SS Politician
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SS ''Politician'' was a cargo ship that ran aground off the coast of the
Hebridean The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebri ...
island of
Eriskay Eriskay ( gd, Èirisgeigh), from the Old Norse for "Eric's Isle", is an island and community council area of the Outer Hebrides in northern Scotland with a population of 143, as of the 2011 census. It lies between South Uist and Barra and is ...
in 1941. Her cargo included 22,000 cases of malt whisky and £3 million worth of Jamaican banknotes. Much of the whisky was recovered by islanders from across the Hebrides, contrary to marine salvage laws. Because no duty had been paid on the whisky, members of
HM Customs and Excise HM Customs and Excise (properly known as Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at the time of its dissolution) was a department of the British Government formed in 1909 by the merger of HM Customs and HM Excise; its primary responsibility was t ...
pursued and prosecuted those who had removed the cargo. ''Politician'' was completed in 1923 under the name ''London Merchant''. She was a general cargo ship that traded between Britain, the United States and Canada, and up and down the west coast of the US. In 1924—during the years of American prohibition—Oregon's state prohibition commissioner seized her cargo of whisky despite its having been approved and sealed by US federal authorities. After the
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complained to the US government, the whisky was released back to the ship. During the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
''Politician'' participated in the
Atlantic convoys A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...
between the UK and US. In February 1941 she was on her way to the north of Scotland, where she ran aground while attempting to rendezvous with a convoy. No-one was badly injured or killed in the accident. The local islanders continually visited the wreck of ''Politician'' to unload whisky, even though it was in a hold filled with marine engine oil and seawater. Customs men undertook raids, arresting many and seizing the boats of those suspected of taking part. The excise authorities pushed for charges under the punitive customs legislation, but the authorities charged those arrested with theft. Many were found not guilty or
not proven Not proven (, ) is a verdict available to a court of law in Scotland. Under Scots law, a criminal trial may end in one of three verdicts, one of conviction ("guilty") and two of acquittal ("not proven" and "not guilty").The Scottish criminal ju ...
, and several were fined; 19 were incarcerated at Inverness Prison for terms ranging between 20 days and two months. Salvors were used to rescue as much of the ship as they could, and the whisky they raised was shipped back to its
bonded warehouse A bonded warehouse, or bond, is a building or other secured area in which dutiable goods may be stored, manipulated, or undergo manufacturing operations without payment of duty. It may be managed by the state or by private enterprise. In the ...
s; this was also looted during its journey. Two salvage crews removed much of the cargo, and the second crew raised the wreck off the seabed. Part of the ship's hold, and her stern, were cut away and sank to the bottom of Eriskay Sound; the remainder of the hold was destroyed with
gelignite Gelignite (), also known as blasting gelatin or simply "jelly", is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or guncotton) dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and salt ...
to prevent further looting. A few of the Jamaican banknotes from ''Politician'' were presented at banks in Britain, Jamaica and other countries. As a result, in 1952 the blue ten- shilling notes were withdrawn and replaced with notes of the same design, printed in purple. Bottles of whisky have been raised from the seabed by divers, and some have been found in hiding places on Eriskay; these have been auctioned. The story of the wreck and looting was the basis for the book '' Whisky Galore''; an adaptation was released as a film in 1949 and a remake in 2016.


