Governor Gawler (1840 ship)

Last updated

History
Civil Ensign of the United Kingdom.svgUnited Kingdom
NameGovernor Gawler
Namesake George Gawler
OwnerEmanuel Underwood
BuilderEmanuel Underwood
Launched1840
FateWrecked August 1847
General characteristics [1]
Tons burthen15 (bm)
Length35.3 ft (10.8 m)
Beam8.8 ft (2.7 m)
Depth7.9 ft (2.4 m)
Sail plan Schooner
Complement2 [2]
NotesTwo masts

Governor Gawler was built in 1840. This made her the first sailing vessel built in South Australia. [1] She traded between Port Lincoln and Port Adelaide, but also carried cargo and passengers to Melbourne and Hobart Town, including soldiers, police, criminals, an executioner, as well as numerous civilians. [2] When she wrecked in 1847, she was the first South Australian ship to be wrecked. [1]

Contents

Origins

Captain Emanuel Underwood arrived in Port Adelaide in 1840 aboard Baboo. He brought with him the frame of a small vessel of 15 tons (register), together with sails, spars, ropes, and tackle. [3] He then assembled her on the mudflats of Port River and named her for George Gawler, the governor of the colony.

Fate

Governor Gawler, Underwood, master, was making for Port Lincoln when a storm drove her northward and onto a reef near Reevesby Island, in the Sir Joseph Banks Group on 1 August 1847. [1] Her two crew and two passengers survived. [4] Petrel rescued the survivors some two days later. [5]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 Australian National Shipwreck Database: Governor Gawler.
  2. 1 2 The Advertiser (2 April 1954), P.4, "Out Among the People:More about the Little S.A. Ships".
  3. Loyau (1885), p. 272.
  4. "Ship News". The Times. No. 19745. London. 29 December 1847. col C-D, p. 7.
  5. South Australian Chronicle and Weekly Mail (10 August 1878), p.20: "Recollections of a Pioneer".

Related Research Articles

SS <i>Yongala</i> Passenger steamship that was wrecked in Queensland, Australia

SS Yongala was a passenger steamship that was built in England in 1903 for the Adelaide Steamship Company. She sank in a cyclone off the coast of Queensland in 1911, with the loss of all 122 passengers and crew aboard.

Duke of Roxburgh was launched in 1828 at Newcastle upon Tyne. Initially she traded with India, but later she often sailed between Great Britain and her Australasian colonies carrying emigrants. She was wrecked in 1864.

SS <i>Admella</i>

SS Admella was an Australian passenger steamship that was shipwrecked on a submerged reef off the coast of Carpenter Rocks, south west of Mount Gambier South Australia, in the early hours of 6 August 1859. Survivors clung to the wreck for over a week and many people took days to die as they glimpsed the land from the sea and watched as one rescue attempt after another failed.

Britannia may refer to any one of a large number of ships:

HMS <i>Assistance</i> (1850)

HMS Assistance was an Arctic discovery barque of the Royal Navy, and the sixth vessel to carry the name. She began in 1834 as the India-built merchant vessel Acorn. Her name was changed to Baboo. Under that name she transported contract labourers between Mauritius and India, and immigrants to South Australia. The Royal Navy purchased her in 1850 and named her HMS Assistance. Assistance participated in two Arctic expeditions before her crew abandoned her in the ice in 1854.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sir Joseph Banks Group</span>

The Sir Joseph Banks Group is an archipelago in the Australian state of South Australia located in Spencer Gulf about 20 kilometres (12 mi) off the eastern coast of the Eyre Peninsula. It consists of 21 islands of which eighteen are in the Sir Joseph Banks Group Conservation Park while the surrounding waters are in the Sir Joseph Banks Group Marine Park. It is considered to be an important seabird breeding site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Hill (South Australia)</span>

Mount Hill is a prominent peak in the Australian state of South Australia on the eastern side of southern Eyre Peninsula. It is located within the locality of Butler.

Numerous vessels have borne the name Coromandel, named for the Coromandel Coast.

Maria was a brigantine built in Dublin, Ireland, and launched in 1823 as a passenger ship. On 28 June 1840, she wrecked on the Margaret Brock Reef, near Cape Jaffa in the Colony of South Australia, somewhere south-west of the current site of the town of Kingston SE, South Australia. The wreck has never been located.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. G. Waterhouse</span>

Thomas Greaves Waterhouse JP was a prominent businessman, investor and philanthropist in early colonial South Australia arriving soon after the start of official settlement. He was one of the early shareholders of the Burra Burra Mine, and for a long time held a seat on the Directorate. He was also involved in the establishment of the Bank of Adelaide.

Lipson Cove is a tranquil sandy bay in the Australian state of South Australia on the east coast of Eyre Peninsula overlooking Spencer Gulf. It features in the 2012 book 101 Best Australian Beaches by Andy Short and Brad Farmer.

Water Witch was a single-masted vessel rigged as a cutter built during 1835 in Van Diemen's Land and sunk in 1842 whilst moored in the River Murray at Moorundie, south of Blanchetown in South Australia (SA). Her wreck site was discovered in 1982 and received statutory protection as a historic shipwreck in 1983. The wreck site was the subject of an underwater survey in March 1984. She was the first European vessel to enter the River Murray via its mouth, her role in the charting of the lower reaches of the River Murray including Lake Alexandrina whilst under the command of William Pullen and her association with Edward John Eyre.

Boston Island is a 960-hectare (2,400-acre) privately owned island in Boston Bay, Spencer Gulf, South Australia. It has been primarily used for grazing sheep and was also once the location of a proposed township called Kerrillyilla at the southern end of the island. In 2009, the island was rezoned to allow for future residential and tourism development. As of 2009, it is owned by the former mayor of Port Lincoln, Peter Davis. Davis' development plans include up to 1,000 residential allotments, three tourism developments and an inland marina. Prior to rezoning, there had been little interest expressed in the development plan, despite the then mayor's enthusiasm.

Pestonjee Bomanjee was a wooden sailing ship built in 1834 by James Lang of Dumbarton, Scotland. She was a three-masted wooden barque of 595 tons, 130 feet in length, 31.5 feet in breadth, first owned by John Miller Jnr and Company, Glasgow. Her last-known registered owner in 1861 was Patrick Keith & George Ross, Calcutta, India.

Rapid was the brig that brought William Light's surveying party to the new colony of South Australia. She was wrecked in 1841.

Grecian was a sailing ship which was wrecked in a storm off Port Adelaide, South Australia in October 1850.

Hooghly was a full-rigged merchant ship built on the Thames, England, and launched in 1819. She made two voyages under charter to the British East India Company (EIC), four voyages transporting convicts from England and Ireland to Australia, as well as voyages transporting emigrants to South Australia between 1839 and 1856. Around 1858 she was re-rigged as a barque. She sank off Algiers in 1863.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Zealand Company ships</span>

The New Zealand Company was a 19th-century English company that played a key role in the colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principles of systematic colonisation devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere. Under Wakefield's model, the colony would attract capitalists who would then have a ready supply of labour—migrant labourers who could not initially afford to be property owners, but who would have the expectation of one day buying land with their savings.

John Ralph Hansford Ward, invariably known as Hansford Ward or Captain Ward, was a ship's captain in South Australia, who figures prominently in the pre-history of the Adelaide Steamship Company. A son, also named John Ralph Hansford Ward but known as John R. H. Ward, was also a ship's captain.

Lalla Rookh was a barque of 372 tons built by Edward Allen in St Helier, Jersey, in 1939. Her dimensions were 99.9 x 24.0 x 16.8 ft.

References