Item

George Lane

Beacon
Oct 24, 1889
A Wasted Life
England’s First Naval Engineer Dies of a Loathsome Disease in St. Andrews Poor House
In a pauper’s grave, in sunny Saint Andrews, the victim of one of the most loathsome diseases that flesh is heir go, rests all that is mortal of George Lane.
            Few of those who have waited upon this poor unfortunate in his declining years knew that his hand held the throttle of the first steam war vessel that Great Britain ever owned. Yet evidence can be found to establish that fact beyond question. Lane was an Englishman by birth. There was no need to tell that to anyone who heard him talk. His speech betrayed his nationality at once. In early life he was apprenticed to the great English engineering firm of Maudesley and Company, who have assisted in building so many of Britain’s iron walls. When the first naval steamer was built Lane was placed in charge of her engine. How long he held that position is not known. It is known, however, that he was in the English navy for a number of years. When Col. Maudesley, a member of the above firm, visited St. Andrews fifteen or twenty years ago, he was told of Lane’ existence. The colonel remembered him quite distinctly, and Lane and he had several interviews. Through the intervention of Col. Maudesley, on his return to England, Lane was granted as allowance by the English government. This he often referred to as his “superannuated allowance.”
            When Lane first came to SA, thirty-eight or forty years ago, he was one of the biggest dandies in the town. It was his boast that he had “twenty-two white waistcoats” to select from. He usually appeared on the street with wide man-of-warsmen pants on, and was seldom seen without one of the white “waistcoats” he was so proud of. In those days he was a railroad engineer. He had come out of Canada from England, and had driven a locomotive in Quebec before drifting down to St. Andrews.
            The bane of his existence was grog. He had acquired a taste for it while in the navy, and when he got ashore his appetite for strong drink increased rather than diminished. By degrees he descended the social ladder. He drank himself out of the cab of his locomotive; he drank up his “superannuated allowance”; he drank his “twenty-two white waistcoats” and his dandy apparel. Everything he owned went for um. At last the day came when he had no place to lay his head. Turned out of his lodgings, he sought shelter in the cabin of an old stranded schooner that was lying at the upper part of the town. [this is surely the H. V. Crandall or Mary Ellen!] For many years he lived there an amphibious existence. Then disease fastened itself upon him, and the poor dissipated wretch had to abandon his cabin home at last and seek refuge in the Poor House. There he lived until a few days ago, when death came and ended his miseries. His exact age at the time of his death is not known, but he is believed to have been near ninety.