1920–1939

The cargo ship SS ''Politician'' was built by the Furness Shipbuilding Company between 19 September 1920—when she was
laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...
—and 1923 at the
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shipyard, County Durham, England. She was launched in November 1921 as SS ''London Merchant'', and was completed in May 1923. ''London Merchant'' was one of six sister ships built at the yard; the others were ''London Commerce'', ''London Importer'', ''London Mariner'', ''London Shipper'' and ''Manchester Regiment''. ''London Merchant'' gross registered tonnage was 7,899, she was long and at the
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; her depth of hold was and she could achieve . While being fitted out, she was hit by another ship and damaged. After ''London Merchant'' was repaired she began trading across the Atlantic; her owners, the
Furness Withy Furness Withy was a major British transport business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange. History The company was founded by Christopher Furness and Henry Withy (1852–1922) in 1891 in Hartlepool. This was achieved by the amalgamati ...
company, advertised her cargo services in ''
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'', shipping from Manchester to Los Angeles, Seattle and Vancouver. In December 1924—during Prohibition in the United States—she docked in
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...
, with whisky as part of her cargo; this had been approved and sealed by the US federal authorities. George Cleaver, Oregon's state prohibition commissioner, ignored the approval, broke the seal on the cargo and seized the whisky. The ship's
master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...
refused to leave without the whisky and the
British Embassy in Washington The British Embassy, Washington D.C. (alternatively in the US, Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington, D.C.) is the British sovereign's diplomatic mission to the United States of America, representing the interests of the United Kingdom and ...
complained to the Federal authorities, who intervened and ordered the whisky released back to the ship. Cleaver was ordered to write an apology to the captain and the Furness Withy company. On Christmas Eve 1927 she was involved in another collision and was repaired. She traded on the US eastern seaboard until 1930 when, with the onset of Great Depression, world trade dropped, and she was tied up in the
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, along with 60 other vessels. In May 1935 ''London Merchant'' was purchased by the Charente Steamship Company, part of the T & J Harrison shipping line. Charente renamed her ''Politician'', and used her on cargo routes between Britain and South Africa; her crew soon nicknamed her ''Polly''. At the outbreak of the Second World War ''Politician'' came under Admiralty orders and was involved in the
Atlantic convoys A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...
between the UK and US.


