SECTION FIVE: The Shipbuilding Industry

CHAPTER 12: SHIPBUILDING ENTERPRISE, AN OVERVIEW

If the demand for refitting and repair services determined the location of shipwrights and other marine craftsmen in we would expect that most shipbuilding activities would also have been conducted there. However, well before 1820 shipbuilding activities were undertaken on the , by James Webb at several sites including Green Hills (Windsor), Webb’s Creek, and Scotland Island (Pittwater); by Jonathon Griffith at Richmond; by John Grono at Pitt Town; and by Alexander Book at Lower Portland. Thus, quite early there was at least some disassociation between activities focussed primarily on repair and refitting services, concentrated in Sydney, and those involving shipbuilding. This chapter explores the development of shipbuilding in NSW after 1820, and the factors determining the location of shipbuilding activities.

1. Challenges: J.T. Bigge, in his NSW trade inquiry in 1823, was unimpressed with the local ship- building industry, describing the few small vessels as “badly equipped” and “little qualified to resist the strong gales” prevalent on the NSW coastline.1 Such a view was perhaps uncharitable given that the NSW population in 1821 was still no more than that of small-sized town.2 The period up to 1821 was in fact one of great constriction for the development of a local shipbuilding industry. While various Governors eased colonial restrictions on shipbuilding and navigation under the pressure of local exigencies, there were still a number of serious constraints and disincentives to the development of a local shipbuilding industry (discussed in Chapter One). This was compounded by a general embargo placed on the private use of any timber deemed

1J.T. Bigge (March 1823), Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry on the State of Agriculture and Trade in the Colony of NSW, (Common’s Paper 136, ordered to be printed 13 March 1823. Lord’s Paper 119, ordered to be printed 4 July 1823, published as “The Bigge Reports” by Library Board of South , Australiana Facsimile Editions No. 68, 1966, p.54. 2 Max Kelly & Ruth Crocker, Sydney Takes Shape, A Collection of Contemporary Maps from Foundation to Federation, The Macleay Museum, University of Sydney, 1977, p. 49. In 1820 the whole population of NSW was merely 23,939, while that of Sydney was 12,079. By 1851, the population of NSW had increased to 191,099, while Sydney’s population had increased to 42,240.

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suitable for Naval purposes during the Napoleonic Wars, enforced until 1810, and thereafter controlled through the issue of licenses to timber cutters.3

The prosecution of the wars against France and America had a long-term impact on both the British and colonial shipbuilding industry.4 Northern shipyards, particularly in Scotland, were seriously affected by an interruption to their timber supplies from the Baltic and North America during the war.5 Discriminatory tariffs on Baltic and/or colonial timbers, designed to protect “Great Britain’s Woodyard”, continued to particularly disadvantage shipyards in northern Britain and keep the costs of shipbuilding artificially high.6 Shipwright, R.D. Cunnynghame and his son William, Leith shipbuilders, found their business so severely eroded that they chose to immigrate to NSW in 1823.7 Many shipwrights and other marine craftsmen recruited during the war to work at the British Naval Dockyards and private shipyards were made redundant after 1815 when surplus naval shipping was diverted to commerce.8 This surplus continued to depress British shipbuilding until the mid-1830s, with a severe downturn particularly noticeable after 1827.9 The over-supply of British shipping depressed outward-bound freight rates, despite increasing trade demands. This had implications for the development of the NSW shipbuilding industry, as

3 Lieut. -Gov. Grose to James Webb, 3 November 1794, Colonial Correspondence, SRNSW, 9/2731, p. 26, Fiche 3267; General Order (relating to Hawkesbury River), 8 December 1795, Reel 6037, ML Safe 1/18b and Reel 6039, SZ756, p. 627; 3 July 1801 (), Reel 6037, SZ988, pp.38-9; 7 May and 30 September 1803 (all areas), Reel 6039, SZ756, p. 638 & SZ991, pp.67-9; 4/1725, 28 July 1810, Reel 6042, p.63; 4/1752, Report of the Board of Works on timber appropriation by government, 26 March 1822, Reel 6052, p.106 & Reel 6016, 4/5781, pp.227-9; 4/424, Government Notice, 27 October 1824, Reel 6039, p.280. 4 S.R. Palmer, ‘Investors in Shipping 1820-1850’, Maritime History, Vol. 2, 1972, pp. 46-68; and Sarah Palmer, Politics, Shipping and the Repeal of the Navigation Laws, Manchester University Press, Manchester 1990. 5 David S. Macmillan, Scotland and Australia 1788-1850,Oxford, 1967, Clarendon Press, p. 92. 6 Sarah Palmer (1990), op. cit, pp. 36, 58; David M. Williams, ‘Customs Evasion, Colonial Preference and the British Tariff, 1829-1842’, Lars Scholl (ed.), Merchants and Mariners: Selected Maritime Writings of David M. Williams, Research in Maritime History, No 18. St Johns, Newfoundland, 2000 pp.157-183; David M. Williams, ‘State Regulation of Merchant Shipping, 1839-1914: The Bulk Carrying Trades’, ibid., pp. 129, 131; Brisbane to Bathurst, 27 January 1824, HRA, Series 1, Vol. 11, pp.204-6. 7 According to the 1828 Census, Cunnynghame arrived on the Minerva in 1823; Goulburn to Cunnynghame, 1 October 1824, Colonial Correspondence, SRNSW, 4/3515, Reel 6013, p. 504 and 4/1841, Cunnynghame to Goulburn, 25 November 1825, Fiche No. 3126, No. 186, pp.191-4. 8 G.F. Young, 20 May 1847, BPP (1st Report, 1847), Question 5230, p.68; , 18 May 1847, ibid. questions 5163-7, p. 62. 9 Palmer (1990) op. cit.

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excess and cheap English shipping found their way onto the local market.10 This is illustrated in an overview of NSW registered shipping from 1822-1848 provided in Diagram 8 (p.262a). The figures clearly indicate that local shipping investors purchased almost 85% of their tonnage from overseas sources (overwhelmingly from Great Britain), during the period 1822-1849, rather than investing in the local shipbuilding industry. The greatest increase coincided with a boom in British shipbuilding after 1837.11 Clearly the British shipbuilding industry was not in tune with changing trade demands at home, as it coincided with a marked downturn in both the English southern whaling industry, a downturn in freight prices, and increasing market recession.12

These conditions directly impacted on the NSW shipbuilding industry, shaping the direction and output of that industry. Excess British vessels were transferred to Australian investors as whalers or merchant shipping. The local shipbuilding industry competed against a steady trade in British and overseas vessels “dumped” on the NSW market during the period. The sale of these vessels on the local market was sometimes a final option for shipowners and commanders unable to secure a charter or paying homebound freight, or was sometimes made to satisfy a bottomry bond secured for the payment of repairs and provisions.13 The frequency of the occurrence of bottomry bonds suggests that either the voyages were under-capitalised, or that insufficient allowance was made for exigency costs.

An overview of prices secured through local private or auction sales of ships suggests that the market definitely favoured local purchasers, not vendors. Prices bore little relationship to age, origin or tonnage of the vessel, but varied between £500 and £4,000 for an average 300-ton brigantine, barque or ship-rigged vessel, often fully

10 This is reflected in the frequency of private and public auction sales advertised in local newspapers during the period. 11 Sarah Palmer (1990), op.cit., pp. 1-5. 12 Duncan Dunbar, 11 May 1847, BPP (4th Report, 1847), questions 4202-6, 4259, 4313-36, 4369, 4489; G.F Young, BPP (1st Report, 1847), questions 5227-5230, pp.67-8; Money Wigram, 1 June 1848, BPP (1848), question 6221-6227 & 6252. 13 Wilson v. The Nimrod, NSW Vice-Admiralty Court, 5 October 1838, Sydney Herald, 8 October 1838.

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Diagram 8: Bar Graph of NSW Registered Shipping, comparing number of locally built and imported shipping (1822-1848) ( based on data published in the Commercial Advertiser, September 1843, p.1294, and the SG & SGTL, 16 June 1849)

300

250

200

150

100

50

0 1822- 1825- 1828- 1831- 1834- 1837- 1840- 1843- 1846- 1824 1827 1830 1833 1836 1839 1842 1845 1848 Local (No.) 11 23 16 16 25 49 79 83 92 Imported (No.) 0 16 27 72 54 107 218 194 198 Total No. 11 39 43 88 79 156 297 277 290

Local (No.) Imported (No.) Total No.

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equipped with sails, rigging, whaling gear and stores.14 Egan purchased Macclesfield for £590 in 1836, and Fotheringham purchased the 368-ton whaling ship Mary for £575 in 1844.15 In just one month in 1838, nine such vessels were sold for £12,755. They were “old hands” with a total tonnage of only 1,399 tons.16 These included the brigs Siren, Guide and Bee, and Martha and the barque Fortune, sold to investors Daniel Egan, Thomas Street, Frederick Petersen, Robert Duke and John Jones for the local New Zealand and inter-colonial trade, and for the South Seas.17 Duke and Jones purchased the Fortune for £2,300, representing less than £8 per ton, for the 311-ton vessel.18 The Siren had just been extensively repaired and re-coppered in Sydney, and most of the vessels were sold with rigging, sails and stores.19 Reckoning on a new value of £12 per ton, a newspaper reporter found the demand reflected in the prices “extraordinary”.20 Acting on their owners’ instructions, A.B. Spark disposed of Highlander for £1,300; Samuel Cunard at public auction for £1,475, selling some of her cargo privately to Robert Campbell Jnr. & Co. and the balance by public auction, and sold Ann and Mary to Mr. Curtoys for £2,550 in cash.21 He sold Munford to Isaac Simmons & Co for £3,400.22 Occasionally, investors engaged in speculative purchases without inspection, the value of cargo being included in the purchase price.23 In the case of Abraham Pollack’s purchase of the eight-year old brig Lady Wellington in June 1837 for £5,500, this represented a successful speculation, as within two months she had returned from her voyage with one hundred tons of sperm oil.24 Immediately after her cargo was discharged she was sold on to Daniel Egan and

14 The results of private and auction sales were frequently published in the Commercial Advertiser and Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List. 15 Commercial Advertiser, 27 July 1836; Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 14 December 1844. 16 Commercial Advertiser, 30 November 1838. 17 Ibid. and 21 November 1838. 18 The vessel was built in Quebec in 1825. 19 Ibid, 21 November 1838. 20 Ibid, 30 November 1838. 21 Ibid, 15 December 1836 and 31 January 1837, pp. 70 & 74; 26 & 27 February and 12 May 1836, pp.58 & 62, 23 April 1839, pp. 106. 22 Ibid, 23 April 1840, p. 120. 23 For example, local investors, J. Simmons & Co, purchased the English whaling barque, Vittoria, for £1,550, inclusive of her oil, Commercial Advertiser, 13 April 1839. 24 I.H. Nicholson, Shipping Arrivals and Departures for Sydney, Vol 2, 1826-1840, Roebuck, Canberra 1977, pp. 143, 173. Pollack made a profit of £2000 from this transaction, Commercial Advertiser, 27 January 1838.

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Arthur Devlin, and placed in the coastal trade to Adelaide. Six months later, Pollack made a similar speculative investment in the whaler Samuel Cunard.25

Second-hand vessels were most frequently placed in the whaling industry, but were sometimes diverted to other trades, typically for the South Seas, New Zealand or Mauritius. The ability to purchase fully equipped vessels at such low prices provided nearly irresistible opportunities for shipping investors. The local shipbuilding industry was the loser in this equation, generally unable or unwilling to build equivalent-sized vessels for the local market at such competitive rates.26 Prices for new tonnage varied quite markedly from £9 per ton to an extraordinary sum of £64 per ton, with average prices ranging from £10.15s. to £17.5s.27 Generally, shipbuilders contracting to build vessels for the highly competitive steam navigation trade commanded higher prices for their hulls.28 The Steam Company, for example, paid £3,000 for the construction of the steamer, Parramatta, representing £37.10s per ton, and found her so profitable that they immediately ordered another for the same price.29

However, other factors were also in play. The marketplace was highly competitive and volatile, and to have any assurance of securing a profit, investors needed to respond quickly to take advantage of new opportunities. Under these circumstances the purchase of ready-made shipping was a preferred option, while contracting with a shipbuilder for the construction of new shipping required a longer-term planned investment. Even so, newspapers reporting the launching of a new vessel, frequently noted its owners altering their plans for its use, as market demands changed.

25 Commercial Advertiser, 27 January 1838. 26 In 1829, John Grono claimed that he was unable to make a profit from shipbuilding, NSW Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, SRNSW, 2/7871, Reel 1134, 33/7422, letter dated 7 November 1833. John Korff lost £700 on the sale of his steamer Kangaroo when she was purchased for £1,200. At 52 tons, this would have placed her building cost at £36.10s, a very rate even by London standards, Insolvency Papers of John Korff, 19 February 1842, SRNSW, 2/8663, CGS13654, No. 80. 27 Korff was paid £16,000 by local shipowners, Spark and Manning, for the construction of the steamer, Victoria, possibly making her the most lucrative building contract on record, Korff, ibid. 28 Thomas Chowne contracted to build the steamer, Eagle, at £17. 5s. per ton, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 26 August 1848. Lowe and Malcolm secured a similar price for the brig, Enchantress, in 1849. Ibid, 10 September 1849. 29 Commercial Advertiser, 16 April 1837.

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Changing trade demands were only part of the local circumstances influencing the local shipbuilding industry.

In a letter to the Colonial Secretary, Frederick Goulburn, dated 15 March 1823, local shipowner and merchant, Robert Campbell, strongly criticised government inaction with respect to the local shipbuilding industry. He identified the main constrictions as arising from the failure of the colonial government to protect its coastal trade from foreign shipping, and the inability of colonial whalers to compete on favourable terms with English and foreign whalers due to their lower operating expenses. He compared the colonial situation unfavourably with that of India, where government policy restricted the coastal trade to “country ships,” suggesting that without such a policy local shipping would be “annihilated”. He suggested government intervention to ensure foreign (including in this instance English) shipping wanting export cargo be obliged to be supplied by colonial vessels. This would immediately stimulate a local shipbuilding industry to construct vessels “best adapted for navigating to the Ports where the Commodities can be supplied,” while encouraging investors to fit out shipping “so long lying in this Harbour rotting for want of employment”. 30

There is no indication that the colonial office acted directly on this advice. Ultimately, business logic prevailed as “foreign” shipping preferred to avoid delays collecting freight, while their design and size made them poorly suited for coastal waters and river ports. In the longer term, local shipping filled this niche quite effectively, carrying local produce (including whale oil) to Sydney, where it was most frequently transhipped for the London market. The unfair competition, to which Campbell was referring in 1823, was in fact only part of the problem. There was also a shortage of sound, reliable local vessels and the skilled crews to man them. It would take a few years before a steady reliable fleet of vessels could be secured.

