SS Politician - Banknotes

Banknotes

At the time, the Crown remained very unforthcoming about the incident, the cargo and the salvage. The majority of its hold was taken up by the whisky, but there was also an assortment of other cargo ranging from baths, plumbing fittings, pianos, art silks, motor parts, bedding, furniture, food and banknotes for Jamaica.

Recently released Public Records Office files show that it was also carrying nearly 290,000 ten-shilling notes (145,000 pounds), which would be worth the equivalent of several million pounds at current exchange rates. (To give an idea of how much that was worth, a corporal on full pay in the British Army received 35 shillings a week). The British government hoped that they would not get into circulation, but they started turning up at banks all around the world. Some sources suggest that these supplies were being sent to the colonies in case there was need of evacuation in the war.

As soon as the weather allowed, Eriskay was besieged with customs officials, insurance agents and legitimate salvage companies. It is reported that the custom officials were not well received and one agent was refused accommodation by most of the townsfolk.

In April 1941 Captain E Lauriston, who was in charge of the operation, claimed that the banknotes had turned up in Benbecula, 25 miles north of the wreck. The salvage company stated:

It is reported that some of the children on the island have been playing with them and the locals, most of whom are known to be incriminated in the looting, are too wily to give anything away.

In a memorandum, the Crown Agents noted:

The local police service is in no doubt on a very, very small scale but the nature of the place and its surroundings should tend to reduce the chances of serious loss through the notes being presented and paid.

Suspicions only began to rise when an empty cash case was found abandoned in the hold of the ship. By June, the banknotes from the SS Politician were turning up in branches as far away as Liverpool. By mid July, a hundred or so had been tendered in Jamaica and almost two hundred in Britain.

By 1958, the Crown Agents reported that 211,267 notes had been recovered by the salvage company and the police and had been destroyed. A further 2,329 had been presented in banks in England, Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, Malta, Canada, the US and Jamaica. Only 1,509 were thought to have been presented in good faith. That still leaves 76,404 banknotes which have never been accounted for. Their fate remains a mystery.

The wreck of the SS Politician still lies off the coast of Eriskay, although it is below water line now as the winter gales destroyed the deck and cabins. In 1988 the island got its own ‘legitimate’ pub, named Am Politician ("The Politician" in Gaelic).