Early February – 12 March 1941

In early February 1941 SS ''Politician'' left the
Liverpool docks The Port of Liverpool is the enclosed dock system that runs from Brunswick Dock in Liverpool to Seaforth Dock, Seaforth, on the east side of the River Mersey and the Birkenhead Docks between Birkenhead and Wallasey on the west side of the r ...
to travel to the north of Scotland, where she was to assemble with other ships to be convoyed across the Atlantic to the US and Caribbean. Captain Beaconsfield Worthington was the ship's master, overseeing a crew of 51. She carried a mixed cargo that included cotton, machetes, sweets, cutlery, bicycles, cigarettes, pineapple chunks and biscuits. In the fifth hold there were eight crates of Jamaican banknotes, comprising ten- shilling and one- and five-pound notes, to the value of £3 million; alongside the notes were 22,000 cases (264,000 bottles) of Scotch whisky of various brands. The whisky had been taken from
bonded warehouse A bonded warehouse, or bond, is a building or other secured area in which dutiable goods may be stored, manipulated, or undergo manufacturing operations without payment of duty. It may be managed by the state or by private enterprise. In the ...
s in
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and
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
that had been damaged by German bombing, and was being shipped to the US to raise hard currency for the war effort; as an export product, none of the bottles bore an
excise stamp An excise stamp is a type of revenue stamp affixed to some exciseable goods to indicate that the required excise tax has been paid by the manufacturer. They are securities printed by the finance ministry of the relevant country. Security measure ...
. After leaving the
River Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed par ...
, ''Politician'' travelled through the
Irish Sea The Irish Sea or , gv, Y Keayn Yernagh, sco, Erse Sie, gd, Muir Èireann , Ulster-Scots: ''Airish Sea'', cy, Môr Iwerddon . is an extensive body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Ce ...
, made her way past the
Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...
, through the
North Channel North Channel may refer to: *North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland) The North Channel (known in Irish and Scottish Gaelic as , in Scots as the ) is the strait between north-eastern Northern Ireland and south-western Scotland. It begins no ...
that separates Britain and Ireland, past Islay then to the west of the Skerryvore lighthouse and into the
Sea of the Hebrides The Sea of the Hebrides ( gd, An Cuan Barrach, ) is a small, partly sheltered section of the North Atlantic Ocean, indirectly off the southern part of the north-west coast of Scotland. To the east are the mainland of Scotland and the northern ...
. In the vicinity of
Eriskay Eriskay ( gd, Èirisgeigh), from the Old Norse for "Eric's Isle", is an island and community council area of the Outer Hebrides in northern Scotland with a population of 143, as of the 2011 census. It lies between South Uist and Barra and is ...
, ''Politician'' ran aground on rocks at about 7:40 am on 4 February in bad weather and poor visibility. Sources differ on where ''Politician'' was grounded. The Canmore database run by the Historic Environment Scotland puts the event half way along the eastern cost of Eriskay; Roger Hutchinson's book on the story of the ship states it was on the rocks of Ru Melvick, a rock outcrop at the southernmost point of
South Uist South Uist ( gd, Uibhist a Deas, ; sco, Sooth Uist) is the second-largest island of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. At the 2011 census, it had a usually resident population of 1,754: a decrease of 64 since 2001. The island, in common with the ...
; the
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considers it was on "submerged rocks on the northern side of the island of Eriskay"; and
Arthur Swinson Arthur Horace Swinson (1915–1970) was a British Army officer, writer, playwright, and historian. A prolific playwright, he authored more than 300 works. Swinson was born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, to Hugh Swinson and Lilla Fisher Swinson. ...
's 1963 history places it just north of
Calvay Calvay ( gd, Calbhaigh), is a currently uninhabited island situated in the Sound of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides, at . It is one of ten islands in the Sound of Barra, a Site of Community Importance for conservation. It was here that the ship ...
, a small uninhabited island at the north end of Eriskay. Eriskay is ; the population recorded on the island in the 1931 census was 420. Worthington attempted to free ''Politician'' from the rocks, but she would not move. The rocks had breached the hull and water began to flood the engine room and stokehold and break the vessel's
propeller shaft A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft (Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power and torque and rotation, usually used to connect ...
. Worthington was concerned the heavy waves would soon break up the ship, so he ordered the crew to abandon ship. The radio operator sent two SOS messages; the first was "Abandoning ship. Making Water. Engine-room flooded"; the second, sent at 8:22 am stated the vessel was positioned "ashore south of
Barra Barra (; gd, Barraigh or ; sco, Barra) is an island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, and the second southernmost inhabited island there, after the adjacent island of Vatersay to which it is connected by a short causeway. The island is name ...
island, pounding heavily". One lifeboat was launched with 26 men on board. It was washed onto rocks close inshore to Rudha Dubh, an outcrop on South Uist. All survived, although one man was injured on the rocks. ''Lloyd's'', the
lifeboat Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen ...
from Barra, spent several hours searching the area south of the island in heavy mist before a report came in of ''Politician'' siren, which had been heard north of Eriskay. ''Lloyd's'' travelled to the area, by which time fishermen from Eriskay had boarded ''Politician''. At Worthington's request they sailed to Rudha Dubh, collected those who had left earlier, and returned to the ship. The lifeboat reached ''Politician'' at about 4:00 pm, when ''Politician'' crew boarded the lifeboat and were taken to Eriskay. They spent the night there, billeted in small groups in the homes of the islanders; while staying on the island, the sailors told the islanders that ''Politician'' cargo contained whisky. The following morning, 6 February, Worthington and his
first mate A chief mate (C/M) or chief officer, usually also synonymous with the first mate or first officer, is a licensed mariner and head of the deck department of a merchant ship. The chief mate is customarily a watchstander and is in charge of the shi ...
, R. A. Swaine, were taken back to ''Politician'' to view the damage and see if there was any chance of salvaging her. He found that someone had been on board overnight, as personal possessions of the crew had been taken. The vessel was in the same situation as the previous day, so they signalled the situation to T&J Harrison. Harrison's asked the
Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association The Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association was formed on 1 January 1924 from the merger of the Liverpool Salvage Association and the Glasgow Salvage Association. The Association can trace its origins back to 1857 with the creation of the Liverpo ...
to assess ''Politician'' status. The chief salvage officer, Commander Kay, arrived at the stricken vessel on 8 February, and reported back that a salvage attempt was possible. The signal stated that there was of water in the main hold, in the engine room and in number five hold. Within days the salvage ship ''Ranger'' had arrived and of cargo were removed. As hold five was below the surface, and full of a mixture of seawater and oil, Kay did not attempt to salvage its contents. Local customs officers considered that some whisky had already made its way onto the islands, and asked Kay to put a guard on the ship at night-time. He refused, pointing out that with the rough seas it was dangerous for the man left behind, and it would be a waste of his time. There was evidence that islanders had been aboard during the nights: the crew's bonded stores—the food, drink and tobacco for consumption during the voyage—were all looted on 19 February. Some of Kay's salvors had managed to obtain whisky from the hold. When they returned to Glasgow on one trip, a search by customs men found several bottles, which they seized. On their second trip, the salvors dropped the whisky before entering port and had it picked up later. On 10 March representatives of
HM Customs and Excise HM Customs and Excise (properly known as Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at the time of its dissolution) was a department of the British Government formed in 1909 by the merger of HM Customs and HM Excise; its primary responsibility was t ...
secured the hold with an excise seal to show no duty had been paid on the contents. On 12 March 1941 Kay and the salvage crew left the wreck of ''Politician''.


