Page 176 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Story of the C.W.S.
passenger or member of the crew has been lost. The worst disaster
was the sinking of the Unity (the first steamer of that name) in
October, 1895. While under navigation in the estuary of the Seine,
proceeding up stream, she was run into by a larger boat, outward
bound to Bilboa—the Eclipse of Hartlepool. On that occasion the
first mate had a narrow escape. It was two o'clock in the morning,
and he was in his bunk, when the crash startled him to life. He
tumbled out, with a bleeding face, and at the same moment the bed
upon which he had been lying slipped into the sea. A huge slice
from amidships of the Unity to her stern literally was cut away.
The entire crew escaped in the ship's boats to Harfleur, while the
Unity settled down, the fore part cocked up on a sandbank, which
afterwards engulfed her. This total eclipse and violation of Unity
was duly paid for by the owners of the oncoming boat, who admitted
their liability. Besides this disaster, the C.W.S. has also had its
share of the minor accidents that occur when the conditions of all
seasons are faced in narrow and crowded seas.
On the other hand the C.W.S. boats on many occasions have lent
assistance, and the usually dry pages of minute books were enlivened,
in the case of the Shipping Committee, by extracts from captains'
reports detailing services rendered, often under difficult conditions.
Sometimes the skippers would stoop to jest, as when the derelict
Hope was boarded, and found to have been abandoned in despair.
In rare cases some substantial share in salvage would be added to
the profits. One of the most fortunate as well as one of the most
deserving captains in this respect was the late Richard Bannister,
whose record of life saved and herioc deeds done, personally and as
captain of the Pioneer from 1899, added to his genuine popularity
with passengers.
It may fairly be claimed that as an employer the Wholesale
Society was always on good terms with captains and crews. Wages
and general conditions were, and are, up to the standard of the best
obtaining, and seamen's strikes regularly have been settled in advance
on the C.W.S. boats by the Society promising to grant the best that
might be won. ^ And while not professing to revolutionise commercial
seagoing conditions within its own small area, the minutes of the
Shipping Committee prove them to have been considerate of illness
and accident, and of such boons as freedom from work in port on

' A pointed statement to the contrary effect was made in 1889 at the Tra^de
Union Congress hield in Dundee, and promptly denied by the C.W.S., but the charge
of sweating being persisted in, tlio case went into court (March, 1890), and a two
days' hearing resulted in a verdict for the Wholesale Society.
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