30 Robert Campbell to the Colonial Secretary, 15 March 1823, Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, SRNSW, 4/1809, Reel 6067, pp. 27-27a. In fact, despite higher wages paid to local seamen, Campbell’s belief that colonial whalers could not compete with British whalers proved to be erroneous. Without heavy subsidisation by the British government, English whalers were unable to compete on equal terms.

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During the 1820s, Street capitalised on the niche market by investing in the construction of small vessels, most under fifty ton. However, during the 1820s there were still few master shipwrights with the financial resources to invest in the ship building plant and wharves required to initiate larger scale ship construction. Even shipbuilder John Grono complained of his inability to make a reasonable living from his shipbuilding yards at Pitt Town, preferring the more profitable business of sealing and bay whaling off the New Zealand coast.31 Those located in , including John Jones, Robert Cunnynghame, James Munn and Thomas Day did not experience the same level of distress, probably because their location enabled them to secure repair contracts. Of 196 shipwrights known to have resided in NSW during the period, very few had the capital, opportunity or ambition to become master craftsmen or shipbuilders.32 Most remained journeymen, paid either by the day or on contract. Some shipwrights appear to have slipped from journeymen to masters and back again, probably reflecting their varying success in winning building contracts in an uncertain market.33

2. Strengths: Nevertheless, local shipbuilders did have one significant advantage over their English and Scottish counterparts. That advantage lay in their ability to utilise local timber resources, frequently at no cost other than the wages and provisions of woodcutters and sawyers.34 Their disadvantage lay in their need to purchase imported iron, copper sheathing, rope and canvas probably at significantly higher prices than shipyards in Great Britain. Great Britain herself imported some of the raw materials for shipbuilding, including timber, canvas and rope, as well as coal, copper and iron ore

31 John Grono to Colonial Secretary, 7 November 1833, NSW Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, SRNSW, 2/7871, Reel 1134, 33/7422. 32 The figures are drawn from Musters, the Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, 1828 Census and Directory information (1832, 1844, and 1851) and Insolvency papers. 33 This is evident from the insolvency files of master shipwrights whose employees, for example W.H. Chapman, Robert Henderson, and others, appear sometimes in other records as master shipwrights, successfully tendering for shipping contracts. See for example the insolvency files of Summerbell, Newton, Ferrier & Co. and others, listed elsewhere. 34 Insolvency Papers of Newton, Ferrier and Malcolm, SRNSW, 2/8798, CGS13654, No.149; John Korff, op.cit; 2/8783, James Marshall, 24 July 1844CGS13654; Thomas Ayerst, 20 February 1844, 2/8788, No. 1292.

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from Australasia, as well as from Europe and Manila.35 Despite a partial reliance on British manufactured imports, Australian shipwrights maintained a competitive edge. Robert Brooks estimated that the cost of building a ship in England was about £13 per ton, including spars and rigging, before copper sheathing was applied. By comparison first class ships of equivalent tonnage, 400-500 tons, could be built in the Australian colonies for as little as £9 per ton, using local timbers of blue gum or stringy bark.36 The fact that, with several exceptions, few vessels of this size were built in the Australasian colonies or their dependencies during this period, I suggest, provides some insight into the rationale of the local ship building industry.

The timing of construction of larger locally built tonnages corresponded with periods of peak demand in specific trades. The whaling barques, Australian (265 tons) and Governor Bourke (214 tons), launched at Grono’s shipyard at Pitt Town in 1829 and 1833 respectively, were built at a time of rising local demand for sperm whalers. New Zealand shipyards at Hokianga produced some of the largest vessels with several, including the New Zealander (190 tons) and the Sir George Murray (392 tons) built in Thomas Raine’s shipyards in 1828 and 1830 respectively under George Brown’s supervision by shipwright Andrew Summerbell for the New Zealand trade.37 Their owners initially had difficulty securing their registration under British navigation laws.38 The Stirlingshire, a ship of 500 tons was subsequently built at New Zealand in 1848 for Captain Devlin and others for the South and Western Australian trade.39 The 262-ton barque Jane Cain, constructed in Melbourne by Van Diemen’s Land shipwright, Charles Chessall, (probably utilising Tasmanian timber), was one of the

35 Their suppliers included the Baltic, and Manila (for timber, canvas, flax and hemp), while increasingly after 1840, copper and iron were exported from NSW, Adelaide and New Zealand. See Dunbar, 11 May 1847, BPP (1847), questions 4447-4453, p. 17. 36 Brooks, 23 March 1848, BPP (1848), questions 1257-1269, pp. 115-6. 37 Andrew Summerbell, together with the other ship carpenter and sawyers employed at the shipyards, left New Zealand for Port Jackson, when Thomas Raine’s estate went into receivership in 1829, SRNSW, 4/4847, Reel 1305, arrival of New Zealander, 9 December 1830. The development of Raine’s insolvency was a complex process, partly linked to the drought during 1827-9, and to the system of credit. In February 1829 had taken action against the Leith Australian Company, with which Raine was linked for the amount of £1700, and Raine’s property, including flax were seized, Sydney Gazette, 24 February and 8 March 1829, and 27 March 1834. 38 6 Geo. IV, Cap. 110; Raine to Murray, 3 January 1829, HRA, Series 1, Vol. 15, pp. 603-4, and footnote 171. 39 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 14 November 1848.

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few colonial-built vessels of the period specifically intended for the Melbourne- London trade.40 In all cases, there were shortages in shipping on particular trade routes. Most of the colonial whaling vessels between 230-450 tons were built overseas. Purchasing second hand vessels was usually an economically sound strategy, providing they were properly surveyed, because they usually were fully rigged and equipped for whaling, and therefore represented an initial saving in outfitting costs.

Rather than concentrating capital and labour on building vessels of large tonnage, investors and shipbuilders built smaller-tonnage shipping, for the niche coastal and regional trades. The majority of registered commercial vessels ranged from 8-150 tons, and were rigged as cutters or schooners. This type of construction reflected the application of rational business decision-making practices. Their smaller size and rigging reduced capital costs involved in the construction of shipyards, vessels and their rigging, and the vessel’s operating costs, while simultaneously cushioning the effects of loss of a vessel, the majority of which were uninsured. In addition, the size and rigging were the most suitable for navigating difficult and shifting coastal river shoals and currents. Even such small vessels frequently switched to the Pacific trade as opportunity dictated.41 An equally important consideration for investors was the fact that smaller vessels were more efficient freight carriers, being not so reliant on procuring large quantities of freight to break even.

3. Location: The pattern of the local shipbuilding industry followed closely the availability of suitable timber for the construction of part or all of the framework, decking, masts and spars needed in their construction, as well as locating suitable harbours or rivers from which they could be launched (Map 3, p.268a). From Darling Harbour and Pymont, Lane Cove, Pittwater and the lower Hawkesbury, and Brisbane Waters, shipbuilders

40 Ibid, 29 July 1848, reporting that she was forced to call at Sydney on her maiden voyage to be surveyed, due to navigational problems, “not having enough dead weight.” 41 An example being the 49-ton cutter, Rover’s Bride, sent in pursuit of J.T. Wilson in 1839 across the Pacific to South America, before being placed in the sandalwood trade, Gwen Dundon, The Shipbuilders of Brisbane Water , East Gosford, Gwen Dundon, 1997, p. 56.

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progressively developed shipyards northward at Port Stevens, Newcastle, on the Hunter, Williams, Mcleay, Manning, Bellinger and Clarence Rivers to , and southward to the , at Broulee, and Moruya.42 These shipbuilding sites coincided with good stands of timber, as did those in Van Diemen’s Land (Huon pine) and New Zealand (Kauri).43 Immense stands of red cedar, as well as flooded, grey, spotted, stringy and blue gum, all provided (to varying degrees) acceptable timber for shipbuilding.44 Much of the coastal river system south of Broulee did not attract a great deal of shipbuilding activity simply because its cooler, drier climate and in many places, poorer soils, promoted only sparse and stunted timber growth.45 New Zealand remained the preferred timber source for spars and masts, providing an impetus for the construction of shipping for the New Zealand trade.

While Sydney remained the centre for most engineering, ropewalks and sail-making activities, due to the demands of overseas shipping, many shipwrights progressively moved along the coastline to the north and south, following in the footsteps of the sawyers, reflecting their need to access timber at the lowest cost. Shipbuilders in Sydney relied on the shipment of timber from coastal river stands, frequently maintaining one or more vessels for the purpose, and conducting timber merchandising in conjunction with their shipbuilding and repair business.46

42 D.N. Jeans, ‘Shipbuilding in Nineteenth-Century NSW’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 16, Part 3, 1974, pp. 156-163. 43 G. Kerr & H. McDermott, The Huon Pine Story: A History of the Harvest and use of Unique Timber, Mainsail Books, Victoria, 1999 2nd ed. 2004; Cliff Hawkins, ‘To New Zealand for Kauri’, The Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. 52, 1966, pp.315-327. 44 John Vader, Red Gold: The Tree that Built a Nation, Sydney, Publishers, 2002. 45 Woodriff, shipmaster of Calcutta, to Secretary of the Board of Admiralty, 15 November 1803, Daniel Paine, The Journal of Daniel Paine 1794-1797 (together with Documents Illustrating the beginning of Government Boat-Building and Timber Gathering in New South Wales)(edited by R.J.B. Knight and the Manuscripts Department of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, and Professor Alan Frost, La Trobe University, Victoria), Sydney, National Maritime Museum and Library of Australian History, 1983, Appendix II, pp.90-91; Trevor Lipscombe, On Austral Shores, Annandale, Envirobook, 2005, pp.44-126. 46 Sales advertisement for Summerbell & Phillips, Commercial Advertiser,18 October 1836. Shipbuilders, Grono, Day, Green, Russell & Korff all engaged in this practice, as noted from advertisements placed in the Sydney Gazette and Commercial Advertiser.

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The presence of early private shipbuilding activity on the Hawkesbury has already been noted.47 Among the first of these private shipbuilders, John Grono set up his shipyard near Pitt Town, where he had received a land grant of 100 acres. With his background as a ship’s carpenter, Grono used his knowledge of timber to exploit timber resources at his property on the Hawkesbury and in New Zealand to develop a shipbuilding industry. In 1818, he received a further land grant of 200 acres in recognition for his services to the Colony in providing information on New Zealand’s timber resources, gained while sealing off New Zealand’s coast.48 During the 1820s and early 1830s, he built a number of vessels at his shipyards at Pitt Town, using blue gum, blackbutt, ironbark and apple to be found around Cattai and Webb’s Creek, where he owned 2,560 acres.49 Two of his vessels, the 265-ton barque, Australian launched in 1829, and the 214-ton barque, Governor Bourke, in 1833, were sufficiently substantial and robust to be employed in the colonial pelagic whaling fleet, among the very few locally-built vessels employed in that trade. The merchant firm of Cooper & Levey were his primary financial promoters and business partners in this enterprise.

Shipyards at Brisbane Waters remained the most consistently productive building sites outside Sydney from 1824, reflecting its advantages in terms of timber resources and proximity to Sydney. In the 1820s, James Webb established a shipyard on his grant at Mulbong (later Blackwall shipyard), south of St Hillier’s Island.50 Webb was not the only shipwright to recognise the opportunities the Lower Hawkesbury and Brisbane Water had to offer. In 1824, R.D. Cunnynghame successfully applied for a timber lease and land grant at Brisbane Water, and Daniel Egan also requested a land grant there, which he later leased to Cunnynghame.51 Thomas Street is also likely to

47 One of these early shipbuilders, Jonathon Griffith, moved his shipbuilding operations to Van Diemen’s Land, Sydney Gazette, 25 May 1824. 48 NSW Governor’s Despatches 1-4/1830, ML: A1206, No. 585, Reel CY539, p. 343; Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, SRNSW, 4/3512, Reel 6013, p.635; John Grono, 7 November 1833, Colonial Secretary’s Land Records, No. 33/7422. 49 Sydney Gazette, 2 August 1829. 50 Webb to Colonial Secretary, 24 August 1824, SRNSW, 4/1840A, Fiche 3116, No. 1036, pp.175-8; Gwen Dundon, op.cit., pp.23-9. 51 Cunnynghame, 8 June 1824, SRNSW, 4/1779, Reel 6061, p.131, and 4/3511, Reel 6013, p. 481; Egan, 1 November 1824, 4/1837A, Fiche 3087, No. 308, pp.209-211; 4/3511, Reel 6013, p.182; 15 August 1825, 9/2652, Fiche 3266, p.89 and 9/2740, Fiche 3269, p. 11; Dundon, op. cit. p.277.

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have established a shipyard on his grant near the mouth of Narara Creek (the site of what is now Gosford), employing shipwrights, artisans and labourers to construct a number of small vessels there.52 In 1832, Street’s neighbour, local landowner and police magistrate F.A. Hely, advised Bourke that within the last eighteen months six vessels had been produced at ship building yards at Brisbane Waters. These included six vessels between 15-20 tons, and one of 100 tons was laid down. In addition, five vessels had been launched and were employed in the coastal trade while a ship was planned for the whale fishery.53

Gwen Dundon’s informative study of the shipbuilding industry at Brisbane Waters has identified many of the shipwrights and shipbuilding sites after 1829, as well as examining their broader links with the local community and motivation for shipbuilding.54 These included Jonathon and Henry Piper, whose long-term connections with Brisbane Water provided a valuable network of family and business relationships from which to draw investors, clients and sources of labour for his shipyard at Kincumber. Among local investors were Joseph Spears, Thomas Humphryes and George Venteman, with whom they had family connections. Piper’s shipyard employed a number of shipwright apprentices who later set up their own shipbuilding yards at Brisbane Water.55

Perhaps the earliest boat-builder on the Central Coast was the convict, Thomas Crump(ton), employed by H.M. Dockyard at Newcastle in 1810.56 In the early 1820s, Street employed a team of shipwrights and sail-makers to construct a number of small vessels at Port Stevens to service Newcastle and to carry cargoes of lime, timber and coal to Sydney.57 After 1823, the Australian Agricultural Company planned a “major”

52 Notice of Deeds of Title, New South Wales Government Gazette, 2 February 1839, No. 387, p.168, Street was granted 300 acres at this site on 6 August 1824, and finalised quit rent payments commenced 1 January 1831. However, given his high level of timber-felling activity at Brisbane Water, and employed the men to build at least five cutters between 16-20 tons there, including the Angelina, Amelia, Dove, Penguin, Carrabean and Pandora between 1826-1828. See Street to Colonial Secretary, 16 May 1827, Colonial Secretary’s Land records, SRNSW, No. 2/4635, Reel 1184. 53 Hely to Bourke, 18 August 1832, HRA, Series 1, Vol. 16, pp. 716-7. 54 Dundon, op.cit. 55 Ibid, 56 Correspondence, 30 January 1810, SRNSW, 9/2736, Reel 6042, p.45. 57 Street to Colonial Secretary, 29 July 1824, SRNSW, 4/1780, Reel 6061, p.228.