12 March – early April 1941

In 1941 all wrecks came under the protection of the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. Part IX, paragraph 536 of the Act covered "Interfering with wrecked vessel or wreck", and stated that:
1.) A person shall not without the leave of the master board any vessel which is wrecked, stranded, or in distress ...
2.) A person shall not: ...
:(c) wrongfully carry away or remove any part of a vessel stranded or in danger of being stranded, or otherwise in distress, on or near any coast or tidal water, or any part of the cargo or apparel thereof, or any wreck.
The islanders took a different view of salvage and considered that they did not "steal" any cargo from local wrecks, but instead talked of "saving" or "rescuing" it from the sea. They knew ''Politician'' had been abandoned by the owners and the salvage crews; one islander later told Swinson "when the salvors quit a ship—she's ours". Once the salvage crew had left the ''Politician'', islanders from across the Hebrides, as well as boats from Scotland's west coast, engaged in what Hutchinson calls the "wholesale rescuing" of the whisky. They were aided in navigating round the wreck by Angus John Campbell, a local man who had served as
boatswain A boatswain ( , ), bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun, also known as a deck boss, or a qualified member of the deck department, is the most senior rate of the deck department and is responsible for the components of a ship's hull. The boatswain supervise ...
on ''Politician'' between the wars. Wartime rationing had led to shortages of the spirit, and what supplies were made available were increasingly expensive because of rising duty. For several nights, the islanders worked on hooking the crates out of the oil-and-seawater-filled hold; every night between 20 and 50 men were on the wreck working to remove the whisky. As the contents being raised were covered in oil, the men's clothes were soon covered, and many began to use their wives' dresses to cover their own clothes. Some of the men made only a few trips to ''Politician'' to get what they wanted—Campbell obtained 300 cases; others picked up between 20 and 80 cases a night, and one man with a larger boat is thought to have recovered more than 1,000 cases. When the men returned to their respective islands each night, they hid their spoils in a variety of places, in case the Excise men raided. Rabbit holes, piles of peat and creels placed under the sea and behind panels in homes were all used. Burying caches of whisky was also popular, but brought about a second problem; islanders who had not visited the wreck would watch where it was buried and dig it up as soon as the men left the burial site. One man put 46 cases in a small cave on an island off Barra as a reserve for when he ran out; when he returned only four were left. News of the islanders' removal of whisky from ''Politician'' was known early on. The local Customs and Excise officer, Charles McColl, commandeered a local boat on 15 March and, with the aid of Donald MacKenzie, a local constable, went out into Eriskay Sound—the stretch of water between Eriskay and South Uist—and intercepted two boats laden with cases of whisky. On landing, McColl walked along the coast and intercepted a third boat unloading whisky. The details of 18 men were taken down from the day's efforts. Two days later McColl and MacKenzie conducted searches of the crofts of those they had intercepted and seized thousands of items from ''Politician'', but no whisky. Surmising that the whisky had been well hidden, he expanded his search and, on his own, searched other local crofts, but still found no whisky. His initial searches lasted until 22 March, when he thought the sea was too rough for the looters to visit the wreck, although they still did. McColl never visited the wreck at night time. When the weather cleared on 5 April, he tried to commandeer the boat again but it was unavailable. Instead he patrolled the coast of South Uist and apprehended one boat when it landed. He began searching the crofts of South Uist, but the residents had learned of his raids on Eriskay, and hidden their bounty carefully; there were stories of the police who assisted in the searches turning a blind eye where they could. No seizures were made on Barra, but local police heard of large-scale selling of the whisky on the island and arrested four men, whom they charged with theft.


