This is a list of the ships my ancestors arrived on in chronological order, and the circumstances surrounding the journeys to Australia. |
1793 - Sugar Cane
| Departed: | 12 Apr 1793 - Cork, Ireland |
| Arrived: | 17 Sep 1793 - Sydney, NSW |
| Master: | Thomas Musgrave |
| Particulars: | Convict vessel ; 403t. ; built in London in 1786 ; contractor William Richards ; travelled via Rio De Janiro, arriving there after 25 Jun. |
| Notes: | Carried 109 male convicts and 50 female convicts (one of whom was Catherine Malone). The convicts were mainly urban criminals and beggars, exiled by the British Government who wished to rid Ireland of the poor and homeless. Since the disastous number of convict deaths aboard the Nepune, the authorities were keen to ensure the health of prisoners on voyage. During the brief stay in Rio, the Surgeon-Superintendant reported: From the difficulty watering we have made a longer stay than I had reason at first to expect. The convicts are all well, and so much refreshed from the fresh beef and vegetables (of which they have had a plentiful supply) that there is every reason to expect the remainder of the voyage they will be equally healthy as the first part of it. The only loss of life was the 25 May execution of an unidentified prisoner, who had been found out of his irons and accused by another prisoner of planning a mutiny. The remainder the prisoners arrived in good health and most were sent to the Government farm at Toongabbie. |
References:
Hall, Barbara. A Nimble Fingered Tribe: the Convicts of the Sugar Cane, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1793. Coogee, NSW : the author, 2002.
Bateson, Charles. The Convict Ships: 1781-1868. Glasgow: Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1959.
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1801 - Anne (aka Luz St Anna)
| Departed: | 26 Jun 1800 - Cork, Ireland |
| Arrived: | 21 Feb 1801 - Sydney, NSW |
| Master: | Captain James Stewart |
| Particulars: | Convict ship ; 384t and 12 guns; possibly built in France or Spain ; originally named Luz St Anne or Luz St Anna ; 42 crew plus prisoner guards ; travelled via Rio and the Cape of Good Hope ; total voyage took 240 days (presumably poor weather hampered the ship's progress in the final leg of the journey, because passage to Rio had been very swift. |
| Notes: | Carried 24 female and 127 male convicts (one of whom was James Byrne). On 29 July, three weeks sailing from Rio, a short-lived mutiny took place which resulted in three wounded prisoners, the execution by firing squad of a ring-leader (the only prisoner to have been executed in this manner aboard a convict ship) and the flogging of another. |
References:
Bateson, Charles. The Convict Ships: 1781-1868. Glasgow: Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1959.
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1806 - Fortune
| Departed: | 28 Jan 1806 - Portsmouth, England |
| Arrived: | 12 Jul 1806 - Sydney, NSW |
| Master: | Captain Henry Moore (Lt, RN) |
| Particulars: | Convict vessel ; 622 ton ; contractors Mestaer and Locke |
| Notes: | Carried male convicts, one of whom was John Worthington. Fortune's muster of convicts was mixed with the muster of Alexander. Numbers aboard the two ships vary: 242 (Log of Logs), 298 (contractor Shelton) and convict Hawkins 306 (see publication reference below). Lord Hawkesbury wrote on 19 December 1805 to A. H. Bradley, Commissioner of Convicts, giving Bradley a list of convicts in his care and asking that he allow 150 free of any infectious disease to be selected from the list and put on board Alexander and Fortune. These transports were to be escorded by four other ships, including the Lady Sinclair, which carried William Bligh who was going out to become governor of NSW. The Fortune departed the fleet after stopping at Rio. One soldier and three convicts died on voyage. The Captain brought the news of the death of William Pitt which had occurred five days before the Fortune sailed. |
References:
Byrnes, Dan. The Blackheath Connection: a Website Book
Hawkings, David T. Bound for Australia. North Sydney : Library of Australian History, 1988.
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1812 - Minstrel
| Departed: | 4 Jun 1812 - London, England |
| Arrived: | 25 Oct 1812 - Sydney, NSW |
| Master: | John Reid |
| Particulars: | Convict vessel ; 251t ; built 1810 Hull ; A square-sterned flush deck vessel with an extreme length of 104.5ft, a breath of 28.9ft and a height between decks of 6.9ft. A three-master of one and a half decks, the Minstrel had a quarter gallery and a mans figure as a figurehead. The journey to Port Jackson took 143 days, taking 54 or 55 days from England to Rio and making a direct passage from Rio Port Jackson in 75 days. |
| Notes: | Carried 126 female convicts, one of whom was Sarah Franklin. One convict died during the voyage and the remaining 125 disembarked in Sydney. |
References:
A Tale of Two Convicts
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1837 - William Nichol
| Departed: | 06 Jul 1837 - Isle of Skye, Scotland |
| Arrived: | 27 Oct 1837 - Sydney, NSW |
| Master: | Captain McAlpine |
| Particulars: | 408t ; built 1834 ; travelled via Capetown ; second ship of the Lang Bounty Scheme. |
| Notes: | 311 passengers (including
Alexander & Marion Grant and three children: 10-year-old James, 7-year-old Janet and 4-year-old Marion (another was born only six weeks after arriving in Sydney). John Dunmore Lang became involved in immigration, because he feared for the fate of a colony with no moral or Christan values. He felt that an injection of Protestant free settlers would provide a balance for the large numbers of convicts pouring into the colony, in the meantime calling for an end to transportation.
