Lot details
Alfred Jansen, (1859-1935,) S.S. Brussels at full steam, with portrait vignette of Captain Fryatt with ribbon below ''Capt Chas. Fryatt Commander of S.S. Brussels killed by Germany 1916,'' oil on canvas, signed A.J. Jansen R.D. 19, 45 x 64cm. Charles Algernon Fryatt (1872 -1916) At the beginning of WW1 Captain Fryatt was in command of the Great Eastern Railway steamer the SS Brussels and regularly sailing the Harwich- Rotterdam route. On 2nd March 1915, Fryatt successfully avoided an attack on his ship, the SS Wrexham, by a U-Boat which chased the Wrexham chased for 40 nautical miles (74 km). After being pushed to its absolute limit, the Wrexham arrived at Rotterdam to great acclaim, but with burnt funnels. The Chairman and Directors of the Great Eastern Railway Company presented Fryatt with a gold watch as a show of their appreciation of his courage and skilful seamanship. On 28th March while commanding the Brussels, U33 ordered Fryatt to stop, and when he didn't, made an attempt to sink the Brussels. The U-Boat surfaced and got into position to fire a torpedo. On seeing this, Fryatt changed direction and headed towards the U-Boat, forcing the submarine to crash dive (in accordance with orders issued by Winston Churchill to captains of merchant ships). For this action Fryatt was awarded a second gold watch, presented by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Fryatt in recognition of the example set when attacked by a German submarine. The SS Brussels and Captain Fryatt were now very definitely in German U-Boat commanders sights. On 23rd June 1916, the SS Brussels was cornered by a flotilla of German torpedo boats and escorted into the harbour at Zeebrugge then transported to Bruges. Fryatt was tried by a Court Martial on 27th July where he was found guilty and condemned to death as a 'franc-tireur' (''free-shooter'' i.e. a guerrilla fighter outside of the usual law of war). He was executed by firing squad that same day. There was outrage in Britain with Prime Minister Herbert Asquith deeming the execution to be 'murder'… and an 'atrocious crime against the laws of nations and the usages of war.', while King George V wrote to Mrs Fryatt expressing his abhorrence at the execution. In Britain, the execution of Captain Fryatt was as much a cause célèbre as that of Nurse Cavell. Many world newspapers also considered the execution on a non-combatant to be an outrage, with the New York Herald calling it ''The crowning German atrocity''. The Dutch branch of the League of Neutral States presented the Great Eastern Railway with a memorial tablet which was erected at Liverpool Street station on 27th July 1917, exactly a year after Fryatt's execution (the scrap value of Brussels was donated towards the cost). The Great Eastern Railway awarded Fryatt's widow a pension of £250 per annum and the Government granted her an extra £100 per year pension on top of her entitlement. Captain Fryatt was one of the very few British casualties to be repatriated for burial and he was also one of an even smaller group to be repatriated post-war. His funeral was held at St Paul's Cathedral on 8th July 1919. Hundreds of merchant seamen as well as members of the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, the Cabinet and the War Office attended. He was buried at All Saints' Church, Upper Dovercourt - not far from Harwich port out of which he had sailed so many times.