Early April – August 1941

On 9 April a second salvage boat arrived at Eriskay. While Kay and the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association had been retained to salvage what they could, the scrap metal was of no concern to them. The second salvage company was British Iron & Steel Corporation (Salvage) Ltd (BISC). Their remit was to check Kay's conclusion about the inability to refloat ''Politician''. If it could not be refloated, then it was planned to tow part of the superstructure to be reused. If that was still not possible, stripping the vessel of as much metal as possible was sometimes financially viable. The wreck of ''Thalia'' was nearby and known to contain iron ore, which made the salvage more lucrative for them. After two visits to ''Politician'' in early April, BISC considered that it was possible that the wreck could be refloated. McColl had visited the ship with the salvors, and was angered by that state of the vessel, which showed signs of having been extensively looted. He wrote to Ivan Gledhill—the local Customs surveyor and his direct superior—and told him "I should imagine that 300 cases have gone out of her. That, I believe, is a conservative estimate." He also told Gledhill that he intended to step up his search efforts, and ensure that as many of the malefactors from Eriskay and South Uist were sent to prison for as long as possible. Gledhill agreed with the strategy. He accompanied McColl as often as he could, although his territory was too large and his workload proportionally higher, so the visits were not as frequent as he would have liked. With the arrival of Captain Edward Lauretson and the salvage ship ''Assistance'', BISC returned to ''Politician'' on 21 April. The salvage operation they conducted took several months, and involved divers descending into hold five to clear out the cargo. They removed 13,500 cases and three casks of whisky from the wreck, as well as stout and sherry. Several eyewitnesses later said the salvors helped themselves to whisky whenever they wanted, and would often return to their billets on Eriskay and South Uist with bottles to share with the islanders. A report from the salvors to the Salvage Association passed information that some of the Jamaican banknotes had been seen on
Benbecula Benbecula (; gd, Beinn nam Fadhla or ) is an island of the Outer Hebrides in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Scotland. In the 2011 census, it had a resident population of 1,283 with a sizable percentage of Roman Catholics. It is in a ...
— from ''Politician''. The organisation that provided the administration of British
Crown colonies A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by The Crown within the British Empire. There was usually a Governor, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local Council ...
for the government, which included providing banknotes, was the
Crown Agents Crown Agents Ltd is a not-for-profit international development company with head office in London, United Kingdom, and subsidiaries in USA and Japan. Crown Agents fully owns Greenshields Cowie, a freight forwarding limited company incorporated in ...
; it was they who had arranged for the printing of the money by De La Rue, and who organised its shipping to the Caribbean. On hearing the news of the loss of the money, the Crown Agents thought that:
The local police service is no doubt on a very small scale but the nature of the place and its surroundings should tend to reduce the chances of serious loss through the notes being presented and paid.
Children on the islands were found playing with the notes, and within two months water-stained Jamaican notes were being exchanged in banks in Liverpool. The first court cases took place on 26 April; they involved four men arrested on Barra three days earlier when the police saw them unloading whisky and barrels of oil. Three of the men were fined £3 each; the other two had to pay £5. McColl and Gledhill applied pressure on the legal authorities, directly and through their superiors. McColl argued that the looters should be tried under the terms of the specialist Customs Consolidation Act 1876 or the Merchant Shipping Act 1894, both of which carried more punitive punishments than ordinary legislation for theft. McColl and Gledhill wrote reports to their superiors that accused the looters of vandalism on ''Politician'' and widescale
black-market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...
