Naval Historical Society of Australia

Preserving Australia's Naval History

You are here: Home / Archives for Article topics / Naval history / History - pre-Federation

History - pre-Federation

Early History of Somerset and Thursday Island

This paper by Mr C. G. Austin, Honorary Librarian, was read to The Historical Society of Queensland Inc. on Thursday 28 April 1949 and printed in the Journal of The Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Volume 4 Issue 2 (1949). It is now reproduced with the kind permission of the Society.

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The title of my paper tonight is ‘The Early History of Somerset and Thursday Island’ for it is impossible to cover the whole of the history of Torres Strait in one night, so much history has been made in that area that a series of papers would be necessary to do justice to the subject. The early navigators, the shipwrecks in those dangerous seas, the pearling industry, and the Torres Strait Islanders deserve separate treatment. I have therefore limited this paper to the foundation of Somerset and the beginnings of Thursday Island.

Many famous navigators had passed through this area; Torres in 1606, Cook in 1770, Captain Bligh on his memorable voyage after the mutiny on the Bounty, the voyages of the Fly, Bramble and Rattlesnake. The first resident of Newstead House Captain Wickham, carried out his work as a marine surveyor in this area.

Cape York, Thursday Island and Somerset

In the early part of the nineteenth century ships passing through Torres Strait encountered the double dangers of coral reefs and hostile natives. The massacre of the crew of the Charles Eaton, the stories of white women, such as Barbara Thompson, being captured by the natives of the Prince of Wales Island, drew attention to the need for some protection for shipwrecked mariners and those who passed through the Strait to the nearest port of refuge at Port Essington or Timor.

Depots for provisions for mariners in distress were established on Booby Island, west of Thursday Island. Booby Island was named by Captain Cook in 1770, and Bligh in the launch of the Bounty called there. When Bligh became Governor of New South Wales he petitioned the Home Government to form a depot at Booby Island where shipwrecked mariners could find succour in their distress, but it was not until 1824 that Bligh’s request was granted.

Earlier than this, the surgeon of the Pandora, in company with castaways which included some of the Bounty mutineers, declared that what was wanted in the vicinity of Cape York was a settlement. ‘Were a little colony settled here’, he wrote as he listened to what he called ‘wolves’ howling on Horn Island at night, ‘a concatenation of Christian settlements would enchain the world, and be useful to an unfortunate ship.’

The credit for establishing a settlement in the Cape York Peninsula must be given to Sir George Ferguson Bowen, the first Governor of Queensland. During the eight years of Sir George Bowen’s governorship, a line of new ports was opened all along the eastern coast of Queensland from Rockhampton to Cape York and also to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria; and the pastoral settlers overspread the entire interior, this virtually adding to the British Empire a territory four times larger than the British Isles.

The opening-up of this territory was described very eloquently by Sir George Bowen when he said, ‘Such are the triumphs of peaceful progress; they are victories without injustice or bloodshed; they are conquests not over man, but over Nature; not for this generation only, but all posterity; not for England only, but for all mankind.’

Those of us who are accustomed to the vastness of Australia are apt to forget the huge area of Australia colonised in a short space of time. Our first Governor once pointed out that in the period 1845 to 1865 the English colonisation in Australia alone spread over a far greater space than the aggregate of all the Greek and Roman colonies put together.

The various considerations which pointed to the necessity of a station in the extreme north of Queensland were summed up in a dispatch from the Governor to the Duke of Newcastle on 9th December 1861 – two years after his arrival in Queensland.

‘In a naval and military point of view a post at or near Cape York would be most valuable, and its importance is daily increasing with the augmentation of the commerce passing by this route, especially since the establishment of a French colony and naval station at New Caledonia.

‘Your Grace will perceive from the enclosed Minute of Council, that the Government of Queensland will be willing to undertake the formation and management of a station at Cape York, and to support the civil establishment there. This cannot be considered as otherwise than liberal and reasonable and as strong proofs of the public spirit and of the attachment to the parent State, with which I have ever found the members of the Queensland Parliament to be animated. For the Colony, as such, has manifestly no direct or immediate interest in the foundation of a settlement at Cape York which is twelve hundred miles from Brisbane, that is further than Gibraltar is from London’.

The Home Government was fully prepared to entertain the proposals of the Queensland Government, and the Admiralty agreed that the Governor and the Commodore in command of the Australian Station should together proceed to Cape York. Accordingly, the Governor left Brisbane on 27 August 1862, in HMS Pioneer under the command of Commodore Burnett, for the purpose of selecting the most eligible site for the proposed settlement.

Pioneer made a remarkably good trip under canvas, reaching Booby Island in Torres Strait, the furthest limit of the north-west of the jurisdiction of Queensland, in thirteen days. There was deposited an iron case for the letters generally left on this rock by the passing ships of all nations, to be conveyed to their respective addressees by succeeding vessels.

The site ultimately chosen was at Port Albany, in the passage between the mainland and Albany Island. The settlement was named Somerset in acknowledgement of the readiness with which the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Somerset, had lent his aid to the undertaking. Portion of the settlement was to be set aside for the use of the Royal Navy. The site was selected on account of its geographical importance, as harbour of refuge, coaling station, and the channel through which trade of Torres Strait and the North Pacific was to pass.

Mr John Jardine, who was then Police Magistrate at Rockhampton, was appointed Government Resident and sent in 1863 to establish the new settlement. He decided on a site on the mainland opposite Albany Island.

Besides the uses pointed out by Sir George Bowen, Somerset was also to be a sanatorium for the people who were just then rushing to the Gulf country to take up land, and in this respect was to supersede the establishment on Sweer’s Island, east of Bentick Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, near Burketown. About this time there had been a violent outbreak of yellow fever at Burketown, many perished, and the seat of government had been transferred from Burketown to Sweer’s Island.

The Queensland Government contributed £5,000 and the Imperial Government £7,000, besides sending a detachment of twenty-five marines under command of Lieutenant Pascoe, and accompanied by Dr. T. J. Haran as Medical Officer.

The official foundation of the settlement took place on 21 August 1864, when HMS Salamander visited it on behalf of the Imperial Government.

A report of the establishment of the settlement was published in a newspaper by J. O. Burgess, midshipman in Salamander. The ship was commissioned at Sheerness on 9 December 1863 by Commander the Hon. John Carnegie. She was a paddlewheel sloop of 818 tons, barque-rigged, and fitted with a roof and chart room for surveying purposes. After a long voyage of 147 days the ship reached Sydney, and later anchored at the mouth of the Brisbane River on 26 June 1864.

Accompanied by the barque Golden Eagle, which carried government stores, Salamander sailed on 14 July. The passage of the Inner Barrier before the days of lighthouses and buoys was intricate, and from Rockhampton Bay the navigation was chiefly done from the masthead during daylight, anchoring each evening about 6 o’clock until the arrival in Albany Pass on 29 July 1864.

On 1 August, Golden Eagle arrived, also the barque Woodlark, and the schooner Bluebell owned by Captain Edwards, who had established a beche-de-mer station at Frederick Point, the north-western cape of Albany Island. Its building comprised a stone curing house and a store.

Mr John Jardine, Police Magistrate, and Dr. T. J. Haran, Government Medical Officer, being duly installed it remained for the marines under Lieutenant Pascoe and the accompanying landsmen to set to work, clear the ground and erect buildings constructed in the south for what was to be the nucleus of the first settlement at Cape York.

An early sketch of Somerset, drawn by Mr J. Jardine in 1866, shows a Government Residence, Police Quarters and Customs House on the eastern side of the inlet, and Barracks of Marines and Medical Superintendent’s House on the western side. Salamander also appears in the sketch, which is reproduced in The Jubilee History of Queensland, edited by E. J. T. Barton, and published by H. J. Diddams and Co. in 1909.

This area has always been full of surprises, and it is amusing to read that horses and sheep transported on the Golden Eagle were turned loose on Albany Island under the care of a gentle shepherd in the Royal Marine Light Infantry who within twenty-four hours of encampment was much startled by the curiosity of a seven-foot brown snake desirous of exploring his tent. The provisioning and protection of the new settlement was supplied by Salamander, and later HMS Virago, which ships made three trips per year from Sydney to Somerset for this purpose.

Epic droving trip

In 1864 two sons of John Jardine, Frank and Alick, organized and carried to a successful conclusion one of the finest droving trips in the annals of Queensland. It was realised that the new settlement was dependent on sea transport for supplies, and to provide food, a mob of cattle was driven from Rock-hampton to Somerset, up the peninsula in the face of hostile tribes. The party left Rockhampton on 14 May 1864, and reached Somerset on 2 March 1865, ten months later. It must be remembered that the Kennedy expedition, with its attendant tragedy, was made in 1848. Sixteen years later, the Jardine boys traversed the same ground – with success. An offer by the Government to promote funds to meet the cost of the expedition was not accepted as the Jardine family regarded the trip as a private business venture.

The Old Residency at Somerset

During the continuance of the settlement at Somerset several distinguished officers of Her Majesty’s Navy visited the place and contributed to the survey work in the Strait. The Hon. John Carnegie was succeeded in Salamander by Commander Duke Young. The last-mentioned officer was one of the few survivors of HMS Orpheus wrecked on Manuka Bar, New Zealand. The third Commander on the station was Sir George Nares (later Admiral Nares), noted for his Arctic exploration in command of HMS Alert. He also commanded Challenger on her voyage of deep-sea exploration in 1872-4. Other commanders in the Strait were Captain Bingham of Virago, and Commander (later Admiral) Moresby, whose ship the Basilisk was associated with much of the Commander’s valuable work in Torres Strait and on the coast of New Guinea.

The first land sale was held in March 1865. Sir George Bowen described this sale in a letter to the Right Honourable Edward Cardwell, MP, Secretary of State for the Colonies, on 17 April 1865.

‘In my letter to you by the last mail I mentioned that the first land sale at the new township named Cardwell was about to take place, and that speculators would be present from both Brisbane and Sydney. The upset price was twenty pounds per acre, but the competition was so active that all the lots were sold at an average price of 600 pounds per acre. In the same week took place also the first land sale at the new settlement at Cape York. There again the upset price was twenty pounds per acre, but the price realized averaged only 150 pounds per acre. This result means that the speculators in land consider that Cardwell, from its central position and other advantages, has four times a better chance than Somerset of becoming one day the capital of a new Colony.’ Subsequent events proved that the speculators were astray in their judgement.

