COMMANDER EUSTACE ROBERT WHITE
(R.D. -- R.N.R. Retd.)
Born in 1873.
His first training ship was the Conway. He was also in the Merchant Navy. His
Masters papers are from about 1898.
Retired sometime in the 1930's after a fifty year career at sea.
He sent a letter to an aunt in 1909, from the SS. Canopic.
He went to Australia and Tasmania in his earlier career days. Also he had a
position in the Mediteranean for some time.
Died in 1938.
Articles taken from an unnamed newspapers.
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Captain Eustace White
who commanded the White Star liner Majestic is living in retirement in Birmingham.
He started his seafaring career 50 years ago in a sailing ship,
and since the war has commanded most of the biggest White Star liners including
The Homeric and the Olympic.
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BIRMINGHAM HOME OF MAN WHO COMMANDED MAJESTIC
DAYS WHEN SAILORS WERE HARD NUTS
CAPT. E. WHITE
CAPT. EUSTACE WHITE, who has commanded the Majestic and other great White Star
liners is living in Birmingham -- a strange place for a man who has spent 50
years at sea to retire to! That is what I thought (writes a "Evening Despatch"
reporter) until I Saw the Captain bending his back over bed of beans in his
garden.
But, Capt. White has other ideas on the subject. I don't think he would Mind
going back to the oid life again for after all, it is "once a sailor alwnys
a sailor" with onyone who has tasted the salt spray, has paced the deck in the
lonely night watches, or has had under his command the largest liner in the
world
There are times, I should imagine, whenn CApt. White feels the old urge upon
him and lest the temptation of seeing ships should be too strong he has got
as far away from them as he possibly can.
LOVED THE LANES,
He told me it was a love of Warwickshire lanes that led his steps to Birmingham.
Cnpt. White is the- embodiment of what the landlubber idealises as a great Master
Mariner. Short, stockily built, and, .of course taciturn. I found him willing
to talk freely on any subject I cared to mention with one exception - his own
life at sea.
When that, was touched npon, his answers came with the terseness, almost the
abruptness, characteristic of the navigation bridge.
His home, too, in Bristol Road, was a surprise. I had expected to find him surrounded
at leastt by pictures of some of his old commands. But not a ship adorning his
walls. It was the home of a man with quiet, artistic, tastes, whose only knowledge
or big ships and the men who man them, was what he had Tired of.
THE ONLY RELIC.
Capt. White took pity on my obvious disappointment. He apologised that he hadn't
even got the ship in a bottle.
(piece missing) of going to sea is that. he is seldom trusted with the wheel.
When a liner Is burning as much as 500 tons'of coal a day, you will appreciate
that a man who'keeps her on a straight course is no 'friend of the .Engineer.
HIS FIRST SHIP
Straight from his sailing-ship training Capt. White joined the White' Star Line,
with whom excepting his service in the auxciliary marine during the war maintaining
the blockade of Germany, he remained to the closeof his sea-faring career.
His first ship was the Deiphic, on the New Zealand run which he Joined as Third
Officer. The Bovic one of the old "Bull Boats" so called because they were principally
engaged in carrying cattle from the States to Birkenhead, was his first command.
The average cargo was about a thousand animals, and Capt. White declares that
they were generally in better condition when they reached the Mersey than at
the beginning of the voyage.
Then he took over the Nordic, on The Australian run; was transferred to the
command of the Medic, which was his first passenger ship, steaming between Liverpool
and Australia.
SHE NEVER ROLLED.
After a few trips across the Northern Atlantic on the Megantic. he was given
the Baltic of which he has more Tender memmories than any ship he has ever ommanded.
In her day the Baltic was the pride of the White Star fleet. "The ship that
never, rolled" is Capt. Whites memory of her. No matter what sort of a beam
sea was runninp in the Atlantic She rose up each wave almost perpendicularly.
" ;
i yes" he said with a far-away Iook in his eye, "she was the one ship I have
ever commanded that I could heave to in the fiercest weather and go to bed".
Then came command of the Homeric, thee Olympic, and finally the mighty Majestic.
The last-named was one of the first liners to be fitted with wireless telephony;
On one of her New York runs Capt. White spoke from mid Atlantic to the King
of Spain in Madrid.
And now he has come Into dry dock - in Birmingham.
C. B. M.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Yvonne Watson (White's Granddaughter)
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