An Lanntair is delighted to host exhibition Titanic’s Predecessor: SS Norge – An Atlantic Catastrophe, curated by The Western Isles Community Society and on show in the art centre’s main gallery from May 11th to 16th.
The Western Isles Community Society exhibition tells the story of Russians and Finns fleeing Tsarist oppression, and of Norwegians and Danes seeking a new life in America. They made up the 800 or so passengers, nearly half of them children, who boarded the SS Norge in Copenhagen, bound for New York, on June 22nd1904.
On June 28th however, the ship hit Helen’s Reef, close to Rockall – with only 160 passengers surviving. After drifting in the Atlantic for up to eight days in open lifeboats, the last – with a one-year-old child on board – was found over 400 miles from Rockall, close to the Faroes.
More than 100 survivors from the SS Norge were treated at the old Lewis Hospital in Stornoway. Of those, eight children and one adult died, and are buried in the graveyard at Lower Sandwick, Lewis.
The exhibition curated by The Western Isles Community Society takes viewers through the sequence of events as the tragedy unfolded, as well as the return of some of the passenger’s descendants to Stornoway in 2004.
Titanic’s Predecessor: SS Norge – An Atlantic Catastrophe is supported by the Western Isles Development Trust and the local lottery.