eering of the stolen whisky, and claimed the local police were being bribed to ignore the situation. The journalists Adrian Turpin and Peter Day write that the outrage of the customs men should be taken "with a pinch of salt"; the organisation was in the midst of providing evidence for later prosecutions and was not neutral. McColl continued with his attempts to find the whisky. On 5 June he and Gledhill persuaded Edward Bootham White, the Customs officer based on Harris, to assist them; they were also provided with two police sergeants from the mainland to assist them. On 6 and 7 June they conducted intensive searches of crofts and farms on Eriskay and Uist. Hutchinson relates that the searches destroyed peat stacks, forced entry into people's homes and disrupted the innocent and guilty alike, "an unnecessary, disproportionately harsh harassment". Sources differ over the success of the raids: Swinson quotes Gledhill, who states that "wherever we went, we got tons of the stuff ... t_Lochboisdale,_South_Uist.html" ;"title="Lochboisdale.html" ;"title="t Lochboisdale">t Lochboisdale, South Uist">Lochboisdale.html" ;"title="t Lochboisdale">t Lochboisdale, South Uist it filled the cells, the police garage and the policeman's house. A lot of it had to be stacked outside". Hutchinson writes that the raids were "spectacularly unsuccessful", only two cases of whisky being found. Hutchinson also quotes Gledhill, who says "The ineffective result was due to the fact that on the first day the local inspector of police refused to continue the search after lunchtime". The police did not work on the Sunday (the 8th), and those on Eriskay spent the day hiding or moving goods to better locations, waiting for a resumption of the raids the following week. A storm blew up on Monday 9, so the mail boat could not carry McColl and his colleagues across, and by Tuesday the policemen had returned to the mainland to resume their normal duties. Between 10 and 13 June the trials took place of 32 men arrested for the theft from ''Politician''. McColl gave evidence and stated that the men had stolen whisky from a vessel that was still seaworthy; the
sheriff-substitute In the Courts of Scotland, a sheriff-substitute was the historical name for the judges who sit in the local sheriff courts under the direction of the sheriffs principal; from 1971 the sheriffs substitute were renamed simply as sheriff. When res ...
hearing the case accepted McColl's statement. One man was found not guilty, nine others were
not proven Not proven (, ) is a verdict available to a court of law in Scotland. Under Scots law, a criminal trial may end in one of three verdicts, one of conviction ("guilty") and two of acquittal ("not proven" and "not guilty").The Scottish criminal ju ...
—the Scottish legal
verdict In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales ...
to
acquit In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as criminal law is concerned. The finality of an acquittal is dependent on the jurisdiction. In some countries, such as the ...
an individual but not declare them innocent—three were fined and 19 were incarcerated at Inverness Prison for terms ranging between 20 days and two months. McColl still thought the sentences were too lenient, and wrote to the interim procurator fiscal to complain; he also wrote to the Customs commissioners and said:
In my opinion these few small sentences are quite inadequate to act as a general detriment to the population of these islands, who in my opinion will probably seize their next opportunity to further looting and damage.
The night the prison sentences were handed down, a hole was made in the roof of the shared garage where McColl's car was parked; paraffin was poured in and set alight. McColl's car was only damaged in the event, but another was destroyed. According to the Customs men, they were subjected to threats of violence throughout their investigation; Bootham White reported to the commissioners in London that McColl should not be active in any further searches because of "threats and warning of bodily injury". On some of the raids by Gledhill and McColl, they seized boats that had been identified as being involved in visiting ''Politician''; these were either through reports from informants, or because there was the ship's fuel oil on the boat. Those that were not seized at the time were painted with an arrow for seizure later. By the time the court cases had been heard, the customs men had amassed a considerable number of the vessels. Several islanders wrote to him asking for the boats to be returned, as the lobster fishing season was in progress, and they were unable to work; one man pointed out that his sons had used the boat against his wishes, and as one of the sons was in prison and the other fighting in North Africa, he wanted his boat back; one farmer whose boat had been used by local boys to visit the wreck needed his craft to tend 200 sheep and lambs grazing on a smaller island nearby, and was unable to access it without his vessel. All the requests were turned down by Gledhill, who instructed McColl to continue seizing any craft he thought were involved.