When John Jardine took up his residence at Somerset, he occupied one of the loneliest positions in the history of Queensland. Normanton, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and Cardwell were his nearest neighbours; he was restricted to sea transport, and on the Cape York peninsula were many hostile tribes. Somerset justified its establishment as a port of refuge, for the crews of three wrecked ships were able to receive succour there soon after its foundation.

John Jardine, the first Government Resident and Police Magistrate at Somerset, held office until the end of 1865 when he returned to his magisterial duties at Rockhampton. He was succeeded by Captain Henry G. Simpson, RN, who was still in office at the end of 1866. His appointment was for three years, but before the end of this time he left on sick leave and did not return.

The office was vacant at the end of 1867. The appointment was held by Frank Jardine in 1868 and 1869. In the latter year Frank Jardine was granted leave of absence, and H. M. Chester was appointed to succeed him. Frank Jardine again held office from 1871 to 1873, when he was succeeded by Capt. C. E. Beddome and later George Elphonstone Dalrymple. The next Resident was C. D’Oyley Aplin who had been Government Geologist for Southern Queensland in 1868-9. By a curious twist of fate, he had been on the brig Freak when she searched for members of the Kennedy expedition left at the Pascoe River. The remains of two of the party, Wall and Niblet, having been recovered, were interred at Albany Island, D’Oyley Aplin reading the funeral service. Frank Jardine again temporarily held office until the appointment in 1875 of H. M. Chester, who had held the office previously. H. M. Chester was the last Police Magistrate at Somerset and the first Police Magistrate at Thursday Island for in 1877 he was appointed to that office on Thursday Island.

The part played by the Jardine family in the history of Cape York and Torres Strait is recorded and universally applauded as the work of a family outstanding in the Torres Straits area. The part played by H. M. Chester is not so well known. Spencer Browne in his book A Journalist’s Memories describes Chester as ‘a great administrator, a man of extraordinary courage, and who sturdily and worthily, and without any littleness upheld the dignity of the law in that far-flung outpost’. The unpublished autobiography of H. M. Chester was kindly made available by his son, Mr C. L. Chester, of Toowong, and from this information some idea of this outstanding man can be formed.

Henry Majoribanks Chester was born in 1832, the son of the curate of Cripplegate Parish Church, London, the youngest of twenty children. He was nominated to Christ’s Hospital (The Blue Coat School) in 1840 and then attended the London School in Newgate Street, and later the Royal Mathematical School founded by King Charles II, in which boys were trained in the art of navigation as a preliminary to a career at sea. Boys at this school were presented at Court and H. M. Chester was presented at the time his uncle, Sir Robert Chester, was Master of Ceremonies. This uncle was later killed at the siege of Delhi, and the report of the siege records that ‘…he was killed by a round shot from the city, his body falling into the arms of the late Sir Henry Wylie Norman, then a young officer, afterwards Governor of Queensland’. In 1849 Chester was appointed a midshipman in the Indian Navy in which he served eleven years, and performed distinguished service in the Persian War.

‘It would be murder!’

About 1860 occurred an amusing episode with a crack French duellist. This Frenchman had a reputation for duelling which made him a dangerous opponent. Chester arranged an affront, and was duly challenged, but Chester was entitled to select the weapon. Accordingly, he sent his seconds to the Frenchman bearing an envelope in which was a description of the weapon selected. The Frenchman was horrified on opening the envelope to see a drawing of a butcher’s cleaver. H. M. Chester was a very powerful man and the finesse of the swordsman would not counter the strength of Chester. The Frenchman exclaimed to the Englishman, ‘But it would be murder!’ The Englishman politely informed him that it would likewise be murder if Chester had selected swords. Before long the Frenchman hurriedly left town.

When the Indian Navy was abolished in 1862, Chester eventually came to Australia and in 1865 entered the service of the Union Bank of Australia Ltd. at Brisbane. In December of the same year Chester relinquished his position in the Union Bank to enter government service and take up the position of Commissioner of Crown Lands and Police Magistrate in the Warrego district, and there surveyed a township at Charleville and Cunnamulla. In 1868 he was appointed Land Agent for Gladstone and served there and at Gympie for about nine months.

H.M. Chester police Magistrate Thursday Island

 

Appointment of H. M. Chester

In 1869, Frank L. Jardine, Police Magistrate at Somerset, applied for leave of absence and Chester was appointed to succeed him. In his autobiography we read: ‘On arrival at Somerset I found the garrison to consist of a sergeant and four town police constables, with five native troopers. One of the constables, a married man, looked after the troopers and lived on the southern hill. There were seventeen horses and a mob of about a hundred cattle running in the bush.

‘Jardine remained for a week and showed me over the Settlement. He impressed on me never on any account to leave the house without carrying a revolver even if only going as far as the stockyard and cautioned me, in the event of a night attack by the aborigines, never to stand upright on the verandah where the aborigines could see me but to go on my hands and knees, the better to see them’.

Chester was left to guard the settlement with six Europeans and three aboriginal troopers, while Cardwell on one side and Normanton on the other were the nearest towns from which assistance could be obtained.

One instance of the difficulties of transport is shown in Jardine’s trip back to Brisbane. Jardine left in the schooner that brought Chester to Somerset and Captain Hannah attempted to beat down the coast against the South-East trade winds, but after nearly three weeks had to give it up and run back before the wind to Somerset, whence they sailed round Cape Leeuwin, and it was nearly three months before they reached Brisbane.

Chester never had much regard for town police as sailors, and one of his first acts was to ask the Colonial Secretary to replace the town police with water police. The main menace to the Settlement was an attack by the Yardargan tribe, who occupied the country about twenty-five miles south of the Settlement and who could put 400 young men into the field. Fortunately, a small tribe of 120, who occupied the district round Somerset, feared the Yardargans and always advised the Settlement when the Yardargans were preparing to attack.

There were very few pearl-shelling stations in Torres Strait at that time, and Somerset being a fine port, the shellers who were all from Sydney got their supplies duty free. They employed aboriginals and Kanakas, and although wages, except to divers, were low, pearl shell was worth £200 per ton. Tortoiseshell was plentiful and a few sticks of tobacco would purchase a pound of it.

In October 1869, the Gudang tribe, who inhabited the Cape York district, reported that a cutter had been captured by the natives of Prince of Wales Island, who had killed the captain and his crew of Malays and carried off the wife and son of Captain Gascoigne, who were living with the islanders. A search of the island revealed the wreck with part of the body of a boy pierced by an iron barbed arrow. Chester applied for assistance, and on 1 April 1870, when the frigate Blanche(Captain Montgomerie) arrived bringing stores, five water police to replace the town police and five additional native troopers, Chester was annoyed to discover that these native troopers were released prisoners from St. Helena gaol, who had served half of a sentence of ten years for attempted rape and robbery under arms. Chester was never one to mince his words and he wrote to Mr Gray, the Under Colonial Secretary, to the effect that, if the Government chose to make him keeper of a convict prisoner they need scarcely enquire what became of the convicts for as there were eight native police and only six Europeans (four of whom had their wives and children with them) to guard the Settlement, some of the convicts would not return should they become mutinous. Blanche left on a punitive expedition against the perpetrators of the outrage on the crew of the cutter. The Mt. Ernest natives were thought responsible and this proved correct, for plunder from the ship was found in their gunyahs, such as the ship’s log book, etc. Three of the Mt. Ernest chiefs who were pointed out by the Cape York aborigines as the perpetrators of the massacre were shot.

New Guinea expeditions

Chester made many expeditions to New Guinea in the 1870s. On one trip he travelled up the Fly River and had a skirmish with New Guinea natives, who tried to attack the ship from their canoes. The expedition proceeded upstream and on the return journey Chester halted at the spot where the skirmish had occurred. He went ashore despite hostile natives and entered the chief’s hut and commenced to palaver. Before he left, all signs of hostility had disappeared.

The crowning event in Chester’s life was the annexation of New Guinea. He left Thursday Island on 24 March 1883, taking with him three water police and two men from the pilot cutter. On 4 April 1883, under instructions from Sir Thomas McIlwraith, Premier of Queensland, Chester took formal possession in the name of the Queensland Government, of all that portion of New Guinea and the islands adjacent thereto lying between the 141st and 155th meridians of east longitude. This was that portion not occupied by the Dutch. The formalities were performed at Port Moresby, the honour of hoisting the flag on this memorable occasion falling to Tom Crispin. Immediately the news was released there was much consternation in Germany for the Germans, as well as the Dutch, were interested in New Guinea.

The matter was soon raised in the British House of Commons and the London Times in a leading article deprecated that all Australian Colonies were not sharing in the administration of New Guinea.

Lord Derby, with diplomatic adroitness, later announced that he had decided to relieve Queensland of the responsibility of the annexation of New Guinea, and determined to make it an Imperial act. Eventually, on 06 November 1884, a British Protectorate was established over the South-Eastern portion of New Guinea.

The main reason for the transfer from Somerset to Thursday Island was that the anchorage in Albany Passage was regarded as very troublesome and even dangerous for large mail steamers – with the tide sweeping through as it does they often had to hold on by both anchors – while Port Kennedy was a safe harbor.

There was another reason in that the maritime boundary of Queensland was about to be extended so as to include all the islands between the coast and the Barrier Reef. Up to this time, fugitives from Queensland law were out of the jurisdiction of the State, if they were living on these islands. This extension of the Queensland boundary was provided under The Queensland Coast Islands Bill of 1879.

Mr H. M. Chester was appointed Police Magistrate at Thursday Island, with the subsidiary offices of sub-collector of customs and harbor-master, on 20 July 1877. Mr Allan Wilkie was appointed pilot on 14 September of the same year. The first reference in Pugh’s Almanac to Thursday Island as a settlement is contained in the information for the year 1884. Mr Chester was still Police Magistrate, Mr F. G. Symes sub-collector of customs, and Mr D. Cullen Postmaster.

Pugh’s Almanac

‘The E. and A. Coy. make this their first port of call and have a fine hulk – The Belle of the Esk – as their receiving ship where there is always a plentiful supply of coal. The Tinganini or Gunga take all the Normanton cargo from here. There are two hotels, the Torres Strait (Cockburn) and the Thursday Island (Mr T. McNulty)’.

