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On April 18, 1912, the Cunard liner RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Carpathia arrived at the Port of New York carrying 705 survivors of one of the worst sea disasters in history: the sinking of the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic, which resulted in the loss of 1,503 of her passengers and crew. Among the survivors aboard Carpathia — Cunard’s much smaller Atlantic liner, which had been bound for Mediterranean ports when it’s crew had received the distress calls and without hesitation turned about and raced through miles and miles of thick pack ice to the scene of the disaster — was Toronto businessman and member of the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, Major Arthur Peuchen, president of the Standard Chemical Company and a first-class passenger on the ill-fated White Star super liner. Peuchen had crossed the Atlantic dozens of times without incident. But this particular crossing was to change his life.

Peuchen’s Toronto-based company had developed a highly efficient method of obtaining acetone from the distillation of wood. This chemical was a key component in the creation of cordite, a propellant used in the manufacture of artillery shells. For many, including Peuchen, the prospect of a major conflict erupting in Europe was both bad news (for obvious reasons) and good news, because if war broke out, millions of artillery shells would be needed — and tremendous quantities of cordite would be needed to propel those shells toward the enemy lines. Companies in the acetone-producing business would not only be regarded as patriotic, but they would reap great financial rewards for their stockholders as well.

Lacking large wooded areas (most having already been cut down), it was painfully obvious that England would have to import the necessary acetone from countries where huge forests made it easy to produce the chemical in large quantities. As a member of the British Empire, Canada was an ideal choice, and Peuchen managed sprawling lots of timber from which his company produced huge quantities of acetone. Tankers would cross the Atlantic carrying all the acetone that the Mother Country would need.

The Cunard Line’s “no-frills” ocean liner Carpathia rescued 705 victims of the Titanic disaster that occurred more than one hundred years ago.

It was this business opportunity that resulted in the major visiting his business contacts in England, “just in case.” Following the meetings, Peuchen booked his return passage on the maiden voyage of the world’s newest and most luxurious ocean liner. He planned to be back in his Jarvis Street home shortly after Titanic docked in New York on April 17, 1912.

But everything changed at 11:40 on the evening of April 14, 1912, when the giant liner struck an iceberg. Less than three hours later she slipped under the North Atlantic’s icy waters.

This Toronto newspaper ad ran in February 1912, two months before the Titanic struck an iceberg. In a strange twist, both the ill-fated Titanic and the Carpathia — the ship that raced to aid Titanic’s passengers and crew — appeared in the same advertisement.

But if the major thought his troubles were over when he stepped ashore, boy was he wrong. One of the first things he did when confronted by an eager press was to announce to one and all that the disaster was as a result of (in Peuchen’s own words in the Toronto Globe) “gross carelessness.” He went on to condemn the ship’s captain: “[He] knew we were going into an ice field — why would he remain dining in the saloon when such danger was about?”

His criticism of Captain Smith came back to haunt him when it was pointed out that of the hundreds of male passengers who drowned, he was one of very few to survive. Peuchen argued that because of his expertise as a member of Toronto’s Royal Canadian Yacht Club he was actually ordered to help with the passengers in Lifeboat #6.

His explanation fell on many deaf ears, however, and for the rest of his life his experience on that terrible night continued to haunt him. Peuchen died in December 1929, and is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.

April 18, 2010