Australian Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs
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Australian Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs |
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Don Chambers[1]
This article deals with four sailing vessels ranging from 37 to 148 tons launched between 1842 and 1867 by the prominent early colonial ship-builder, William Paterson. It concentrates on their contacts with Australia’s Pacific and Asian neighbours. Each was built at a different site and was intended to operate in coastal waters and river estuaries linking Launceston, Melbourne and Adelaide. However, strong local competition in the gold-rush years was greatly exacerbated by the abolition of Britain’s restrictive Navigation Laws in 1849 and an increased use of steamers in Bass Strait, causing their skippers to venture as far as California, Guam, the Chatham Islands or Java.
This article is based on voyages into the Pacific and Indian Oceans by four little ships built in Australia by William Paterson between 1842 and 1867. The smallest, the cutter Alpha, was all of 37 tons. The largest was the packet-brig Swan of 148 tons. Why these craft? William Paterson was my mother’s great-grandfather, hence the effort to track his ships’ movements over many years and on many seas. The Paterson brothers (William and John) did launch larger vessels (to 547 tons), but these were normally involved in longer-distance service and did not usually link Australia with its Pacific and Asian neighbours. Vessels treated here were Paterson’s small creations.
A brief reference to the types of vessels on the shipping register of the Port of Sydney in 1849 will provide important context. There were 235 ships on that register, 189 built in New South Wales and the remainder in Britain or other British colonies. Not one fully square-rigged ‘ship’ was on the register and the two largest barques were the London (386 tons) and the Statesman (345 tons). Only 24 sailing vessels were of 200 tons or more, most of these being British built. The great majority of smaller craft (under 100 tons) were Australian built, and the 98 schooners and 55 cutters taken together represented well over half the total. The largest steamer registered was the Juno of 362 tons.2
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Although the four vessels discussed here were built by William Paterson, no two were constructed at the same place. All were intended for short-range voyaging in Bass Strait or adjacent waters linking with Kangaroo Island and Adelaide. They were all of shallow draught to negotiate river estuaries. A passage from Launceston to Melbourne involved over forty miles of river estuary at the Launceston end, and negotiating the tortuous and sometimes shallow Yarra River into the heart of old Melbourne at the other end. The reasons for such shallow-draught Australian-built coastal vessels taking on the Pacific and Indian Oceans in gold-rush years will be discussed later.[2]
The Alpha, smallest and earliest of the four, was launched at Port Adelaide in 1842. Paterson is only known to have constructed one smaller vessel: the Frances, launched at Encounter Bay in 1839 and the first ship known to be built in South Australia.[3] Given that his ship-building in Australia began at Encounter Bay when it was still an isolated whaling settlement, it is likely that Paterson previously built boats for the whaling industry.
Next in time was the packet-brig Swan, launched at Paterson’s new shipyard on the swamp near Launceston’s first bridge, in 1844. The brigantine or schooner Tamar is next, having been launched at Paterson’s later shipyard near the old Blackwall Point Jetty, West Tamar, in 1848. The brigantine or schooner Emma Paterson, launched in 1868 on the Cam River estuary west of modern Burnie is next treated. Both latter vessels appear alternatively as ‘brigantine’ or ‘schooner’. Given minor differences in rigging between a brigantine and a topsail schooner, each possibly tried both forms at different times.
From the earliest period of European settlement sailing ships maintained essential links between Australian colonies and their Asian and Pacific neighbours. In the earliest period of white settlement this was necessary to avoid starvation. In those earliest times, when the East India Company held a monopoly over Australia’s international trade and when the possible escape of convicts from Australia was greatly feared, ocean-going ships were not permitted to be built in these colonies. However, by the 1840s, ship-building flourished. Australian-built ships that crossed the Pacific to the Californian goldfields, carried Australian timber cargoes as far north as Guam, or regularly traded with the Dutch and Portuguese East Indies, were tiny vessels originally designed and built for coastal use.
The 110 ton brigantine or ‘topsail schooner’ Tamar of Launceston was launched in 1848. Only 75.5 feet in length, she successfully tackled all the voyages listed above. Although of similar general dimensions to his packet-brig Swan, Paterson’s Tamar was sleeker. Her maximum breadth was 19.2 feet, and her depth of hull at 11.5 feet was designed to permit this vessel to venture up the Yarra River estuary right into Melbourne.[4] The sleeker shape gave her a speed advantage over the Swan. Like the Swan she had a square stern, but the Tamar possessed only one deck.
By the early 1860s the Tamar would provide regular connections between Hobart and New Zealand’s gold-rush port of Dunedin. The Tamar met her end suddenly at Dunedin Heads late in 1862 when she ‘missed stays’ in the gusty darkness of early morning, crashed backwards onto rocks below the lighthouse, and was dragged into the deep by a cargo of Tasmanian sandstone intended for construction of Dunedin’s new customs house.
When William Paterson built the Tamar at his Blackwall Point shipyards near Launceston in 1848, he intended her for inter-colonial trade in south-eastern Australian waters. The Tamar would carry many passengers and much cargo between Launceston and Melbourne between 1849 and 1855.[5] She was also a familiar sight at Adelaide, Sydney and Hobart. However, shipping competition in these waters was tough, so various owners sent her to distant ports on voyages that would have surprised her builder. We here confine ourselves mainly to the Tamar’s international voyages in the Asia-Pacific region, as one interesting example of what little Australian-built ships could achieve in the gold-rush era.