In the early eighties communication with Brisbane was by the steamer Corea (Captain James Lawrie) of the Q.S.S. Coy. Ltd. She made monthly trips, taking supplies to the various pearling stations and bringing back pearl shell on the return trip. The pearling stations, or shelling stations, were located on the various islands round Thursday Island, and each station had a smart little fore-and-aft schooner yacht of from thirty to fifty tons register to transport the shell from the stations and carry the provisions back.

In 1882 a new very rich patch of shell was discovered west of Torres Strait, on what was locally known as the ‘Old Ground’. The water was comparatively shallow, being from six to ten fathoms in depth.

Progressive shellers made haste to increase their fleet. One, Mr James Clark, purchased in Brisbane the oyster cutter Amy. This vessel left Brisbane for Thursday Island in September 1882, with a crew consisting of Messrs. John Tolman, Wm. Wilson, and P. P. Outridge.

The first marine produce brought from this area was not pearl shell, but beche-de-mer, also known as trepang. It will be remembered that at the time of the foundation of Somerset in 1864, a beche-de-mer station was already established at Albany Island owned by Captain Edwards. Trepang is somewhat like a large sized eel, of many colours, and has always been popular in the Chinese market. Beche-de-mer was found on the reefs from Cape York southwards, and was also prolific on the Warrior Reef.

Beche-de-mer is responsible for changing the character of the inhabitants of the northern coast of Australia. For centuries Malay proas from the Dutch Indies have visited the coast as far east as the Gulf of Carpentaria. In February 1803, Lieut. Matthew Flinders in the Endeavour met six Malay proas beche-de-mer fishing near the western entrance to the Gulf of Carpentaria, part of a fleet of sixty sailing from Celebes. They took the catch to Timor for sale to Chinese traders. This fleet was accustomed to come down annually in the north-west season, returning after the south-east change, and continued to do so up to the 1890s. Then the South Australian Customs intervened to collect export duties and the regular trade ceased.

The Malay visits had a distinct effect on the aboriginal natives for along the Northern Territory coast the natives understand the Malay language and have adopted some of the Malay customs. This influence spread to the Gulf of Carpentaria for the present Bishop of Carpentaria related how on one occasion he landed near Groote Eylandt, and met aboriginals who had not been in touch with missionaries. These natives could not understand the language spoken by his Torres Strait boys but understood quite well the language spoken by his Malay boys.

One body which exercised a great influence in this area was the London Missionary Society. As early as 1871 the first missionaries, Messrs. A. W. Murray and S. McFarlane, arrived at Somerset to commence their work in the area. Murray remained two years and McFarlane returned to the Strait in 1874 and remained sixteen years. The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill arrived in this area in 1872. The well-known James Chalmers joined the Mission in 1877, but his main field of work was New Guinea. In 1877 McFarlane moved to Ma (Murray Island) and in 1879 established a school there. He secured the services of Robert Bruce for the school under whose direction several houses were built. The opening of the telegraph line to Cape York was a step forward in the development of Cape York. The credit must go to John Richard Bradford, who in 1883 led the preliminary exploration party from Cooktown to Cape York to select the route for the telegraph line. The party consisted of Bradford, William Healy as second-in-charge, Messrs. J. Cook, W. MacNamara, J. Wilson, Jimmy Sam Goon (a Chinaman) and Jacky, an aboriginal. The party left on 06 June 1883, and on 29 August Bradford and Healy, leading their horses, walked into Somerset, and were hospitably received by Frank Jardine.

The Society is fortunate in having in its possession a copy of the first issue of The Torres Straits Pilot published on 02 January 1888. This copy is on silk, and was donated by Mr Jack McNulty, well known to anyone who has lived on Thursday Island.

The Society also has in its possession a copy of The Torres Straits Pilot published on 27 January 1942. This edition recorded the immediate evacuation of the civilian population from the area for war purposes.

The Torres Divisional Board is first recorded in Pugh’s Almanac at the beginning of 1886. The members are given as Captain W. T. Boore, Vivian R. Bowden and Henry F. Houghton. The auditors were Thomas Braidwood and Alex. Stewart. The next year records Captain W. T. Boore as chairman, and members Vivian K. Bowden, H. Dubbins, Frank Summers and W. H. Bennett. The auditors were James T. Dewar and Edmunds L. Brown. This Board eventually became the Torres Shire and later the Thursday Island Town Council. At the close of the nineteenth century the chairman was Thomas Fleming, Clerk and assessor David Dietrichson and the members Geo. Hartley, R. Cuherr, W. J. Graham, F. E. Morey, E. E. Slaughter, W. Noelke and C. H. Ashford.

 

The Torres Strait Service

One factor which played an important part in developing the Torres Strait Service which provided direct communication between North Queensland and Great Britain without transshipment, and the streams of immigrants who reached Queensland by that fleet were landed at their intended destinations without, as was often the case when they came via southern ports, being seduced by the lure of the capital cities against finishing their journey. In keeping with the turbulent history of Thursday Island, this service was launched in a political storm. The service dates back to July 1860, when the then Premier (Sir R. G. W. Herbert) carried a motion through the Legislative Assembly: 1. That in consequence of a late arrangement under which English mail steamers no longer proceed beyond Melbourne. 2. That the route via Torres Straits and Singapore is likely to prove more expeditious and economical and to offer greater general advantages to Queensland than any other. 3. That communications ought to be entered into between the Government of Queensland and the Governments of other colonies (New South Wales and New Zealand) with a view to considering adoption of the above route and the subsidy payable… But Herbert got no further than an expression of opinion and it was twenty years before the masterful Sir Thomas McIlwraith forced the necessary measure through Parliament to provide what ultimately became a great boon.

McIlwraith obtained a tentative contract with the British India Company which had to be ratified by Parliament by 6th August. The contract provided a subsidy of £55,000 per annum for five years, and Sir Samuel Griffith led a very strenuous and determined opposition against this measure which he regarded as unconstitutional.

The date of ratification (6th August) passed without the necessary Parliamentary sanction, and Griffith cabled the company that the Opposition, claiming a large majority, repudiated the contract. Not to be beaten, McIlwraith arranged for the ratification date to be extended from 6th to 12th August, and on the latter date cabled the company: The Legislative Assembly not having disagreed to the mail contract it stands ratified.

At the beginning of the twentieth century there were 260 boats ranging from ten to thirty tons, employing about 1600 men, engaged in the pearl shell and beche-de-mer fisheries. The Resident Police Magistrate was the Hon. John Douglas, with Mr W. G. Moran as Clerk of Petty Sessions. The Government Medical Officer was E. Tilston, the hospital doctor being G. B. White. The average attendance at the State School was seventy, the Head Teacher, Mr P. Robinson, being assisted by one pupil teacher.

It is fitting to bring this paper to a close with a brief reference to the part played by the Hon. John Douglas in the history of Thursday Island. It was he who sponsored the Bill for the annexation of the islands, and the transfer of the settlement from Somerset to Thursday Island. The Hon. John Douglas first visited Thursday Island in 1877 to choose the site of the school and post office reserves. As he said, ‘It certainly never occurred to me then that I should be privileged in my latter years to take an active share in the administration of the affairs of the islands in the Strait’. As Government Resident and Police Magistrate from 1885 he left his mark in Torres Strait.

Notes on Green Hill Fort, Thursday Island

Green Hill Fort on Thursday Island was built between 1891 and 1893 as part of Australia’s defence against a possible Russian invasion. It was eventually decommissioned some-time in 1927 and the buildings were demolished and the guns spiked. Green Hill is a small grassy hill about 58 metres above sea level at the western end of Thursday Island.

The guns that formed part of the pre-Federation fort were:

Four rifle muzzle-loading (RML) 7-inch guns

Four sixteen-pounders (King 1983:98)

Two Mark VI 6-inch breech loading guns

Two Mark IV 6-inch breech loading guns

There are five rooms with 600 mm thick concrete walls used for ammunition storage. The initial buildings on site were the general storeroom, shell store, cordite room, lamp room and artillery store. A timber and corrugated iron guardhouse was also built over a 20,000 gallon underground well. A cooling plant, machine room and a powder room were added in 1912. Air conditioning ducts were installed from the cooling plant machine room to the cordite store.

 

 

Occasional Paper 62: The Navy in South Australia from Colonial Days to the Present

September 2019

By Dennis J Weatherall JP TM AFAITT(L) LSM, Volunteer Researcher, Naval Historical Society of Australia

It’s reputed that the first sighting of the southern coast of our Great South Land was by a Dutch ship in 1627 the “Gulden Zeepaard” under the command of a Francois Thijssen.  The next record accords Rear Admiral Bruny D’Entrecasteaux in the French war ship “La Recherche”.  He was looking for La Perouse who was on a voyage of discovery in 1788, in company with Boussole and Astralabe, both the latter seemingly disappearing without trace.

Able Tasman probably saw the same coast even earlier in 1644 from his sketch charts.  Another voyager was Lt. John McCluer of the Bombay Marine Company in 1790, followed by Captain Matthew Flinders in 1802-1803.  A Lt. James Grant in January 1800, in command of “HMS Lady Nelson” (a 60 ton Brig), discovered and named parts of the coast such as Cape Banks, Cape Northumberland, Mount Gambier, Mount Schanck.  He was promoted to Commander after a battle with the Dutch in 1805 off today’s Netherlands and he was remembered with a memorial atop Mt Gambier in 1900 for his discoveries.

The Province of South Australia (as opposed to Colony)[1] was established in December 1833 when the British Parliament passed the South Australian Act. South Australia was in fact called a “Province” rather than a Colony to distinguish it from other Colonies that had transportation as their main source of population.

In the early 1850’s the then Governor Henry Young looked at ways of protecting the Province and in due course informed the “Home Authorities” that “it’d accord great satisfaction and increase confidence to his government if the English Pendant was more frequently seen in these waters” and, more importantly, subject to available funds available to the Provinces and Colonies, if a naval force were to be established on the Australian coast.  It appears this submission was considered rather too radical by the “Lords of the Admiralty“.

Recommendations were forthcoming to build forts at The Semaphore, Glenelg, Torrens Island and inland towards Adelaide.  The wish list also had a requirement for six gunboats, each with a 100 pounder gun, with additional guns ashore.  Port Creek would be defended by torpedoes and a boom, along with telegraphic communications, with the lighthouse augmented with both a permanent and volunteer military force.  This was a very ambitious programme on which to embark to defend the Province of South Australia, with a parliamentary grant of 20,000 pounds.  Fort Glanville and Fort Largs, plus a military road, eventually materialised.

