Lady MacNaghten [1] was an English barque of 553 tons, founded in 1825, which made numerous voyages to Australia, but remembered as the "Fever ship" for her 1837 voyage when one in six passengers died of illness either en route or shortly after arrival.
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen rigged fore-and-aft.
Her voyages to Australia included:
Her first voyage to Australia left Dublin on 23 June 1835 for Sydney under Captain Hustwick, with 300 male prisoners, under the superintendence of Dr. Jarman, R. N. The guard consisted of Lieutenant Trapands and Baumgartner, and 29 soldiers of the 25th Regiment. Passengers were Michael Brown, clerk of the works for Sydney, Mrs. Brown and their four children, also eight women emigrants and four children. [2]
Billed as a "female emigrant ship", [3] though the policy of bringing out women indiscriminately was being phased out in favour of family migration, and the ship departed Cork on 5 November 1836 with 412 emigrants. [4]
Cork is a city in south-west Ireland, in the province of Munster, which had a population of 125,657 in 2016.
Lady MacNaghten sailed from Britain to Australia non-stop, as was customary for emigrant ships, and the first news to reach the outside world that anything was amiss was when the ship and HMS Rattlesnake, with Governor Bourke on board, made contact about 200 miles (320 km) south of Port Phillip around 24 February. Captain Hustwick passed the news to Captain W. Hobson that around 50 adults and children had died on board, mostly from typhus, and many more, including the ship's surgeon, Dr. J. A. Hawkins, were seriously ill. Assistant surgeon Bowler of HMS Rattlesnake was placed on board and the two ships went their separate ways. [5] On 26 February the ship pulled in to Spring Cove, where she lay at anchor and those unaffected or recovering were ferried ashore and quarantined under guard. Their clothing and bedding was burnt and they were accommodated in tents, while those still suffering remained on board. [3] Hawkins, who was on his first voyage as a ship's surgeon, died on 2 April and was buried in the Quarantine Ground. Captain Hustwick had contracted the disease but recovered as did Dr. Bowler of the Rattlesnake. [6] These three were popularly regarded as heroes; [7] John Marshall, the London shipping agent whose duty it was to select prospective migrants and arrange their transportation, was the villain, dubbed "dealer in human flesh" for overcrowding the ship. [8] Government regulations stipulated a maximum of 2 persons (including crew) for every 5 tons of Registered Burthen; Lady MacNaghten, of 550 tons should have carried no more than 334; she was carrying an equivalent of 336 adults, so certainly the ship was overcrowded, but the previous year she carried 300 convicts, a crew of 37 and 49 guards; 386 in all, but only lost two. Sixty-one Lady McNaghten passengers were lost, though probably not all to typhus.
HMS Rattlesnake was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy launched in 1822. She made a historic voyage of discovery to the Cape York and Torres Strait areas of northern Australia.
Port Phillip , is a port in southern Victoria, Australia. It is nearly surrounded by the city of Melbourne and its suburbs. Geographically, the port covers 1,930 square kilometres and the shore stretches roughly 264 km (164 mi). Although it is extremely shallow for its size, most of the port is navigable. The deepest portion is only 24 metres (79 ft), and half the region is shallower than 8 m (26 ft). The volume of the water in the port is around 25 cubic kilometres (6.0 cu mi).
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure.
An open letter of gratitude was published on 20 April, and signed by 13 passengers. [9] Significantly, John Lazar, who lost three children to the contagion, and was under-compensated for his wardrobe (he was a tailor and actor) which had been destroyed, was not one of them.
John Lazar was an actor and theatre manager in Australia. He was Mayor of Adelaide from 1855 to 1858.
To Sydney with cargo, arrived December; Captain Doughty. Arrived in Sydney on 16 December, leaving from Plymouth on 30 August, with 260 Immigrants. Dr. McNamara, Esq., Surgeon. Two adults and seven children died, and four births occurred during the passage. [10]
Left London 1 July, arrived in South Australia in October with settlers; Captain James Hibbert. Dr. A. C. Kelly, later a noted vigneron, was ship's surgeon.
Left Plymouth on 24 February, arrived in South Australia in June with settlers; Captain James Hibbert.