According to an early auction notice, the Tamar was ‘most faithfully built of the best seasoned Gum’. She was almost certainly built of Tamar Valley ‘Swamp Gum’ (eucalyptus regnans). Her builder followed normal Launceston practice by using New Zealand Kauri for decks, masts and spars. The Tamar was copper-fastened and ‘possessed a winch, full suit of sails, with standing and running rigging, boats etc, complete’.[6] Her cabin accommodation was described as ‘well-arranged, having four state-rooms, with locker, pantry, water-closet, and every other convenience.’[7]
In March 1850, the Tamar was purchased by J. C. Brown for the express purpose of crossing the Pacific to the Californian gold regions. Seven ships at Launceston were ‘laid on for San Francisco’, including William Paterson’s brigs Swan and Raven. Under Captain Edward Whiting the Tamar sailed for California on 24 March 1850 with a motley cargo of foodstuffs and timber and one passenger. A prominent Launceston merchant, Phillip Oakden, was the main consigner of goods.[8]
The Tamar was the second of this Launceston flotilla to hit the high seas, but she made the trip in the unusually fast time of 85 days to arrive first on 17 June. In August 1850, that was claimed to be the fastest time yet for any ship from Van Diemen’s Land to California. The Tamar’s time was certainly much faster than that of the brig Swan, despite the brigantine having spent ‘four days detention at Port Nicholson’ (near Wellington). The Swan took over a month longer to get to San Francisco, but that passage was not considered slow. In November 1849 a Hobart captain claimed that very few ships voyaged from Hobart to California in less than four months.[9]
Like other ships that made speculative trips to California, the Tamar did not return great profits. Launceston sources had the Tamar scheduled to leave San Francisco for Newcastle early in August. She was listed in Sydney’s Shipping Gazette in September 1850 as a vessel expected from California. By 12 October, the Tamar’s name was on a list of ships waiting at Newcastle to load, and she carried 137 tons of coal thence to Launceston. However, the Tamar’s holds were not empty on arrival at Newcastle, because she brought home to Launceston seven ‘hardwood houses’ and palings that had not been worth putting through Californian customs. [10]
Her next owners found themselves in financial trouble by January 1852, so the Tamar was again advertised to be auctioned. The vessel had been thoroughly overhauled in January 1851, after running aground at Tasmania’s River Mersey. She had been ‘recoppered with heavy metal’, and ‘fitted with two hanging iron knees, with other repairs, at the cost of £1000’. The bankrupt owner was the Launceston ship-builder and shipping agent, R. G. Gibbons. Gibbons had been William Paterson’s major competitor in ship construction on the Tamar during the late 1840s, but (like Paterson’s business) Gibbons’ shipyards had closed by 1851.[11]
In June 1854, the schooner Tamar continued to run regularly across Bass Strait to Melbourne under the command of a Captain Ellis. However, by December 1854 she was advertised at Launceston ‘for Swan River and King George’s Sound’. On 12 March 1855, the Tamar departed Gage’s Roads, Swan River, for Timor. When she docked at Adelaide in mid-May of 1855, the Tamar unloaded thirty ‘Timour ponies’ acquired at Roti Island near Timor during April. Another twenty-six ponies went on to Launceston, arriving on 24 May. The nautical proprietor of the Cornwall Chronicle opined that ‘in the present slack state of trade, a vessel might be worse employed than in proceeding to one of the West India islands, or to the Spanish Main, for a cargo of mules’. The Tamar’s owners were not impressed, and she returned to Adelaide in mid-June of 1855.[12]
By 26 November, the Tamar was back at Launceston via Melbourne carrying more ponies.[13] This researcher is unsure how many times the Tamar sailed to the Dutch or Portuguese East Indies and back. However, she must have struck trouble on that route early in 1856, being noted overdue at Melbourne after leaving Surabaya (Java) in February 1856.[14] The Sydney Morning Herald reported early in June 1856 that the Tamar, skippered by Captain Ellis and belonging to G. Fisher of Launceston, was feared to have fallen a victim to Malay pirates. The Tamar had departed Surabaya for ‘Bally’ [Bali?] on 6 February, to load for Melbourne, and had apparently disappeared. She did not return to Swan River until 7 July 1856. Proceeding thence to Melbourne, she docked on 26 July to unload a cargo of rice, coconuts, coconut oil and coffee. The Tamar also brought traditional East Indies spices, including a case of mace and three casks of nutmeg. [15]
Sydney Morning Herald shipping pages indicate that the Tamar did not use the Port of Sydney between June 1855 and August 1856. She rarely returned to Launceston during the years 1857 and 1858, and Hobart became her home port until her sudden end near Dunedin in 1862. It seems unlikely that the Tamar again ventured to the East Indies in the late 1850s. She had previously sailed there via Adelaide, and no references to the vessel appear in South Australian shipping columns between mid-1858 and mid-1859.[16]
By the end of 1860, the Tamar’s owner/skipper (Captain Pie) became bored with regular passages along the Tasmanian and New South Wales coasts. Word of a timber shortage in the Marianne Islands must have reached Hobart. The Tamar was ‘cleared out for Guam’ with 40,000 palings, 10,000 feet of timber, 20,000 shingles and 2000 laths (consigned by Captain Pie) on 12 January 1861. In the first half of 1861, the Hobart Mercury frequently commented on the ‘very slack’ nature of inter-colonial trade, so it should not surprise that Captain Pie kept his distance. By 21 June, however, the Tamar was at Hobart to resume regular passages to Melbourne. Tasmanians were doubtless appreciative of the Melbourne butter, tobacco, beef and beer that she disgorged on Hobart’s wharfs in July 1861.[17]
The Tamar was about to enter her last (but not least demanding) phase. At the beginning of August 1861, Hobart newspapers noted that ‘the Tamar went down the river yesterday for Oyster Cove, where she will take on a load of timber for Adelaide’. Adelaide shipping notes duly recorded that ‘the brigantine Tamar’ was docked at Queen’s Wharf between 24 and 30 August. Cleared for Melbourne on 2 September she sailed next day with wheat, flour, bran and ‘one reaping machine’, to be reported at Port Phillip Heads on 9 September.[18]