[1] While the ‘South Australian Act’ may have referred to the establishment as a “Province” the term was not generally used.  SA was generally referred to as a ‘Colony’ e.g. Her Majesty’s Colonial Ship Protector.

In the mid 1800’s Britain made it quite clear that her contribution to the security of Australia would be the continued policy of the Royal Navy.  It would assume full responsibility on the high seas and no more, therefore the question of adequate local defence measures became paramount during the American Civil War period.

Around the same time an MP, a Mr H.B.T. Strangways, suggested the purchase of a “quick turret ship” capable of carrying two 150 pound shot guns and able to steam at 18-20 knots, which was some speed at that time.  Due to a change in Governor the idea was shelved for more than ten years.

In late 1859 the Province bought to the attention of “the powers” there’d been no HM ships in the waters of South Australia for nine years. This brought a flood of visits by RN ships “HMS Esk” (1,169 tons with 21 guns) along with “HMS Charybdis”, “Curacoa”, “Falcon” and “Galatea” soon after the matter had been raised.

HMS Falcon – a Cruiser class sloop of 17 guns, 1045 tons, commissioned 30th March 1855 and part of the Royal Navy Australian Station based ships

An English Act of Parliament in 1859 established a Reserve volunteer force of seamen to be available for general service in the RN in times of emergency to be known as the RNR.  The Colonial Defence Act was passed into law in 1865 and this “made it lawful for any Colony to provide, maintain and use vessels of war and to raise and maintain seamen for such vessels, also to raise and maintain a volunteer force to serve in the RN in emergencies, appoint officers, obtain from the Admiralty the services of officers and men, enforce order and discipline, making all subject to the R&I’s of the RN”.

Volunteers raised in the Colonies were to form part of the RNR, the Queen may then accept an offer of use of such vessels and men, with such ships then being a ship of war of the RN.  Local ships were granted authority to wear the Blue Ensign with the badge of the Colony in the fly and a Blue Pendant.

It was this Act which made possible the formation of the Naval Brigade, and the building of H.M. Colonial Ship, HMCS Protector in 1884 and her subsequent future service in the RN during the “Boxer Rebellion” in 1900.  During this period as HMS Protector she flew the White Ensign and her officers given temporary commissions in the Royal Navy.

In 1862 Colonel F. Blyth of the Volunteer Military Force recommended additional protection for South Australia by stationing a gunboat “at the outer bar” of the Port River.  In 1865 a Commander Parkin recommended six gunboats each capable of firing off a 100 pound shot.  This recommendation was put forward for consideration after the success of Ironclad Monitors during the American Civil War.

In 1867 the government considered the introduction of a naval training ship for boys who had fallen foul to the courts.  There were many against the idea, but eventually it was decided to go ahead with such a programme.  A suitable vessel was acquired – the hulk “Fitzjames” – which was found in Victoria (where a similar scheme was already operating) and towed to South Australia, anchored off the coast, and used as a training ship for young boys between 1876 and 1891.

Hulk “Fitzjames” Naval Training Ship for boys in South Australia

In 1876 the question of the purchase of a substantial naval vessel once again was raised.  A Defence Commission was established and again it was recommended the Province purchase three gunboats.  Treasurer Mr John Colton suggested a “turret ship” similar to the Victorian vessel “Cerberus” and a request was made to Victoria on how much it would cost.  The SA Agent General in London, a Mr Dutton, at the time made contact with the Chief Constructor of the RN, a Mr E.J. Reed.  He learned such a 1,000 ton ironclad ship carrying 25 ton guns would cost his government 29,500 pounds.  The information was filed away for posterity in the SA government archives and didn’t proceed.

In 1877, following the “Russian Scare” of 1876-77, two British government men visited the Australian Colonies and SA Province to discuss their defence with their respective governments.  One was a Mr W.F.D. Jervois, a future governor of South Australia.  They recommended all Colonies/Provinces acquire gunboats or torpedo boats and man them with locally-recruited men for the protection of their local ports.

Another suggestion by Jervois was to purchase a vessel of 2,500 tons, ironclad with ten inch armour and heavy guns.  Such an outlay – the amount of 150,000 pounds – wasn’t again all that palatable to the tax payers of SA, so the suggestion went nowhere for another five years.

Once Jervois became governor of SA (in October 1877) he suggested to the government they should hire British firm (Sir) William Armstrong & Co of Newcastle-on-Tyne to build its new naval vessel the “Protector”.  The ship was constructed according to the “flat-iron” gunboat design, first introduced during the Crimean War.

HMCS Protector 1884, RAN Image

Originally estimated that such a vessel would cost 40-50,000 pounds, it was to be the largest vessel ordered by any Colony or Province at 188 ft long, 30 ft beam and 12 ft 6 in draft.  Propulsion was via two compound surface condensing engines generating 1,500 hp giving a top speed of 14 knots.  For extra range Protector was fitted with a Schooner rig and flying topsails.

Protector was launched in early 1884 and commissioned the same year on the 19th June – her first CO was a Commander John C.P Walcott RN.  Her delivery passage to Port Adelaide via the Suez Canal arrived on station 30th September 1884.  Protector served SA for fifteen years up until 1900 when she was offered up to the Imperial government as part of the expedition to China and the Boxer Rebellion.  Captain William Rooke Creswell CMG had previously served in the SA Colonial Navy but at the time of his appointment to be CO for the China Rebellion was Commander of the Queensland Maritime Defence Force.

On her return to Australia from China on the 1st January 1901 she was just in time to be transferred to the new Commonwealth of Australia Naval Force and became HMAS Protector.  There’s much more to tell about this gallant ship and we’ll leave its war time service and post service to another paper.

Rewinding back to 1870’s and Colonial times in South Australia.  A site was selected for its strategic importance on the North Arm of the Port River and a Naval Store was established at Largs Bay.  This depot was used for Naval Reserve training and the stowage of emergency items for sea rescue.

In the early 1880’s a temporary Torpedo Station was erected at this site which was later replaced by a more substantial building, some 110 ft in length, and built by the Naval Reservists.  The new building consisted of a store room, lecture room and a residence for a torpedo officer – construction was in galvanised iron.  A jetty was also built into deep water with a railway track system to handle stores and torpedoes.  The “Station” was extended twice in 1890 and 1891 by the crew of HMCS Protector.

This torpedo station was intended to protect Port Adelaide in any hostilities, by a boom of heavy chains across the river and in turn by a gun battery.  The Station could also mine the Port River as required – the government of the day acquired sufficient mines that were never used.  On becoming obsolete and were in due course destroyed.

Eventually, post Federation, a Torpedo Boat was acquired in 1905.  Better late than never as the saying goes!  The Station was closed and equipment dismantled and transferred to the new Naval Depot at Birkenhead which was established in 1915 to replace the Largs Bay site.  Birkenhead was located some 14 kms NW of Adelaide City central business centre on the Lefeure Peninsula, covering an area of 30 square miles.  A Naval Drill Hall was built on the location in 1919 and is significant for its association with the early days of the Naval Reserve in South Australia and eventually with the RAN until its closure in 1990.

Between the wars, the base supported visiting fleet assets and the local Port Division of the RANR.  In WWII it was commissioned as a Naval Shore Establishment as HMAS Cerberus IV on the 13th September 1939 and a year later, 1st August 1940, was recommissioned as HMAS Torrens after the river that flows through Adelaide and the River Class Torpedo Boat Destroyer of the same name.  Torrens was disposed by sinking in 1930.

HMAS Torrens D67 commissioned 1916, decommissioned 1920, RAN Image

Post WWII, HMAS Torrens returned to its peacetime routine of providing a naval presence in South Australia, assisting visiting fleet ships and the base for the RANR training once more.

On the 1st March 1965, Torrens had another name change and recommissioned as HMAS Encounter which perpetuated the name of the former Light Cruiser HMS Encounter built between 1901 and 1905.

Encounter was assigned to the Australian Station and when the RAN was formed it was renamed HMAS Encounter.  The name also commemorates the meeting of two great naval explorers, Captain Matthew Flinders RN and French Captain Nicolas Baudin, off the South Australian coast in 1802.

The establishment, HMAS Encounter was decommissioned on the 21st March 1994 so ending more than one hundred years of permanent naval presence in the Port Adelaide area.  The last Commanding Officer was Commander Brian Gorringe ADC RAN.

Crest of the Shore Establishment HMAS Encounter – Adelaide SA
Naval HQ SA – Keswick Barracks South Australia

A Naval Support Office was subsequently established at Keswick Barracks in June 1994.  It is located on the southern outskirts of the Adelaide parklands and shares its presence with the Army Headquarters for SA.  In 1998 the establishment was renamed “Navy Headquarters South Australia”, its main function being to provide administration support to Naval personnel serving with various Defence projects in South Australia.  These include; RAAF Edinburgh, DSTO Salisbury, ASC Osborne, along with Reserve personnel living in SA and detachments of both the RAN and RANR Bands.

References:

Commonwealth of Australia Archives, Canberra

Department of Defence web site

Records and Register Commonwealth Militia – Reserves

South Australian Heritage data base

South Australian Government Register 10 Jul 1886 + 28 Feb 1891

South Australian State Library data news article Robert Thomas 1891

South Australian Defence of the Colony-Province 26 Mar 1859

Successful Torpedo Practice Register 27 Jul 1885

Naval Defence Act of SA 15 Nov 1887

Information article HMCS Protector 23 Sep 1884

SA History Hub – Protector Warship of SA

Sea Power Centre Australia

Colonial Navies of Australia

National Archives – Coastal Fortifications South Australia 1800’s.

HMS Australia and the William Droudge Mystery

We know much about the WWI vintage battlecruiser HMAS Australia (I) and the WWII vintage heavy cruiser HMAS Australia (II) but very little about the first warship to carry our nation’s proud name HMS Australia (1886–1905). This story seeks to redress that imbalance.

In February 2019 an email was received from one of our readers, Mr. Lawrence Sellstrom. The origins of his name are Swedish but for many centuries his family has resided in England. Lawrence, who has a keen interest in naval history, recently acquired an old and intriguing sailor’s box of treasures or ‘Ditty Box’. Contained therein was memorabilia from HMS Australia which included original manuscripts of notebooks and diaries, some early photographs, a snuff box, a clay pipe and a knuckleduster.