Like most of Lang's Scottish immigrants, the Grants were victims of the Highland Clearances. The rapid increase in population and the sheep farming for the expanding and popular wool industry forced many of the traditional oat and potato growers from the their Highland land.
Bounty ships were often overcrowded, uncomfortable and insufficiently supplied with poor quality food, and the William Nichol was no exception. Despite the fact that Dr David Boyter (Royal Navy) knew something of the characteristics of his potential candidates (he had travelled the Highlands on behalf of the Colonial Office searching for suitable candidates for the scheme), most of the crew of the William Nichol did not speak Gaelic and the Highlanders were not provided with any of their accustomed foods, such as oatmeal.
At the time ships were not taking passengers as far as Port Phillip, and many of the Scottish migrants arriving at Port Jackson at that time went to the Hunter River region for work. The Grants, however, took another ship with their children to Melbourne.
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References:
Dougal McKenzie & Isabella McKenzie
John Dunmore Lang: Patriot, Republican, Statesman, Evangelical, & Engima
McKenzie, Roma. 'Scotish Origins' [research notes].
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1840 - Glen Huntly
| Departed: | 14 Dec 1839 - Geenock, Scotland |
| Arrived: | 17 Apr 1840 - Port Phillip, Vic. |
| Master: | Captain John Buchanan |
| Particulars: | 505t barque ; travelled via Oban |
| Notes: | Eighteenth of the original Bounty Scheme ships ; approximately 160 passengers including 25-year-old Alexander McKenzie and his cousin, also named Alexander McKenzie. Outbreak of typhoid fever during the journey, resulting in Victoria's first quarantine - a temporary camp on the beach at Point Ormond. 15 passengers died on the voyage, and 3 further deaths occurred on the beach. |
References:
Moore, Olive. Flying the Yellow Flag: the First Voyage of the 'Glen Huntley' 1839-40. Ringwood East, Vic. : the author, 1990.
Glen Huntly Pioneers
St Kilda Historical Society
The Glen Huntly Graves Friends of St Kilda Cemetery
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1841 - Thomas Arbuthnot
| Departed: | Greenock, Scotland |
| Arrived: | 02 Oct 1841 - Port Phillip, Vic. |
| Master: | Captain John Brown |
| Particulars: | 621t ship |
| Notes: | The ship carried sundry cargo, 4 passengers and 260 bouty immigrants, one of whom was Irish John Hall. It was cleared from Melbourne 9 Nov 1841 and set off to Calcutta carrying original cargo plus tobacco and opossum rugs. |
References:
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1844 - Sea Queen
| Departed: | 29 November 1843 - London, England [4 January 1844 - Cork, Ireland] |
| Arrived: | 15 April 1844 - Port Phillip, Vic. |
| Master: | Captain Martin |
| Particulars: | Barque ; 465 tons ; 219 passengers. |
| Notes: | Aboard the ship were 19 year-old Roseanna Fitzpatrick and her 21 year-old sister Anne. |
References:
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1855 - Tornado
| Departed: | 14 Apr 1855 Greenock, Scotland. |
| Arrived: | 15 Jul 1855 Port Phillip, Vic. |
| Master: | D. Macosh |
| Particulars: | 1,229 t. ship ; 92 days voyage ; sailed from Glasgow on the 19th January, but had to put into Greenock ; 407 passengers (44 adult male, 332 adult female, 12 male children, 19 female children) ; 3 deaths on board, all adult females. |
| Notes: | Irish Rachel McCaughey was amongst the passengers on this ship. |
References:
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1857 - Shaftesbury/Monarch of the Sea
Catherine Costigan
| Departed: | |
| Arrived: | |
| Master: | |
| Particulars: | |
| Notes: | |
References:
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1856 - Johann Caesar
| Departed: | 30 Sep 1855, Hamburg, Germany |
| Arrived: | 3 Feb 1856, Moreton Bay, Qld |
| Master: | Captain Nicholas Stertenbecker |
| Particulars: | German bark ; aka Johan Caesar or John Caesar ; 390 t ; built at Reiherstieg, Hamburg, by shipping magnate Johann Cesar Godeffroy (J.C.Godeffroy & Company) in 1851/52 ; registered 3 September 1852 ; 37,9 x 8,1 x 5,12 metres (length x beam x depth of hold) ; "sold Swedish" in 1880, to Bjorksgren, Kalmar, and renamed Ingegerd ; sailed to Australia via Calcutta, reaching Moreton Bay on 8 February 1856. |
| Notes: | The Darling Downs, Queensland, during the 1830s to 1860s was divided into large lease land holdings. In the 1850s there was a labour shortage on the pastoral properties of the Darling Downs due to the pastoral workers vanishing to the gold fields. To counter this phenomenon, the squatter aristocracy used German agents to recruit German shepherd migrants who were brought out under contract between 1852 and 1855. As the squatter’s properties were unfenced, a Shepherd’s job was to live in isolated areas of the property and protect a flock of sheep from dingoes, aboriginal hunters and generally keep the flock in the boundaries of the station. They proved to be reliable, frugal and sober workers who managed to save sufficient cash out of their wages of 20 to 30 pounds per year (and rations) to enable them to purchase land in the Sixties. These immigrants were forced to come out not through religious persecution as their South Australian counterparts had done but through agricultural disasters that caused famine and abandonment of uneconomical land holdings caused by generations of land division.
24-year-old Christian Friedrick ('Frederick') Kyling travelled to Australia aboard the Johann Caesar. |
References:
Immigrant Ships Information
Phillips, Alan Pioneering Families
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Compiled by Christine Worthington 2006
Ships to Australia