Captain Pie found the Port of Melbourne in a frenzy, as all suitable shipping was snapped up to supply New Zealand’s Otago goldfields. He loaded a few passengers, 250 sheep, four bullocks, and lots of whisky, spirits and brandy along with tea, butter, ham and bacon. On 22 September, the Tamar passed into Bass Strait bound for Dunedin. Captain Pie probably made a second trans-Tasman run to Otago before returning to his home port. When the Tamar docked at Hobart at midnight on 15 November 1861 with many passengers but little cargo, she came in from New Zealand. That voyage was made a day or so longer by anchoring at Safety Cove to avoid heavy gales.[19]
The Tamar would continue a pattern of regular trans-Tasman voyages between Hobart and Otago until late in 1862. Each voyage across the Tasman took about a fortnight, which contrasted with the earlier ‘month-each-way’ pattern for Paterson’s little cutter Alpha. However, on her last return voyage from Dunedin to Hobart in the spring of 1862, bad weather caused the Tamar to spend twenty-six days out on the Tasman Sea. That was by far her slowest passage, and the last occasion on which Captain William Pie skippered his little ship. It was easier to obtain cargo for Dunedin than it was to get return-cargo. For her last passage to Dunedin in October 1862, the Tamar was laden with 20,000 feet of timber, 15,000 palings, 20,000 shingles, 20,000 laths, 4 tons of hay and 34 bags of oats.[20]
But the most significant cargo item, in terms of her chances of survival when the Tamar crashed backwards onto rocks at Dunedin Heads, was the 50 tons of Tasmanian sandstone carried to keep her down in the water. Such an unyielding item near the bottom of a wooden hull would ensure an almighty crunch when the Tamar hit the rocks. The half-dozen children and their mothers, clad only in night attire at 5 o’clock in the morning, were terrified. Passengers and crew were fortunate to scramble off onto an isolated rock shelf as the Tamar hit hard, to sink within ten minutes.[21]
Still owned by Captain William Pie, but skippered by G. T. Aked, the Tamar had attempted to enter Otago Harbour on 8 November 1862 after a rugged voyage from Hobart. The last that we hear of her is a report in the Hobart Mercury of 26 January 1863, citing the Otago Times of 5 January.
Some attempts have lately been made to recover some portions of the wreck of the Tamar, recently stranded at the Heads, but she has lately fallen back into deep water, and there is little hope of anything being saved, there being always a considerable swell at the point where she lies.
Presumably, a pile of Tasmanian sandstone marks the spot. Advancing years did not stop the Tamar from venturing beyond Australian colonial waters for her proprietors.[22]
Small though she was, the Tamar was not the tiniest of William Paterson’s creations to communicate regularly with (and between) Australia’s Pacific neighbours. He built the 37 ton cutter Alpha at Adelaide in 1842, intending her for Bass Strait service between Adelaide, Port Phillip and Van Diemen’s Land. Regular Bass Strait passages might be considered a sufficient challenge, but this little cutter would make a number of voyages between Tasmania and New Zealand (and even farther into the Pacific) after 1846. Information on the Alpha after 1850, when she operated in New Zealand waters, is scarce. However, one later reference to the Alpha’s presence in Australian waters suggests that her latter days, while apparently based at Dunedin, were spent in communication with whalers at remote Pacific spots like the Chatham Islands. She would be wrecked at Patea, on the coast of New Zealand’s North Island on 1 April 1865.[23]
If we measure in terms of value for money and effort invested in a ship’s construction, the Alpha must reign supreme among William Paterson’s nautical creations down under. It is incredible that such a small vessel should have carried so much and so varied cargo over formidable ocean distances between 1842 and 1865. Of those vessels that William Paterson is known to have constructed in the Australian colonies between 1839 and 1868, the trim little cutter Alpha was the longest lived and most travelled.
Paterson’s ‘big ship’ Harpley would circumnavigate the globe many times between 1847 and 1863, sometimes carrying as many as 360 emigrants along with a numerous crew and bulky cargoes. But the Harpley spent a larger proportion of her service time loading and unloading and being made ready for the next world trip, than did the Alpha. Neither did the Harpley operate for more than twenty years. The fact that she was built at Adelaide, very likely from imported European ship-building timbers rather than Launceston ‘swamp gum’, may (at least partly) explain the relative longevity of the Alpha.
With her single mast the Alpha was all of 45 feet long, fourteen and a half feet wide at point of maximum breadth, and just over seven and a half feet in depth of hull. South Australian newspapers usually referred to her as ‘a smack’.[24] She was decked, unlike many Scottish North Sea fishing smacks known to Paterson. Some recorded incidents involve crew ‘below deck’. Despite her apparent fragility, the little craft regularly defied some of the world’s toughest seas for well over two decades.
Sure, she knew tragedy at sea. On 29 November 1849, when she anchored at Wellington, New Zealand, the cutter retained only two of her four crew members. Captain Tyrrell and another sailor had gone missing somewhere in the Tasman Sea, ‘unfortunately knocked overboard by the jibbing of the boom, the guy of which had suddenly given way’. The pair of startled sailors resting below had scampered on deck to see what the noise was about, but too late to save their skipper. They would have had enough problems in the darkness, getting the errant rigging of the leaderless vessel under control before worse disasters occurred.[25] Given the sort of seas that the Alpha regularly faced, it is perhaps surprising that such untoward events did not more often befall her. When one notes the problems that modern ocean-going yachts can encounter in one ‘Sydney to Hobart’ contest, the Alpha lived a charmed life in those seas.
