SS Southern Cross was a steam-powered sealing vessel that operated primarily in Norway and Newfoundland and Labrador.
She was lost at sea returning from the seal hunt on March 31, 1914, killing all 174 men aboard in the same storm that killed 78 crewmen from the , a collective tragedy that became known as the "1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster".
Background
The vessel was commissioned as the whaler Pollux at Arendal, Norway in 1886, was barque-rigged, registered 520 tons gross, and was long overall.
Pollux was designed by Colin Archer, the renowned Norwegian shipbuilder. Archer had designed and built Nansen's ship Fram, which in 1896 had returned unscathed from its long drift in the northern polar ocean during Nansen's "Farthest North" expedition, 1893–96.
Pollux was sold to the Norwegian explorer Carsten Borchgrevink in 1897 and renamed Southern Cross, for the Southern Cross Expedition.
Like several of the historic polar ships her post-expedition life was short; Southern Cross was sold in 1901 to Murray & Crawford, Glasgow, and took up seal hunting from Newfoundland. Southern Cross participated in every seal hunt from 1901 to 1914. In April 1914 was lost with all hands in a storm off the Newfoundland coast.
Southern Cross Expedition
For the Southern Cross Expeditions, Carsten Borchgrevink purchased the steam whaler Pollux and renamed her Southern Cross. She was taken to Colin Archer's yard in Larvik and fitted out for the expedition. Engines were designed to Borchgrevink's specification, and fitted before the ship left Norway.
On December 19, 1898 Southern Cross made its first Antarctic expedition where it made marine history by breaking through the pack ice into the Ross Sea for the purpose of overwintering on the Antarctic continent.
Although Markham cast doubts on her seaworthiness (perhaps to thwart Borchgrevink's departure), the ship fulfilled all that was required of her in Antarctic waters.
1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster
The 1914 sealing fleet included both Southern Cross and SS Newfoundland (under Captain Westbury Kean). In addition to minor crew changes from 1913, the fateful decision to remove the wireless set and operator from Newfoundland was taken in order to cut costs.
The fleet left St. John's on March 13, 1914. Newfoundland lost 78 sealers from her crew when they were stranded on the ice for two nights. Just as the terrible news of the Newfoundland tragedy was reaching St. John's, Southern Cross fell out of normal communication. The people of Newfoundland remained hopeful that tragedy would not strike twice, as evidenced by the April 3 newspaper article below:
Unlike the tragedy of Newfoundlands crew, the disappearance of Southern Cross remained largely unexplained as no crewmen or record of the voyage survived. While a marine court of inquiry determined that the ship sank in a blizzard on March 31, little evidence exists to verify this. Oral tradition suggests that rotten boards gave out in the heavy sea and allowed the cargo to shift and capsize the steamer. Though the wreck of Southern Cross accounted for the greater human loss of the two shipwrecks, some historians argue that the emotional impact of the Newfoundland disaster was more intensely felt because of the horrific stories survivors were able to recount.
These two disasters together constitute what is referred to as the 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster. A total loss of 251 lives from a country with a population of approximately 250,000 devastated families and communities. In his autobiographical book, Rockwell Kent describes the impact of the loss on Brigus, where many of the sealers from Southern Cross had lived. "It will pretty well clear out this place," said one resident of the ship's loss. According to Kent "The dread of the loss of this steamer had passed almost to certainty and the mention of the house, the wife, the children, the hopes and ambitions of any of those on her became a tragedy."
Legislative Response
In 1914–15, the government held a commission of inquiry to examine Newfoundland and Southern Cross sealing disasters. The commission's findings made it clear that sealers faced extraordinarily dangerous working conditions on the ice.