The box appears to have belonged to Able Seaman Frederick C. Allen, Service No 132076, who was born in Willesborough, Kent on 19 April 1869. He is the assumed author of these works, which are in a good hand and compiled by someone with a reasonable education. In particular, there is a diary entry concerning a fatal accident to a young Able Seaman, William Droudge, and a poem lamenting the death of Lieutenant James St Clair Bower of HMS Sandfly while serving in the Australian Squadron. Lieutenant Bower and three of his crew were killed by natives in the Solomon Islands in 1880; his remains were later recovered and are buried at North Sydney.

During his research Mr. Sellstrom came across an article in an old copy of the Naval Historical Review dated December 1972, The Cruise of HMS Australia 1889 to 1893, which includes reference to the accidental death of AB Droudge. However, the above mentioned diaries provide a different version of events. This then is the mystery we seek to unfold, with some background to this period.

Royal Naval late 19th century cruisers

In the latter part of the 19th century, when the Royal Navy was approaching its zenith, a series of cruisers was built as naval architects strove to find an ideal patrol vessel which could be employed throughout a worldwide empire. Numerous classes of so-called ‘Protected’ and ‘Armoured’ cruisers were developed which the First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher, famously termed an intolerable drain on the service’s resources as ‘they could neither fight nor run away’. His solution was the much larger and more costly battlecruiser.

The relatively small Mersey class cruisers were the first to completely discard their sailing rig and were solely steam-powered warships. From these origins the seven-ship Orlando class cruisers were built between 1886 and 1889. Of this new class, the second ship to be delivered was HMS Australia.

The names used in most classes of ship follow themes. In the Orlando class this is hard to fathom, as is where Australia fits into the lexicon of: Orlando, Australia, Galetea, Immortalite, Narcissus, Undaunted and Aurora.

The Orlando class, officially known as First Class Protected Cruisers, were 327 feet long, 56 feet beam, and protected by a 10-inch belt of armour. The armament comprised 2 x 9.2-inch guns, 10 x 6-inch guns, 10 x 3 pounder guns and 6 x 18-inch torpedo tubes. They were powered by 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engines, fed by four coal fired double-ended boilers, developing 8,500 ihp. With two shafts they had a maximum speed of 18 knots, with a range of 10,000 nautical miles at an economical speed of 10 knots. They had a complement of 484 officers and men, rising to 500 when operating as flagships. These ships displaced about 5,600 tons and were said to be overweight.

HMS Orlando on the Australia Station

The only ship from this class to serve in our waters was HMS Orlando, the first of her type, which arrived in Port Jackson on 01 September 1888, taking over from HMS Nelson as flagship of the Australian Squadron. She served in this role for nine years until she too was relieved by HMS Royal Arthur on 4 November 1897. Initially Orlando was too large to dock locally and was obliged to use Auckland’s Calliope Dock. It was not until the Sutherland Dock was completed at Cockatoo Island in 1890 that she could dock in Australia.

In 1889 Orlando was temporarily assigned to the China Station, joining a multi-national force to suppress the Boxer Rebellion. Sailors and Royal Marines from the ship formed part of a force to relieve the British Legation at Peking. During this engagement there were a number of casualties and one Royal Marine died. On return to Sydney she was docked at Cockatoo Island where her funnels were extended to improve the updraft of her exhaust gases.

Treasure trove from HMS Australia

The Cruise of HMS Australia

Australia was built in a separate yard but in the same timeframe as her sister Orlando. Therefore, they should have been identical. Australia was commissioned at Chatham on 19 November 1889 by Captain Martin Dunlop and left Spithead on 26 December under sealed orders. Her destination turned out to be the Cape Verde Islands which were reached on 7 January 1890. Influenza broke out on this passage with 84 men on the sick list (17% of the ship’s company) when she arrived for coal as an unhealthy and unwelcome guest at this small Portuguese colony.

From Cape Verde she went to Gibraltar and met up with another sister, Undaunted, and it seems both ships needed some dockyard work before joining the Mediterranean Fleet – was this the funnel extensions mentioned above? At this time the Mediterranean Fleet was the most powerful force in the Royal Navy.

Most of 1890 was spent cruising the Levant and off the Greek and Turkish coasts. Constant coaling was provided by colliers coming alongside at anchorages where Australia’s crew could load 500 tons in a little over nine hours. On 25 August the Empress Frederick of Germany visited the ship and inspected her company.

Early 1891 was spent refitting at Malta. On 3 February they were reviewed by the Duke of Cambridge before undertaking an Italian cruise. We might gain the impression that this was a succession of pleasure cruises but the RN worked its ships well with constant weapons training, drills, inter-ship competitions and regattas, and concert parties went from ship to ship. Sailing regattas were well attended with crews training for months for prizes with the ships’ companies unofficially placing side bets on the winners. There were the inevitable inspections by squadron commanders and their specialist officers.

The William Droudge Mystery

The ship then joined the Second Cruiser Division and made for Salonica. On 22 May 1891 at Phalerum Bay (an ancient name for the Port of Athens) a sad accident happened when William Droudge, a young Able Seaman, fell over a cliff and was killed. These few words about the death of William Droudge are the only mention to be found on this incident in the earlier 1972 Naval Historical Review report on the cruise of Australia.

On 1 June when still at Phalerum Bay the captain and officers gave a ball, which was honoured by the presence of Their Majesties the King and Queen of Greece and Princess Margaret and Prince Nicholas of Greece.

HMS Orlando at Sutherland Dock, Cockatoo Island

Here the accidental death of young able seaman some 130 years ago might be left to rest. However, our correspondent Lawrence Sellstrom informs us about a handwritten diary from a member of the ship’s company about this incident which (with minor grammatical changes) reads as follows:

22 May – …had news to say there was a man from our ship lying on the beach, sent a boat for him and a doctor brought him back to the ship. I saw him in the boat and it was William Droudge who inconceivably fell over, or very likely was thrown, over a cliff. He died at half past twelve without returning to consciousness. The Captain is trying to find out all about the cause of his death. The doctor thinks he has met foul play, he died half an hour ago, I have just been to see him. A post mortem will be held.

We feel his loss; he was my best chum in this ship. He was seen by some last night at 9 pm, he told them he would catch them up when he had explained something to a Russian sailor and a Greek. The boat left inshore at 10.15 pm. Droudge remained on shore, and not seen afterwards till about 6 am this morning. He was without any money and his silk and knife gone, lying insensible under a cliff 60 feet high. His forehead was cut, eye bleeding and other unknown injuries.

There were two other men breaking leave on shore, Knight and Gilbert. They came on board at 5 am saying Droudge left them at a public house before 11 pm. He went out by himself to get back, it was then around 10 minutes to 11. That is all that is known. Bill’s footmarks have been found on top of the cliff, they are the only marks.

23 May – I went to the funeral. He had a nice coffin and was placed alongside a shipmate who died in (unable to decipher ship’s name) who was a stoker belonging to Chatham. We came on board soon after and shifted our clothing. It was about 5 pm we then hoisted our boats. The fleet then hove into sight, came in and anchored. They then followed us in half-masting their colours for our shipmate.

They are having a Board of Inquiry and the Captain of Collingwood (flag) has put a detective on the job with two others that can speak the lingo. We can’t find one of his (Droudge) photos yet, we want one to have same copied.

24 May – Sunday, Queens Birthday, decorated ship and fired 21 guns. Church on poop the Chaplain ‘spun a cuff’ about Droudge being on shore in bad company, not leaving until after his leave had expired, and told us to shun drink and such company. He gets drunk himself twice a day, knocks off Saturday, ready for Sunday.

The above concludes all we know of the William Droudge mystery. Proving that tragedy strikes in threes, on 13 June 1891 when at Thaso Island, AB William Collins fell overboard from a fishing party returning to the ship and was drowned. A month later in another boating accident an ERA and a blacksmith were drowned when their boat capsized. It is of note that many sailors could swim as ‘Hands to Bathe’ was regularly piped at 6 pm when at anchor in sheltered temperate waters.

The cruise continues

In August the Second Division was ordered to Alexandria as the Sultan of Turkey, backed by the French, was agitating for the removal of British from Egypt.

In September there was change of command with Captain Dunlop relieved by Captain Holland. On 22 October the whole of the Mediterranean Fleet assembled at Milo (Greek island of Milos) under the new admiral, Sir George Tryon1. On 15 November Australia was back at Malta for her annual refit and remained there until 12 March 1892.

From 15 March to 16 April 1892 Australia, flying the flag of Rear Admiral Markham, was at Alexandria for ceremonies concerned with the installation of the new Khedive of Egypt.

During May the ship was unexpectedly involved in the salvage of the collier Henry Anning which had been in collision with HMS Edinburgh.

From 30 July to 5 August they were at Cadiz in company with two other cruisers and two torpedo boats representing Great Britain at the celebration of the Fourth Centenary of Columbus starting out on his voyage of discovery of America.

On 19 October the ship returned to Malta for refit and it was not expected that she would go to sea again with her present crew. While refitting the crew were hulked in Orion and Hibernia. The crew returned to the ship on 28 January 1893 and on 1 March orders were received to proceed to America as one of the ships representing Britain at the International Naval Review being held in connection with the opening of the Chicago Exhibition2.

America Bound

The C-in-C, Admiral Sir George Tryon, came onboard to say goodbye and the next day they left Malta, waiting three days at Gibraltar for some officers coming from England. It being too rough to anchor, Maderia was bypassed and they continued to Bermuda, arriving on 28 March.

On 13 April they left Bermuda in company with HM Ships Blake, Magicienne, Tartar and Partridge, and four days later anchored in Hampton Roads, Chesapeake Bay. Already assembled here were 14 American and six foreign men-of-war. By 24 April the International Fleet swelled to 30 ships when they left Hampton Roads and the following day anchored in New York Lower Bay, where another four warships joined.

The ships, dressed overall with stars and stripes at their mastheads, presented a fine spectacle assembling in two lines each of 17 foreign men-of-war, Blake leading the first and Australia the second line. A great number of people crammed into various ships as they steamed past the Statue of Liberty and the river banks were lined with people in their millions. Spirits were dampened when the rain came in with heavy downpours. This resulted in a signal being received postponing the review until 2 pm.