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shipbuilding enterprise, building stone wharves at Tahlee and Cockreneyo Point in 1826. In fact, they contracted private shipwrights, J.W. Russell and James Marshall to build two of their vessels, the Carrington and Lucy Ann at Clarence Town and “Mount Pleasant” respectively. There is little evidence that the Company engaged in any substantial way in promoting shipbuilding directly.58

The timing of the establishment and location of other shipyards closely parallels the demand for timber and further settlement. Marshall and Lowe established their “Deptford Yard” on the William River in 1832, after Marshall had surveyed its potential for shipbuilding timber.59 Sydney shipwrights Bass, Chapman and Russell purchased uncleared land at the Maria, Paterson and Williams Rivers during the early 1830s, and Russell established his first shipyard at Clarence Town, where there were good stands of timber available in 1834.60 Korff established “Victoria shipyards” at Miller’s Forest near Raymond Terrace on the Hunter River in 1837.61 Scotsmen, Alexander Newton, John Ferrier and William Malcolm, commenced shipbuilding on the McLeay River in 1836.62 By September 1842, this partnership had constructed thirteen vessels at their Kempsey dockyard, including two of 200 tons, most employed in the cedar trade. Cedar was already becoming very scarce on the McLeay and was being hauled overland from Nambucca River, not then accessible by sea transport.63 The firm of Newton, Ferrier & Co survived at least until December 1845, when they became insolvent, and thereafter moved their shipyard to the Manning River,

58 Domaris Bairstow, A Million Pounds, A Million Acres: The Pioneer Settlement of the Australian Agricultural Company, , NSW, 2003, Self-published, pp. 54, 60; Insolvency papers of James Marshall, 24 July 1844, SRNSW 2/8783, CGS13654, No. 1293. 59 Lowe and Marshall, 16 January 1832, Land records, SRNSW, 2/7910; Sydney Gazette, 15 October 1831, 3 January and 9 October 1832. 60 H.T. Bass, Joseph and John William Russell, (1833-1840), Land records, SRNSW, 2/7964. J.W. Russell finalised payment of the land at Clarence Town in December 1834. However, he was already an active shipbuilder there from October 1833, when he commenced a contract for the Australian Steam Navigation Company, Sydney Gazette, 6 January 1834. 61 Insolvency Papers of John Korff, 19 February 1842, SRNSW, 2/8663, CGS13654, No. 80. 62 J.H. Watson, ‘Early Settlement of the Macleay River’, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal, 28 January 1921, pp. 203-4. Rudder sold land in the Kempsey area by private auction for as much as £25 per acre on 26 November 1836. Captain Newton’s cedar-built cottage was located at Scotch Town. Shipwright, John Ferrier, was living at Commandant’s Hill, Kempsey in 1865, John Ferrier’s Insolvency Papers, 18 August 1865, SRNSW, CGS13654, No. 7275. 63 Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 1842.

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operating under the name of Newton & Malcolm.64 Several other shipwrights were already established on the Manning when they arrived. These included John Nicholson, J.T. Ball, John Gillies, Robert Howie and William Bird, the two latter being employed by shipwright, Taylor Winship, who obtained a Crown timber lease there soon after his arrival in NSW in November 1834. Winship established a shipyard at Chatham, where he had purchased 640 acres of land, on the junction of the Manning and Dawson Rivers. Here he employed at least two other shipwrights and a ship-smith, as well as local labour to construct at least eight registered vessels, representing almost 650 tons between 1836-1841.65

Further north, Richard Derbyshire and John Ross had a shipyard on the Bellinger River, while one of the most remote northern shipyards by the mid-1840s was one constructed by William Chowne and his brothers at Maclean on the Clarence River, worked in conjunction with their timber pit.66 On the south coast, John Cunningham, David and James Warden and Robert Gee, Thomas Dillon and James Staples had small shipyards at Illawarra, Ulladulla, Broulee, Moruya and . These shipbuilders not only worked in relative isolation, but also under threats of violence from their indigenous neighbours. Together with the sawyer gangs, often in their employment, they pioneered settlement of the colonies. Clearly, it was access to suitable timber on navigable rivers that was a priority for these shipbuilders, rather than the provision of ship-repairs. Nevertheless, Bass retained his shipyard at Bradley’s Head, Thomas Chowne (eldest brother of the Maclean’ Chowne brothers) maintained a very active shipyard at Balmain, while both Russell and Korff had acquired shipyards at Pyrmont and Glebe by the late 1830s.

64 Insolvency Papers, 20 December 1845, SRNSW, 2/8798 CGS 13654, No.1491. 65 Taylor Winship, 5 September 1836, Land records, SRNSW, 2/8009, Reel 1199, 32/82 and 39/12, No. 233, deed dated 14 November 1839; the information for his shipbuilding ventures has mostly been drawn from shipping news in the Commercial Advertiser, and Sydney Free Press; Insolvency Papers of Taylor Winship, 25 June 1843, SRNSW, 2/8692, CGS13654, No. 334. Nicholson and Ball also succumbed to insolvency in 1842, SRNSW, CGS13654, 7 March 1842, No. 130, and 23 April 1842, No. 220, respectively. 66 Clarence River Historical Society, http://www.clarencehistory.org.au/documents.html; Intestate Papers, 2 February 1855, SRNSW, 14/3275, NRS ITM 233752, No. 3174; Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 10 July 1847.

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Newton, Ferrier & Co. employed sawyers at both the Macleay and Bellinger Rivers, whose job it was to locate and log suitable timbers and prepare them for shipment to the shipyard.67 Locating the right timber was not simply a matter of finding suitable tree species for shipbuilding, but also sourcing sound timber of the appropriate size and shape for the construction of a hull. It is evident from surviving records that NSW shipbuilders employed a number of skilled woodcutters, sawyers and carpenters, both to collect and ship their timber and to work at a nearby sawpit, where the timber was sawn into appropriate lengths and shapes. Traditionally, these were then given identifying marks (using an alpha-numeric system), recording their dimensions and usage (whether for structural use, decking or masts) both on the sides of the timbers and in a master catalogue, before being stockpiled for future selection and use.68

Shipbuilders needed great physical strength to lift long lengths of high-density timber (sometimes of forty feet in length and up to 28 inches thick), and tree knees and futtocks (compass timbers) that formed parts of the curved framework of ships.69 Captain Butcher, returning from his exploration of the Clarence River in 1838 in command of the Abercrombie, described trees ideal for shipbuilding, measuring over seven feet in diameter.70 The availability of timber of such dimensions encouraged the construction of larger vessels. Newton and Malcolm obtained a contract from Sydney shipowner Moses Joseph for a 265-ton barque for the Pacific whaling trade, the Rosetta Joseph, at the Manning River.71 Another Manning River shipwright, John Nicholson, obtained a contract for the construction of a 239-ton barque (the Fanny Fisher) for Sydney merchants Thacker & Co, for the China trade.72 Vessels of this size demanded much exertion and physical strength, in addition to well-constructed launching ways.

67 Insolvency Papers of Newton, Ferrier & Malcolm, op. cit. Among Newton, Ferrier & Co.’s creditors were sawyers and labourers employed at the McLeay and Bellinger Rivers for unpaid wages. 68 Peter Kemp (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, O.U.P., London 1976, pp. 793-4. 69 R.G. Albion, Forests and Sea Power. The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652-1862, Archon, Hamden, Connecticut, 1965, pp.7-9. 70 Commercial Advertiser, 11 December 1838. However, by 1844 only William Henry Chowne and his brother, Edward had taken advantage of the opportunity, establishing the only shipyard on the Clarence, mainly to construct vessels to ship timber and other local produce to Sydney. 71 Maitland Mercury, 15 September 1847. 72 Ibid.

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Locating shipyards in areas remote from Sydney, predicated the existence of a sound financial base and a guaranteed market for vessels or their freight. A consortium including Captain William Hay, William Walker, and William Wright, merchants and shipowners of Sydney, financed the construction of Newton, Ferrier & Co.’s first brigantine, Hannah (90 tons), for the New Zealand trade in 1837 while a schooner, Rob Roy of 47 tons built there in 1837 at John Barclay’s shipyard was financed by Sydney merchants, J.J. Peacock and J.T. Hughes and John Hosking.73 Evidence that Newton & Co.’s shipyard at the Macleay River was already very active by 1839, was a report of their launching a 200-ton brig Christina representing “the third colonial brig built there within the last 3-4 months”.74 Between 1837 and 1853, the partnership was responsible the construction of at least 25 (registered) vessels on the Macleay and Manning Rivers. It is likely that the figure was much higher. Their skill as shipwrights is attested by the variation in size and types of their vessels from a small ketch of 26- tons to at least two whaling barques over 200 tons. A combination of deepwater location and the availability of cedar and hardwoods encouraged both shipbuilders and ship investors alike.

The advantages of such locations become readily apparent when it is observed that immediately after the launching of Derbyshire and Ross’s new schooner, Bonny Dee in March 1846 at John Robertson’s Station on the Bellinger River, she was went to Trial Bay where she loaded with 40,000 feet of cedar, the valuable cargo already sold on the Sydney market by her owner, Robertson, either for local or British consumption.75 Derbyshire and Ross were able to launch another schooner for Robertson, Rebecca, in the same year.76 Similarly, the 150 ton brigantine, the Louisa and Miriam, built by Newton and Malcolm at the Manning River for Moses Joseph of Sydney, carried 20,000 feet of cedar, 15 bales of wool and 89 bushels of grain on her maiden voyage to Sydney in March 1848. These were typical of the coastal cargoes

73 NSW Department of Education (1979), Annabay Primary School Centenary Booklet; also R. Parsons (2003), op.cit. p. 88; R. Parsons, (2003), op.cit., p. 82; Ship’s Register 34/1837; 63/1845. 74 Commercial Advertiser, 21 August 1839. 75 Shipping Gazette & Sydney General Trade List dated 4 April 1846; the ninety- ton schooner Bonny Dee was ideal for her destined trade. With a length of 57 feet, she could be loaded with a deck cargo of timber, and she had a load line of six foot 10 inches, which made her suitable for crossing river bars. 76 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 20 March 1847, pp.428-9.

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freighted to Sydney during the period. These coastal vessels performed a valuable service for their owners and the colony by delivering valuable timber to Sydney either for local consumption or sale in Britain or India, while the land was cleared for other primary production, such as grain production and grazing whose products the coastal vessels in turn shipped to Sydney for consumption or export.

The development of collieries in the also provided a stimulus for the shipbuilding industry. In 1844, R.M. Robey contracted two coastal shipbuilders to construct vessels for use at the collieries of Lake Macquarie.77 Taylor Winship, having lost his Manning River estates to creditors, Ranulph Dacre and William Wynter, successfully tendered for the construction of two 30-ton barges, built at his new shipyard at Stockton to carry the coal from the colliery head to a deep-water port at Lake Macquarie.78 In July 1848 the schooner Pilot was also launched at his Stockton shipyard for the coal trade, before Winship moved to the recently opened free settlement at Moreton Bay.79 William Chowne’s company on the Clarence River constructed two schooners for Robey, designed to convey coals from Lake Macquarie to Newcastle.80

The need to access timber supplies, to facilitate and service settlement and enable agricultural and primary produce to reach the markets either for internal consumption or export, dictated the size and construction of local shipbuilding. The navigation of sometimes poorly chartered Australasian coastlines and surrounding oceans was a constant hazard for all shipping. While this was a constant risk for owners, merchants and insurance companies alike, it provided significant opportunities for the maritime trades. In many respects, specific navigational issues shaped the local shipbuilding industry. The presence of sand bars made navigation of some NSW river ports difficult. This was particularly the case on the Hunter, Manning, Nambucca, Clarence, Richmond and Tweed Rivers. The Barrier Reef, Moreton Bay, Port Phillip, Port

77 Maitland Mercury, 27 May 1848. In September 1844 the Lockend Coal Works at Lake Macquarie was advertising for miners, Maitland Mercury, 28 September 1844. 78 Ibid, 27 May 1848. 79 Ibid, 8 July 1848. The Stockton Shipbuilding Company was established in September 1847, with G. Stacey as its Secretary. Maitland Mercury, 2 October 1847. 80 Maitland Mercury, 3 June 1848.

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Albert, and Adelaide also posed navigational problems for vessels with a deep draught, while even silting in the vicinity of Circular Quay became an urgent issue from 1838. Many vessels were lost along Australia’s coastline, not through any deficiency of design or poor seamanship, but rather through the presence of sandbars and the frequency of gales.

4. Shipwrecks and Salvage: Shipwrecks and losses in fact provided additional opportunities for shipwrights, in the form of survey work, repairs and new shipbuilding orders. Shipwrights frequently conducted ship surveys, either on behalf of government, private owners and contractors. Such work in 1831 was paid at the rate of £5, while ten years later surveying paid £7.81 Sydney shipwrights, such John Korff or James Munn, sometimes found employment working for underwriters, surveying for Lloyds, Phoenix (Calcutta) or several other marine insurance companies whose headquarters were in Sydney. Where possible, vessels were salvaged and repaired or their parts used in the construction of new vessels.

