The month no ships could sail
Without warning in Durban harbour 91 years ago this month, all crews walked off their ships. and within 24 hours the strike had spread to Cape Town, Australia and New Zealand. In Durban it affected more than 2 000 passengers who were stranded for almost a
AFTER three weeks at sea from the UK, the Balmoral Castle stopped in Durban on a routine call on August 27, 1925.
Some of the passengers went to the famous dockyard Point Road pub, Vic Bar, enjoyed a pint and toasted the joys of Durban. They may have heard the resident pub-parrot that could swear in several languages and when he felt like a drink he would say: “pass the Rum to Polly”. The passengers also probably met the barmaid with the name Hell Cat Sally, who threw drunk and disorderly patrons out by lifting them by the belt and dragging them outside.
Passengers took high jumping rickshaws to the beaches, where they soaked up the sun, swam in the warm Indian Ocean and ate Durban’s famous curry and rice or freshly caught fish prepared by skilled beachfront cooks.
By 2pm they started walking back to their ship, laden with fresh fruit, Zulu beadwork and postcards, talking about how they wanted to return and bringing the quiet dockyard streets to life with their laughter. Those cheerful passengers were a world away from the traumatic turn of events that awaited them aboard the Balmoral Castle.
Boarding passengers were relaxed as they were served tea and cake on the deck. The ship was due to sail at 4pm and passengers stood at the rails and waved goodbye to their friends on the quayside. Many of the ship’s passengers were emigrants, heading to Britain with little money.
Passengers knew nothing of the high drama that had started to infiltrate the ship while they were ashore and were shocked when at around 3.30pm the crew appeared on the decks dressed in overalls and stood at the rails, smoking. Tugs waiting alongside the ship were sent away when the crew told them the ship was not sailing.
Within an hour most of the Balmoral Castle’s crew had left the ship and congregated on the quayside. They said: “We are on strike. Sailing will be postponed indefinitely until the company withdraws the threat of a 10 percent reduction in our wages”.
They told the captain they would stay out “for as long as it takes”. The crew decided to strike in a port rather than at sea since refusing duty at sea would have been mutiny.
The next day the passenger liner the Armadale Castle arrived in Durban and the crew promptly joined the strike. When the authorities decided to berth the Balmoral Castle and the Armadale Castle next to each other, it strengthened the crew’s resilience and unity.
By the end of the first week, Durban harbour was jammed with 17 striking British ships.
The strike started when the crew of the Balmoral Castle received word that J Havelock Wilson, the president of the National Sailors and Firemen’s Union of Great Britain and Ireland, had agreed to a 10 percent wage reduction by shipping companies without consulting members. The crew decided to go on strike in Durban harbour to get that decision reversed. Of a crew of 200, only 12 did not strike.
They were also protesting over their appalling working and living conditions. According to a veteran sailor, “Crew often work from five in the morning until 10 at night, live and eat in the dark, badly ventilated bow and have to buy our own eating utensils, bed, blankets, towel and soap on our inadequate salary.”
“Lice is everywhere and fumigation does not kill them. We eat and sleep in the same room and at all hours we are called on to cook or clean the galley – it’s hell on earth and we are exhausted every day. When the ship reaches a port, shore leave is given or refused at the discretion of the captain.”
The unfortunate passengers were stranded with no crew to attend to their everyday shipboard needs. Droves of people visited the docks to watch the rows of delayed ships and dejected passengers staring over the decks while striking crew played soccer on the wharf.
The police were posted at the foot of the gangway and refused to allow any crew back aboard the ships and increasing numbers of strikers slept in Albert Park, Durban. Charities and hotels sporadically donated meals and warm clothing; Johannesburg trade unions sent cash donations and tea was taken to the crew on the wharf.
As the days went by, ships went dark as there was no steam to maintain electricity; toilets and ventilation systems stopped working; refrigerators had to be emptied when food went bad; drinking and bath water stopped running. To keep clean, people swam in the sea.
