Sidney Schleswick on board the SS Roddam
Theme : The Sea

This is Sydney Schleswick (b.1880), the son of a Swansea schoolmaster. Sydney is standing on the deck of the SS Roddam. He and a fellow Swansea seaman, named Watters, were the ship's engineers. In 1902, they were eyewitnesses to the eruption of the volcano, Mount Pelée, which destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre on the Caribbean island of Martinique. The SS Roddam was the only ship to escape from the harbour. An assistant purser on the Roraima, the only other ship to remain afloat, was able to record: "I saw St.Pierre destroyed. The city was blotted out by one great flash of fire. Of 18 vessels lying in the road, only the British steamship Roddam escaped and she lost more than half of those on board. It was a dying crew that took her out ..." Sydney survived, he returned to Swansea, where he worked on the docks. In his 84th year, Sydney recalled his memories of that historic day for the South Wales Evening Post, on the 62nd anniversary of the disaster.

This Item is located at The Museum Stores at Landore in the Stores