The earliest phase of the Alpha’s existence can be sketched from patchy sources. Registered at Port Adelaide on 9 July 1842 in the name of William Paterson, the Alpha set out for Port Lincoln on 15 July with general cargo, provisions and three passengers. She had also been cleared at customs for Portland Bay and Launceston. By 24 or 25 July, she was back at Adelaide from Port Lincoln, with the Kemp family as passengers. Departing Adelaide under Captain J. Robertson on 30 July, the Alpha arrived at Portland on 2 August and departed thence to arrive at Launceston on 10 August, with ten passengers. Cargo was listed as five logs of timber.[26]
The Alpha left Launceston for Port Phillip on 20 August 1842, carrying 338 bags of wheat, 120 bags of oats and 400 broad palings. Departing Melbourne on 25 August, she arrived back at Launceston from Port Phillip via Western Port in ballast and still under Robertson’s command, on 10 September. There were at least six passengers, and James Raven was for the first time listed as her Launceston agent. On 14 September 1842 she departed Launceston for Portland Bay, carrying sundries, flour, sugar, tea and palings.[27]
In 1843, Paterson moved his ship-building enterprise from Adelaide to Tasmania’s Tamar Valley. He formed a relationship with Emma Plummer of Launceston, who became his wife. Emma was a daughter of George Plummer and a grand-daughter of Jonathan Griffiths, pioneering shipbuilders of New South Wales and Launceston. For the first four years of the little cutter’s working life she remained in Paterson’s ownership. During that period Paterson moved frequently between Adelaide and Launceston, ‘riding rough’ through Bass Strait on the Alpha. On 7 February 1843 the Alpha departed Adelaide for Launceston. William Paterson was one of four passengers, and his two-decade sojourn in the Tamar Valley began.[28]
Early in 1843 the Alpha switched into the Launceston to Hobart trade, presumably because Paterson was Launceston based. By 26 June 1843 the cutter was sufficiently ‘at home’ at Launceston to be allotted the number ‘40’ in the port’s code of signals. The Alpha made several runs to Adelaide with migrants early in 1845 while Paterson conducted a vigorous campaign, advertising the Alpha as a ‘REGULAR TRADER for Adelaide’. Unfortunately, several other Launceston ships ran regularly to and from Adelaide, and it proved unprofitable. On 10 July the Alpha sailed from Launceston to Port Albert, returning by 25 July to be advertised as a regular trader with that Gippsland port.[29]
The Alpha continued to run regularly between Launceston and Port Albert into 1846. She carried horses and passengers to Adelaide in January 1846, but failed to attract sufficient custom and returned to Port Albert. Her owner was obviously not satisfied with the results of regular traffic to Adelaide or Port Albert, because the Alpha undertook her first voyage to New Zealand on 5 March 1846, with D. Organ as commander. A press report of 4 March noted that ‘the schooner Minerva for Portland Bay, and cutter Alpha for New Zealand are on their way down the river.’[30]
William Paterson had reason to be wary of Bass Strait. The Launceston Examiner had reported on 25 February 1846 that ‘the Alpha arrived on Thursday, having been eleven days on the passage from Port Albert. For sixty-five hours tremendous gales prevailed in the Straits, and out of seventeen head of cattle, sixteen were thrown overboard.’[31] Perhaps the Tasman Sea seemed a quieter spot, or maybe Paterson needed grander schemes to finance his impending marriage?
The Cornwall Chronicle noted that the Alpha returned to Launceston from New Zealand carrying a cargo of timber and a couple of passengers on 8 July 1846. That would be her last voyage for William Paterson as owner, ownership being transferred to James Raven of Launceston by 28 July 1846. This sale probably helped finance Paterson’s ambitious ship-building projects at Blackwall Point on Tamar’s west bank.[32]
The tiny cutter made several other trans-Tasman voyages, including that fateful passage in 1849 when Captain Tyrell and another seaman were washed overboard in the middle of the night. After arriving at Launceston from Hobart on 23 May 1848, the Alpha again began loading for New Zealand. On 3 June, with F.W. Townley as skipper, she departed Tamar Heads for Port Nicholson on New Zealand’s North Island. Her cargo included thirty tons of flour, along with consignments of soap and candles. That passage across the Tasman took only thirty days, despite twelve days being spent ‘hove to’.[33]
However, the return trip from Nelson to Launceston would suggest to her skipper that life on Bass Strait might after all be preferable: ‘the cutter Alpha has been thirty-five days on the passage from Nelson; she encountered desperate weather, and arrived here with loss of bowsprit, jib-boom and galley.’ This unwelcome separation from various items of essential equipment did not stop the Alpha unloading twenty-three barrels of New Zealand pork, along with twelve thousand feet of timber and fifteen bags of wool. The loss of the ‘ship’s galley’ challenges the imagination. It was presumably fixed to the deck, and washed overboard! The skipper was probably more concerned by his loss of jib-boom. [34]
A trip to and from New Zealand for the Alpha’s four-man crew normally meant a month each way on the Tasman, but she was not regarded as an unusually slow vessel. In April 1848, the Alpha had made news at Launceston by sailing from Williamstown across Bass Strait to Circular Head (Stanley) in just 22 hours.[35] Other times that she made the news columns usually involved being blown ashore in a gale, somewhere between Adelaide and Launceston.