Passengers were asked to leave the ship, but had nowhere to go. Food was running out, with around 800 adult passengers and 200 children to feed every day on each passenger ship, desperation had set in.
Parents bought bread for the children from the nearby harbour café, with lines of people waiting to be served. Passengers held a collection for food, and volunteers went into the galleries and pantries, started cleaning, prepared freshly bought food and washed the decks.
After a week in Durban harbour, when the hardships became too difficult, a spokesman for the passengers, a Mr Atkinson, appealed to the mayor of Durban for assistance. “This is no floating hotel. The passengers are living in crowded slum conditions. Many heads of families had sold everything so they could emigrate and are now penniless. The mental strain is severe; everyone is suffering, including the children, and with no end in sight we urgently need your help.”
A fund was started with Durban people giving generously, taking families for tours of the city and to the movies (or bioscopes as they were known in those days).
Passenger ship owners Union Castle Line said “the company will fight the strike until conditions are abided by” and all ship owners affected by the strike gave no hint of a settlement and issued a joint statement: “We will starve the crew into surrender.”
Ship captains then stopped the crew’s rations. Crew who refused to work were not allowed to draw unemployment pay. Payments to wives and children were stopped and in Britain heart-broken families waited anxiously for word from their husbands, but their letters and telegrams never arrived.
Many of the crew’s wives and children were destitute. Some received financial help from friends and family but many were forced to beg on the cold, wet, windy streets.
More than 200 strikers were arrested in Durban by customs officials who locked them into quayside sheds and told them their papers would be marked “voyage incomplete” – which had a strong bearing on future employment applications. Strikers started a running battle with police and were arrested and charged with desertion.
Shipping companies were losing passenger fares and freight income and had to pay daily harbour charges. Farmers faced financial ruin as fresh citrus and maize stored in dockyard sheds awaiting export started rotting and attracted rats.Machinery needed by the mines was either held up in Europe or lay in the ships’ holds and was in danger of rusting.Imports ordered for the Christmas season were at risk and the South African economy was in trouble.
At the height of the strike some desperate captains sailed their ships out of Durban harbour. SS Sophocles crew who refused to work were locked in the dining room and officers loaded coal into the ship’s boilers.
When the ship reached international waters, the doors were opened and the crew were ordered on duty. They refused. The captain realised he had no option but to return to the harbour.The SS Port Curno was towed past the piers and headed out to sea – to the disappointment of the strikers. Engineers had generated enough steam to sail, but after a few hours they complained that the job of loading coal was harder than they thought – their hands were blistered, their bones were aching and the heat from the boilers was too much. They ceased stoking the coal and about 160km from Durban the powerless ship was struck by a gale force wind, forcing the reluctant striking crew to get the steam engines working again and return the ship to Durban.
Union Castle Line announced its ships were “ready to sail at a moment’s notice.” Passengers and unemployed people were invited to fill vacant posts; experienced Asiatic crews were recruited and the Amadale Castle and the Balmoral Castle quietly sailed from Durban in the still of the night on September 23, 1925 – almost a month after the start of the strike.
On the same day the Arundel Castle sailed from Cape Town with a crew of stewards and deck hands who had returned to the ship and 117 South African students bound for British colleges who thought it was “a huge joke” to sail as members of the crew.
The Arundel Castle arrived on schedule in Southampton with 1 000 bags of mail, gold worth £800 000, 24 000 boxes of oranges and 160 passengers. The London strike committee declared the strike officially over in South Africa on October 24.
In December 1925 about 600 stranded and destitute crew were blacklisted and shipped back to Britain by the South African government – and when they arrived they faced unemployment.
Many of the crew were from the overcrowded slums of Britain and they rejoiced at seeing their families again and the end of their long and punishing voyage.
Stuart Freedman has written a pictorial history book (108 pages) on the History of
Durban Harbour from 1842 to 2013 which has become a bestseller in South Africa. He has a limited number of copies available at R590 each. E-mail: sfreedman@iburst.co.za