The wreck of the paddle steamer Ceres in 1836 (constructed by James Marshall and William Lowe of flooded gum at their Deptford shipyard at Clarence Town), provided another shipwright, John Korff who purchased the wreck for £91, with an opportunity to use her hull for the construction of a cutter Rover’s Bride, which he then used to salvage the Ceres engines. In 1840 he used the Ceres’ engines for his new paddle steamer Victoria.82 Other shipwrights, such as Thomas Chowne and Robert Thompson of Pyrmont, used the engines of the paddle steamer Sophia Jane imported from England in 1831 for their new paddle steamer Phoenix in 1846. They used the engine of the imported James Watt for the steamer Eagle in 1848, while another paddle steamer, Sovereign built at their shipyard in 1841, used the salvaged engine of the imported King William IV (wrecked in 1839). Ship-joiner, George Dent,

81 Intestate Records of Edward David, Captain of English whaler, Nelson, SRNSW, 6/3484, File 73, (1832), Bundles 1 & 2. SRNSW, 2/8663, Insolvency Records of John Korff, 19 February 1842, SRNSW, 2/8663, CGS13654, No. 80; John Hardson Lister, 31 January 1843, SRNSW, CGS13654, Item 629. 82 Sydney Gazette, 1 April 1834, 27 September 1836 and 12 November 1836; Commercial Advertiser, 20 February 1839 and 11 January 1840; Sydney Herald, 10 January 1840; Korff, op.cit.

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purchased the wrecked 280-ton ship Macclesfield for a small sum and converted her into a floating workplace, while Sydney engineer, John Russell, successfully built a diving bell for the express purpose of salvaging shipping wrecked on Pacific Islands.83 Salvage was both an opportunity and a threat to local shipbuilding, and its frequent occurrence during this period is partly a reflection of contemporary frugal British values that encouraged the recycling of all scrap.84

Local shipbuilders purpose-built vessels of relatively low draught, designed for servicing these rivers. Such hazards provided both challenges and opportunities for local shipbuilders. They experimented with designs to build vessels of shallow draught while remaining seaworthy; sufficiently sturdy to carry heavy deck cargoes, while being adaptable to the passenger trade. Size and rigging were critical factors in the local shipbuilding industry. Thus cutters and schooners maintained a lead role in the coastal and Pacific trades, while barges were designed as coal carriers in shallow, sheltered waters such as at Lake Macquarie. While availability of capital was a factor in this development, it more often reflected the logistic needs of the colonies (see Diagrams 9 & 10, p. 279a & 279b).

While NSW shipbuilders proved themselves quite capable of building timber ships up to 400 tons before 1850, they had little incentive to do so, due to competition from the availability of relatively cheap second-hand shipping for purchase by investors. Iron- built vessels were a relative novelty, even in Britain where timber was scarce, and as the re-utilisation of (imported) salvaged steam engines and boilers suggest, NSW manufacturing and engineering base had still to reach maturity before work in this field could be contemplated.85 Thus the local shipbuilding industry, which flourished

83 Insolvency papers of George Dent, 11 November 1843, SRNSW CGS 13654, No. 533; The Sentinel, 3 & 17 December 1845. 84 Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those that Will Work, Those that Cannot Work, and Those that Will Not Work: The London Street Folk, Vol. 2, and Vol.4. London, Frank Cass & Co., 1967, (First Edition, 1851). 85 Harry Cole, ‘Explosion on Board the Steamer Native: The Limits of Early Marine Engineering in Colonial New South Wales’, Journal of The Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 92, No. 2, December 2006, pp. 145-164; P.H. Russell, ‘Sir Peter Nichol Russell, 1816-1905, His Family and Associates. Pioneers of the Australian Iron and Engineering Industry’, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings, Vol. 50, Part 2, 1964, pp. 129-143.

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after 1836, drew its strength from the abundance of shipbuilding timber and the need to fill a growing niche coastal and regional trading market.

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Diagram 9:Tonnage Sailing Vessels Built in NSW 1835-1845

Tonnage of Vessels 2500 locally built

2074 2000

1500 1433 1357 1207

1000 1042

808 760 773 619 500

301

0 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845

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Diagram 10:Number of Sailing Vessels Built in NSW 1836-1845

Number of Vessels 50 47 45 40

35 36 30

25 26

20 20 17 18 18 18 15 12 10 9 5

0 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845

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CHAPTER 13: THE SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY, SOME CASE STUDIES

In 1850 Henry Mayhew, journalist for the London newspaper the Morning Chronicle, in a study of London shipwrights and carpenters, remarked on their hard and dangerous work, general respectability, frugality and good education. When fully employed in shipbuilding and repairs, they worked a 12-hour day, six days per week using their own tools, on wages that had not varied for over thirty years.1 While shipwrights and carpenters’ wages in NSW were higher, their general characteristics were similar to those described by Mayhew. Few shipwrights in either NSW or Great Britain ever achieved the status of shipbuilders, most remaining journeymen, without any continuity of employment.2 The shipbuilders who employed them were most frequently qualified shipwrights, although they occasionally were simply financiers hiring labour.3 This Chapter specifically examines some of the careers and business operations of major NSW shipbuilders during the period who identified themselves as shipwrights. Like their London counterparts, NSW shipbuilders were generally respectable tradesmen with sufficient capital to invest in infrastructure development. They relied on establishing networks with potential shipowners, partly earned through their reputation for craftsmanship. Entry into a shipwright’s apprenticeship thus provided a potential avenue for social as well as financial success. In particular, I explore the transitional strategies employed by shipbuilders to move from shipbuilding to ship or land ownership, and the risks incurred in making such transitions.

The level of education and respectability is reflected in the five to seven year apprenticeships undertaken by youths at H.M. Dockyard in Sydney, as carpenters or

1 Henry Mayhew, 5 September 1850, Letter LXVIII, in E.P. Thompson & Eileen Yeo (eds.): The Unknown Mayhew: Selections from the Morning Chronicle, 1849-1850. Merlin Press. Republished by Penguin, Middlesex, 1971. 2 E. J. Hobsbawn, ‘The Tramping Artisan’, Economic History Review, (New Series), Vol. 3, No.3, 1951, pp.299-320. 3 Gwen Dundon, The shipbuilders of Brisbane Water, New South Wales, East Gosford, Gwen Dundon, 1997, pp.48-50, 74-6;

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shipwrights respectively.4 An examination of the work of a Master Shipwright suggests that he needed excellent mathematical, geometrical and draughtsmanship skills, a good understanding of scientific knowledge, navigation and mechanics, bookkeeping and project management skills, and an ability to manage his workforce.5 Not least, a master shipwright required social skills and connections to network among likely investors. Local respectability was marked by social connections, material wealth, landed property and (in 1842), eligibility for the municipal electoral roll), and contributions to religious and charitable organisations.

The number of master shipwrights engaged regularly in shipbuilding during the period scarcely represented more than a dozen firms. Most arrived as emigrants during the period from 1823-1839. Typically they were married, of middle age with connections and capital behind them. A majority (as with the emigrant engineers) were also Scotsmen, with strong links to the Presbyterian Church. Among them were Robert D. Cunnynghame, John William Russell, Alexander Newton and his partners, John Ferrier and William Malcolm, William Lowe and James Marshall. There were some exceptions, such as John Korff, the son of a middle-class German draper from the Hanse states who migrated to London where he made his fortune as a sugar broker. Henry Bass was a Devonshire man, Taylor Winship was the son of a Durham collier, and the Chowne brothers were from the London shipbuilding area of Rotherhithe, sons of a block and mast-maker.

The business of shipbuilding generally required some initial capital investment and social connections, as well as intelligence and education. They were in fact respectable tradesmen whose occupation placed them perhaps uncomfortably apart from both labourers and the middle-class. This social status may be best illustrated

4 W.H. Chapman, Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, SRNSW, 4/3505, Reel 6009, p. 388; Daniel Egan, 8 May 1824, SRNSW, 4/3572, Reel 6013, p.182; John Irving, 8 April 1822, SRNSW, 4/1760, Reel 6055, p.17. 5 Government Order for the appointment of Thomas Moore to the position of Master boat builder at HM dockyard, Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, 13 September 1796, SRNSW, ML Safe 1/18b, Reel 6037; appointment of Daniel Egan to the position of master builder at HM Dockyard, 18 and 28 November 1825, SRNSW, 4/6037, Reel 6070, p.65, and SRNSW, 4/1788, Reel 6064, p.185; letter regarding the qualifications of Thomas Day as a shipwright, 4 October 1822, SRNSW, 4/1756, Reel 6053, p.151.

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through an examination of official household inventories made following insolvency applications. In these we see the juxtaposition of fine glassware with old tin plates, paintings with chests of carpenters’ tools, a collection of ship plans with assorted scrap iron or timber.6 However, the fact that Court-generated household inventories were included at all in calculating the value of their property, also set them apart from middle-class merchants and pastoralists, from whose estate papers these inventories are absent.7

R.D. Cunnynghame: When West Lothian born, R.D. Cunnynghame, arrived in Sydney on the Minerva in 1823 as an emigrant settler, he was already middle-aged.8 He and his son, William, had previously been engaged in an extensive shipbuilding business at Leith, which was adversely affected by a downturn in the Baltic trade.9 He established his shipyard at Dawes Point, adjacent to Robert Campbell’s premises. Cunnynghame came “with recommendations from most respected persons” including men connected with Governor Brisbane.10 He was able to support several convict mechanics during 1824-5, and privately purchased the Lower George Street premises, for an undisclosed price. In 1824 he secured a 2,000-acre Crown land lease at Broken Bay for the purpose of extracting timber for shipbuilding, remarking that the current price of timber purchased from suppliers was too high to make his business viable.11 From 1827-1836, he leased a further 160 acres of land at Brisbane Water from Daniel Egan.12 Cunnynghame’s career reflects that of a respectable tradesman with few pretensions to social advancement. By the mid-1830s Cunnynghame had extended his business at Dawes Point beyond the provision of ship-repair services, to the manufacture of cast iron – a change in focus that is very evident in the inventory of

6 Insolvency Papers, SRNSW, CGS13654, including R.D. Cunnynghame, John Korff, Newton, Ferrier & Co., William H. Chowne. See bibliography for further details. 7 Insolvency Papers, SRNSW, CGS13654, including Thomas Gore, Richard Jones, J. & H. Moore, R.G.Dunlop, Robert Duke & J.J. Curtis, John Jones, J.J. Peacock, and others. See bibliography for further details. Inventories were also a feature of the insolvent papers of mariners and other tradesmen. 8 Malcolm R Sainty & Keith A Johnson (eds.), Census of New South Wales, November 1828, Library of Australian History, Sydney 1985. 9 David Macmillan, Scotland and Australia 1788-1850, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1967, p.92. 10Cunnynghame to Colonial Secretary, 13 March 1824, Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, SRNSW, 4/1778, p. 265c, Reel 6061; and 5/3821.1, p. 2, Fiche 3293. 11 Cunnynghame to Colonial Secretary, June & September 1824, and 1 October 1824, SRNSW, 4/3515, Reel 6013, p.504. 12 Dundon, op.cit., pp.41, 277.

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his insolvent estate in 1844.13 His insolvency papers suggest he was a man who lived frugally, and may have avoided insolvency but for succumbing to the domino effect of the 1840s depression. His name did not appear among those enrolled in Sydney electorate for 1842.14

Cunnynghame’s difficulties had arisen during 1838 when he attempted to minimise mortgage payments on his land at Dawes Battery by selling part of his property on mortgage to David Scott & Co. and leasing another part to merchant J.S. Hanson.15 By 1844, both owed Cunnynghame money, placing pressure on Cunnynghame’s own ability to meet his mortgage payments to Adolphus Young. However, it was not these difficulties that were the immediate cause of his problems, but rather the demands of the trustees of shipowner and merchant, J.J. Peacock, to immediately pay a trifling sum due on that insolvent estate.16 This microscopic view of the interdependency of individuals such as Cunnynghame provides an insight into the dynamics of the depression. As individual insolvency papers suggest, many goods or services were not immediate cash transactions, but relied rather on “good will” through book or store accounts, mortgage, or other forms of credit. Even the wages of shipbuilders’ employees were sometimes deferred for months or years, during which time they received rations and board, supported by store accounts. When market confidence was undermined, “good will” and respectability, proved insufficient to guarantee payment.

Taylor Winship: Taylor Winship, a shipwright arriving in Sydney in November 1834 on the ship James from London at the relatively youthful age of twenty-two years, was given permission almost immediately to commence ship-building and repair operations on Crown land on the Manning River.17 Born at Gateshead, Durham,

13 Advertisement, Commercial Advertiser, 6 July 1835; Insolvency papers of R.D. Cunnynghame, SRNSW, 2/8783, CGS13654, item 1296. 14 The NSW Legislative Council debated the limited property franchise for the municipal rolls in July 1842, and a list of those qualified were published in the Sydney Herald September issues, 1842. 15 Advertisement, Commercial Advertiser, 4 December 1838; Cunnynghame, op.cit. 16 R.D. Cunnynghame, ibid. 17 Land Surveyor’s records, SRNSW, 2/8009, Winship’s letter accompanying his application for land, 5 September 1836, 1199, 36/82; during that early period his correspondence address was given as c/- the Harts buildings in Pitt Street, Sydney.

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Taylor was the son of a wealthy collier of the same name who had testified before a House of Lords’ inquiry into the coal trade in 1830.18 Winship Jnr. became associated with the coal mining industry near Lake Macquarie during the 1840s, placing an advertisement in the Maitland Mercury on 28 September 1844, seeking “good miners accustomed to working coal” for the Lockend Coal Works, at Lake Macquarie “for profitable employment”.19 The fact that this event occurred after he became bankrupt in 1841, suggests that some family intervention may have come his way.