The little cutter’s later years under New Zealand ownership have left little record in Australian sources. The Alpha would long be registered with the Port of Melbourne (even when operating for New Zealand owners) and for a time was owned by David Mitchell, father of Dame Nellie Melba. Australian authorities were informed that her registration would be transferred to Dunedin in 1864, but that did not happen. Her New Zealand owners were named in September 1864 as William Moyse and J. B. Mudie, probably linked with Dunedin. However, the little cutter was back in Tasmanian waters at least once, in 1863.[36]
A note in the Sydney Mail for February 1863 (‘Hobart shipping news’) referred to ‘the cutter Alpha’, noting that she had safely arrived in Tasmanian waters from the Chatham Islands during January. Her skipper (Captain McLennan) passed on news of whaling vessels operating near the Chathams. It therefore seems probable that the Alpha spent some at least of her New Zealand years associated with whalers. The little cutter battled a succession of strong westerlies and heavy seas on this last known voyage to her old Tasmanian haunts. She apparently came in direct from the Chatham Islands, far to the east of New Zealand near the International Date Line. A direct passage thence to Hobart would have taken her south of New Zealand, into rugged waters.[37] A little over two years later the Alpha would be wrecked at Patea. Given her history of taking on raging southern seas, it would not have surprised had she ‘gone missing’ somewhere in the South Pacific years before.
Compared to the Alpha, William Paterson’s packet-brig Swan of 148 tons was big. However, this brig was not constructed to tackle the world’s oceans. She was the smallest of four brigs built by Paterson between 1844 and 1850. Of shallow draught, the Swan was designed to carry cargoes and passengers up the winding estuary of the Yarra River into the heart of old Melbourne. Built to the order of Launceston shipping magnate, James Raven, she was intended to speed back and forth across Bass Strait between Launceston and Melbourne. The Swan proved popular in that Bass Strait ‘packet-brig’ role, but was challenged by steamers in the gold-rush era after 1851. A screw steamer was not so easily blown out into the Tasman Sea. The Swan would later spend much time carrying coal to fuel steamers that put her out of the ‘packet-brig’ business, but increasing Bass Strait competition persuaded her owners to send the little brig farther afield.
The Swan was built in the years 1843-4. Ronald Parsons rated her at 148 tons, 74.3 feet long by 22.6 feet maximum width and 10.8 in depth of hull. The Swan had one main deck, a quarter-deck, and a square stern.[38] The nautical proprietor of Launceston’s Cornwall Chronicle was impressed by Paterson’s workmanship, noting that the brig was ‘put together with much care’, and he treated the Swan’s launch as the beginning of a new era in Launceston shipbuilding. He further opined that she was ‘a beautiful model put together in a most superior manner’. Noting that the brig was built entirely of local timbers, he expected that the Swan, (‘the pride of this port’) would ‘furnish a fair opportunity to test the merits of our timber for ship-building’.[39]
More than two thousand spectators turned out on a wet Wednesday for the Swan’s launch. They assembled on the main bridge, adjoining wharves, and in open space around the swamp. A big crowd was regaled with ‘Rule Britannia’ from the band of the 99th Regiment aboard the steam tug Gypsey, and the good ship Robert Matthews (bound for London for Henty and Company) fired a loud salute.[40] By 9 November 1844, the brig was loading for Port Phillip.[41] Unlike many rivals she provided excellent cabins, and was built to deliver passengers directly to the centre of Melbourne.[42] This latter feature allowed her to compete with steamers for many years. On one Saturday in mid-September of 1845, upwards of 90 passengers embarked for Melbourne on the Swan.[43]
On a return passage to Launceston late in 1846, the brig voyaged from heads to heads in twenty-eight hours, but very rough seas killed forty sheep. Weather conditions in Bass Strait always provided something of a lottery: ‘[t]he Swan had an excellent run across to Melbourne; she left here on Sunday night, and was at Melbourne on Tuesday, upon the return trip, easterly winds prevailed, and she was seven days on her passage’.[44]
In April 1847, James Raven sold his near-new brig to H. W. Mortimer and Son and a Mr Deane of Launceston, for the sum of 2500 pounds.[45] By August 1848, her regular Bass Strait route had been modified to take in Circular Head (modern Stanley) where the Swan loaded potatoes for Melbourne.[46] Snow and flood does not usually cause havoc in Melbourne, but in August 1849 eight inches of snow decorated the ship’s deck in Hobson’s Bay. Passengers arrived there on 29 August, but were still aboard on 4 September.[47]
Two days out in Bass Strait was a normal expectation. But Launceston passengers who boarded the Swan for Melbourne on 23 September 1849 knew the meaning of sea-sickness. Initially detained inside George Town Heads for six days by a strong north-westerly, she was off Point Nepean on 2 October. Howling westerlies blew the Swan away from Port Phillip Bay, so she sheltered at Hunter’s Island and did not reach Melbourne until 9 October.[48] Publicity from such incidents could only increase the popularity of steamers.
