weeks from the day of the wreck. Today in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in West London they rest in adjoining graves. A single headstone supporting a tall pillared arch covers the graves. The inscription, "They were lovely in their lives," begins on one pillar and continues, "and in death they were not divided," on the other. It was difficult to find someone in London who wasn't affected by the tragedy with a death of a family member, neighbour, child or spouse. A hastily formed committee of London citizens met on May 25 to plan a suitable memorial. John Labatt was present at the meeting. First plans favoured a stone monument in a city park but the needs of many families whose breadwinners had died in the disaster brought an end to this. One committee member commented, "The families of the victims are crying for bread. How ridiculous to offer them a stone!" Some months later money was raised, taken among the parents who lost children in the disaster, to erect a small brick building on the grounds of the Protestant Orphans' Home in North London. For fifty years the cottage was used by the orphanage as an infirmary and later as a school. A stone above the front door carried the simple inscription: "In Memoriam, May, 1881." Years later the cottage was razed. The London and Middlesex Historical Society later erected a monument in 1916 at the site of the sinking to commemorate the disaster. Public reaction and lawsuits Public outcry soon followed funeral and memorial processes, and the Forest City was soon condemned. She was soon laid up at the dock in Byron and sat to rot, and later was damaged during the Flood of 1883 when she was cast into the river. On June 1, Coroner Dr. J. Flock assembled a jury and a proper enquiry on the disaster went underway. The case for consideration was the manner in which passenger Fanny Cooper met her death. Incredibly the verdict never mentioned her by name, nor any other victims. Instead, the jury declared Captain Rankin responsible for the wreck, with partial blame being later cast to George Parish, the Victoria's engineer, who had passed the vessel as suitable for sailing at the beginning of the 1881 season. Parish was found to be guilty of neglecting to inform Rankin of the vessel's poor condition. Rankin was as well put to blame