Within two years of his arrival in Sydney, Winship had sufficient capital to not only establish a shipyard, but also to invest in land. He applied for two portions each of 640 acres at the “upset price” of 5s. per acre, four and a half miles below the junction of the Manning and Gloucester Rivers when crown land in the vicinity of the Manning River became available for purchase in 1836. He also sought a smaller area of about fifty acres on Jones Island, close to the now historic steamer port of Croki, expressly for shipbuilding, expressing his anxiety to commence ship building there “as early as possible”.20 As the colonial government discouraged the disposal of small allotments, this latter request was refused. Nevertheless, Winship obtained land near Taree, where he established Chatham shipyard, possibly initially leasing land from William Wynter, before obtaining a further 640 acres bounded by the Manning and Dawson Rivers in October 1839.21 Despite the loss of his property in a reversal of his fortune during the 1840s depression, he was able to re-establish his shipbuilding activities, establishing a shipyard at Stockton before eventually settling near Ipswich,

18 Coal Trade, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix 3 April 1830, Journal of the House of Lords, Vol. 62, pp. 1495-1498, question 207. Taylor was described simply as a “gentleman”; on 1 March 1813 Taylor Winship senior made an inquiry about the Cowpen colliery, including measures to counteract the effects of a creep (NRO 3410/Bud/32/135, North of England Institute of Mining and mechanical Engineers); in a letter from James Davison to J. Heppell, he refers to an enclosed letter from Taylor Winship (senior) that suggests he had a particular interest in the working of the limestone at Cowpen, (NRO 2410/Bell/8/1, March 1817). 19 Winship was probably acting as agent for merchant RM Robey, from whom he had received shipbuilding contracts, for the mining company’s use. 20 Taylor Winship to the Surveyor General, Land records, 5 September 1836, SRNSW, 2/8009. 21 Ibid., 21 October 1839, No. 39/12, 233. This land appears to have been assigned to creditors, prior to his insolvency in February 1842. These included William Wynter, and early surviving parish maps suggest that Wynter and his family held most of the land in this location.

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where he played an active role as post-master, bridge-builder, and shipbuilder.22 He demonstrated his respectability by participating in church activities and donating stained glass windows, pulpits and furnishings for the new St Paul’s Anglican Church established at Moreton Bay in May 1874.23

John Korff: John Korff preferred to display his respectability in material ways, collecting jewellery and elegant furniture, while mixing in “respectable” company.24 The background of John Korff, the third son of a German draper who emigrated from Brunswick to London, is indicative of the respectability and education of shipwrights.25 Korff’s father became a wealthy sugar broker in London, a profession that John Korff’s brothers also followed. John chose to enter an apprenticeship as a shipwright at H.M. Deptford shipyards, and on the completion of his apprenticeship his father gave him a sufficient share of his inheritance to establish his own shipyards at Lowestoft, on the Suffolk coast. John married Mary Gordon, the daughter of wealthy London shipowner and merchant Robert Gordon.26 When Korff’s shipbuilding business at Lowestoft became bankrupt in 1833, Korff’s wife and children went to live temporarily with her parents in Blackwall, London, while Korff was left with the task of resurrecting his fortune.27 He used his family connection with Sydney merchant Alexander Spark (who was incidentally Robert Gordon’s Sydney agent), and a good reference from J.E. Manning, to establish himself in the colony, gaining his first contract, the building of the 196-ton Victoria steamer for the Australian Steam Navigation Company, of which they were major shareholders.28

22 Maitland Mercury, 2 October 1847, 8 July & 13 September 1848. 23 Moreton Bay Gazette, May 1874. 24 Probate Papers of John Korff, granted 22 February 1871, SRNSW, 14/3454, NSR-ITM 234191, Series 1, No. 8831; G.L. Abbott & G. Little (eds.), The Respectable Sydney Merchant. A.B. Spark of Tempe, Sydney University Press, Sydney 1976, pp.117,131,160,163 & 231. 25 George E. England, ‘Korff, John’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 5, Melbourne, MUP, 1974, p.40. 26 PRO 11/1700, 1825: Probate of William Conrad Korff proven at London on 13 June 1825. 27 Records of St Dunstan’s Church, Stepney, 12 December 1821. 28 The family relationship with Spark was through John’s wife, Mary nee Gordon. During Korff’s absences, Spark remarks in his diaries that Mary frequently visited the Sparks’ home. G.J. Abbott & G.Little (eds), The Respectable Sydney Merchant. A.B. Spark of Tempe,Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1976. Letter from A.B. Spark, 16 May 1842 to NSW Insolvency Court, Insolvency Papers of John Korff, 19 February 1842, SRNSW, 2/8663, CGS13654, No. 80.

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Korff leased a 2,000-acre Millers Forest estate on the Hunter River in 1837, for the establishment of his shipyards, which he called “Victoria Dockyard” at £225 per annum. Five years later, Korff claimed he had spent £1,900 in “improvements,” including plant at his shipyard. These included launching ways, blocks, blacksmith shop, capstans, copper sheathing, nails, evaluated at £425 in 1842, which (allowing for depreciation) was not insignificant. In addition, Korff had 25 tons of Manilla rope, and about 19,000 feet of sawn timber worth almost £1,000, against which he had borrowed. Additional expenses included rental of Henry Bass’s shipyard and wharf called “Rosebank” at Balmain for £250, and (unpaid) wages for his clerk, two shipwrights, an engineer, and labourers.29 Bass was clearly more comfortably off, having privately purchased Captain Piper’s property at Balmain at “enormous expense” in 1832 not long after his arrival, constructed a shipyard and a wharf extending 110 feet into Darling Harbour.30 Bass also purchased a number of properties along the Maria, Paterson and Williams’ rivers; in Kent Street, Miller’s Point; on the Hawkesbury River, as well as land at Bradley’s Head, where he constructed another shipyard.31

Despite his investment, Korff’s shipbuilding activities at Victoria Dockyard were fairly limited. His main sources of income appeared to be linked with conducting repairs and survey work for the steamship Company. The Company purchased the Victoria for £16,000 although how much of this Korff received before the Company went into liquidation is not very clear.32 In January 1840, Korff was appointed Manager of the Company, with a salary of £800 per annum.33 Korff’s fortunes followed the fate of the Company that sponsored him.34 Nevertheless, following his retirement from the shipbuilding industry and with income derived from his positions as Surveyor for Lloyd’s Insurance, Manager of the Fitzroy iron field, and various

29 Insolvency Papers of John Korff, 19 February 1842, SRNSW, 2/8663, CGS13654, No. 80. 30 Bass, Colonial Secretary’s Land Records (1832-1837), 27 December 1831, 10 January 1832, 32/1071, 13 November 1832, 32/8476, SRNSW, 2/7797, Reel 1089. 31 Ibid, 20 March 1833, 133/33 & 4 April 1833, 169/33. 32 Korff alleged in testimony to the NSW Supreme Court Insolvency Court that he had earned nothing from this contract, Ibid. 33 Spark, op.cit. 4 March 1840, p.117. 34 Ibid, 13 January 1840, 19 March 1840, 6 April 1842, p. 141.

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investments (not least through his wife’s family’s support), Korff’s finances improved significantly.35 By the time he died in 1870, Korff had acquired 164 acres of land at Auckland, owned land at Manly (on Sydney Harbour’s North Shore), Raymond Terrace, Hartley, and most importantly at Glebe. Here he maintained his residence at “Orchard Farm” stretching from Hereford Street to Hoxteth Street. He also invested in the Australian Joint Stock Company, and accumulated some valuable personal property. 36 Korff’s career, as reflected in available personal records, suggests that he devoted more effort to acquiring the trappings of middle class status than to performing the work of his profession as a shipwright.

J.W. Russell: Among the most energetic NSW shipbuilders was John William Russell, who arrived in Sydney from London in May 1831 on the Sophia Jane, under the command of ex-Naval Lieutenant Edward Biddulph.37 Russell was one of a large family of Scottish descent at Old Monkland, near Glasgow.38 Biddulph provided him a valuable introduction into colonial society. An enterprising long-term resident, Biddulph had long-established London and East-Indian banking and business connections and local commercial, land and shipping interests.39 He was a shareholder in the Australian Steam Conveyance Company formed in 1833 to establish a steam service on the Parramatta River.40 Russell received a contract for the construction of the Company’s first steamer, Australia, while Biddulph’s newly

35 Ibid. October, 1851, p. 207, 28 May 1851. In November 1854, Korff’s wife purchased part of the Glebe estate for £3000, ibid,, 22 November 1854; Colonial Secretary’s Land Records, (1854), SRNSW, 2/7901, Reel. 1150. Korff was listed as the Manager of the Fitzroy Iron mine and Marine Surveyor in the Sydney Commercial Street Directory of 1851. 36 Probate Papers of John Korff, SRNSW, 14/3454, NSR-ITM 234191, Series 1, No. 8831, granted 22 February 1871. 37 Russell, Colonial Secretary Land Records, 25 November 1834, SRNSW, 2/7964, 34/8555, and 26 November 1834, ibid., 34/8605. 38 Parish Records: Old Monkland, Scotland, christening of John Russell on 27 July 1794 to Alexander Russell and Ann (nee Tennant). Although John’s parentage was not disclosed on his NSW death certificate in August 1872, the essential clue to his parentage is in the names of witnesses at his marriage to Clarissa Rebecca Leggatt whom he married at St Andrews Scots Church in Sydney on 27 June 1842. Flower Russell, his best man, was in fact an older brother. 39 Business partners, Robert Biddulph and Alexander Davidson of London and Calcutta were offered contracts to supply the tiny convict colony with clothing, fabric, blankets and shoes by Governor Phillip June 1792, Phillip to Nepean, 26 June 1792, HRA, Series 1, Vol.1, pp. 355-359. 40 Sydney Morning Herald, 16 April 1833; Sydney Gazette 20 April 1833.

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formed engineering works won a contract for its engine and boilers.41 Russell completed the construction of the hull at shipyards at Clarence Town on the Williams River, owned by shipwright H.T. Bass early in 1834.42 On 28 July 1834, Russell acquired this property, while maintaining a Sydney address “c/- Captain Biddulph’s Wharf”, Sydney.43 He made additional land purchases at Clarence Town until, by the end of 1840 (when he was also well established in Kent Street, Church Hill, Sydney), he owned over 200 acres of land in the Clarence Town area along the Williams River.44 Russell also acquired land at Pyrmont. Alexander Sparke noted in his diary on 12 December 1839 that waterside allotments at Pyrmont were fetching upward of £3,500 per acre at public auction, and it is likely Russell’s purchase occurred at this time.45 In May 1842 Russell offered the whole or part of his “excellent” holding in the form of seventeen building allotments on Pyrmont and Union Streets for sale.46 He retained part of his Pyrmont holding, in particular his shipyard and wharf in Union Street at the site of the present day National Maritime Museum.47 Since Russell’s name does not appear among the purchasers of Major Edward Macarthur’s Pyrmont estate sold at auction between 27 July 1840 and 27 July 1843, it appears probable Russell completed the private purchase outright when it was made available in 1839.48

41 Sydney Gazette, 10 August 1833, 19 September 1833, and 25 January 1834. The Company had initially voted £2,000 for the whole project. 42 Letter from John William Russell to the Chairman of the Australian Steam Conveyance Company, referred to in the Company’s meeting and quoted in its report in Sydney Gazette dated 25 January 1834. Russell purchased the land from Bass in 1834. 43 Russell purchased two allotments – Lot 26 situated in the town of Clarence, in the Parish of Uffington for the sum of £3 and 15 shillings which he paid on the 14 November, (Deed of Grant, (34/8555, dated 25 November 1834). He also purchased Lot 9 there, paying £3/10/5 in two instalments on the 10 October and 10 November. The Deed of grant dated 13 December 1834,Colonial Secretary Land Records, SRNSW, 2/7964, 34/8605. 44 Early Parish Maps show that John William Russell owned four allotments there, including one of one rood, 29 perches, and the second of two perches and eight perches next to the wharf and timber depots. All had frontages to the river. On 2 May 1840 Russell, then of Kent Street, Church Hill Sydney, applied for an additional 100 acres of land in the County of Durham, Parish of Uffington, near Clarence Town describing it as “bounded on the north by J.J. Therry’s 690 acres, on the east by J.W. Russell’s 100 acres, on the South by a part of A. Fisher’s 1,800 acres & on the west by a Section line,” Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, Land Grants, 30 May 1840, SRNSW, 4/5465. 45 Ibid., p.114. 46 Sydney Free Press, 26 May 1842. 47 Probate Packet of John William Russell, 31 August 1872, SRNSW, 14/3477, NSR-ITM 234948, Series 1, No. 9595. 48 Macarthur Papers, Vol. 109, Miscellaneous MSS, 1787-1888, CY Reel 774, Mitchell Library D185.

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After completing the construction of Australia, Russell secured a tender from the Australian Agricultural Company for construction of the schooner Carrington at Clarence Town in 1835, as well as the sloop Jane and Emma for James Lee at Sydney.49 In 1836, he successfully employed a novel piece of ship engineering by cutting the failed Tamar Steam Navigation Company’s vessel, the Tamar (sold on to Sydney owners, J.T Wilson and Thomas Burdekin in December 1834), in half, then lengthening her by thirty feet for employment on the Hunter River run.50 In addition to repair work, Russell built at least twenty vessels between 1834 and 1849 with a total tonnage of 1,046 tons burthen. These were mostly schooners, but included two paddle steamers, the Australia and the Maitland, a brigantine of 204 tons, the Jewess, in 1839, and a flat-bottomed barque, the of 123 tons in 1844, designed to carry heavy goods such as timber across shallow river bars. He also designed the brig Freak for the ship’s carpenter, W.H. Chowne (brother of Sydney shipwright, Thomas) of the Clarence River.51

Most shipbuilders preferred to secure contracts for ship construction rather than engage in speculative building. Russell’s largest vessel, the Jewess, was built at his Sydney shipyard at Walsh Bay for Sydney auctioneer, merchant and shipowner, Isaac Simmons, who had a special interest in the South Pacific (particularly in sandalwood) and Mauritius trades, and the 204-ton vessel was admirably suited for these purposes.52 He built another schooner, the Clarence of 67 tons, at the Williams River, for Sydney merchant, Gordon Sandeman.53 The little schooner Echo, apparently built on speculation in 1843, was sold to C.J. Irwin in July 1845. He shared part-ownership

49 Parsons (2003), op.cit.,. p.55. 50 R. Parsons (1973), op.cit.,, p. 6 and R. Parsons (2003), op.cit.,, p. 69. 51 The Freak was built for Captain T.B. Simpson for the China trade, and launched in June 1847, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 10 July 1847. 52 Commercial Advertiser, 1 May 1839 and 10 July 1839. 53 The rationale for suggesting this vessel was constructed by Russell, rests wholly on the fact that it was known to have been built at the Williams River, and its name, the Clarence suggests it may have been built at Clarence Town, where Russell owned a shipyard and slip, where he had launched at least a half dozen other vessels.

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with William Birch of the 48-ton schooner Friends built at Clarence Town in 1836.54 Russell, however, rarely built ships on speculation, the cutter Hope (38 tons) built in 1839 and sold to W.H. Sawyer in June 1840, being an exception.

