Court martial and command responsibility

Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour arrived as a trusted investigator before a court martial convened aboard HMS Hibernia on 17 July 1893. The rapid loss of a first-class battleship caused concern because similar designs remained in Royal Navy service, and the collision demonstrated the power of a ram bow. Because a captain remained responsible for his ship's safety, Victoria's Captain Bourke and other shipboard officers appeared as defendants even though Tryon commanded the fleet. Markham's first telegram to the Admiralty listed the 22 drowned officers and omitted the sailors. Bourke rejected the suggestion that Tryon had confused a turning circle's radius with its diameter. A proposed illness explanation receives skeptical treatment because poor handwriting alone did not establish mental decline. Bourke's selective account of a private discussion about turning circles also receives caution because Tryon could not answer it. During TA practice Tryon normally went forward and left ship officers to decide, and Lord Guilford and Hawkins-Smith both recalled him accepting blame after the collision. Hawkins-Smith also said nobody expected Victoria to sink so quickly. Keeping the ships wedged together until watertight doors closed might have slowed the flooding, a possibility the inquiry apparently did not discuss. Markham admitted that he saw the turn as unsafe but did not apply Tryon's collision-avoidance memoranda, and his rule-of-the-road defense did not apply during maneuvers.