arthur Barker Limited, 1961), 56-57.