It was exactly 80 years ago yesterday, December 18, 1929 that one of the most sensational events in Bermuda's 20th Century history occurred. It was the sinking of the Furness-Bermuda liner Fort Victoria while en route from New York to Bermuda.

And significantly today, one of the last but two Bermudians who featured heavily in that drama will be laid to rest. Captain George E. Welch, who was a Quartermaster on the bridge of Fort Victoria will be funeralised at St. Peter's Church, St. George's, with full Masonic honours. He died earlier this week in his 101st year.

The other survivor is Mrs. Writa (Knights) Johnson, now in her 105th year. She's in good spirits, spending the sunset of her once active life as a resident of the home at Ireland Island

Mrs. Johnson and her husband had gotten married the day before the sinking.

The 269 passengers and all but seven of the crew of 165 escaped with only the clothes they were wearing. They were ordered to leave the ship minutes after it was rammed in thick fog by the American coastal liner Algonquin. The latter was enroute from New York to Texas with 189 passengers aboard.

When Captain A.R. Francis ordered all hands to abandon the crippled Fort Victoria, he stayed behind with 12 crew, hoping the ship could be salvaged. Four Bermudians were among that 12, and they in fact were the last to leave with the Captain.

Capt. Welch was the sole surviving crew when he talked at length about that high-seas drama just over a year ago at his home, "Blue Narrows", with its panoramic view of the channel leading to the 'Cut' and St. George's Harbour. He knew that channel like the back of his hand, having for many years been Bermuda's Warden of Pilots. He was a Quartermaster aboard Fort Victoria and in fact was on the bridge with Captain Francis when the collision occurred. Also on the same watch and on the bridge, was another young Bermudian Quartermaster, Cyril Olney, Sr., now deceased of Bailey's Bay.

Another prominent Bermudian with vivid recollections about the sinking is Mrs. Doris Corbin of Pembroke, because her father, William Melville Heyliger, a storekeeper aboard Fort Victoria, was also one of the 12 who stayed behind with the Captain, along with the man who eventually became her brother-in-law, Jim Cordice. His wife was the former Alice Heyliger. The latter now deceased, was a Central School teacher. Her daughter is Mrs. Helen Foster, wife of former New York City Councillor, Rev. Dr. Wendell Foster.

Mrs. Corbin, who is now nearing her 100th birthday, said she liked to hear her father telling tales about his service on the Fort Victoria. What she had read about Mrs. Writa Johnson tied in with what she remembered him saying about the day of the sinking; about how all of his possessions went to the ocean bottom, including a seven pound box of chocolates that were among Christmas gifts Mr. Heyliger was bringing for his family.

Mr. Heyliger, a tall, well-built, handsome man whom this writer knew personally,was a native of the Dutch West Indian Island of St. Eustatius, who migrated to Bermuda in the late 1800s to work in the Dockyard. He married into the prominent Darrell family of Flatts, and fathered three children. He was 103 years old when he passed away in 1983 after having worked many years as a painting contractor.

Memories of the sensational sinking more than 75 years ago of the Bermuda-bound ocean liner Fort Victoria were awakened in the mind of the sprightly Captain E. George Welch when he read our feature weeks earlier on Mrs. Johnson. She was then living on her own at Morgan's Road, Warwick.

Just as Mrs. Johnson was the last living survivor of the 269 passengers evacuated from the doomed ship, so Capt. Welch was the last living survivor of the 165 crew ordered to abandon ship after she was in collision with the American coastal liner.

More significantly, Capt. Welch, then a 21-year-old quartermaster, was on the bridge with the Captain A.R. Francis when their ship was rammed. Also, he and two other Bermudians (fellow quartermaster Cyril Onley, Sr., and storekeeper William Melville Heyliger) were the very last to leave ship with the Captain.

(For the benefit of the non-nautical minded, a quartermaster is a junior officer who is given some responsibilities by a ship's captain for navigation of the ship, and carrying orders from the captain to other areas of the vessel).