By January 1850, the Swan was one of many colonial vessels pulled in to make the long haul across the Pacific Ocean to the Californian goldfields, and back to Launceston. Ship proprietors became excited about profits to be made from consigning speculative cargoes to the Californian goldfields. Tasmania also had lots of ex-convicts, for whom San Francisco offered an attractive alternative life-style. The brig departed George Town Heads on 26 February, and by mid-March stories circulated Launceston that she had been wrecked. In July, the Swan had reportedly docked at Oahu in May. She arrived at San Francisco after 120 days, on 2 July.[49]
The port of San Francisco was chaotic in that era of frenetic gold seeking, with 80 vessels arriving on the day of the Swan’s departure, and more than 450 ships lying at anchor. The Swan was listed to depart San Francisco on 25 July but sailed for Launceston one day later, to arrive on 15 October after a passage of 75 days. Enjoying a beautiful run with the Trade Winds to Norfolk Island, she then did battle with severe southerly gales before finding safety in the Tamar. The Swan brought back to Launceston a cargo of timber building frames that would not have covered landing costs in California.[50]
In November 1851, the Swan was advertised as trading between Launceston and Circular Head (Stanley). This was a come-down for a brig that had recently braved the great Pacific to California and back. By December, she traversed her old route from Launceston to Melbourne, but the port of Melbourne provided problems. Seamen deserted ships in droves, seeking a quick goldfields fortune. The Swan’s skipper had difficulty procuring a crew for return to Launceston, and many ships lay abandoned.[51]
By January 1852, Port Phillip’s gold fever worked in the Swan’s favour. She was one of half a dozen Launceston ships regularly plying across Bass Strait with eager immigrants. In late 1852 and early 1853 the Swan continued to link Launceston and Melbourne, under Captain Laurenson, but by mid-1853, the Swan voyaged between Sydney and Melbourne.[52] In January 1854 the Swan traded regularly between Melbourne and Hobart. She continued on that route until December 1855, with W. Renfree as Master. Occasionally, the brig would visit Adelaide, bringing twenty steerage passengers and a cargo of oats, boots and shoes thence into Hobson’s Bay in June 1855. [53]
A search of Sydney Morning Herald shipping pages from June 1855 to August 1856 did not produce any evidence of the brig using the ports of Sydney or Newcastle at that time. However, the brig Swan of 148 tons skippered by Captain Anderson did sail out of Melbourne for Newcastle on 30 August 1856, arriving at the coal port on 11 September.[54] The Swan continued in the regular Newcastle to Port Phillip coal trade throughout 1857.[55]
Registration of the Swan was transferred from Hobart to Sydney in January 1858, when the vessel was purchased by Henry Dunsford of that city. On 12 January 1858, Captain Anderson was sufficiently audacious to take the brig Swan into the rugged Tasman Sea, bound for Otago and Port Cooper. The brig carried only six adults and six children as cabin passengers. Apart from eighty tons of Newcastle coal and thirty horses, various general-store items were well suited to the needs of a frontier settlement: tea, sugar, tobacco, sago, candles, paper and drapery.[56]
The Swan arrived at Port Lyttelton near Christchurch on 12 February 1858, one month after departing Sydney and still some distance from her destination of Otago. Captain Jones of the regular Sydney to Auckland trader, Gazelle, reported in April that the Swan had arrived at Auckland ‘from Port Cooper and Wellington’, to which she had carried various members of ‘the General Assembly’.[57] The Swan continued in this New Zealand coastal trade, avoiding Australia for many months.
During the night of 18 August 1858 the Swan re-appeared at the Port of Sydney, having departed Auckland on 4 August. Apart from 805 bags of gum, there were almost 500 bags of potatoes and 10 boxes of onions, with an assortment of boots and shoes. Then news broke of a gold rush in North Queensland. The Swan loaded passengers and mail for Port Curtis, and departed Sydney on 5 September. This was an early departure for the new gold-fields region, and (with 77 passengers) the Swan carried a bigger complement of hopeful diggers than any previous vessel from Sydney. On 21 September the Swan arrived at the mouth of the Fitzroy River, after battling strong head winds.[58]
By late October, the Swan had left Rockhampton for Sydney, putting into Moreton Bay when she lost her sails to heavy gales. The Swan eventually departed Moreton Bay on 9 November to arrive at Sydney on 19 November, forty-five days out of Rockhampton. A host of vessels by that time competed for the Fitzroy River goldfields trade.[59]
The Swan was sold to her final Sydney owner (J. Stubbs) in November 1858. Between 19 and 21 January 1859 newspapers indicated that the Swan was taking on mail for New Caledonia, and on 21 January she was cleared by the Port of Sydney. Passengers included Mr and Mrs Lockwood and six south-sea islanders ‘going home’. The Swan passed from Port Jackson into the great Pacific Ocean, never to return.[60] The Swan was almost fifteen-years old when she departed for New Caledonia, and none of William Paterson’s Tamar River creations survived much longer than that.
Some time thereafter the Swan simply ‘went missing’. Regular Sydney Mail ‘ships in harbour’ lists and other east-coast shipping information between 1860 and 1866 contain no further references to the Swan. A note in Sydney port records of 1874 indicates that this first of William Paterson’s Tasmanian-built sailing ships ‘was not heard of for years supposed lost’.[61] William Paterson took his wife and family across to Port Phillip to live in 1863, two decades after he set up his first Tasmanian shipyard to build the Swan.
