Amity replica at Albany, Western Australia | |
History | |
---|---|
Name | Amity |
Builder | St John's, New Brunswick |
Launched | 1816 |
Fate | Wrecked near Vansittart Island on 18 June 1845 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Brig |
Tonnage | 148 tons burthen |
Length | 75 feet 6 inches |
Beam | 21 feet 5 inches |
Amity was a 148-ton brig used in several notable voyages of exploration and settlement in Australia in the early nineteenth century.
She was built in New Brunswick in 1816 and for some years was used as a merchant vessel trading between America and Britain before being brought to Australia in 1824.
Amity was built as a brig of 148 tons and was launched at Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1816. [1] In 1823 she was purchased by the Scottish Ralston Family to be fitted out for their emigration to Van Diemen's Land. [2] Under the command of Captain McMeckan she departed from Stranraer in southern Scotland on 15 November 1823, travelling via Dublin, across the Atlantic Ocean to Rio de Janeiro and arriving in Hobart exactly five months later on 15 April 1824. Twenty-one passengers made the journey, including Robert Ralston, his wife Elizabeth, two sons and six daughters, as well as cargo and livestock including two bulls and four cows from Scotland.
Ralston later sold the brig to the Government of New South Wales in Sydney where she was used for exploration and supply voyages. [3]
The brig carried the first European settlers to Queensland after Redcliffe had been recommended as a suitable location for a penal colony by John Oxley in 1823. Lieutenant Henry Miller led a group of about 70 people including soldiers of the 40th Foot Regiment, 29 convicts, explorers and their families to Moreton Bay on 14 September 1824. [4]
The township of Amity and locality of Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island near Brisbane, Queensland, are named after the ship. [5] The locality includes a Brig Street. There are six streets in Brisbane named Amity and another two on the Sunshine Coast. [6] Amity Park is on the northern outskirts of Brisbane and there is an Amity Recreation Reserve and Amity Point Reserve in the area. In September 1991 a memorial was unveiled at Redcliffe that features four bronze plaques, one of which depicts the vessel itself. [7]
Under instructions from Governor Darling the brig sailed to Western Australia in 1826 under the command of Major Edmund Lockyer, who established the first European settlement there with a military garrison at King George Sound, now Albany. [8] The settlement was initially called Frederick Town. [9] [10] [11] The expedition included Major Lockyer, two military officers, 18 rank and file soldiers, 23 convicts and surgeon Isaac Scott Nind, as well as livestock and supplies for an expected stay of six months. [12]
The group disembarked on Boxing Day, 1826. [13]
On 22 September 1829 Amity arrived at Fremantle from Singapore with passengers and crew totalling 15 people. [14] She was the eighth shipping arrival in the fledgling Swan River Colony.
By 1844 the vessel was involved in the transport of cattle from Port Albert in Victoria across Bass Strait to Hobart in Tasmania. [15] Amity was wrecked after running aground on an uncharted sandbar now called Vansittart Shoals [2] ( 40°16′S148°25′E / 40.267°S 148.417°E ) near Vansittart Island, north of Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania) on 18 June 1845. [3]
Captain William Marr was sailing Amity from Hobart for Port Albert in ballast on 14 June 1845, with a crew of nine, and one passenger. They encountered a gale while entering Bass Strait and ran aground on a sand bank twelve miles (19 km) off Shoaly Bay on the south-east coast of Flinders Island, presumably the Vansittart Shoals, 18 June 1845. As the ship broke up, she was abandoned, all making the island safely but in so doing, both boats were damaged. The castaways came across a party of sealers who loaned them another boat, and all except Captain Marr, who was later picked up by the schooner Letitia, headed for Cape Portland, Tasmania.
Discussions in Albany to construct a replica of Amity commenced in Albany in 1972 with the view to completion for the town's 1976 sesquicentennial celebrations. After funding and research had been established, construction commenced in 1975, with local boat builder Stan Austin as project supervisor and Pieter van de Brugge as leading shipwright.
The full-sized, land-mounted replica is now part of the Museum of the Great Southern, part of the Stirling Historical Precinct on Princess Royal Drive, Albany, overlooking Princess Royal Harbour. It has been positioned to give an impression of it floating in the harbour. Audio tours are available daily.
Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. Its penal colonies became notorious destinations for the transportation of convicts due to the harsh environment, isolation and reputation for being inescapable. Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur are among the most well-known penal settlements on the island.
Moreton Bay is a bay located on the eastern coast of Australia 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) from central Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources. The waters of Moreton Bay are a popular destination for recreational anglers and are used by commercial operators who provide seafood to market.
The Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, a former British colonial penal settlement, established on Sarah Island, Macquarie Harbour, in the former colony of Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, operated between 1822 and 1833. The settlement housed male convicts, with a small number of women housed on a nearby island. During its 11 years of operation, the penal colony achieved a reputation as one of the harshest penal settlements in the Australian colonies. The formal penal station is located on the eight-hectare (twenty-acre) Sarah Island that now operates as a historic site under the direction of the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service.
The Redcliffe Peninsula is a peninsula located in the City of Moreton Bay in the northeast of the Brisbane metropolitan area in Queensland, Australia. The area covers the suburbs of Clontarf, Kippa-Ring, Margate, Newport, Redcliffe, Rothwell, Scarborough and Woody Point.
King George Sound is a sound on the south coast of Western Australia. Named King George the Third's Sound in 1791, it was referred to as King George's Sound from 1805. The name "King George Sound" gradually came into use from about 1934, prompted by new Admiralty charts supporting the intention to eliminate the possessive 's' from geographical names.
The West Coast of Tasmania has a significant convict heritage. The use of the west coast as an outpost to house convicts in isolated penal settlements occurred in the eras 1822–33, and 1846–47.
Edmund Lockyer, was a British soldier and explorer of Australia.
Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Great Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia.
Whaling in Australian waters began in 1791 when five of the 11 ships in the Third Fleet landed their passengers and freight at Sydney Cove and then left Port Jackson to engage in whaling and seal hunting off the coast of Australia and New Zealand. The two main species hunted by such vessels in the early years were right and sperm whales. Humpback, bowhead and other whale species would later be taken.
The following lists events that happened during 1825 in Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1826 in Australia.
Thomas Davey was a New South Wales Marine and member of the First Fleet to New South Wales, who went on to become the second Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land.
Mokare was a Noongar Aboriginal man from the south-west corner of Australia, who was pivotal in aiding European exploration of the area.
Vansittart Island, also known as Gun Carriage Island, is a granite island with an area of 800 hectares. The island is part of Tasmania's Vansittart Island Group, lying in eastern Bass Strait between Flinders and Cape Barren Islands in the Furneaux Group.
Isaac Scott Nind (1797–1868) was an early colonial doctor, artist and pharmacist. He qualified LAC in London on 13 July 1820. He arrived in New South Wales in 1826. Within three weeks of his arrival he was appointed an Assistant Colonial Surgeon and sailed with the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot under Major Edmund Lockyer on the Amity to establish a convict-supported military garrison at King George Sound on Australia's south-west coast.
Ocean was an English merchant ship and whaler built in 1794 at South Shields, England. She performed two voyages as an "extra" ship for the British East India Company (EIC) and later, in 1803, she accompanied HMS Calcutta to Port Phillip. The vessels supported the establishment of a settlement under the leadership of Lt Col David Collins. Calcutta transported convicts, with Ocean serving to transport supplies. When the settlers abandoned Port Phillip, Ocean, in two journeys, relocated the settlers, convicts and marines to the River Derwent in 1804.
Joseph Potaski, or John Potaskie, was the first Pole to settle in Australia, and one of the first convicts to arrive in Van Diemen's Land on Ocean. Joseph Potaski worked hard to establish himself as a successful farmer in colonial Hobart. This was, however, undone by the exploits of his family. Joseph Potaski reflects the attitudes of those convicts who never progressed beyond their criminal past. Potaski is seen as representing the auspicious beginning of the Polish community in Australia.
Henry Hunter (1832–1892) was a prominent architect and civil servant in Tasmania and Queensland, Australia. He is best known for his work on churches. During his life was also at various times a state magistrate of Tasmania, a member of the Tasmanian State Board of Education, the Hobart Board of Health, a Commissioner for the New Norfolk Insane Asylum and President of the Queensland Institute of Architects.
Henry Miller (1785–1866) was the first commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony in Queensland, Australia.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.