On Tuesday night thirty-eight-year-old Magistrate Malcolm Hollett wiped the sweat off his face as he composed yet another letter to Prime Minister Richard Anderson Squires in St. John’s. Hollett sat at a mahogany desk in his Burin parlour, feeling no comfort by the smell of century-old oak wall panels or the tray of tea and gingerbread a maid had left for him. He dipped his pen in the inkwell and began again.
The SS Daisy which was lying at the Government wharf at the time has been rendering every assistance since the affair happened. All Monday night they were searching among the houses which went out to sea, for the missing people. All day yesterday in a raging south east gale and heavy sea she was doing the impossible with regard to boats and schooners.
Hollett bit his bottom lip. There was no way to get the letter to St. John’s, at least not the last time he sent a messenger to the telegraph officer to check an hour ago. The darn lines were still down and suddenly travel by ship seemed slow. It felt like they were on their own, on the edge of the world, nay, the universe.
What an odd position for Newfoundland, a sea-going nation, whose men and ships regularly travelled to Iberia and the Caribbean.
Then his mind jarred back to the tidal wave. Hollett kept writing—he had to do something.
The officers and the crew deserve the greatest effort for the work they have done. Nearly every boat afloat of course was out of commission. I asked the Captain of the Daisy to go to St. Lawrence and Lamaline today and expect her here tonight. I fear there is great destruction between here and Lamaline. At present all communication is cut off but the operator Mr. Cox is making every effort to establish communication with outlying settlements and with St. John’s. I shall endeavour to get some data with regard to the losses and with regard to the distress. It is imperative that something be done at once to relieve the immediate wants of the people who have lost their all. I appeal to you, Sir, for some immediate Government assistance for the people. I shall form a Committee of some of the citizens here in a day or so. In the meantime I shall have to get food, clothing and coal to many families. I hope to send this to you by the Daisy to Argentia.
After signing the letter, Hollett set down his pen and stood up. He walked to the parlour doorway and called out to his wife Lucy, who was on her way upstairs with their baby. “Shall we send Peter back to the telegraph office to see if the lines are working? I’ve got to get a message to St. John’s.”
Although the cable lines were still not functioning, Hollett wrote again on Wednesday to the government in the capital. The Daisy had brought much sad news upon her return to Burin. This time Hollett reported the death of old Thomas Lockyer of Allan’s Island, who had been fatally crushed in the tidal wave. And he sadly recorded the death of Jessie and David Hipditch’s three children in Point au Gaul. He had already written of the deaths of Frances Kelly and her daughter, Dorothy, in Kelly’s Cove, and the near drowning of the elderly Inkpens from Stepaside.
Now the magistrate’s face was permanently the colour of a beet; it had turned that way after the Daisy’s Inspector Dee told him that fifteen of twenty-four families in Taylor’s Bay were homeless and that the harbour was a wasteland. Of the villages closer to his own home in Burin, he wrote to the prime minister, “William Moulton’s house is washed away. The family barely escaped with their lives… Corbin practically every bit of waterfront property with some dwellings gone.”
After some time alone in his parlour, Hollett made a bold suggestion to the prime minister:
In my opinion this affair is almost too big even for the Government and a general public subscription should be started immediately. It is impossible to describe this dire calamity which has come upon us. I respectfully suggest that an immediate investigation of the individual losses and destitution be made at once on the whole coast concerned. That a boat with provisions and coal be sent as soon as possible, and that a committee be appointed to handle its distribution.
On Thursday morning, three days after the tidal wave, telegraph operators in St. John’s reeled in shock when they received the news from the wireless operator on the SS Portia calling from Burin. The message was sent to Prime Minister Squires from Magistrate Malcolm Hollett.
SS “PORTIA”
Via Cape Race
Nov. 21, 1929
Sir R.A. Squires,
St. John’s.
Burin experienced very severe earth tremors 5.05 PM Eighteenth followed at 7.35 PM by an immense 15 feet tidal wave which swept away everything along waterfront sixteen dwelling houses with nine lives mostly women and children gone four bodies recovered all communications by wire cut off report is that 18 lives have been lost at Lord’s Cove and Lamaline S. S. “DAISY” rendering every assistance St. Lawrence also swept no lives lost destruction property terrible and many people left destitute and homeless doing all possible to relieve suffering “DAISY” now at Lamaline writing particulars.
(Sgd) Magistrate Hollett.
The telegraph operators had seen St. John’s harbour empty for a full ten minutes on Monday evening but that was all. It had been a strange sight—a once in a lifetime kind of thing, everyone said—but it had not been followed by anything like the monstrous waves to which the villages of Burin had been subjected. Instead, St. John’s harbour had slowly filled with sea water again until it regained its usual fullness. People had even laughed about it. But in the mercantile town of Burin and neighbouring villages, they learned, everything had been destroyed, and most sadly of all, women, men, and children had died. Up to Thursday, the twenty-first, the telegraph operators in the capital knew almost nothing of the tragedies farther south on the peninsula.
Sir Richard Squires, Newfoundland’s prime minister, got Hollett’s message just before noon. Straight as a flagpole, Squires stood in his office giving dictation. Although he was lean, his little round glasses made him look owlish and academic, though he was neither. He seemed, in fact, to sail from one ill-advised decision and scandal to another. His last term of office had ended under the cloud of corruption charges which were never proven and rumours continued to swirl about him. Anderson, as he was known to friends, also lacked the easy charm of his wife, Lady Helena Strong Squires. Although Helena was the first woman elected to the House of Assembly, she had initially opposed women’s suffrage. Now, as a member of the House, she had won many fans.
Squires sank into his overstuffed leather chair as he listened to a messenger read him a telegram from Burin. He crossed his arms in front of his chest as if to ward off what he was hearing.
“My God, it’s winter,” he muttered. “It’s bloody cold out and the fishing’s over. And the dead…”
He stood up quickly. He wiped his brow and telephoned Clyde Lake, the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, to inform him of the disaster and to ask him to ready his officials for immediate assistance to the stricken region. Squires then directed the Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, W.P. Rogerson, to contact the railway authorities to commission the SS Meigle as a relief ship. He directed his officials to organize a special meeting of Committee of Council, which was also attended by Clyde Lake and Dr. L.E. Keegan, Superintendent of the General Hospital.