At last the rain held off and the President of the United States, Stephen (Grover) Cleveland, then reviewed the fleet. As he steamed between the two lines of warships the ships were manned, fired 21 gun salutes and gave three hearty cheers. The President in USS Philadelphia later received the admirals and captains from the assembled ships. In the evening the ships were illuminated and there was a fireworks display.

The next day companies of sailors and marines were landed by steamers and marched through Broadway – the first time British troops under arms had landed in America since the War of Independence.

The visit was a great success in cementing Anglo/American relationships. After four days the Royal Navy ships left New York, with bands playing traditional songs and being cheered down the Hudson. They were so well received that eighty-four men deserted from the RN squadron, including nine from Australia.

They arrived back in Bermuda on 13 May and after coaling arrived at Plymouth on 31 May, an absence of three years and five months from England. They then proceeded to Portsmouth to pay off on 17 June 1893. During the commission the ships had been at sea 352 days, mostly in the Mediterranean, and steamed about 41,370 nautical miles.

Summary

The first ship to bear our nation’s proud name, HMS Australia, did not venture into the Southern Ocean and discover our shores, but her twin sister Orlando was flagship of the Australia Station for nine years. By studying the history of both ships we gain a composite picture of life aboard these vessels in the Victorian era.

Australia’s cruise started out sailing from the British Isles in the midst of winter, when coughs and colds were commonplace; it was not long before 17% of the ship’s company were laid low with influenza. We know that one member of the ship’s company died in hospital, another in suspicious circumstances, and three drowned. Also nine deserters were left behind savouring the bright lights of New York.

To the present generation it is inconceivable that in peacetime a ship would sail under sealed orders, with her destination only known to a select few, and for an unknown duration. While some well-connected senior officers might be able to bring wives, at their own expense, for holidays to places such as Malta, the majority of her complement had no idea when they would next see family and friends. During this particular cruise it looks that some attempt had been made to exchange at least part of the crew after three years. However, the logistics of such commissions are to be admired, with annual overseas dockings, multiple supplies of coal and all types of provisions, and if required, an exchange of crew.

Notes:

  1. Rear Admiral George Tryon commanded the Australia Station from 1885 to 1887. In 1891 as Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon he was given command of the Mediterranean Fleet. He is infamously known for ordering two columns of warships to turn inwards, resulting in his flagship HMS Victoria colliding with HMS Camperdown in which the Admiral and 357 others died.
  2. The World’s Columbian Exposition was a world fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World. In scale and grandeur, it exceeded anything previously attempted with more than 27 million visitors attending the exposition during its six-month run.

 

 

Matthew Flinders: A personal assessment

Peter Ashley (2005) perhaps encapsulates an apt description of Flinders as a person:

Driven, ambitious, sometimes arrogant and occasionally reckless, few navigators had a greater share of misfortune than Captain Matthew Flinders, yet achieved so much.

 Matthew Flinders was small in stature; the recent discovery suggests he may have been a diminutive 5 feet 3 inches (160 cm) tall, whereas the usually reliable American scholar James Decker Mack (1966) says he stood at a more respectable 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm). Mack’s perceptive pen picture describes him:

His figure was slight, but well-proportioned with a light and buoyant step. Possessed of average strength he exuded extreme energy and activity. Of pale complexion, his nose was rather aquiline, his chin a little projecting and his lips compressed. He had a noble brow, hair almost black, eyes dark brown, bright, and with a commanding expression, amounting at times to sternness. His features expressed intelligence, animation and the ability to command.

Perhaps the best likeness we are able to see is that painted by the French settler and capable amateur artist Toussaint Antoine de Chazal de Chamarel when Flinders, aged about 33, was under house arrest on the Isle de France (Mauritius). This portrait, which now hangs in the Art Gallery of South Australia, is featured on the front cover of this magazine.

Flinders was the first to circumnavigate the continent of Australia and gave the nation we know today its name, although it was not recognised in his lifetime. Monuments commemorating his exploits exist in positions of prominence in Adelaide, Melbourne, Port Lincoln and Sydney, and fittingly there is now one at Mauritius. Melbourne has a major thoroughfare and railway station named after him, old hands talk of Flinders (Flinders Naval Depot) rather than HMAS Cerberus. Adelaide honours him with a university, and an RAN ship has proudly borne his name. Until the introduction of decimal currency his likeness adorned the Commonwealth ten-shilling bank note, and later the one-dollar postage stamp. Physical features of the majestic Flinders Ranges, two Flinders Islands and the Flinders Group National Park mark his progress around the continent. Ironically a statue of him was installed at Euston Station in 2014.

Matthew Flinders Rediscovered

 Recent media reports have exciting news of the discovery of the remains of the great explorer Matthew Flinders. Fittingly, against all odds these were discovered just in time for the celebration of Australia Day 2019.

Matthew Flinders died in London 205 years ago on 19 July 1814 and was buried in the cemetery of St James’s Church, Hampstead Road in central London, on 23 July 1814. This old burial ground, dating from 1790, closed in 1853 and was estimated to hold the remains of tens of thousands.

The Flinders Memorial website (2014) informs us that St James’s Burial Ground, where he was interred, belonged to St James’s Church, Piccadilly. There were several very large inter-connected cemeteries in the district covering an area eastwards from Hampstead Road through St. James’s Garden and Euston Station as far as St. Pancras Station. During the mid-1800s an expansion of the railways led to the closure of several cemeteries and the remains of thousands were removed to a mass grave at Finchley.

However, his sister-in-law Isabelle, who had arranged and attended the funeral and interment of Flinders, visited the burial ground again in February 1852 and found that the entrance had changed and the grave was gone. A letter written later by his daughter, Mrs. Petrie, says:

Many years afterwards my Aunt Tyler went to look for the grave, but found the churchyard remodeled, and quantities of tombstones and graves with their contents had been carted away as rubbish, among them that of my unfortunate father, thus pursued by disaster after death as in life.

 According to later research, it appeared to be almost certain that the remains of Flinders were moved to an unmarked grave a short distance to the east, either under Euston Station (platforms 11 to 15), or under St. James’s Garden, with it is estimated thousands of others.

Flinders coffin plate

Another extension to the rail system is under way, known as the High Speed 2 rail link from Euston to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, which has called for further excavation of St James’s Park. Archaeologists were given a short window in which to conduct further research. Only a small portion of the estimated remains of bodies exhumed from St James’s have been identified, making the discovery of the remains of Flinders like looking for ‘a needle in a haystack’ according to the lead archaeologist, Helen Wass.

With so little to go on it is indeed remarkable that on 15 January 2019 a workers’ trowel hit the hard surface of the breastplate of a lead coffin. When cleaned this revealed the cursive inscription on the ornately decorated plate which read: ‘Capt. Matthew Flinders RN. Died 19 July, 1814. Aged 40 Years’.

The lead plate has helped preserve parts of the wooden coffin, although some had crumbled under the pressure and moisture of the earth. Helen Wass says: ‘underneath was a complete skeleton, though not the best preserved’. The bones of Flinders, now washed and cleaned, will be subject to forensic archaeological assessment before they are reinterred in a site yet to be determined. This should be of significant interest to many Australians.

Early Life – the Flinders Family Tree

Matthew Flinders was born in the small Lincolnshire market town of Donington on 16 March 1774. Donington lies in farming country on the flat and fertile Fen district about ten miles from the nearest sea, at the Port of Boston.

Commonwealth ten shilling note from the 1950s

Matthew was the third child of a respected country surgeon and apothecary, also named Matthew. His mother, Susannah, nee Ward, in 1771 when aged 19 gave birth out of wedlock to their first son John. John (Poor John) had a mental defect and was later committed to a lunatic asylum. On 6 May 1773 Matthew and Susannah married and after five months a daughter Elizabeth was born. Next came Matthew and afterwards John (Jackey) who died at six weeks, then a daughter Susannah, and finally another son Samuel. Most likely exhausted by childbirth, Susanna died aged 31 early in 1783 (the exact date is unknown).

Obviously a solitary life did not suit Dr. Flinders as on 2 December in the same year that his first wife died he remarried a widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Ellis, nee Weekes. Elizabeth1aged 33 was of the same age as her husband and they produced two children, sisters Hannah and Henrietta.

Education

Matthew was first educated at local schools where he excelled, and at age 12 he was sent to board in a nearby town at Reverend John Shinglar’s Grammar School at Horbling. Here he again was a good pupil studying English, Greek, Latin and mathematics. Unfortunately, he did not study French which was later to cost him dearly. When he was aged 13 his father removed him from school to assist him with his medical practice, where he was expected to succeed his father. His lessons continued, overseen by his father.

At about the time of his 15th birthday Matthew had read a then best seller, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. This deeply affected him and caused a rift with his father when he expressed a desire for a seafaring career. This was also discussed with his father’s brother whose career as a naval lieutenant was not exactly flourishing. Uncle John advised the youngster about which books on navigation and mathematics he should read if he was to pursue such a career. This was done with intent of putting the youngster off, but it had the opposite effect, encouraging scientific pursuits. This must have upset his father as he had obtained a position for his son with Joseph Dell, a surgeon and apothecary of Lincoln, at a welcome salary of ten guineas a year.

According to the custom of those times the accepted entrée of a young gentleman into the Royal Navy lay in the sponsorship of a ranking commanding officer, preferably of Captain’s rank. This system of recruitment, known as ‘the interest’, was a form of patronage used to place a child on the quarterdeck and upwards.

To sea with Captain Bligh

Fortuitously a cousin, Henrietta (Henny) Flinders, was governess to the family of Captain (later Admiral Sir) Thomas Pasley RN, then in command of HMS Scipio. A meeting between the youngster and the captain resulted in Matthew Flinders being entered as a Lieutenant’s Servant in HMS Alerton 23 October 1789. Six months later, when Pasley learned he was to take command of the 74-gun ship Bellerophon, he called for his young protégé to be posted into Scipioas an able seaman. Then a few days later he took the youngster with him to Bellerophon where he was entered into the books as a midshipman. After about eight months Flinders was transferred to another ship-of-the-line, the 64-gun HMS Dictator, for further training.

