Qualla: SS Politician

SS Politician: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Royal Mint, Public domain. At about 7:40 in the morning on 4 February 1941, in bad weather and poor visibility off Eriskay, the freighter SS Politician hit rocks and stopped moving. Her crew thought they were south of Barra. They were not. Below decks in hold five sat 22,000 cases of Scotch whisky, 264,000 bottles in all, bonded for export to fund the war effort. In hold five with them were eight crates of Jamaican banknotes, in ten-shilling, one-pound, and five-pound denominations, with a face value of £3 million. Both cargoes were about to enter Hebridean folklore. The Bank of Jamaica would spend a decade quietly accepting damp, oil-stained notes presented at counters from Liverpool to Malta.

Read more: SS Politician on Qualla

Image: Royal Mint | Public domain

SS Politician: London Merchant Becomes Polly

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Otter, CC BY-SA 3.0. The ship was launched in 1921 as SS London Merchant by the Furness Shipbuilding Company in County Durham, completed in 1923, and worked the Atlantic for Furness Withy, sailing between Manchester and the US west coast. In December 1924, during American Prohibition, Oregon's state ...

Read more: SS Politician on Qualla

Image: Otter | CC BY-SA 3.0

SS Politician: What the Crew Forgot to Mention

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data Minor editing to highlight w:Eriskay by SchroCat, CC BY-SA 3.0. All 51 crew got ashore safely. Some were billeted that night with islanders on Eriskay, where, as anyone might in a strange kitchen with whisky-deprived hosts, they mentioned the cargo. By the next morning, when Captain Worthington returned to inspect his ship, personal possessio...

Read more: SS Politician on Qualla

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data Minor editing to highlight w:Eriskay by SchroCat | CC BY-SA 3.0

SS Politician: Customs Officer McColl

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mipmapped, CC BY-SA 3.0. HM Customs and Excise officer Charles McColl and his superior Ivan Gledhill chased the islanders for months. McColl commandeered a boat in March, intercepted three loads of whisky off Eriskay, and began raiding crofts; the crews and their families had hidden the bottles in rabbit...

Read more: SS Politician on Qualla

Image: Mipmapped | CC BY-SA 3.0

SS Politician: The Banknotes That Travelled

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Royal Mint, Public domain. The Jamaican banknotes had a stranger fate. Children on Eriskay were spotted playing with them. Within two months water-stained notes were being exchanged in Liverpool. Salvors eventually recovered £360,000 of the cargo for the Bank of England. By 1958, 211,267 notes had been acc...

Read more: SS Politician on Qualla

Image: Royal Mint | Public domain

SS Politician: Whisky Galore

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original map: Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty Addition of coloured dots by SchroCat, Public domain. In August 1941 McColl, frustrated and outwitted, used sixteen sticks of gelignite to destroy hold five and prevent further looting. The historian Arthur Swinson called it 'the ultimate in stupidity, waste, and vandalism'. Compton Mackenzie, a resident of Barra since 1933, watched...

Read more: SS Politician on Qualla

Image: Original map: Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty Addition of coloured dots by SchroCat | Public domain