Capt. Welch was a tall, distinguished gentleman, who had spent almost all of his 98 years on the ocean wave. He was born in 1908 in the West Indian Island of St. Vincent, the only child of a woman who took him to sea early as she engaged her trade of fishing. He was barely into his teens when he got a job on a Royal Mail Ship plying between Halifax and British Guyana.

His ambition was to get to New York, so he managed to switch to the Furness Line, making weekly trips on Fort Victoria to and from Bermuda. He was a keen seaman, eager to learn and hard working. He who knew how to polish and keep his areas so clean one could eat off the floors. He also learned the rules of navigation and attracted the interest and support of seasoned sailors.

Young Welch also attracted the attention of the ladies of Bermuda and couldn't wait for shore leave to attend the matinee dances that were held at Aeolian Hall in Angle Street, Hamilton, starting at 3 p.m. There he met one who was in his estimation the best waltzer around. They had a childless marriage that lasted 18 years when she passed away. He remained a widower since.

Capt. Welch recalled that Wednesday, December 18, 1929 when Fort Victoria sailed at 11 a.m., from the Furness dock in New York for her scheduled weekly voyage to Bermuda. Being the last trip before Christmas, she was laden with seasonal cargo and 247 sacks of mail, none of which was saved. New York had been enveloped in heavy fog for two days, and low visibility forced the ship to proceed at a slow pace towards the ocean.

Nearing the Ambrose Lightship just outside the harbour, Victoria was brought to a complete stop at 3.40 p.m. to discharge the pilot. At 3:47 p.m., the Algonquin, also outward-bound from New York and heading for Galveston, Texas with 189 passengers aboard, rammed midship into Victoria. Minutes later Captain Francis ordered the lifeboats lowered and all hands to abandon ship.

Believing his liner, with a seven-foot wide hole on the port side could be saved, Captain Francis kept 12 crew aboard, but they also had to scramble for their lives less then two hours later. That was when Victoria developed a twenty-degree list to starboard and was going down by the bow. Meanwhile all of the passengers and other crew were safely taken back to New York by rescue ships. The Algonquin fortunately suffered only minor damage. No lives were lost in the mishap. But the crew and passengers were unable to save any of their valuables and possessions other than the clothes they were wearing. The wreck of Fort Victoria was later dynamited, because in its position it was a threat to boats using the sea lanes.

In just over a year the Furness Line replaced the lost ship with the purpose built Monarch of Bermuda, a companion for the then most popular Queen of Bermuda. (see feature on Page 17 on the passing last week of another Quartermaster aboard the Queen, Bro. Peter Thomas Smy).

Eventually Capt. Welch joined the Bermuda Government's Pilot Service. He ended up being appointed in 1973, Warden of Pilots and the country's Harbour Master. He became the first black Bermudian to hold those posts.

He also became a Freemason, a Past Master of Hannibal Lodge in St.George's, enjoying Honourary Grand Lodge Rank in the Irish Constitution.

He was a communicant at St. Peter's Anglican Church in the Old Towne.

On his way up the ladder of success, he had many interesting encounters with young English sailors whose own inbred attitudes of racial superiority did not permit them to easily comprehend why he regularly gained ascendancy over them. It was simply a matter of their higher officers having an appreciation of merit, and Welch's character as a real man.

Capt. Welch was also often physically their superior, gaining their respect, or fear, as he became the champion boxer in the Furness-Bermuda Line. Even last year, he has a pair of hands, and the strength to demolish anyone foolish enough to take him on. But Captain Welch was too much of an intellectual giant, and a diplomat to be an aggressor.

VW Bro. George Welch died peacefully at the home of his niece Mrs. Esther James-Liverpool in Memphis, Tennessee, unaware of the headlines surrounding his name when a caregiver was jailed for a year after conviction in Magistrates Court of plundering his bank accounts of more than $32,000.