Speculative shipbuilding relied heavily on personal reputation, and good publicity, such as Russell acquired from his association with the steam navigation trade.55 However, the ultimate success of speculative shipbuilding depended very clearly on a careful analysis of market trends. The market for local shipping was flat during 1840- 1842, as would-be investors attempted to rein in their spending. However, by 1843, demand for coastal shipping (including Bass Strait) improved. Intended freight markets affected the demand for vessels, determining their specifications as to size, draught, rigging and fitting. The coastal trades favoured local shipbuilders who could construct new shipping based on their understanding of local conditions.

Russell was able to avoid insolvency that beset a number of other leading shipwrights during the 1840s. He was, in fact, able to use the financial crisis to his advantage. In 1841 Russell purchased the brig Siren (141 tons) from her bankrupt Sydney shipowner William Wright, after she struck Tory Shoal entering Kaipara Harbour, New Zealand.56 Although condemned, she was taken a hundred miles up river to Robert Stephenson’s establishment. In this case, he appears not to have registered her in Sydney. He also purchased the hulk of the wrecked Macclesfield in 1844, intending to salvage the wreckage for parts.57 Such purchases suggest a man of some frugality, however the salvaging of wrecks was certainly not an uncommon practice among shipbuilders in the colony, as demonstrated in the previous chapter. Shipbuilders frequently purchased old wrecks cheaply, stripping them of all valuable building materials – timber, frameworks, iron, masts, rigging and sails –salvaging whatever

54 C. Bateson (1972), op.cit., p.118. She lost within months possibly off the North Cape of New Zealand with a cargo of cedar, where the wreck of a carvel-built schooner was sighted in January 1837. 55 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 14 March 1846. The report also noted the level of activity of Russell’s rival shipbuilder at Pyrmont, Thomas Chowne, who was not only in the process of building two schooners, but was also busy with repairs to another vessel. 56 Sydney Free Press, 16 January 1841. 57 The wreck of the Macclesfield was purchased by ship-joiner George Dent, and was moored at Circular Wharf. Dent’s trustees sold her to Russell, after he became insolvent, Insolvency papers of George Dent, 11 November 1843, SRNSW, CGS13654, No. 533.

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materials they could in order to cut building costs, or repairing them for re- registration.

Unusually, Russell retained ownership of many vessels he built, including two vessels over 100 tons. The brig City of Sydney built in 1841 was used in the Launceston trade until she was transferred to the Launceston registry in 1846. The flat-bottomed barque, Golden Fleece, built in 1844, was used for transporting timber, especially cedar from the northern rivers, suggestive of a growing shortage of suitable timbers at the Williams River shipyard. She was totally wrecked attempting to cross a bar on the Richmond River in 1847, laden with a cargo of cedar.58 He also retained ownership of six other small vessels, ranging from 11-61 tons, employing them in the coastal trade.59 Russell was clearly diversifying into ship ownership, building vessels for use in the coastal and Bass Strait trades. Some further evidence of this transition is his purchase of the whaling brigs, Lindsays, in 1842 (which he owned jointly with Sydney merchant and ship chandler, Francis Mitchell) and the Genii, (built in Dorset) in September 1844, purchased from Francis Mitchell’s trustees.60 The transfer of ownership of these whalers to Russell and Mitchell probably represented payment of outstanding repair debts. However, Russell’s acquisitions also included a share of their oil cargo. He sold the Genii the following year to George Blaxland, master mariner, landowner and trader.61

One very sound reason for the shipwright to diversify from his original trade by the mid-1840s was the nature of the trade itself. Shipbuilding was very heavy work, requiring much physical strength and stamina. By the mid-1840s, Russell had passed

58 Sydney Morning Herald, 14 April, 11 and 17 May, 1847. See also C. Bateson, Australian Shipwrecks, Vol. 1, A..H. & A.W. Reed, Artarmon, 1972. 59 These included the 22-ton schooner Eclipse launched in 1842, the 21-ton Echo in 1843, the 30-ton schooner Cygnet in 1846, the 61-ton schooner Clarissa (named after his wife, Clarissa) whom he married in 1842) and the schooners, Midas (12 tons) and Medina (12 tons) launched in 1849, Parsons (2003), op.cit.,. p. 84. 60 Sydney Free Press, 15 March 1842, p. 3; The Lindsays was a 219-ton whaling ship built in Bermuda in 1813, and taken as a prize to Hobart. She was a frequent visitor to Sydney during the late 1830s onward and her registration transferred to N.S.W. in 1842. Francis Mitchell held 48/64 shares in her, while Russell held the remaining 16 shares, and the ship was sold to James Williamson (probably Mitchell’s creditor) in September 1844, with Russell probably using the proceeds of her sale to purchase the Genii; See also R. Parsons (2003), op.cit., p.81. 61 R. Parsons, (2003) op. cit., p.26.

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his prime physically and needed to consider other ways of securing an income. In the shipbuilding trade that involved employing a skilled and trusted workforce (often including family members), gaining employment as Marine Surveyors for marine insurance companies (like John Korff and James Munn), or relying on private, casual surveying contracts from shipmasters or investors.

Russell’s Will provides some evidence of modest success both as a shipbuilder and in his more speculative ventures. He died on the 30 July 1872 at the age of 77 years at his home in Union Street Pyrmont, leaving his wife (Clarissa) and son (John) as co- executors.62 His wife was bequeathed £500 to be paid immediately on his death, together with all the furniture and effects in their home in Union Street, Pyrmont. Clarissa also received land and dwellings in Riley Street, Woolloomooloo, purchased from ship-owner, Joseph Simmons on 21 January 1860; 100 acres of land with buildings and property on the Williams River, NSW, and two improved allotments in Union Street, Pyrmont, together with the buildings there. His son, John William Jnr., Pyrmont shipbuilder, received the Clarence Town allotment, and the residue of his real and personal estate. When probate was filed, his property was sworn at £400.

Lowe and Marshall: William Lowe and James Marshall, arriving in Sydney in September 1828 aboard the Tiger, forged a shipbuilding partnership.63 They took their time examining the coastline and rivers for potential sites for their enterprise, meeting potential financiers, merchants, shipowners and captains, as well as competitors in the trade. Among these were influential members of the Scots Presbyterian Church.64 Lowe’s family was descended from the Huguenots.65 He was a very active member of the Presbyterian Church, acting as trustee for the Committee of the Clarence Town Presbyterian Church Committee between 1848-1853.66

62 NSW Death Registry, Certificate, 1872/1039, and Probate papers, 31 August 1872, SRNSW, 14/3477, NSR-ITM 234948, Series 1, No. 9595. 63 Colonial Secretary: Reports of Vessels Arrived, Tiger, September 1828, SRNSW, 4/5199, Reel 1263. 64 Among them were Robert Campbell, Richard Jones, A.B.Spark, the Aspinall, Browne, Manning, Blaxland, and Raine families, the Surveyor-General, T.L. Mitchell, and of course Rev. John Dunmore Lang, Memorial to the Secretary of State, dated 12 January 1831, HRA, Series 1, Vol. 16. 65 H. Lowe in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 2, Melbourne University Press, 1967, p. 137. 66 Land Records (1848-1853), SRNSW, 2/7910, Item 1154, 1848-1853.

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Born on 21 July 1805 at Leith, Scotland, William Lowe was the second son of William Lowe, a landed proprietor, and Margaret (née Steel) of Stirling. At the age of 14 years William was apprenticed to the shipbuilding trade at the Royal Dockyard at Deptford. On completing his apprenticeship he was sent to Stettin, Prussia, to work on the building of several ships and staying there for three years. The Prussian contract may well have been won as a result of the family’s Huguenot connections, with which many of its Prussian citizens had affiliations. He returned to Scotland, where he received his share of his father’s estate, a considerable sum. He then sailed for South America, visiting Ecuador, Peru and Chile, before sailing from Valparaiso for Sydney. He and a fellow traveller, James Marshall, proved themselves so very useful repairing damage suffered in a gale, that the captain refunded their passage money. 67

In 1830 Lowe took up ten acres on the Williams River, where there was good hardwood and cedar, and adjacent to eleven acres owned by Sydney merchant, J.H. Grose. He built a wet dock near Clarence Town, establishing the Deptford shipyard there in 1830, where vessels could be floated for repairs, and was later joined by Marshall.68 In 1832 Marshall and Lowe purchased a 640-acre allotment on the Williams River, as tenants in common, from the Episcopal Church and Land Corporation, for a cash payment of £162/13/4 on 16 January.69 The property was called Mount Pleasant, and was retained by Marshall when the company terminated acrimoniously in April 1836.70 In September 1836, Lowe purchased an additional 1,120 acres on the Williams River in the County of Durham.71 On this occasion however he encountered stiff competition, and after paying a 10% deposit of £112,

67 NSW Death Certificate: 5237/1878, Clarence Town, NSW. 68 Parsons (1973), op.cit., p. 4, suggests that Joseph Grose actually set Marshall and Lowe up in business specifically to build his paddle steamer, William the Fourth. While it is possible that Grose suggested the site of their yard to them, and provided some advance capital as an incentive for its early completion, perhaps even offering a bonus if completed quickly, evidence of Marshall and Lowe’s extensive travels before their arrival, and Lowe’s later land purchases, make it more likely that both had capital to invest in their business and land on their arrival in New South Wales. 69 Lowe and Marshall (1832-1842), Land Records, SRNSW, 2/7910, Nos.39/6907, 42/8908 and 42/6532; however, the Office of Inland Revenue mislaid the receipts for this land transaction (which were not located until late 1842 among the papers associated with the Episcopal Church) and a Deed was finally executed in January 1843. 70 A. B. Sparke (Abbott, G. & Little, G. (eds. 1976), op.cit., 27 April 1836, p.61. 71 Colonial Secretary Land Records, SRNSW, op.cit.

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was forced to borrow money to complete the deal, raising the additional £1,008 by 24 November 1836.72

By February 1831 Marshall and Lowe had built some small craft on the Williams River, and were building the 54-ton steamer, William the Fourth for J.H. Grose, launched in October 1831.73 They used flooded gum and ironbark for the structure and treenails, native pine for decking, and cedar for cabins. Launched under sail, it was brought to Sydney to be fitted out with (imported) engines and boiler by engineer, Captain Alexander Pattison of the Phoenix Foundry, on the 14 November 1831. When finally launched as the first ocean-going steamer in New South Wales, Lowe and Marshall’s business enterprise received extensive free publicity in the local press.74 They almost immediately received a contract for the 37-ton Experiment, worth £1,500 to Lowe and Marshall, from Captain Biddulph, designed for the Parramatta trade. However her launching attracted unfavourable publicity through no fault of her shipbuilders.75 The river’s tide proved too strong for the horses used (on the principle of the treadmill), and the seventy or more guests aboard were hastily offloaded. The treadmill system may have worked on England’s inland canal system, but was entirely unsuitable for a tidal river such as the Parramatta. Unwilling to risk further capital installing a steam engine, Biddulph sold her to J.E. Manning at a loss. Manning promptly installed an engine to engage her in the Parramatta trade.

Although Lowe was among the formative shareholders in the Australian Steam Conveyance Company formed in April 1833, with a capital of £2,000, for the construction of a local steamer for the Parramatta River trade, Marshall and Lowe failed to secure a tender for the construction of the new steamer, the Australia.76 Biddulph was one of its Directors. When rival shipbuilder, J.W. Russell secured the contract in 1833, it apparently caused rancour among some “operative” shareholders. Marshall and Lowe opted for a more lucrative tender to construct a hull for the newly

72 William Lowe, Land Records, 26 November 1836, SRNSW, 2/7910, Reel 1154, No.36/9853. 73 Sydney Gazette, 15 October 1831, 14 November 1831 and 3 January 1832. 74 Ibid., 3 January 1832. 75 Ibid., 9 October 1832. 76 Ibid., 12 April 1833.

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formed Hunter River Steam Packet Association, the Ceres, worth £4,000.77 The completion of the Ceres’ contract marked the end of Marshall and Lowe’s shipbuilding partnership.78 Both subsequently worked independently at the William’s River. Between them they built over twenty vessels between 1831 and 1842. These included four paddle steamers Experiment, William the Fourth and Ceres and the Aphrasia (54 tons) in 1841, seven small cutters and at least five schooners. The extent to which they continued to work together in their trade as shipwrights after 1836 remains unclear from available records. The majority of the vessels were employed by their owners in the Hunter River trade, as even relatively small vessels such as the cutter Delight (45 tons), built by James Marshall, and registered to Mr. Peek for the Paterson River trade, could be put to productive employment at relatively small initial cost. The Delight cost its owner £650 to build, but brought 1,800 bushels grain destined for the Sydney market on just one run.79

Lowe secured more contracts than his former partner, his success related to several factors. Firstly, Lowe was proactive in social networking, not only through his work within the Presbyterian Church, but also through his business associations. He remained one of the Directors of the Australian Steam Conveyance Company from its inception in 1833 until its failure in 1836.80 While Marshall continued his shipbuilding career after the dissolution of his partnership with Lowe, he diverted most of his energy and finances into developing his horse stud, cattle grazing and

77 Ibid., 1 April 1834; Spark, op. cit, pp. 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 64, and 66-7. The Ceres’ final launching under steam was delayed until 1836, while Sydney engineers waited for her engines and boilers to arrive from Great Britain. The Company was forced into liquidation, when the vessel was lost of Bird Island the same year, apparently uninsured and unregistered. Parsons (1973), p. 78. 78 Spark, 27 April 1836, op.cit. Spark was called upon to arbitrate between the partners in the settlement of the company’s assets. 79 Commercial Advertiser and Journal, 8 February 1843. 80 The Australian Steam Conveyance Company was launched on 12 April 1833, with the intention of raising funds for building a steamer for the Parramatta trade. Sydney Gazette, 16 April 1833 and 25 January 1834. Lowe was an operative Director. Among its other directors were chairman George Bunn who died in late 1833, and John Thomas Wilson. The latter was to briefly set up a rival steamer service before defaulting on his creditors by leaving the colony.