Captain Pasley, however, had other ideas and was to make a decision which would have a profound influence on the career of Flinders. His acquaintance, Captain William Bligh, recovering from his ill-fated Bounty expedition, was fitting out the sloop HMS Providence and her consort HMS Assistant (Lieutenant Nathaniel Portlock)at the behest of Sir Joseph Banks for the transfer of breadfruit trees from Tahiti to Jamaica. Pasley recommended the bright youngster to Bligh who accepted him as one of six midshipmen embarked. They sailed from Deptford on 3 August 1791. This placed Flinders amongst the top league of navigators as both Bligh and Portlock had honed their skills under the great scientific navigator, Captain James Cook.

While the breadfruit voyage was a success and led to promotions for both Bligh and Portlock, the young midshipman’s time was less fortunate. Learning from the best, Flinders had acquired skills in astronomy, cartography, and navigation but his relationship with his captain was not cordial.

Exposed to the favours of attractive and uninhibited South Sea island maidens, the young midshipman contracted venereal disease which would plague him for the remainder of his life and ultimately lead to his untimely death. As well as being a strict disciplinarian, Bligh was conscious of the need to maintain the health of his officers and men, and to curtail the spread of European diseases amongst native populations. In April 1793, before Providencereturned to Deptford in August 1793, in an unexplained incident Bligh demoted Flinders to Able Seaman. However, when taking his examination for lieutenant in January 1797, Bligh favourably reported on the conduct of Flinders and his suitability for promotion.

Back in England Flinders returned to Bellerophon and under the continued patronage of Captain Pasley, he was soon reinstated to midshipman. It was during this time that Flinders took part in the only major naval action of his career, ‘The Glorious First of June’ in a 1794 battle against the French, in which the English won a decisive victory and Pasley lost a leg, but gained a flag and a knighthood.

Flinders in the Great South Land

 This is not the place to write a voluminous history of the exploits of Flinders in Australia but some explanation of how he first came here and developed a lifelong interest in the Great South Land is necessary.

Lieutenant Henry Waterhouse was also promoted from Bellerophon to command HMS Reliance which was then being readied to transfer the second Governor of New South Wales, Captain John Hunter RN, to take up his position. With Captain Pasley’s blessing Flinders was allowed to transfer to Reliance as a Master’s Mate. Here Matthew established another association as the ship’s surgeon was a fellow Lincolnshire man, George Bass, who later married Henry Waterhouse’s sister. By now the father’s disapproval of his son’s career must have dissipated as Matthew’s younger brother Samuel Ward Flinders was  also in Reliance as a volunteer.

Trim the cat, from monument at Donington, Linconshire.

With her consort Supply, Reliance departed from Plymouth on 15 February 1795 and reached Sydney on 7 September of that year. During quiet periods in their new surroundings Matthew and his friend George Bass set about exploring the coastline and this led to their famous exploits in Tom Thumb.

Towards the end of 1796 Reliance was sent to Cape Town to secure livestock for the colony and brought back in her cargo the first merino sheep. She returned around the southern extremity of Van Diemen’s Land and arrived safely back at Port Jackson after a voyage of six months. Early in 1797 Flinders was promoted to Lieutenant and in acknowledgement of the good works in exploration conducted by Flinders and Bass both were given land grants near present day Bankstown.

On 7 October 1798 Flinders was to achieve his first command of the very small colonial sloop Norfolk which had been built on Norfolk Island. He sailed in her with Bass and a crew of eight men from Port Jackson and was able to confirm that a strait (Bass Strait) existed between the mainland and Van Diemen’s Land.

HMS Investigator

Reliance, now greatly in need of refit, returned to England in 1800 and to obtain news of his favorite topic Flinders became the focus of attention of Sir Joseph Banks. Aware that the French were preparing for a large expedition to the South Seas the Admiralty selected the 334-ton sloop Xenophonand fitted her out, renamed HMS Investigator. Sir Joseph, who was consulted on most things to do with New South Wales, was asked about a suitable commander. He recommended the 26 year-old Flinders.

Flinders now set about organising his personal life and through cousins had struck up a friendship with Miss Ann Chappelle. Ann was considered clever with a sweet temperament, she was witty with an aptitude for poetry, literature, singing and was a talented painter of flowers. Ann carried an affliction in that she was blind in one eye from smallpox lancing. Her father had been a captain in the merchant service who had died at sea. Her mother remarried the Reverend William Tyler and they had another daughter, Isabelle.

Matthew, newly promoted to Commander, and Ann married on 17 April 1801 and as Investigator was fitting out at Sheerness on the Thames, he took Ann with him to be near the ship. The intention may well have been to smuggle his wife onboard and sail with her as a passenger. When the Admiralty got wind of this the young commander was told in no uncertain terms that he would be dismissed if he was to take this course of action. Investigator sailed from Spithead on 18 July 1801 and Matthew was not to see his wife again for some nine years. The Australian author Ernestine Hill (1941) in her book My Love Must Wait portrays a fictional although exceptionally well crafted and researched story of the relationship between Matthew and Ann.

Cape Leeuwin was sighted on 6 December 1801 and after undertaking surveys on the south coast they passed through Bass Strait finally reaching Port Jackson on 9 May 1802. As indicated earlier we shall not dwell here on the magnificent circumnavigation of the continent which was to win Flinders great acclaim.

With his survey largely complete Flinders was in a great hurry to return home to finalise his cartography, including new charts, and, to write a comprehensive account of his circumnavigation from his log books and notes. As well as bringing personal satisfaction, he considered that this would give him a place amongst the great navigators, possibly leading to fame and fortune.

Flinders sailed homeward as a passenger in HMS Porpoise under command of Lieutenant Robert Fowler RN. Safely stowed were his extensive documents and collection of plant specimens. On 10 August 1803 departure was made from Sydney in company with the ship Cato, Captain Park, and the Indiaman Bridgewater under Captain Palmer. As Flinders sought to prove the advantage of the route he had discovered in Investigator they sailed outside the Barrier Reef for the Torres Strait. Seven days into the voyage, in the early hours of the morning when still in darkness, the lookout sighted breakers ahead. Too late they tried to bring her about and Porpoise struck an uncharted atoll, now known as Wreck Reef. While Bridgewater cleared the reef, Cato too was wrecked. Fearing the hazards Captain Palmer decided he could not, or would not, help and continued on his voyage.

Out of the disaster came some relief as at dawn the survivors found a sandbank on which they could camp and retrieve stores and provisions from the wrecks. With a few exceptions invaluable charts and papers prepared by Flinders were salvaged. So too was his seafaring cat ‘Trim’ that had circumnavigated the globe with him.

Trim, the cat, monument at Donington, Lincolnshire

The largest of Porpoise’s six-oared cutters was salvaged and christened Hope. In her Flinders and Captain Park and fourteen of his best men set out for Port Jackson to fetch another vessel to gather the remainder. Lieutenant Fowler remained in charge on their small island with instructions to use materials from the wrecks to construct another two craft sufficient to take off the survivors should relief not come.

With her desperate party, the overcrowded Hope set sail on 26 August in good weather; two days later they sighted land, and on the fifth day went ashore (North Stradbroke Island) where they replenished their water casks. On 8 September the citizens of Sydney were surprised to find sun and salt-caked survivors from Porpoiseback amongst their midst. Governor King quickly put a rescue plan into place and the Government schooners Francis and Cumberland and the ship Rolla reached Wreck Reef on 7 October.

During the waiting period the industrious survivors had built a small decked boat which they named Resource. Those preferring to return to Sydney sailed in Resource with Francis.Those wishing to return to England sailed in Rolla, first headed for China.

Flinders, still anxious to make immediate passage to England, pestered the Governor who eventually let him have the elderly and worn-out schooner Cumberland with a crew of ten for a voyage for which she was ill prepared. Cumberland, leaking like a sieve, was obliged to put into the French colony of Isle de France (Mauritius) but unknown to them, Britain and France were again at war. His passport was made for his command of Investigator on a scientific expedition. His arrival in another ship gave the Governor, General de Caen, sufficient reason to detain his visitor. Shortly after arrival the poor manners displayed by Flinders in declining a dinner invitation from Madame de Caen was seen as an insult. His disrespect and intransigence led to him remaining under house arrest for six and a half years.

Flinders did however establish friendships with cultured members in the local society, who helped sustain him, and in turn he helped tutor their children in mathematics, and he was obliged to learn their language.

The Return and Final Chapter

Eventually on 13 June 1810 his sword was returned  and he was a free man to embark in the British ship Harriet which had been granted free passage to take British persons from the island, which was then under siege. However, few decisions in his life were straightforward and to speed his passage he requested transfer to the naval sloop Otter en route to the Cape. Here he was detained for several weeks while debriefing the Flag Officer Cape Station, and it was not until 28 August that he took passage in the cutter Olympia, arriving at Spithead on 24 October 1810. It will be recalled this was the departure point from which he had sailed full of enthusiasm in Investigator more than nine years previously.

The arrival of Flinders in England was not a triumphal return, he was prematurely aged with his health and spirit broken. Upon arrival he went to the Admiralty for talks with both the First Lord and Secretary who were pleased to announce the promotion of Flinders to Post Captain. He was then reunited with Ann who had travelled to London.

By 5 November some normality entered their lives with rooms rented at 16 King Street Soho. Friends were visited, acquaintances remade and calls made to the great, such as Sir Joseph Banks. On 23 November Matthew and Ann left London for a six-week holiday in Lincolnshire.

Immediately after this holiday Flinders set about writing his narrative of A Voyage to TerraAustralis. This task occupied him from this moment almost until his death. This immense work was produced in three volumes, plus an atlas of sixteen charts, two plates of coastal profiles, and ten of botanical drawings. Not only did Flinders write of his voyages but found time to complete an important scientific memorandum on magnetism of ships. In time this gave rise to the introduction of the ‘Flinders Bar’ which greatly improved the performance of magnetic compasses in all ships by compensating for the use of iron in their construction.

On 8 February 1812 the now Rear Admiral Bligh took Flinders to the Palace where he was presented to HRH the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV) who had asked to see some of the latest charts drawn by the great navigator. On 1 April 1812 Ann gave birth to a daughter, named Anne.

Working all day and often into the night took its toll and in December 1813 he suffered the beginnings of his last illness. By 9 March 1814 his distress from pain was such as to bring his work to a close. Matthew Flinders died on 19 July 1814, aged 40 years, four months and three days. A great man now largely forgotten.

