The Greenock stowaways, or Arran stowaways, were six boys (Hugh McEwan, 11; John Paul, 12;[i] Peter Currie, 12; Hugh McGinnes, 12; David Brand, 16; James Bryson, 16) and one young man, Bernard Reilly, 22, who, in April 1868, stowed away at Victoria Dock in Greenock, Scotland, on a cargo ship, the Arran, bound for Quebec, Canada.

[1] They were dressed in thin and ragged clothing totally unsuitable for the bitterly cold North Atlantic weather encountered on the voyage; two of the boys (John Paul and Hugh McGinnes) lacked any shoes.

On board ship they were lashed, beaten, starved, sometimes stripped naked or near-naked, had ice-cold sea water thrown over them, were generally ill-treated and, on occasion, handcuffed.

[1] When, after a little over one month at sea, their vessel became trapped in sea-ice off the west coast of Newfoundland, the captain[ii] ordered that six of them should be put overboard and told to make their way to shore across the ice.

In fact two of the boys, McGinness and McEwan, died on the ice; the remaining four stowaways survived because they were, by chance, spotted by a woman on the shoreline (Catherine Ann Gillis-MacInnis) and rescued by local Newfoundland men.

The Arran was a mid sized, three-masted, bulk-cargo sail ship[3] of 1,063 long tons (1,080 tonnes)[4] owned by Ferguson and Hendry of Greenock.

[1] William Roughead, one of the first twentieth-century criminologists to return to the case, has suggested that since the vessel was stocked with plenty of provisions, enough for the next four months, there was sufficient food for the stowaways, and the elder ones at least could work for their berth.

[24] An anonymous crew member, who later wrote home from Quebec, reported "succinctly in a dozen words"[23] that, "The stowaways got a biscuit apiece, and were ordered to go ashore".

[23] No one actually knew with certainty how far the ship was from land; various reckonings were made which suggested a distance of between 8 and 20 miles (13 and 32 kilometres); "the mate, taking a rosier view of the boys' prospects, put it at five" (8 km).

[28] The same night the children were picked up in St George's Bay, the ice shifted and the Arran was released;[6] she arrived in Quebec in early June 1868.

[35] Also, on 10 June, a crew member wrote to his family in Greenock from Quebec[17][xiii] and described the boys' journey and the behaviour of the officers.

[39] The boys were required as witnesses in Scotland, however, and so were regrouped by the Newfoundland police[36] and taken to St. John's where they were transported in a brigantine owned by Greenock's provost and member of parliament[10][xiv] called the Hannah and Bennie.

The following day town officials began legally questioning them as to their experiences with Watt and Kerr, which, the paper suggested, dovetailed with the accounts of the Arran's crew.

[42] The charge of forcing the boys to leave the ship to their own endangerment was objected to by the defence on the grounds of being innominate in law, but after much debate and deliberation the Judge allowed it to stand and the trial proceeded.

First to testify was James Bryson, who told the court how, after they left Glasgow, they remained hidden "for a day and a night", only emerging when they saw the hatches about to be nailed.

Other punishments included dousings with ice-cold salt water and the public removal of his clothes after which he would be forced to stand on the forecastle for hours at a time or scrub the decks naked.

[44] John Paul, who "was so small he had to be mounted on a stool in the witness box so he could be seen",[43] reported how he had been unable to make himself a pair of trousers because the canvas he was trying to use was taken away.

[45] Either way, Watt admitted he did enquire after their well-being following their departure;[45] first mate Kerr bluntly denied ever harming Bryson, by either scrubbings or beatings.

[45] Other members of the crew praised the captain for being a "kind, quiet man, who seldom interfered with the discipline of a ship", which, they said, was in the purview of the first mate.

[46] The chaplain of the local Seaman's Friend Society stated on oath that he believed Watts to be of such a kind disposition, "especially to boys",[45] that they would often stowaway on his ship for that very reason.

[46] "The case", noted the Solicitor General, "was one of considerable importance", hinging as it did on the extent and breadth of a sea captain's authority on his own ship, which "might be used for good or evil".

[50] As to the most serious charge, that of putting the boys ashore and inciting their certain deaths, defence counsel suggested that the true course of events was somewhat different to that presented by the prosecution.

The captain, he said, had originally put them on the surrounding ice a couple of days previously "for the purpose of giving them a fright",[51] but had subsequently taken them back aboard.

[53][xvii] In London, The Spectator took advantage of the soft treatment of the two officers to indulge in some casual racism at the Scots' expense, describing it as indicative of a "callousness [that] might, in this instance, be set down to that latent 'hardness,' diamond-heartedness, as Queen Mary called it, which is the one defect Scotchmen admit in themselves".

The newspaper compared it to a mistress who struck her maid: "It is difficult for the police to protect her from popular vengeance; but a merchant officer may do anything, yet scarcely stir the sympathies of the jury".

It appears that Watt died in Pensacola, Florida, a few years later, but Kerr continued to have a long career on the sea, eventually rising to the rank of captain himself.

[69] The Spectator led a campaign against "'cruel or unusual' punishment, like that of keeping a lad naked on deck in Arctic cold" which the paper believed was prevalent throughout the merchant service.

[52] John Donald, who wrote early enough to have been able to interview some of the stowaways' elderly contemporaries,[26] has compared Captain Watt's "general disposition (amply testified as being amiable) and his actual behaviour on the voyage".

[27] The Memorial University of Newfoundland's Maritime History Archive notes that Watt had "made no mention of the stowaways in his log, and if it hadn't been for the ensuing court case and the accompanying press coverage, the identities of these boys and their stories would likely not have come to light".

[56] One hundred and fifty years later, this was rewritten as a graphic novel by Magic Torch Comics in association with a local primary school, Ardgowan, in Greenock, retitled The Boys on the Ice.