MUNIFICENT GIFT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 169, 11 April 1919, Page 10

MUNIFICENT GIFT

JC25.000 FOR BRITISH. MERCHANTHEN.

. Mr. J. Bruce Ismay, son of the founder of the White Star Lino, has given X 25.000 in War Loan stock to the Mercantile Marino Service Association, Liverpool, to inaugurate a national mercantile marine fund. The object of his gift, ho states, is to mark his admiration of tho splendid and gallaut munuer in which the officers and men of all ranks of the British mercantile marine have "carried on" throughout the war. Tho primary object of the National Mercantile Marino Fuud is to mako grants or pensions to necessitous masters uud seamen of all ranks who havo served at sea in British merchant vessels at an.v time during tho war, and it also makes equal provision for the widows and children of such seamen. Preference i 6 to he givon to applicants and dependants of masters and seamen who have 6ailod cut of Liverpool or in Liverpool-owned ships, or have,had their homes in the port of Liverpool. The pension is not to exceed JJSO per annum, while a grant to any ono person is not to he more than ,CIOO. Mr. Ismay has further provided that after ten years' from the date of its foundation tho funds may lie used so far as they permit, after satisfying the primary .foundation, to assist aged and incapacitated British masters and 6eamei: of all ranks who have served in British ships and, their "widows and children. This is not Mr. Ismay's first token of his gratitude and admiration of British sailors. Not long ago lie and Mrs. Ismay associated themselves in a gift of XII.OOO with which to found a fund to benefit tho widows of seamen who lost their lives while on activo service afloat. His father, the founder of the White Star Line, in 1887, by .a gift of X 20,000, founded tho Liverpool Seamen's Pension Fund to benefit, deck officers and seamen. 'I his was supplemented by his widow, Sire. Margaret Ismay, who richly cudowed a fund for tho widows of those seamen who had been pensioners in tho Liverpool Seamen's Pension Fund. Since tho inception of these two funds 564 seamen anil 185 widows have benefited by pensions amounting in the aggregate to i! 70,000.