I end with the Pacific exploits of the last and smallest ship known to have been built in Tasmania by William Paterson. The brigantine or schooner Emma Paterson (named after his wife), was built from local timbers at the mouth of the Cam River (near modern Burnie) in 1868. Ronald Parsons’ A Guide and Index to Ship Registers in Colonial Australia listed the Emma Paterson as built at Tasmania’s Cam River in 1868, but gave no builder’s name.[62]
Tasmanian shipping historian, Leslie Norman, recorded that
the first ship built on the Cam River was the ‘Emma Patterson’, a brigantine – or, at any rate, a large schooner – about 80 tons, built by Captain Patterson, an old Tamar shipwright.[63]
His source was Captain H. Wragg, a resident for seventy years. In his youth ‘there was good timber handy … and the Cam was a great place for shipping’. However, even so early as 1846 the Launceston Examiner had reported that ‘a small schooner called the Wallace, went to pieces lately in the River Cam, having grounded on the bar’. That is unlikely to have been the only such incident.[64]
Ronald Parsons gave the vital statistics of the 69 ton ‘two-masted schooner’ Emma Paterson as 76 feet length, 17.3 feet maximum breadth, and 7.9 feet in depth. She was much shallower in draught than the ‘packet brigs’ built in the 1840s to handle the Yarra River. This vessel was designed to negotiate shallow Tasmanian river estuaries. She probably had to be, in order to float out of the Cam. Her first owner was William Brown Jr. of Launceston but the ship was initially registered with the Port of Melbourne, probably because Paterson resided there.[65]
The Emma Paterson would explore some of the smaller ports of the eastern coast of the Australian mainland, where her shallow draught proved advantageous. Early in 1871, she was in tropical Queensland waters, departing Maryborough on 24 February and arriving at the Port of Sydney on 12 March. She remained at Circular Quay for several weeks, and began loading for New Caledonia.[66] On 2 April, Captain Edgar took the little vessel out through Sydney Heads, bound for Noumea.
Having left Noumea for Sydney on 25 April, the Emma Paterson ‘missed stays’ and was wrecked while dodging a reef some thirty miles from her departure point. The captain stayed with his ship and was saved, but the five crewmen who left the wreck in a whaleboat died at sea. Salvaged and repaired at Noumea, she was re-christened Diahot, and became a regular trader between Noumea and Norfolk Island where she was terminally wrecked (without loss of life) late in April of 1873.[67]
The international exploits of these four little Australian-built sailing vessels, all under 150 tons and all designed with shallow draught for short-range inter-colonial trade involving Tasmanian and nearby South-East-Australian river ports, indicate the toughness of shipping competition during the 1850s. During the 1840s, large numbers of small wooden sailing ships were constructed at numerous little Tasmanian and New South Wales inlets and river estuaries. This had already caused a glut in the market before 1849.
English Navigation Laws applied in British colonial ports around the globe, and specified that only British-built (including colonial) vessels could carry cargoes between British ports. In 1849, Sydney had no ‘non-British’ vessels on its substantial register of shipping.[68] Those Navigation Laws were abolished in 1849, and during the gold-rushes after 1851 Australian ports were swamped by cheap second-
hand American vessels. With a rapid increase in passenger numbers after 1851, screw steamers came to dominate routes previously served by sailing ships. Hence their skippers set sail on formidable oceans for distant ports, in search of business.
A letter-writer to the Sydney press in 1856 described the situation.
Sir – of all the humbugs that have been passed off on the public, none strikes the observer more strongly than free trade in shipping. A few years ago, on our rivers north and south of Sydney we had extensive and fine ship-building yards, producing a class of vessels equal in durability to the teak ships of India, and of models that any country might well be proud of. Now, alas! There is not one colonial vessel on the stocks…Now look at our colonial fleet, composed mostly of old American-built vessels, worn out long before they reached the colonies…Free trade has destroyed our fine vessels and dockyards, and changed our navy to a lot of flat-bottomed old punts.[69]
That such heavy-laden little vessels could voyage to and from California and survive may amaze some, but what could induce the owner/skipper of such a craft to load a timber cargo for Guam? The adventures of the 37 ton cutter Alpha, heading into ‘the roaring forties’ bound for Tasmania from New Zealand or the Chatham Islands, are almost unbelievable. She might lose her skipper and half her crew, or her bowsprit, jib-boom and galley, but those trans-Tasman cargoes were always delivered safe and sound.
[1] Don Chambers graduated BA(Hons) (Melbourne 1965), MA(Hons) (Melbourne 1967) and MA and PhD (Cambridge 1971). Between 1972 and 1981 he taught history at Monash and La Trobe Universities. Since 1985 Don has written eleven books, including Wooden Wonders Victoria’s Timber Bridges (2006), Fawkner Crematorium and Memorial Park (2006), and Frank Hackett-Jones A Twentieth Century Australian Life (2008).
[2] The Cornwall Chronicle, (Launceston), 26 December 1849, 1111, summary based on detailed lists in Shipping Gazette (Sydney) 10 September 1849, 230-231
[3] Ronald Parsons, Southern Passages: A Maritime History of South Australia (1986) 157; Ronald Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties Concerning Australia and New Zealand (2003) 147.
[4] Ronald Parsons, Ships of Australia and New Zealand before 1850, part 2 (1983) 69.
[5] Marten A Syme, Shipping Arrivals and Departures at Victorian Ports, vol. 2 (1987) 713.
[6] The Cornwall Chronicle, (Launceston), 21 October 1848, 109.
[7] Ibid.
[8] The Argus, (Melbourne), 20 March 1850, 2; 25 March 1850, 2; The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 9 March 1850, 156 and 158; 16 March 1850, 174; 27 March 1850, 197.
[9] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 28 August 1850, 565; 4 September 1850, 582; 16 February 1850, 107.
[10] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 18 September 1850, 613; 29 October 1850, 747; The Shipping Gazette and Sydney general trade list, (Sydney), 28 September 1850, 255; 12 October 1850, 261.
[11] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 21 January 1852, 46.
[12] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 13 December 1854, 2; 26 May 1855, 4-5; 6 June 1855, 1; 9 June 1855, 5; The Examiner, (Launceston), 8 May 1855; Ronald Parsons, Migrant Ships for South Australia 1836-1860 (1988) 127.
[13] The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 12 November 1855, 4; The Examiner (Launceston), 27 November 1855, 2.