On 23 July a funeral service was held at St James’s Chapel off Hampstead Road. Afterwards a small cortege led by Ann, supported by her brother-in-law Samuel and her sister Isabelle, proceeded to the adjacent churchyard where Matthew Flinders was laid to rest.

Notes:

1     Hannah, the sister of Elizabeth Weekes, married Lincolnshire gentleman-farmer Willingham Franklin. Their son John Franklin served as a midshipman in HMS Investigatorunder the patronage of his step-uncle Matthew Flinders. As Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin he became a famous Arctic explorer and later Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land. He died in 1843 whilst attempting to chart the Northwest Passage.

References:

Ashley, Peter, The Indomitable Captain Matthew Flinders, Royal Navy, Pierhead Press, Clanfield, Hants, 2005.

 

Baker, Sidney, J., My Own Destroyer – A Biography of Capt. Matthew Flinders, RN, Currawong Publishing, Sydney, 1962.

 

Estensen, Miriam, Matthew Flinders – The Life of Matthew Flinders, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2002.

 

Flinders, Matthew, Trim – Being the True Story of a Brave Seafaring Cat, Collins, San Francisco, 1973.

 

Hill, Ernestine, My Love Must Wait, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1941.

 

Hughes, Thea Stanley, Matthew Flinders, Movement Publications, Sydney, 1984.

 

Mack, James, D., Matthew Flinders 1774 – 1814, Nelson, Melbourne, 1966.

 

http://www.flindersmemorial.org/captain-matthew-flinders-rn/

Australia Day 2019

The following address was recently given at Russ Martin Park, Moruya, on the south coast of New South Wales, by Captain Ward Hack, AM, RAN, Rtd. While it was mainly aimed at a younger local audience it is worthy of our attention.

Welcome to Moruya’s 2019 Australia Day ceremony. I hope you have enjoyed yourselves so far. I would like to thank the ladies and gentlemen of the Lions and Rotary clubs for the effort they have put in this morning. My name is Ward Hack and I am president of the Rotary Club of Moruya. I have lived near here for the past 20 years after I completed 32 years’ service with the Royal Australian Navy.

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago today eleven ships of the British Royal Navy arrived in Sydney Cove. This was a traumatic event for the native Bidjigal clan of the Eora people. Let us try to imagine we are the local Yuin people when, beside us, up this river comes a fleet of monstrous vessels. The largest was the transport Alexander. She was 450 tons and 114 feet or 35 metres long. The smallest was the store ship Supply, of 168 tons and 70 feet or 21 metres long – about the length of a cricket pitch. Small today but they are huge in comparison to our bark canoes and each is carrying a tribe of very weird looking people. They have weapons we have never seen before. We are very afraid of them and we go bush. It takes months for us to trust them enough to even go near them. They are totally alien to us. We want them to go away. Just like the Eora near Sydney Cove.

What I want to talk to you about today are two other aspects of this event. I don’t think we understand just how traumatic this expedition was for another group of people – the convicts and their keepers. And I don’t think we give credit to what was a really remarkable effort by the Royal Navy.

It was, and remains, one of the greatest sea voyages in history. Eleven ships carried over 1400 people and stores 24,000 km around the world to a scarcely known destination without losing a ship. Only 48 people died, a death rate of about 3%, considered very good in those days. Their only radar was a man with his Mark 1 eyeball at the top of the foremast, exposed to all the weather the Southern Ocean could throw at them – and it did – no-one was ever really dry in a ship (no wonder old sailors suffered from rheumatism). They were sailing mostly uncharted waters. They stayed in convoy during terrible storms and arrived together on the other side of the world eight and a half months later. It was a tremendous feat of seamanship and navigation.

In charge was Commodore Arthur Phillip. The fleet was made up of two armed naval ships, six ships carrying the convicts and three store ships. They sailed from Portsmouth in England in May 1787 and crossed the Atlantic to Brazil. They then sailed south and east back across the Atlantic to Africa. In Cape Town, then a Dutch colony, they loaded food and animals. This was the last outpost of European settlement many would see for years, some for the rest of their lives. Robert Hughes, in his book The Fatal Shore, wrote:

Before them stretched the awesome, lonely void of the Indian and Southern Oceans, and beyond that, lay nothing they could imagine.

The fleet arrived with 18 months’ provisions and tons of stores to establish a colony. They had small numbers of turkeys, geese, ducks, chickens, dogs, horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs and rabbits. They had tents, bricks, nails, blacksmiths and carpentry tools and whips and muskets. This expedition had been well planned by the Admiralty in London. Unfortunately, the follow up store ship was lost at sea and within 12 months the colony was starving – I will come back to this.

But let me now turn to the other players – the convicts and their overseers. To be English in those days was great if you were in the middle class or a Lord, but if you lived in a city slum or were a farm labourer, life was very hard. They had the biggest and most powerful navy in the world. At this time, they were establishing colonies for trade and to take their convicts and surplus population, and they took no notice of any local inhabitants who happened to be there already – there was room for everyone as far as they were concerned.

In the first fleet about 600 males, 200 females and 14 child convicts were assigned to Botany Bay, most for a sentence of seven years. The oldest convict was Dorothy Handland, 62. The youngest was an orphaned nine-year-old chimney sweep named John Hudson. They had both stolen clothing. This was to be no pleasure cruise. The convicts were kept below decks in cramped and foul holds. But here Phillip was better than those who followed him. He had consulted old sailing masters who had transported convicts to America before the Revolution. He ordered the ships to allow the prisoners on deck during the day and visited each transport to make sure that his orders were followed. They had bedbugs, lice, rats, cockroaches and fleas aplenty (so did the sailors and marines). The convicts only had one set of rough prison clothes so they seldom washed. The stench was overpowering. The female convicts’ clothes were so riddled with lice that they had to be burnt and they made replacements from old rice bags. Water had to be rationed and it was not clean. Three pints (about two litres) per person per day.

Governor Arthur Phillip commanded eleven ships on a perilous voyage to establish our nation

After arrival things were not much better for the convicts. They were guarded by Marines, the Navy’s soldiers. The Marines were hard men. The Royal Navy was a highly disciplined and powerful force. Sailors and marines were routinely flogged for small offences to enforce this discipline. They saw no problem in extending this to the convicts. One of the marine officers was Lieutenant George Johnston who was the adjutant to the governor, Commodore Phillip. You will hear more about him in a minute. The marines worked our convicts very hard – every day except Sunday. If they committed any offence the punishment was swift and painful. Floggings with the cat were common, leg irons weighing 18 kilos were fitted if you gave trouble – if you would like to get a feel for leg irons, try walking with twobricks chained to each of your ankles. Some were sentenced to the treadmill, walking all day to turn a grinding wheel to crush grain – 40 minutes on then 20 off, all day, every day. They probably got Sunday off, but I am not sure. It became a matter of honour amongst the convicts not to scream with pain while being flogged. Think about that. Think hard about what that says about what they thought about authority.

The ferocity of British justice shocked the aborigines. In 1791 a convict who stole fishing tackle from Daringa, the wife of Colebee, was severely flogged in front of the clan. The reason for the punishmentwasexplainedtothem. Theaborigines expressed horror at the punishment and sympathy for the thief.

On top of this, the first couple of years did not go so well. The crops failed due to poor soil and lack of rain. Fish were scarce, and they were not good at hunting kangaroos, and then, the cattle wandered off into the bush. They were soon running out of the salt pork, salt beef, dried peas and flour they had brought. The governor, Commodore Phillip, is one of the men I really admire. Governor Phillip had to reduce the convict’s rations but he also imposed the same limits on his officers and marines and himself. He also tried hard to establish friendly relations with the Eora.

Then scurvy starts to appear, something most feared by sailors in those days. It is a lack of Vitamin C which we get from fruit and vegetables. You know you are getting scurvy when open wounds refuse to heal, your gums begin to bleed and your teeth become loose. Your skin has dark purple blotches and you don’t feel much like working but you get flogged if you don’t. Phillip is forced to cut rations again and women convicts get two-thirds of men’s rations. Towards the end of 1788 the convict Charley Wilson dies of starvation. In March 1789, Phillip hangs six marines for stealing food from the public stores.

But eventually stores arrive and the colony slowly gets established on a sound footing. In the following 80 years, convicts arrived in their thousands, 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia, some under appalling conditions. The second fleet (1790) brings 1,000 convicts; of these 260 died on the voyage, mostly of scurvy, dysentery and fever. Another 140 were so sick they died within six months of arrival, a 40% fatality rate compared with Phillip’s 3%. In 1797 Britanniaarrived with a cargo of Irish convicts. Her master Thomas Dennot routinely ordered floggings of 300, 400 and even 800 lashes during the voyage. In 1799, the transport Hillsboroughwith 300 convicts lost 95 to typhoid.

Despite all this, many convicts completed their sentences and settled on the land. Many of the women convicts married marines who also became farmers. Thousands more became our forebears. There will be people here today whose ancestors were those people. I don’t think it is impossible that these tough (remember the ‘don’t scream’ ethos) people had a lot to do with the way the Australian character has developed. We accept authority grudgingly. We are not overawed by it. Our servicemen respect their officers if they are competent and considerate, not because of the rank they wear. I think our convict genes may have something to do with this. Prove me wrong!

In conclusion, while the first thirty years of white settlement of New South Wales were traumatic for the original inhabitants, it was also very much the case for the convicts and their guards. But we sometimes forget, it was the navy which organised and eventually succeeded in making the colony work. We owe the Royal Navy a lot. So please remember Commodore Arthur Phillip, the first governor of New South Wales. The next three governors were also navy officers. The last was Captain William Bligh of Bounty fame. The mutiny which removed Bligh in 1808 involved the aforementioned George Johnston. Now a major, he led the troops who arrested Governor Bligh in Government House, Sydney. And to connect the dots, the executive officer of my first ship, HMASVampire was Commander David Martin. In 1989, as Rear Admiral Sir David Martin he was appointed the 34th governor of NSW, 201 years after Arthur Phillip. Here is the bit that intrigues me. David Martin was a direct descendent of the same Lieutenant George Johnson of the Marines who arrived in Sydney on this day 231 years ago. Johnston married a convict, Esther Abrahams. After he was court-martialled for the Governor Bligh incident he became a farmer at Annandale.

I hope I have given you something to think about on this Australia Day. Thank you for listening.

 

 

Facebook