Prior to stumbling upon this exhibition, I had never heard of the S.S Florizel nor any associated tragedy; I find that local history in Canada tends to stay local, which is why online exhibitions such as this, which seek to share local and community history more broadly are – in my personal opinion – so very important.
“The Loss of the SS Florizel” is an exhibition produced by the Admiralty House Communications Museum, which can be found just outside of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The museum endeavors to intrigue visitors with artifacts from the region’s past, the history of wireless communication, and the tragedy of the S.S. Florizel. Like an earlier exhibition reviewed this summer, this exhibition was also hosted by the Virtual Museum as part of their Community Stories series, which explores the stories and treasures, past and present, of hundreds of communities across Canada.
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| The opening page to the exhibition. The ship imaged here is the S.S. Florizel. (Source) |
It should be noted: this is not a happy story. It’s right there in the name. This is a story of loss. I think it was that very fact that pushed me to write this review, for it was how this exhibition told such a story that caught me. The final journey of the S.S. Florizel, unbeknownst to its crew and passengers, began in St. John’s on February 23, 1918, not long after the Halifax Explosion. That event informed why some of the passengers chose to take this voyage – to check on family, to help with reconstruction efforts – but on the whole, it was meant to be a routine trip. It wasn’t. A storm caused the vessel to crash into a rocky reef near Cappahayden, Newfoundland, and 93 people out of an initial 137 died.
According to the exhibition itself, the exhibit “tells the story of this tragedy through oral histories, archival records, and artifacts from individuals connected to the shipwreck, whether they were on the S.S. Florizel or part of the rescue efforts.” For me, while the story itself was compelling, and had me intently reading right to its close, it was their source material that was most striking.
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| The first section of the exhibition details the ship's departure. You can also see several of the subheadings that divide this exhibition. (Source) |
The subheadings which form this exhibition’s structure demonstrate straightaway that this exhibition both follows a narrative structure and heavily utilizes archival records. Following an introductory section titled “All Aboard,” which effectively sets the stage through the use of present-tense narration, are two sections titled “Personal Reasons for Traveling” and “Travelling for Business.” These sections feature short descriptions of several passengers who would be taking the S.S. Florizel and their reasons for doing so. At the bottom of each page is a photograph of objects from the ship, descriptions thereof, and a mention of their provenance. There were similar descriptions of the crew of the ship as well. I was wildly impressed by just how much the exhibition knew about both the passengers of the S.S Florizel and also those who manned it – how they had a picture to put to name for most folks they listed.
From there, the narrative turns to the tragedy itself, wherein the ship runs aground a rocky reef and was, according to its distress signal, “fast going to pieces.” The exhibition includes a reproduction audio clip of the S.S. Florizel’s distress signal.
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| The exhibition offers an audio reproduction of the distress signal sent out by the S.S. Florizel as well as the corresponding transcript. (Source) |
It would take about twelve hours for the first rescue ship to arrive, though no one would be removed from the wrecked ship until the next morning due to the ongoing storm. The exhibition briefly details a select few of the passengers who died before rescue arrived, and I must admit that several of the descriptions kind of punched me in the gut, emotionally speaking. The exhibition swiftly moves on to the rescue efforts from land by folks from nearby towns Cappahayden and Renews, a section which is enhanced by the inclusion of a rescuer’s account in the form of an audio clip and transcript, as told by a rescuer’s daughter in an interview with exhibition staff. Two rescuers are named and detailed in greater depth.
The exhibition also details the following inquiry into the incident as well as continued histories of those who were on the rescue ships that came to the S.S. Florizel’s aid.
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| This statue, commissioned in memory of Betty Munn, who died aboard the S.S. Florizel, still stands in Bowring Park in St. John's. (Source) |
In the grand scheme of the world and of history, the loss of the S.S. Florizel is admittedly small. But to these people, and to these places, it was enormous and all-encompassing, as tragedy often is. It rippled through communities in St. John, Halifax, and New York, spurring memorials in the form of stained-glass windows and cemetery monuments. Perhaps most wrenching is the commission of a statue of Peter Pan by Sir Edgar Bowring, to better remember his granddaughter Betty Munn – who drowned on the S.S. Florizel alongside her father – another child who would never grow up.
Ah, I thought. Well, that hurts.
This emotional response is perhaps the great strength and the sticking point of this exhibition, for me. Oftentimes, historical tragedies can subsume the people within them. It was the intent of this exhibition, as said in their Acknowledgements, to leverage personal stories to give voice once more to those who survived and those who did not through the use of archival images, documents from community members, and oral history interviews.
Through these means, the Admiralty Communications Museum hoped to tell a story filled with people who, though they may be a century away, had similar thoughts, hopes, and motivations to those that we have today. I must say that they really did bring the crew and passengers of the S.S Florizel out from behind the tragedy to give them voice once more, and that in doing so, they told perhaps not a happy story, but a worthwhile one.
You can check out "The Loss of the S.S. Florizel" here.
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