POPULAR SKIPPER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 132, 7 June 1939, Page 9

POPULAR SKIPPER.

RETIRES ON PENSION.

FOLLOWED SEA ALL LIFE. CAPTAIN HILTON'S CAREER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) MONTREAL. May 6. Captain FT. S. Hilton, master of the Canadian National passenger liner Lady Rodney, has retired on pension. One of the most popular of the C.X.S. skippers on the West Indies service, Captain Hilton has commanded Lady Rodney since April, 1936, plying between Montreal and Bermuda, the Bahamas Islands and Jamaica, in the summer months, and from Halifax during winter. He is ♦>."> years of age and has been at sea since boyhood. As a matter of fact he has followed the sea practically all his life, for at the age of two he was taken voyaging with his father aboard a sailing ship. Captain Hilton held a master mariner's certificate when he was 23. |and received his first command at 28. an unusually early age to be master of a vessel.

Herbert Stilson Hilton comes of seafaring ancestors, hi.s father having been skipper of several sailing ships. Captain Hilton joined the old Canadian Government Merchant Marine as master in 1919 and commanded three of the line's freighters until in 1923 he was appointed assistant marine superintendent for the C.G.M.M. at Vancouver.

In 1927 he was transferred to Auck-| land as marine superintendent, and four years later served in the same capacity at Sydney, Australia. He returned to Canada in 1933, and received command of the freighter Cathcart in the Jamaica service of Canadian National Steamships. Three years later he took over the passenger liner Lady Rodney from which he now retires.

The Lady Rodney operates with a ,sister-ship, Lady Somers, to the West 'Indies. The Ladv .Somers is commanded by Captain W. B. Armit, lU>., R^f.R.