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agricultural interests at Mount Pleasant.81 He mortgaged the property to the Australian Trust Company in 1841, and by 1842 owed debts in excess of £2,000.82

There is also some evidence to suggest that Marshall was unreliable. Correspondence and testimony of witnesses at his insolvency’ hearings revealed that Marshall failed to keep accurate accounts, fraudulently attempted to hide assets to evade his creditors, and gained little employment as a shipwright during the previous few years. Among his alleged assets he included the 92-ton schooner, built on the McLeay in 1843. He claimed he sold his three-quarters share in the vessel to builders, Brodie and Craig, for £600 some months before, when in fact the bailiffs seized her from his own property.83 There is some doubt whether the Comet was ever his property.

By mid-April 1843, Lowe was pre-occupied with a legal dispute with Edye Manning over ownership of a schooner, Comet, he had just completed at his Deptford shipyard subsequently registered.84 Lowe had commenced building the schooner prior to March 1842 when Edye Manning, T. Morris and George Coke agreed to purchase shares to help finance her conversion into a steam packet for employment on the Hunter, Williams and Patterson Rivers. Lowe agreed to complete the whole project (including fittings & machinery) within six months. On 3 April 1843 he went to NSW Customs Office to obtain a registry, paying the costs of registration, claiming to be the sole owner. Manning and his party subsequently brought an action against him in the local Court for making a false declaration for the purpose of obtaining a registry certificate. Lowe was initially convicted and required to pay a penalty of £500 under the 1833 Ship’s Registry Act.85

Lowe took the matter to the Appeals Court who overturned the original conviction and penalty, finding that the contract to build a vessel did not confer title in the

81 Insolvency papers of James Marshall, shipwright of the Williams River, dated 24 July 1844,SRNSW, 2/8783, CGS13654, No. 1293. 82 Ibid, schedule E and evidence. 83 Ibid. 84 R v. William Lowe, SRNSW, 2/3465, Supreme Court, 11/1843 – Select Cases vol. 7, p.85, in T.D. Castle & Bruce Kercher (eds), Dowling’s Select Cases 1828-1844: Decisions of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, The Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History, Sydney 2005, pp. 957-963. 85 3 & 4 William 4c.55 (1833.

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purchasers, prior to its fulfilment. It also found that the Justices had no legal authority to hear the case, as the Ship’s Registry Act did not relate to trade or customs, and was in fact within the jurisdiction of the Court of Records or Vice-Admiralty Court. While Manning had advanced £1,000, there was no proof that either Morris or Coke contributed to her cost. Ultimately, Captain Robert Cork, creditor to the insolvent estate of the Comet’s purchaser (Newton, Ferrier and Malcolm), became the vessel’s owner and shipmaster, and she remained a schooner.86 Thus Marshall had no claim at all on the Comet. When the Supreme Court refused to release Marshall from his debts, he drowned himself in the Williams River.87

Chowne Brothers: Not all master shipwrights began their colonial shipbuilding careers with sound financial resources. The Chowne brothers (Thomas, Edward Gardiner, William Henry, Joseph and John) had insufficient capital (and social networks) when they established their shipbuilding company, in co-partnership with shipwright Robert Thompson, at Pyrmont in 1840.88 During 1831, William Henry Chowne was serving as a ship-carpenter on the English whaling barque Nelson when it called at Port Jackson.89 By 1839, he and his brother, Edward accompanied the Small family, formerly Kissing Point shipbuilders, to the Clarence River, where they established sawpits.90 His elder brother, Thomas (with wife and two surviving children) arrived at Port Jackson on the Prince Regent in 17 March 1839, as a bounty immigrant.91

86 Marshall, Insolvency, op.cit. List of Colonial Shipping, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 13 September 1849. 87 Maitland Mercury, 25 January 1845. 88 Macarthur Papers, Vol. 109, Miscellaneous MSS, 1787-1888, CY Reel 774, Mitchell Library D185. According to Macarthur’s notes the company’s payments had fallen behind, and subsequent litigation between Thomas and his brother William had resulted in their land purchase arrange being jeopardised. 89 Entitlement Certificates of Persons on Bounty Ships, 1832-42, Prince Regent, SRNSW, 4/4847, Reel 1305. 90 Clarence River Historical Society, http://clarencehistory.org.au/documents/small_john.html, 2 May 2007. 91 Immigrant Ships arriving in New South Wales, 1828-96, Prince Regent, 17 March 1839, SRNSW, 4/4780, left London 11 November 1838, Reels 2654.

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Chowne’s father, William, had been a mast-maker, while his wife’s father, Thomas Smith, worked as a sail-maker at Rotherhithe.92 The family were therefore from a class of “respectable tradesmen.” His wife, Elizabeth Jane, was distinguished from the majority of assisted female passengers in that she was “brought up at home,” and therefore knew no trade.93 They were entrusted by a “gentleman’s family” with protecting a young female servant on their outward voyage, who probably assisted with the care of their children.94 The timing of his arrival suggests that the family may have fallen upon hard times. Many skilled marine artisans arrived in the colony as unassisted passengers. Thomas’s arrival at the age of thirty-eight placed him outside the age range of desirable artisans sought by the colony.95 Two brothers, William and Joseph, had accepted financial responsibility for ensuring that their widowed mother, Maria, at least secured a more comfortable cabin passage from London.96 By 1842, Maria was living in her son William’s home on their Pyrmont estate, later accompanying him when he settled at the Clarence River.97 A description of the Pyrmont home’s contents suggested it was comfortable if sparsely furnished, and contained a typical array of artisan’s tools.98

It was not until July 1840 that Thomas and William Chowne, and their partner Robert Thompson, jointly purchased partially improved land at Mount Street, Pyrmont, from Major Edward Macarthur to establish their shipyard at Johnson’s Bay.99 The co- tenancy was to prove a financial headache for Macarthur, as under the lease-purchase terms of the land sale, the purchasers were allowed to complete payment over an

92 Chowne, Entitlement Certificate, op.cit.,SRNSW, 4/4847, Reel 1305. Thomas Chowne was christened at St Johns, Horsleydowns, London, and married Elizabeth Jane Smith (“Betsy”) in March 1827. 93 The majority of assisted female immigrants (whether married or single) were house servants, farm servants, needlewomen, or dairywomen, “useful” trades giving them eligibility for immigration.

94 Entitlement Certificates of Persons on Bounty Ships, 1832-42, SRNSW, 4/4847, Reel 1305, Prince Regent, for Caroline Ellen (Durban?). Thomas and Elizabeth had brought four children on the voyage, Thomas William (aged 10); William Edward (8), Henrietta (3) and Charles (6 mths.) Only the two eldest survived the voyage. 95 Bourke to Goderich, 11 April 1832, HRA, Series 1, Vol. 16, pp. 608-610. 96 Insolvency papers of William Henry Chowne, 16 June 1842, SRNSW, 2/8691, CGS13654, No. 321. 97 She was buried at Woodford Island, when she died in 1854, NSW Death registrations, V18542347 41A, and Clarence River Historical Society, op.cit. 98 Insolvency papers of William Henry Chowne, op.cit.. 99 Macarthur Papers, Vol. 109, Miscellaneous MSS, 1787-1888, CY Reel 774, Mitchell Library D185

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extended period. The co-tenancy depended on the continued goodwill of the parties. Unfortunately, it was soon apparent that animosity existed between the brothers. Bass (possibly in the role of guild master) was called on to adjudicate between the brothers. Arguments arose as to how the business finances were to be managed, and eventually the three partners signed a written agreement that all financial transactions required the co-signature of the three parties. 100

By November 1841 the brothers were dead-locked over the issue of whether to use their limited savings to pay their creditors and employee’s wages, or to wait until they recovered money from their contract for building the Tamar steam tug, the Gipsy, launched in July. On 21 November, William Chowne decided to take the matter into his own hands. He sold his recently completed schooner Ranger, with a nominal value of £250, built with the assistance of three apprentices at the Pyrmont shipyard, to Darling Harbour shipwright George Watson, one of his creditors, for £130.101 The vessel was originally built for Samuel Thompson, at a cost of ₤80. Thompson had taken no steps to claim her, so William took the initiative to sell her. Thomas immediately accused him of removing her “clandestinely.” He filed a criminal action against his brother, for half share of the vessel (₤125) and for other business debts. He placed an advertisement in the newspapers to ensure that neither William, nor anyone else, could benefit by the sale. As the vessel was neither registered nor complete, this placed Watson in something of a predicament. William (with Watson’s consent) offered to return the vessel if his brother withdrew the criminal charge and made a financial settlement. His brothers, Joseph and Edward, also petitioned Thomas on his behalf, without success. The criminal court determined the case was a civil matter

100 Sydney Herald, 6 May 1842, NSW Supreme Court: Chowne v Chowne; Insolvency Papers of William Henry Chowne, op.cit. 101 The Gipsy was built for the Tamar Steam Navigation Company, Sydney Free Press, 29 July 1841, p.2. William Chowne found it necessary to borrow money from shipwrights, George Watson and William Stephens, in order to pay the wages of men who had been engaged both in building the Gipsy and the a schooner Ranger, Insolvency Papers for William Henry Chowne, SRNSW, op.cit..

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involving a business partnership, as both parties had an equal right to the vessel. Eventually William was forced into the insolvency court. 102

Thomas and William Chowne’s business partnership (and family relationship) probably did not survive these events. By 1847, William (with his brothers Edward Gardiner and Joseph), had commenced shipbuilding on the Clarence River at Maclean, where they built the brigs William Hill and Freak in 1847, and schooners, Anna Maria and Clara in 1848.103 Another brother, John, was working as a sawyer at Brisbane Waters in 1842.104 In 1848, intermarriage between the Chowne and Small families sealed the shipbuilders’ connections with local ship investors, Thomas Small, Arthur Devlin and T.B. Simpson.105 The 245-ton brig, Freak, was built for master mariner T.B. Simpson, who used her in the Mauritius and East Indies trade.106 Despite its isolation the shipyard was also used for repairs, and may have built unregistered craft for local settlers, including Thomas Small.107 The Clarence River branch of the Chowne family also employed their schooner, Clara, and other visiting craft to supply cedar, hardwood and local produce to the Sydney market.108

During the 1840s, Chowne and Tompson of Pyrmont gained valuable contacts among shareholders of a number of steam ship companies. Foremost among these were the

102 Sydney Herald, 6 May 1842; William Chowne, ibid. William Chowne entered Watson’s employment immediately after this incident. 103 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 10 September 1849, pp. 230-231; Maitland Mercury, 3 June 1848 reported that the Clara and Anna Maria of 70-80 tons had been built for Mr. Robey of Sydney “expressly for the Lake Macquarie trade,” namely as colliers. 104 The Sydney Gazette, 13 October 1842, reported an alleged case of arson against John Chowne and other sawyers, when a settler’s home was burnt down at Brisbane Waters. The case was dismissed. 105 Marriage notice, for Matilda Chowne and John Frederick Small of Woodford Island, Sydney Herald, 2 September 1848. Norma Townsend, ‘Memoir of a Minor Mariner: Thomas Beckford Simpson and New South Wales, 1839-1853’, Great Circle, Vol. 4, No. 2,, 4 October 1982, pp. 106, 108-9, outlines the family relationship between Simpson, Devlin and Small, but overlooks Chowne. 106 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 17 September 1849. 107 In 1853 the cutter Thomas bound for an exploration of the Circle was reported to have gone up the Clarence River to Chowne’s shipyard for repairs. Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 20 August 1853, p. 248. Unregistered vessels however risked being seized by Customs, and their owners relied on the insufficiencies in government services to conduct surveillance of the colony’s vast coastlines. 108 Its owner, Ralph Meyer Robey was employing the 50-ton Clara in the far north coast trade, when it was wrecked at Brunswick River on 16 April 1850. See Charles Bateson, Australian Shipwrecks, Including Vessels wrecked en route to or from Australia, and some strandings, Vol. 1: 1622-1850, Sydney, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1972.

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Sydney ferry company owners, T. and G. Gerard, for whom they constructed the steamer, Betsy (named after Thomas’ wife) in 1840, Ferry Queen (1845), Brothers (1847) and Agenoria (1850).109 In 1841 they built the steamer, Sovereign for J.H. Grose, using engines from the (imported) King William the Fourth.110 The Gipsy was constructed and launched in 1842 for the Tamar Steam Navigation Company.111 The Native, a sixty foot steamer with a 12 h.p. engine, was built for G. Russell & Co. in 1844 (probably as creditors of insolvent financiers), the ferry, Gipsy Queen, for Entwhistle and McLaren in 1845, while the small steamer, Raven, was built for ferry- owner, T. Coutts, for the Parramatta River.112 The Hunter River Steam Navigation Company contracts for the Phoenix and the Eagle in 1846 and 1848 were no doubt gained partially on the back of the firms’ reputation and relative proximity to the Company’s own wharf and shipyards.113 Thomas Chowne’s company continued shipping construction at Pyrmont until his death in 1870. He did not amass a fortune from shipbuilding, leaving a modest declared estate worth £700 after all his debts were paid.114

Thomas Chowne and Robert Thompson started their business modestly, cautiously building their business by careful management of their cash flow, and establishing their reputation as dependable builders among investors in the steamboat industry. For them, location was a significant factor in their success, and they were prepared to forego the security of immediate land ownership to concentrate on business growth. Their location at Pyrmont enabled them to exploit the demands of the ship repair industry to maintain cash flow, while also responding to the demands of local contractors for new vessels. They had ready access to a labour, which probably was an important factor in controlling wage costs.

109 R.H. Parsons & John C. Tolley, Paddle Steamers of Australasia. River Murray System Vessels. 3rd. ed., Lobethal, S.A., Ronald Parsons, 1973. 110 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 11 March 1847. 111 Sydney Free Press, 29 July 1841, p.2; W.H. Chowne, op.cit. 112 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 5 April 1845, 10 September 1849 & 26 May 1851; Parsons & Tolley, op.cit. 113 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 2 May, 27 June, 3 October 1846; Maitland Mercury, 27 June 1846; 26 August 1848. 114 Thomas Chowne, Intestate papers, dated 18 February 1870, SRNSW, 14/3441, NSR-ITM 233752, No. 8386, dated 18 February 1870.