The First Fleet was the 11 ships that departed from Portsmouth, England, on 13 May 1787 to found the penal colony that became the first European settlement in Australia. The Fleet consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports, carrying between 1,000 and 1,500 convicts, marines, seamen, civil officers and free people, and a large quantity of stores. From England, the Fleet sailed southwest to Rio de Janeiro, then east to Cape Town and via the Great Southern Ocean to Botany Bay, arriving over the period of 18 to 20 January 1788, taking 250 to 252 days from departure to final arrival.
The North Head Quarantine Station is a heritage-listed former quarantine station and associated buildings that is now a tourist attraction at North Head Scenic Drive, on the north side of Sydney Harbour at North Head, near Manly, in the Northern Beaches Council local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It is also known as North Head Quarantine Station & Reserve and Quarantine Station & Reserve. The property is owned by the Office of Environment and Heritage, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. The buildings and site was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. The entire 277-hectare (680-acre) North Head site, including the Quarantine Station and associated buildings and facilities, was added to the Australian National Heritage List on 12 May 2006, and now forms part of the Sydney Harbour National Park.
John MacGillivray was a Scottish naturalist, active in Australia between 1842 and 1867.
Ticonderoga was a 169-foot (52 m), 4-masted clipper sail ship displacing 1,089 tons, launched in 1849 and wrecked in 1872.
James Stuart was an Irish official and naturalist in Australia. He was one of the first Quarantine Officers at Sydney's North Head Quarantine Station. William Sharp Macleay named which the brown antechinus after him in 1841.
Duke of York was a barque launched in 1817 and wrecked in 1837.
HMS Porpoise was a 12-gun sloop originally built in Bilbao, Spain, as the packet ship Infanta Amelia. On 6 August 1799 HMS Argo captured her off the coast of Portugal. Porpoise wrecked in 1803 on the North coast of what was then part of the Colony of New South Wales, now called Wreck Reefs, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
Surry, also known as Surrey, had an especially long career transporting convicts to Australia. In 11 voyages, the most of any convict transport, she brought 2,177 convicts, male and female, and so became one of the best-known of the vessels that visited Australia. In all, she lost 51 men and one woman during her various passages, 46 of the men dying during her first and most notorious voyage in 1814 when she was under the command of James Patterson.
HMS Herald was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1821 as HMS Termagant, commissioned in 1824 as Herald and converted to a survey ship in 1845. After serving as a chapel ship from 1861, she was sold for breaking in 1862.
The Artemisia was the first immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay bringing the first assisted free settlers from England. She was a barquentine of 492 tons built at Sunderland in 1847 and owned by A. Ridley. Under her master, Captain John Prest Ridley, the Artemisia arrived in Moreton Bay in December 1848.
Arthur Bowes Smyth was a naval officer and surgeon on the First Fleet that established the colony of New South Wales. Smyth kept a diary and documented the natural history he encountered in Australia.
David Keith Ballow (1804–1850) was the Government Medical Officer in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and the first doctor to establish a private practice in Brisbane.
At least nine ships were employed by the South Australian Company in 1836 to carry its staff and the first European settlers from England to the south coast of Australia for the establishment of the City of Adelaide and the province of South Australia.
Bussorah Merchant was a merchant ship built at Calcutta in 1818. She made three voyages transporting convicts from England and Ireland to Australia and later carried emigrants and other passengers to Australia.
Isabella was a merchant ship built on the Thames, England, and launched in 1818. She made six voyages transporting convicts from England and Ireland to Australia. In between, she made one round trip to China for the British East India Company (EIC). From her launch to 1834 she was a Licensed Ship; that is, she traded with India and the Far East under a license from the EIC. From 1848 on served in the North America trade. She is last listed in 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 1839-1856. Around 1858 she was re-rigged as a barque. She sank off Algiers in 1863.
Georgiana was built in British India c.1819, probably in late 1818. She traded in the Far East for most of her career, and between India and London. She made one voyage under charter to the British East India Company (EIC). She also brought immigrants to Australia. She was last listed in Lloyd's Register in 1844.
James Pattison was a merchant sailing ship built in 1828 upon the River Thames, England. She made one voyage for the British East India Company (EIC), and two transporting convicts to New South Wales. She also carried immigrants. She burnt to the waterline after her cargo ignited en route from Sydney to England in 1840.