September 1941 – August 1942

In September 1941 the whisky that had been salvaged by BISC was shipped to the mainland and put into locked railway carriages which had the excise seal placed on them. By the time the trains reached Kilmarnock on their way to the same bonded warehouses the cargo had left in January 1941, the customs seals had been broken, the doors unlocked and the cargo part looted. Relations between the police and Customs men became increasingly strained by late 1941, and Gledhill began to criticise the force in his reports back to London. He also wrote to William Fraser, the chief constable of
Inverness-shire Inverness-shire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Nis) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Covering much of the Highlands and Outer Hebrides, it is Scotland's largest county, though one of the smallest in popula ...
, to complain that customs were not being fully informed of all developments, nor of the total amount of whisky seized. Fraser began to become annoyed with correspondence between himself and Gledhill, and between himself and the customs commissioners in London. One of his ongoing requests was for the removal of the whisky from Lochboisdale police station, where it still occupied considerable space. He made progress only when he threatened to raise the matter with his Secretary of State, and it was agreed to remove it with the whisky that the salvors had raised from the wreck. Gledhill continued to push for stringent measures to be taken against those still awaiting trial. A permanent procurator fiscal, Donald Macmillan, had replaced his temporary predecessor, and Gledhill wrote to him to try and have the remaining cases heard under customs legislation. Macmillan told him to establish what the customs commissioners wanted, and at the end of October, Gledhill had been told by his superiors not to press for the punitive charges, but to allow charges of theft; he also asked to be kept informed of any further prosecutions involving four crofters who were found with stashes of whisky on their land. Macmillan wrote back that two of the cases had been dismissed by his predecessor and the remaining two defendants had gone to sea. Neither were prosecuted when they returned. The seized boats were eventually returned to their owners, but only after they had purchased them from the customs men. The BISC salvors spent over four months preparing ''Politician'' for refloating. They removed extraneous weight, patched the underwater holes, pumped compressed air into the hold, and waited until the weather conditions and tides were right. On 22 September 1941 they finished preparations and the ship was lifted off the rocks. BISC's site agent, Percy Holden, wanted to tow the ship the to Lochboisdale, where she could be beached to await the heavy tugs needed to tow her to the docks on the River Clyde, where she could be scrapped. The BISC's superintendent engineer on site refused to allow the towing to take place; he said that if there was bad weather on the route, or the sea was rough, then ''Politician'' could sink in deep water and never be recovered. The vessel was then towed to a point north of Calvay and beached on a sandbank; none of the men knew that the bank covered a rock. ''Politician'' settled, and broke her back, although no-one realised it until 25 October, when the heavy tugs came to move her to the mainland. All work on the vessel was halted over the winter months, to allow the poor weather to pass. The salvage divers had reported that number five hold still contained "one stack of probably about 2,000 cases of spirits and, on the bottom of the hold, a very large accumulation of loose paper, carton cases and loose bottles, both broken and unbroken". McColl was concerned about the possibility of more thefts from the ship and requested permission from his superiors to have the hold demolished by explosives; in his request he lied about the remaining cargo, and stated there were 3,000 to 4,000 cases, and thousands of loose bottles. He was given permission to proceed, and on 6 August, 16 sticks of
gelignite Gelignite (), also known as blasting gelatin or simply "jelly", is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or guncotton) dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and salt ...
were used to destroy number five hold and its contents. Swinson described the act as "the ultimate in stupidity, waste and vandalism, symbolising a mental attitude beyond ... he islanders'comprehension". Angus John Campbell commented "Dynamiting whisky. You wouldn't think there'd be men in the world so crazy as that!" There is no accurate figure for the number of bottles taken. McColl estimated that the islanders had taken about 2,000 cases (24,000 bottles). Swinson estimates 7,000 cases. Swinson bases his estimate on the interviews he made with islanders in the early 1960s; he spoke with men who had taken over 500 cases between them, and they were, Swinson records, only a few of the several hundred who visited the wreck. Holden returned with his salvage team in March 1942 to cut the stern—including number five hold—from the rest of ''Politician''. Once the waterlogged hold had been removed, the remainder of the ship rose from the sandbank, at which point she was towed to Lochboisdale and then on to
Rothesay Rothesay ( ; gd, Baile Bhòid ) is the principal town on the Isle of Bute, in the council area of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It lies along the coast of the Firth of Clyde. It can be reached by ferry from Wemyss Bay, which offers an onward rail ...
. Within two weeks the main part of the ship had been turned to scrap; number five hold remained on the floor of Eriskay Sound. The salvors extracted £360,000 in Jamaican currency from number five hold and passed it to Gledhill. He sealed the money in boxes and sent it to the salvage agents via the local
post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...
on South Uist. The notes were handed over to the Bank of England. Many had already been presented at banks for exchange. A
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
corporal changing Jamaican notes in Rothesay was arrested, but was acquitted after he proved he had recently returned from a posting in Jamaica; in November 1942 the foreman of the salvage operation was questioned by police: he had been giving away the notes as souvenirs. By 1958, 211,267 notes had been located; 2,329 more had been presented at banks in Ireland, Switzerland, Malta, the US and Jamaica, some of which had been paid into the banks by people unaware of the source of the money. About 76,400 banknotes remained lost.


