Bahamian Tragedy

A spanking breeze was blowing up one day last fortnight as the schooner Livonia nosed out to sea past Plana Cay near Acklin Island, Bahamas. At the helm was Rt. Rev. Roscow George Shedden, Anglican Bishop of Nassau, master and owner of the Livonia. A hearty amateur yachtsman, a onetime (1909-19) captain in the British Royal Fusiliers, Bishop Shedden has since 1919 been spiritual lord of the Bahama, Turk and Caicos Islands--a diocese embracing 13,122 church members, 83 churches, extending some 175,000 square miles of land and sea. To visit his flock he had embarked on a six-week boating trip, taking with him Eva Shedden, his sister and housekeeper, Rev. Donald Knowles, an Anglican missionary, and a crew headed by Capt. Joseph Taylor, Negro.

The Bishop's contemplation of the weather was interrupted by a crash as the Livonia struck a shoal. Soon a heavy squall smote the stranded ship. The Bishop hurriedly launched his lifeboats, took all hands aboard, rowed for tiny, deserted Plana Cay. In ten minutes the Livonia had sunk.

Wet and shivering, slapping at mosquitoes, the party assembled on the cay. After a while Capt. Taylor took the crew back to the hulk of the Livonia to fish for clothing and supplies. These secured, the captain attempted to salvage Bishop Shedden's belongings by diving into the cabin. The Bishop and crew urged him to stop diving. But he went down once more, never came up.

Back on the cay the little party built a fire that night to attract passing ships, but none came. Next day Missionary Knowles and two of the crew improvised a sail and mast, set out for Acklin Island, 17 miles away. The Bishop, Miss Shedden and the rest of the crew waited that long day, marooned. Then came a Turk's Island sailing sloop which Missionary Knowles had encountered. But not until a week after that did Nassau get the news, send out a launch to fetch home its boating Bishop.

Day after his return, the Rev. Shedden resigned as Bishop. The yacht disaster, he said, merely clinched an earlier determination to quit because, as he had told his good friend the Archbishop of Canterbury the diocese needed a change some time and he had done as much good as possible. Next week he will sail for England where, observers guessed, he will be rewarded with a diocese.

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