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Suez Canal: One hundred years ago

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I am fascinated by the 400m long Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal in March 2021. It made me think of my great-great-uncle’s voyages through the canal in December 1909 and March 1910- almost exactly 111 years ago.

Imagine sailing that small dhow and having a monster ship like this pass you. I wonder if smaller craft are even allowed to share the space now?

Below are Dr Robert Adam’s photos of the canal and how ships at that time were processed through Port Said, with local workers (“coalies” and “boatmen”) on hand to prepare the ship for the next stage of its voyage -either through the canal and Red Sea, or through the Mediterranean back home.

Ever Given Cargo ship, stuck in Suez Canal (from BBC.com news/ maxar technologies satellite images)
  • Lower end of the Suez Canal
    March 31, 1910
  • Passing a Dhow, Suez Canal
    taken from SS Agamemnon
    December 21, 1909
  • Port town at the lower end of the Suez Canal
    March 31, 1909
  • At Port Said, the entrance to the Suez Canal. Local workers bring coal on board.
    Canal Headquarters at top left
    March 7, 1910
  • Bringing coal to the SS Agamemnon, Port Said, Suez Canal
    December 21, 1909
  • Local Boatmen lowering in dinghy with ropes, to tie up the ship
    SS Agamemnon
    December 21, 1909
  • Port Said, entrance to the Suez Canal
    Camels near the mosque
    December 21, 1909
  • Suez Canal Headquarters, Port Said
    March 7, 1910

Social Distancing: One Hundred Years Ago

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The world saw a lot more transmittable viruses, illnesses and diseases a hundred years ago. In fact the top causes of death were infectious diseases like pneumonia and influenza, tuberculosis, diphtheria.

Social Distancing allowed for living with your family, as long as you slept in a tent in the yard

My great-great-uncle, Robert Adam, contracted tuberculosis during his round-the-world tours. As a result, he lived the last years of his life, 1910 to 1917, at the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives, with summertime visits to the family cottage at Sturgeon Point.

The Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives in 1911: wide verandas and large open windows

The Sanitarium was built with extra large windows as the thinking back then was that fresh air was beneficial to consumptives. In warmer months – and it seems this was taken as being any month without snow – the patients slept outdoors or in tents

Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives took the fresh air approach seriously: beds outdoors on the veranda in summer months
Self Isolation was a room set up in a tent
Large open windows allowed for fresh air circulation

Ships: SS Pretorian

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SS Pretorian: Canada to Glasgow, Summer 1909

Dr Robert Adam took a job. Why? It was in 1909 – I can’t know why. Maybe there weren’t jobs for newly graduated physicians in Southern Ontario at the time. His job: ships surgeon on coal powered cargo ships.

The first one, however, not a cargo ship – a passenger ship that took him from Canada to Glasgow: the SS Pretorian.

The Pretorian was built for the Allan Line in 1900 in West Hartlepool (North-East England) by Furness, Withy and Company. The ship was about 437 feet long and 53 feet at its beam and had one funnel, two masts, a single screw and a speed of 13 knots. Initially designed for 50 first class passengers, 150 second class passengers and 400 third class passengers, she was rebuilt in 1908 to accommodate 200 second class passengers and 900 third class passengers.  http://wightonfamily.ca/genealogy/essays/pretorian.html