A bit more family history

This is a quote from a book called Cattle Ships. By Samuel Plimsoll.

He wrote about the appalling conditions that live cattle were transported in (1890) and also about the totally uncaring attitude of shipping companies toward the widows of their drowned crewmen.

I publish this because my great grandfather George Perrett is mentioned.

George Perrett as he appeared in the book

We met in the little vestry of the Congregational

Chapel close to the station at Tidal Basin. There

were ten widows, or, rather, women who knew not

yet for certain whether they were wives or widows.

It was in February, and very cold. The room (about

nine feet by twelve) contained a large, oblong table

and ten chairs. It was lighted by one jet of gas ; there

were but two possible lights. I sat at the end of the

table, opposite the door. The fireplace, without fire,

was behind me, in the corner opposite the door, and

the window was between them.

My wife sat at my left, with the empty fireplace

behind her. Next her sat a young woman (Mrs.

Wheeler), about three-and-twenty ; she was a pretty

young woman. * Look at her,' said the woman next

her (her aunt)— * only married five months, and now a

widow ! ' The poor young woman turned aside her

head to conceal her tears. Farther down sat a woman

who had lost her husband ; she had four children,

with only her to look to. Farther on, next the door,

sat a young woman (Mrs Smith) who had lost her

husband and father ; she was too poor to wear black

(which most of them by this time had assumed), and

sat in a dress of printed calico ; she had two little

children (Keziah, nine years ; and Harriet, two years

and three months), and she was expecting a third in

another month. Again, farther in a corner, was a

poor woman sobbing aloud ; she had lost her husband

and her son. And, coming round nearer to my chair,

was an elderly woman who had lost her husband ;

she gave the greatest attention to all the proceedings,

and, so far as I saw, moved no muscle from first to

last, but manifested no other sign of feeling. It was

a pitiful and most moving sight ; and these represented

 the relatives of only one-seventh of the

drowned men (the crew and cattle-men on board

numbered seventy-four).

I told the poor sorrowing women that it was no

idle feeling of curiosity which had brought us down

to meet them, but heartfelt sympathy with them in

their doubly-distressing bereavement— distressing to

their feelings, and distressing also in view of the

poverty and destitution in which they and their

children were for the future to pass their lives. It

would be a cruel kindness in me were I to bid them

hope, for there was no hope of seeing their husbands

and sons alive again ; that it was too soon, whilst the

pain of recent bereavement was so keen, to offer to

them, as any consolation, the thought that their

sorrow might, possibly, in some degree bring nearer

the time when the public would take thought for our

seamen ; but that at some time in the future, when

the keenness of their grief had been somewhat

softened by the lapse of time, if not consolation^

they might yet find some alleviation of their grief in

the thought that their sorrow had been the bitter

root from which had sprung into life the vigorous

plant and the fair flower of safety and of happiness

to hundreds of other poor women, whose husbands

were exposed to perils like those in which their

husbands had perished a few weeks ago. These

latter women, who are still wives, spend their lives in

dreadful apprehension, knowing the wholly needless

dangers to which their husbands are exposed.

The poor women, who we thought looked some-

what impassive when we entered (they cannot be

always crying), were now, some crying softly, and

some sobbing audibly, and were eager to tell us how

one had four, another two, and yet another three

children ; and whatever were they to do ? It was

more than two months now since their husbands had

left home ; there were wages due, and they had all

been to the National Company's offices, in Leaden-

hall Street, to ask if the Company would pay them

a few shillings each on account of what was due to

their husbands ; and how that they were roughly

spoken to (they were unanimous on this point), told

that they could have nothing before the vessel was

posted as * Missing,* when the balance of wages due

would be paid into the Board of Trade ; that they

had no business to come there (Leadenhall Street)

in a crowd (there were eleven) ; that they should

meet, and appoint one woman, and send her to

represent them all — so many coming together caused

talking.

This, and more to the like effect. But in the

general complaint of harsh treatment there was a

notable exception. * All but the cashier, sir ; he was

kind, and said he was very sorry for us/ What was

his name ? ' Euston, sir — Mr Euston ; he was

troubled for us ; the rest were angry with us ' for

coming to the office.'

* Did they pay you anything on account ?' * No,

sir ; they said they couldn't, and told us to go away/

* Even if they'd only given us our railway-fare

it would have helped a bit,' said one poor woman

(she in the print dress), who my wife found had not

bread to give her two little children, and who had

stripped her bed (so had Mrs Twyman for her

husband), when her husband sailed, to provide for

him the bedding needed on board.

She had occasion a day or two ago (May 21) to

see my wife in Park Lane, and brought her children

(nine years, and two and a quarter years, together

with the month-old baby she was expecting when at

the meeting). Poor little things ! Harriet, the two-

year-old, was rather shy at first, but soon smiled,

and came to me, and remained some time with great

content — poor little fatherless baby I This poor

woman had received 2/. 10^. as wages due to her

husband ; they don't pay wages even up to the day

the vessel was due, but only to the day she was last

seen (December 31), although the Company were at

pains to prove that the vessel was lost in the gale of

the 6th, 7th, and 8th January. She said her husband

always worked overtime to earn more money (he

was a fireman) ; but she could prove nothing, and so

received nothing. We also raised her a few pounds,

in common with the other widows, by a benefit at a

concert-hall, and she is now living on these sums.

I asked her what she would do when the money

was done, and she said, ' she really did not know.'

What can she do, poor creature! with three such

young children about her feet? It is cruel, cruel

work.

Many of these women and their children would

have suffered the pangs of hunger; they had nothing

left to sell, and had an almost invincible repugnance

to parish aid. The National Line Company, which

had drowned their husbands, . never dreamed of giv-

ing them the least assistance. But George Pirrett,

the local secretary to the Seamen's Union (and I

mention it to his honour), gave each of them a few

shillings a week out of his own savings, in the hope

that the Executive of the Union would reimburse

him when they held their next meeting. In this

way he distributed some fourteen pounds ! Which I

am glad to add was reimbursed to him some time

afterwards by the Union.

George as a slightly older man.