[14] The Examiner (Launceston), 19 May 1855, 2; Marten Syme, Shipping Arrivals and Departures at Victorian Ports, vol. 2 (1987) 338.
[15] The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 9 June 1856, p. 4; Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties, above n 2, 348; Age, 28 July 1856, 2.
[16] The South Australian Advertiser (Adelaide), shipping news, mid-1858 to June 1859.
[17] The Mercury (Hobart), 14 January 1861, 2; 21 June 1861, 2; 22 July 1861, 2; 27 July 1862, 2.
[18] The South Australian Advertiser (Adelaide), 24 August 1861, 2; 30 August 1861, 2; 3 September 1861, 2; 4 September 1861, 2; The Argus (Melbourne), 10 September 1861, 4.
[19] The Argus (Melbourne), 21 and 24 September 1861, 4; The Mercury (Hobart), 2 August 1861, 2; 21 September 1861, 2; 16 November 1861, 2; 30 November 1861, 2.
[20] The Mercury (Hobart), 20 March 1862, 2; 25 March 1862, 2; 2 April 1862, 2; 22 May 1862, 2; 2 June 1862, 2; 22 July 1862, 2; 31 July 1862, 2; 16 October 1862, 2; 23 October 1862, 2.
[21] The Mercury (Hobart), 23 December 1862, 4.
[22] Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties, above n 2, 348; The Sydney Mail (Sydney), 29 November 1862, quoting The Otago witness (Dunedin), 10 November 1862.
[23] Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties, above n 2, 19.
[24] Ronald Parsons, Ships of Australia and New Zealand before 1850, part 1 (1983) 10; Robert T Sexton, Shipping Arrivals and Departures, South Australia, 1627-1850 (1990) 80.
[25] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 19 January 1850, 43.
[26] Sexton, above n 23, 80.
[27] Ian H Nicholson, Shipping Arrivals and Departures Tasmania, vol 2 (1985) index 2.
[28] Sexton, above n 23, 80.
[29] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 8 July 1843, 1; 26 February 1845, 3; 5 April 1845, 3; 26 July 1845, 2 and 3.
[30] The Cornwall Chronicle, (Launceston), 21 January, 7 March 1846; The Examiner (Launceston), 4 March 1846, 141.
[31] The Examiner (Launceston), 25 February 1846, 124.
[32] Graeme Broxam, Shipping Arrivals and Departures Tasmania, vol 3 (1998) 426.
[33] Ibid 318.
[34] The Examiner (Launceston), 27 September 1848, 632.
[35] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 6 May 1848, 2.
[36] Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties, above n 2, 19.
[37] The Sydney Mail (Sydney), 7 February 1863, 9.
[38] Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties, above n 2, 346; The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 14 September 1844, 2; 21 September 1844, 3.
[39] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 14 September 1844, 2.
[40] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 21 September 1844, 3; Launceston Advertiser (Launceston), 21 September 1844, 3.
[41] Launceston Advertiser (Launceston), regular ‘vessels in harbour’ information.
[42] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 6 November 1844, 3.
[43] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 17 September 1845, 166.
[44] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 26 July and 1 August 1846, 582-3; Launceston Advertiser (Launceston), 21 December 1846, 2; 24 February 1847, 124; 24 March 1847, 188.
[45] The Argus (Melbourne), 16 April 1847, 2.
[46] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 12 August 1848, 3.
[47] The Cornwall Chronicle, (Launceston), 12 September 1849, 857.
[48] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 13 October 1849, 929.
[49] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 12 January 1850, 30; 16 March 1850, 172; 13 July 1850, 444; 31 August 1850, 573; The Examiner (Launceston), 27 February 1850, 134.
[50] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 31 August 1850, 573, 18 September 1850, 612; 12 October 1850, 690; 17 October 1850, 588; 19 October 1850, 714.
[51] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 1 November 1851, 698; 17 December 1851, 801.
[52] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 3 November 1852, 724; 5 January 1853, 6; 13 July 1853, 3; The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 19 July 1853, 2.
[53] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 28 January 1854, 4; 25 February 1854, 4; 1 March 1854, 3; 22 March 1854, 3; 12 August 1854, 4; Syme, above n 4, 712; The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 20 June 1853, 2.
[54] The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 6, 12, 13 and 30 September 1856, 4; 31 October 1856, 4; 3 November 1856, 4.
[55] The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 1 and 11 May 1857, 4; 13 June 1857, 4; 1, 20, and 22 July 1857, 4.
[56] Parsons, above n 3, 67; The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 11 and 13 January, 1858.
[57] The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 8 April 1858, 5; 22 April 1858, 4.
[58] The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 19 August 1858, 4; 6, 15, 20 and 28 September 1858.
[59] The South Australian Advertiser (Adelaide), 30 October 1858, 2; The Sydney Morning Herald, (Sydney), 20 November 1858, 4; 10 December 1858, 8.
[60] The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, January 1859, 4.
[61] Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties, above n 2, 346.
[62] Ronald Parsons, A Guide and Index to Ship Registers in Colonial Australia (2000) 43.
[63] Leslie Norman, Pioneer Shipping of Tasmania (1938) 158.
[64] Ibid 158-9.
[65] Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties, above n 2, 124.
[66] The Sydney Mail (Sydney), 18 March 1871, 86; 25 March, 1 April 1871.
[67] Parsons, Shipping Losses and Casualties, above n 2, 124.
[68] The Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 26 December 1849; The Shipping Gazette and Sydney general trading list (Sydney), 10 September 1849, 230-231.
[69] The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 4 April 1856, 4, letter to the editor, from ‘A Very Old Subscriber’.
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