Legacy

The islanders involved in removing the whisky were resentful of those who had provided information to the customs officials. There was also a bad feeling towards those who had sold the whisky they found; when interviewed by Swinson in the 1960s, islanders told him that most of those involved in looting the whisky either drank it, hid it for later, or gave it to friends and families. Opinions varied about those who had taken the hidden whisky caches of others. Some islanders thought it was not theirs to take in the first place, so it didn't matter who took it the second time; one man told Swinson "it was all part of the fun". Another man said that he didn't mind customs searching for it—that was their job, after all—but "what I did mind were the people who hadn't the courage to board the steamer ... they would watch where we buried the stuff and unearth it later on". Those islanders who were prosecuted were angered by what Hutchinson describes as "the perversion of natural justice, by the stain put on their characters and not least by the fact that each of them, members of possibly the most peaceable and law-abiding community on Britain, now had a criminal record". At the official inquiry into the sinking of ''Politician'', Captain Worthington and First Mate Swain were cleared of all blame for her fate. Both returned to sea. Worthington captained SS ''Arica'', which was sunk in November 1942 by '' U160''; he survived the war and died in 1961. Swain commanded SS ''Custodian'', another ship in the Harrison line, and survived the war. E. H. Mossman, ''Politician'' chief engineer, sailed on SS ''Barrister'', which ran aground on rocks off the coast of Ireland in December 1942. According to Hutchinson, Mossman "is reputed to have commented 'we've done it again'." The writer
Compton Mackenzie Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of th ...
was a resident of Barra from 1933, and was aware of the events surrounding ''Politician''. In 1947 he published a fictionalised humorous account under the title '' Whisky Galore''; he set the story on two islands, Great Todday and Little Todday and developed the theme of "the right of small communities to self-determination in the face of larger, frequently ignorant, interfering forces", according to the historian Gavin Wallace. The book sold several million copies and was reprinted several times. Two factual books deal with the events surrounding ''Politician''; in 1963 Arthur Swinson published ''Scotch on the Rocks: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore'', which contained a foreword by Mackenzie, and in 1990 Roger Hutchinson wrote ''Polly: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore''. In 1949 Mackenzie's novel became the source for a film of the same name produced by
Ealing Studios Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever s ...
; Mackenzie made a brief appearance as the captain of SS ''Cabinet Minister'', the renamed ship that grounded itself on the rocks. The customs men were replaced with Captain Paul Waggett, an English officer of the
Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting w ...
, who vainly seeks out the purloined whisky. The plot device of pitting a small group of British against a series of changes to the status quo from an external agent leads the British Film Institute to consider ''Whisky Galore!'', along with other Ealing comedies, as "conservative, but 'mildly anarchic' daydreams, fantasies". A remake of the film was released in June 2016. In January 1991 the broadcaster
Derek Cooper Major George Derek Cooper OBE MC (28 May 1912 – 19 May 2007) was a British Army officer, campaigner for refugees, and supporter of the Palestinian people. Early life and career Cooper was born in Bromley in Kent. He was the third of four c ...
presented ''Distilling Whisky Galore!'', an hour-long documentary on the ''Politician'', the Ealing comedy film and attempts to salvage any remaining cargo. Because of the loss of the Jamaican notes, and the number that were being cashed in banks, from 1 July 1952 the blue ten-shilling notes were no longer accepted as legal tender. They were replaced with notes of the same design, but printed in purple on a light orange background. As at 2019, one of the notes from the wreck hangs over the bar of the , Eriskay's only pub, which was named after the SS ''Politician''. It was the practice of some Eriskay residents to hide their empty bottles from ''Politician'' on Eriskay's interior for fear of incriminating themselves. Many of these were filled with sand from the local beach and turned into lamp bases before being sold in Edinburgh; the provenance was particularly interesting to American tourists who had seen the Ealing film. Several full bottles of whisky were found on the island when locations had been forgotten by those who buried them; sand dunes that changed shape with the wind or a new thatch roof being installed often uncovered a hidden cache. In 1991 one man who moved to Eriskay found four bottles under the floor of the croft he had purchased; he then found two bottles buried in the ground outside. Several bottles have been raised from the wreck by divers. In 1987 a diving expedition brought up eight bottles, described as being "in perfect condition", and in 1989 the Glasgow-based company SS Politician Plc was formed to raise £500,000 for a salvage operation to locate any further bottles on the wreck. The salvage operation took place during the calm weather of the summer months of 1990, but in the first storm at the end of the summer the rig secured over the wreck site was blown off its moorings and the salvage operation was cancelled. The operation uncovered 24 bottles. A blended whisky, SS Politician, containing a small amount of the whisky they had raised was produced, but did not sell well and the company went into liquidation. A separate brand of whisky has been released under the name SS Politician, although this has no connection with the first brand or the whisky from the ship. The various finds of whisky—whether found on land or raised from the wreck—have been placed at auction.


Notes and references


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Internet

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External links


Online display
at the
Merseyside Maritime Museum The Merseyside Maritime Museum is a museum based in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is part of National Museums Liverpool and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. It opened for a trial season in 19 ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Politician Cargo ships Merchant ships of the United Kingdom World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean Maritime incidents in February 1941 1941 in Scotland Looting History of the Outer Hebrides