The Story of How "Women and Children First" Came to Be

On this episode of Our American Stories, The History Guy remembers the Birkenhead Disaster and explains where the protocol "women and children first" was first used.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
and we love your story. Send them to our Americanstories
dot com. There's some of our favorites. Our next story
comes to us from a man who's simply known as
the History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of

(00:30):
thousands of people of all ages on YouTube. The History
Guy is also a regular contributor for us here at
Our American Stories. Today, the History Guy remembers the Birkenhead
disaster and explains where the protocol women and children First
was first used.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hopefully you've never been in a shipwreck before, but if
you did, you know the first rule of loading the
lifeboats children first. But did you ever wonder where this
protocol came from? Well, that's a great question for the
History Guy, and so today we're going to talk about
an extraordinary story of bravery in the face of horrible circumstances,

(01:13):
in the Birkenhead Disaster of eighteen fifty two. The Birkenhead
was an iron hulled, steam driven, paddle wheeled troopship of
the British Army, launched in eighteen forty five. She was
a modern vessel, larger, more comfortable, and faster than the
typical wooden sail powered troop ships of her time. She
had a top speed of ten knots, able to make

(01:35):
the trip from Britain to the Cape in just thirty
seven days. She was safe too. Her iron hull included
twelve air tight compartment separated by strong bulkheads two hundred
and ten feet long with a thirty seven foot beam.
She had a crew complement of one hundred and twenty
five and room for more than five hundred passengers. In

(01:56):
January of eighteen fifty two, the Birkenhead left Portsmouth with
troops from ten different regiments on board, headed for South Africa,
where the troops were desperately needed as reinforcements in one
of the many South Africa border wars. She had several
women and children on board, families of the officers. On
the trip, three babies were born. She sailed through a
strong Atlantic winter storm, and yet her passage was the

(02:18):
fastest of any troop ship to date the urgency of
getting reinforcements to the frontier. On February twenty third, she
left Simonstown at about six pm, headed for Algora Bay
and Port Elizabeth around the cape. She had some six
hundred and forty three men, women and children on board.
She was in a hurry, so she hugged the coast

(02:38):
and steamed at full speed in calm seas and clear skies.
She was making eight and a half knots. Shortly before
two am, the Birkenhead struck a submerged rock oft aptly
named danger Point near Gansby, South Africa. Ironically, the barely
submerged rock was easily visible in rough seas, but not
readily apparent in calm conditions. Ensign Ga Lucas of the

(03:02):
seventy fourth Foot, just twenty years old at the time,
later wrote, I was awakened by three distinct shocks. I
stood up immediately. It struck me that we were stuck
on a rock. There was a gash in the hole.
Seawater rushed in. At least a hundred soldiers were immediately drowned,
trapped sleeping in their bunks. Ship Captain Robert Salmon rushed

(03:23):
on deck, shouting orders in a clear and firm voice.
He ordered the lifeboats on the quarterdeck lowered. The women
and children were placed in the ship's cutter. A small boat.
The stress rockets were fired, but there were no vessels
nearby to sea. Sixty men were detailed to go below
and operate the chain pumps to pump water out of
the hole, and sixty more were meant to man the

(03:43):
tackle on the two large lifeboats, each able to carry
one hundred and fifty people, But when they pulled on
the tackle to lift the lifeboats, the ropes broke. The
equipment hadn't been maintained, the ropes were rotten, and the
one hundred and fifty person boats were so heavy they
could not be lifted on their own because the tilt.
Several other light boats couldn't be lowered, and the Birkenhead
only had three operable lifeboats, the Cutter and two other

(04:06):
small boats, not nearly enough for everyone on board. The
ranking officer on board, Lieutenant Colonel Seaton of the seventy
fourth Foot, arranged the remaining soldiers to stand in ranks
on the poop deck, using their weight to lift the
bow of the ship. In the pitch black emergency, the
men maintained their discipline. Captain Salmon ordered the engines in reverse,
thinking he could pull off the rocks. It was a

(04:27):
mistake she struck again on the stern and tore another gash.
It flooded the engine room and killed the boilers. The
men sent below to man the pumps were instantly drowned.
As the ship broke in half, Salmon ordered the horses
thrown overboard in the hopes that they could swim for shore.
Eight of the nine made it. Then Salmon gave a
final order. All the men who could swim should jump
off and swim for the lifeboats. But that's where the

(04:51):
story takes its extraordinary turn. Colonel Seaton realized that all
the men swimming were way too much for the small
lifeboats at sea, and so he shouted to his men
the cutter, with the women and children, it will be swamped.
I implore you not to do this thing. I ask that
you stand fast, And so they did. They stood bravely

(05:15):
at attention as the ship broke up around them in
what became known as the Birkenhead drill. One of the
few officers to survive the disaster, Captain Edward Wright of
the ninety first Regiment. Vote of that moment, everyone did
is was directed, and there was not a murmur or
cry among them. All received their orders and carried them
out as if they were embarking instead of going to

(05:38):
the bottom put Rudyard Kipling immortalized the moment in his
poem Soldier and Sailor iiO. But to stand and hold
still to the Birkenhead drill is a damned tough bullet
to chew. But they did it. The Jolly's, her Majesty's
Jolly's Soldier and Sailor too. The Birkenhead sunk within twenty

(06:00):
five minutes of striking the first rock. Many were sucked
down with the ship, and many more were horribly taken
by the great white charts, which are prolific off of
danger point. The next day, the schooner Lioness discovered the
cutter with the women and children and rescued everyone who
had been in the lifeboats. They returned to the scene
of the wreck and found forty more survivors still clinging

(06:20):
to the wreckage. About another one hundred had managed to
make it to shore. Out of six hundred and thirty
eight on the Birkinghead, one hundred and ninety three survived,
including all of the women and children. The conduct of
the soldiers aboard the Birkenhead became known as a model
for discipline and self sacrifice. It so impressed the Emperor

(06:42):
of Prussia, Frederick William the fourth, that he had an
account of the conduct aboard the Birkenhead read out to
every regiment in his army. There are several monuments to
the victims of the Birkenhead, both in England and in
South Africa, and the people of guns By South Africa
still hold a memorial every year, a memorial to remember

(07:02):
people who deserve to be remembered because of their sacrifice
for others.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
And a terrific job as always by our own Greg
Hangler on the production and editing, and especial thanks as
always to the History Guy. The story of where the
Protocol Women and Children First was first used here on
our American Stories. Here aret our American Stories. We bring

(07:32):
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