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Advertising: An important aspect of local shipbuilders’ success lay in the power of publicity. In 1839, over a thousand spectators, entertained by “lively airs”, including the “Maid of Judah” and “Rule Britannia” and numerous craft studding Darling Harbour witnessed the launching of J.W. Russell’s brig Jewess.115 Such spectacles provided excellent publicity for local shipbuilders. A similar strategy was employed by the owners of the schooner Pilot, built by Taylor Winship at Stockton, and launched from Fisher and Donaldson’s yard for the coal trade.116 It was particularly favoured by those investing in steamers, relying on the publicity received to recoup their costs from passengers and freight as quickly as possible. When steamers Phoenix and Eagle were launched (in June 1846 and August 1848 respectively), Manning, Spark and other major investors, ensured excellent publicity by organising a large dinner for the colony’s important dignitaries, and festivities for all.117 Both launches were attended by mass audiences, both on shore and in a variety of marine crafts gathering in Johnson’s Bay.

Pyrmont shipwright, Thomas Chowne, their builder, was delighted by the publicity his business thus achieved. At the launching of the Phoenix he was reported as saying, “He was happy, he was proud, that he had been successful; no effort had been spared on his part, and he was well rewarded in his success”.118 Chowne had special reason for pride in this particular demonstration of his workmanship, for according to a reporter for the Maitland Mercury, the Phoenix represented the first occasion on which he was allowed to exercise his “own unfettered judgement”, rather than be “controlled by others”, and had “admirably succeeded in combining speed with capacity of stowage and light draught of water.”119 When the Eagle was launched, he capitalised on the publicity it received by launching the sailing vessel Opalia on speculation. On this occasion, Chowne had more mercenary reasons for delight.

115 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 17 July 1839. 116 Maitland Mercury, 8 July 1848, p. 2 and 13 September 1848. 117 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 27 June 1846; Maitland Mercury, 27 April 1846; and Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 26 August 1848. 118 Maitland Mercury, 16 May 1846. 119 Maitland Mercury, 16 May 1846.

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Contracted at the rate of £17.5s. per builder’s ton, the Eagle represented a gross return of £5,300.120

The Business Dynamics and Pitfalls of Shipbuilding: Most colonial ship-builders constructed vessels on order (sometimes through a tender process), and thus ultimately had some assurance of retrieving initial capital costs, and wages for themselves and their employees. Almost invariably the shipwright was responsible for initial costs, such as tools, timber and nails, although such operating costs were usually supplied through store credit. Often master shipwrights supplied their employees with accommodation and sustenance, with wages accumulating for payment when the investor finally paid for the vessel. Workers sometimes boarded on site, in the home of their employer, or at local inns on the account of the master shipwright, with their accommodation costs deducted from their final wages.121 In these respects, the pay and conditions of marine artisans resembled those of mariners. The line of credit frequently extended to store accounts with butchers and bakers, reflecting a general reliance among the community at large on credit.122 Master shipwrights also sometimes resorted to small cash loans from shipmasters, merchants and even fellow shipwrights (including employees) to purchase essential items.123 All these arrangements (whether store credit or small loans) suggest a general under- capitalisation by the master shipwrights concerned.

Such arrangements relied on the continuing goodwill of the creditor. This was a risky strategy, as the creditor could foreclose on their debtors, forcing them into the Insolvency Court with the prospect that the shipbuilder’s business would be placed into receivership.124 Under-capitalisation was an issue for many colonial business

120 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 23 August 1848. 121 Evidence for this can be found in the insolvency files of shipwrights and their creditors, for example John Korff, Andrew Summerbell, Newton, Ferrier & Malcolm, James Marshall, James Mohan, David Manson, and ship-chandlers, Charles and Francis Mitchell. Insolvency Papers, SRNSW, CGS13654, for full citation see bibliography. 122 Insolvency Papers of James Mohan, master shipwright, 9 December 1843, SRNSW, 2/8766, CGS13654. 123 Ibid; and William Chowne, op.cit.,. 124 For example one of the creditors of James Marshall, Thomas Magner, Insolvency Papers of James Marshall, op.cit.; and a creditor of Taylor Winship, William Wynter, Insolvency Papers of Tayor Winship, 25 June 1842, SRNSW, 2/8692, CGS13654, No. 334.

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firms. For many, the problem was one of maintaining cash flow over extended periods. Shipwright’s contracts usually included some arrangement for interim payments.125 However, this was by no means a universal practice. Master shipwright James Mohan’s business arrangements were particularly precarious. With apparently no money to invest in his own shipyard, Mohan agreed to build the 220-ton brig, Australian Oak for timber and lime dealer, Humphrey McKeon, at the contractor’s own yard at Erskine Street, Soldier’s Point in May 1840.126 McKeon also offered him accommodation at the site for one shilling per week, allowing Mohan to construct his own “moveable house” there. It was an arrangement dependent on McKeon’s honesty and goodwill.127

After employing four shipwrights, a ship keeper and labour, work on the hull was well under way when a dispute arose over the terms of the contract. McKeon threatened to eject Mohan from the site and prevented food being carried into the site for Mohan’s ship-keeper. He then successfully took out a civil action in the NSW Supreme Court, in which ownership of the vessel, worth £1,000 passed to McKeon, despite the fact that he had not paid Mohan his half-share of £500 for labour and costs. Not content with this victory, McKeon proceeded against Mohan for rental for the 48-week period after he had been ejected, at more than double the previous rental, threatening to increase it to 15s. per week. In fact, the land for which McKeon was charging rental was Crown Land whose lease to him had “long since expired”. 128

James Mohan’s case reflects the pitfalls of the shipbuilding business. It was an occupation based on deferred payment, the good will and credit of contractors, and binding contracts. The turn-around time for shipbuilding depended on a variety of factors and circumstances. One of these was the amount of labour available to

125 J.W. Russell had such an arrangement with the Australian Steam Conveyance Company, Sydney Gazette, 25 January 1834. 126 Affidavit of Edmund Burton, a solicitor’s clerk, who had made inquiries through the Surveyor- General’s Department, 22 March 1844, Insolvency Papers of James Mohan, SRNSW, op.cit., In fact, McKeon did not own the premises at all, and was in effect committing fraud. 127 Mohan, ibid. McKeon had subsequently locked out supplies, thus preventing the completion of the ship’s construction while bringing a civil case against Mohan for the full cost of the vessel. 128 This decision was subsequently overturned, but not before Mohan’s estate had been put into receivership, Mohan’s Insolvency Papers, ibid.

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complete a building project, and the availability of materials and supplies. Boat builders required relatively small investment and operating capital, compared with those undertaking to build larger vessels. The latter could expect to rely on their capital, or store credit, for the duration of a project. During the financial crisis of the early 1840s, this reliance proved to be hazardous, as anyone with outstanding creditors became very anxious to settle their accounts. Many of the insolvent shipwrights, sail-makers and chandlers, such as Francis Mitchell, were the victims of investor’s debt, rather than their own mismanagement.129 Most had completed repairs and shipbuilding contracts for which they remained unpaid. Instead they were lumbered with store debt and wage costs incurred in fulfilling those contracts.

Shipbuilders had to weigh up the benefits of employing more labour to ensure a faster completion rate, against the cost of labour. Generally such decisions were dependent on the demand for shipbuilding, and the surety of obtaining additional contracts. With the exception of apprentices, most labour, including skilled labour, was hired on a short-term basis. Hired artisans (shipwrights, blacksmiths and sail-makers) frequently moved by sea from one NSW shipyard to another, and occasionally even moved between NSW and Van Diemen’s Land.130 This suggests that, despite distance, the journeyman or “tramping” system described by E.J. Hobsbawn had its Australian maritime equivalent.131 Such movement of labour is indicative of the lack of ongoing demand at many shipyards. The ability to undertake ship repair activities was perhaps one of the most useful strategies for insuring a regular “cash flow”. The most successful master shipwrights were those who had good business networks, were able to manage their cash flow requirements, and had sound investment capital. A few, such as Egan, Chapman, Russell and Korff, were able to make a successful transition into the middle class as investors and merchants.

129 Insolvency Papers of Francis and Charles Mitchell, 29 September 1843, SRNSW, CGS13654, No. 976. 130 Evidence for this is the repetition of particular names of employees among the lists of debtors and creditors of various insolvent shipwrights, including artisans such as John Easson, from Van Diemen’s Land, SRNSW, Insolvency files, op.cit. 131 Hobsbwarn, op.cit.

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SECTION SIX: Risk Management and the Marine Insurance Industry

CHAPTER 14: MANAGING RISK: MARINE INSURANCE

This Section examines the development of marine insurance in NSW and assesses its effectiveness as a risk management strategy. In this Chapter, I concentrate on examining the development of the concept of marine insurance, and organisational structures that emerged offering marine insurance. This necessarily includes a brief overview of its history in Great Britain because, initially at least, the NSW shipping interest primarily arranged insurance through British-based companies, and also because NSW shared regulatory as well as Common Law precedents with Great Britain. In the next Chapter, I critically examine the effectiveness of marine insurance as a risk management strategy. I argue that marine insurance generally, and in NSW in particular, was open to serious abuse by shipowners and shipmasters, and therefore seriously compromised the standard of shipbuilding and repair services, and ultimately the lives of passengers and crew. * * * The Age of Discovery and the European quest for distant empires brought man face to face with his own powerlessness in controlling the unpredictable forces of nature –the “perils of the sea.” During the sixteenth century Italian shipowners and merchants developed a secular response to the sea’s perils, in the form of marine insurance. By the late seventeenth century the idea had gained currency in Britain and France.1 Without the financial security marine insurance provided, it is unlikely that private shipowners and merchants would have contemplated risking their vessels in Australasian waters.2 As its early history had implications for the development of the shipping industry in NSW, this chapter briefly examines the development of British marine insurance and Lloyd’s Register, before discussing the growth of marine insurance companies in the colony.

1 C. Wright & C.E. Fayle, A History of Lloyds from the founding of Lloyd’s Coffee House to the present day. Macmillan & Co., 1928, London. 2 The British East India Company as a joint stock company was an exception. The structure of the company provided limited liability to its shareholders. Its large capital enabled it to cover its limited shipping losses, and select and maintain only high quality shipping for its fleet. Testimony of George Coleman to the 1836 Select Committee of Inquiry into Shipwrecks, 8 July 1836, Question 737, BPP (1836), p. 51.

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British marine insurance had its origins in Edward Lloyd’s first coffee house in Tower Street, London in 1687. This was a favourite haunt of men associated with ships arriving at the London dockyards. The concept of early marine insurance in many ways bore a resemblance to gambling odds on horseracing, and the roles of insurance broker and underwriter to those of bookmaker and punter. As a risk management strategy, marine insurance proved to be popular. By 1693, the profession of underwriting had grown to such proportions that the British Parliament passed a Merchant Insurers Bill for the protection and promotion of the profession of underwriters.3

Marine insurance proved to be so lucrative that two British companies, the Royal Exchange and London Assurance Companies, each paid £300,000 to secure royal charters on 22 June 1720, guaranteeing them protection from competitors for one hundred years.4 Despite this, the loose association of underwriters formed around Lloyds in London emerged as the most significant among the multitude of insurance companies and underwriters in Britain by 1809.5 During the war years, Lloyds enjoyed a strong relationship with the British Admiralty, developing a mutually beneficial exchange of information about enemy movements abroad. Through Lloyds’ prosecution of merchant commanders breaking convoy laws, their financial support for the development of technology to improve safety at sea, and support of the families of naval veterans, the relationship blossomed.6 Lloyds’ system of shipping intelligence proved highly valuable to shipowners, merchants and captains alike. By 1811, Lloyds commenced the development of an “agency system” in overseas ports, providing regular intelligence on shipping movements to Lloyd’s through their

3 Wright & Fayle, op cit, p. iv. However, as A.H. John has demonstrated, underwriters existed in England before 1640, and by at least 1675, there were three separate written policies – one for ships only, one for cargo, and the other for both ships and their cargo. A.H. John, ‘The London Assurance Company and the Maritime Insurance Market of the Eighteenth Century’, Economica, Vol. 25, 1958, pp. 126. 4 John, ibid, p.127. 5 Ibid, pp.127 & 240. See also D.E.W. Gibb, Lloyds of London: A Study in Individualism. London, Macmillan, 1957, pp.50-58. 6 Wright & Fayle, op cit, pp. 208-238.

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correspondence.7 It was to maintain agents in Australia’s main ports throughout the period.

Despite its carefully crafted image of reliability, Lloyds, together with its competitors, the Royal Exchange and London Assurance Company came under increasing criticism from merchants and shipowners as the cost of insurance premiums escalated during the war conditions. Between 1819 and 1826 marine insurance premiums on shipping alone in the South Seas trade remained at 10 guineas per hundred tons, rising to 12 guineas from 1827.8 On 8 February 1810, the House of Commons passed an Act limiting the charters of the Royal Exchange and London Assurance Companies. This encouraged a group of London merchants to form “a huge company”, with a nominal capital of £5 million sterling. Its members placed their risks directly, eliminating the broker, and dividing the underwriter’s profits among themselves.9

As early as 1766, a serious case of fraud exposed the risks of the underwriting industry generally, and of individual underwriters in particular, when shipowners claimed against policies for total loss, knowing their ships to be unseaworthy. In a victory in the civil proceedings against the shipowners at Guildhall, Lloyds’ underwriters firmly established the principle as a rule of law that in a voyage policy “there is an absolute warranty of seaworthiness.” This guarantee applied even where owners pleaded ignorance of a ship’s unseaworthiness, and whether or not the loss was directly due to such a condition. If a ship was proved “unseaworthy” the insurance policy on the ship and her cargo was “void and worthless”.10 Despite its unpopularity among shipowners, this guarantee of seaworthiness set the standard for all future marine insurance policies, and a firm principle at Common Law.

Lloyd’s increasingly applied pressure on British shipowners and shipbuilders to better construct and maintain their vessels. In 1797, the Underwriters’ Register, or Green

7 Gibb, op cit. pp. 92-95. 8 A.G.E .Jones, ‘The Dangers of the South Seas Trade’, in A.G.E. Jones, Ships Employed in the South Seas Trade, 1775-1859, Vol. 2, Part Three: Aspects of the South Seas Trade, Australian Society for maritime History, No. 46, Roebuck Society, Victoria 1991, p.622. 9 Gibb, op cit, p. 242. 10 Ibid, pp. 65-68.

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Book, was established, classifying ships according to age and place of construction. The register perhaps unfairly penalised older ships, even if they were well maintained, while giving undue preference to Thames-built ships.11 Other shipowners, opposing the Green Book that threatened to devalue their shipping, immediately responded with a new registry book, the Red Book, in 1798. In December 1823, London shipowner, John Marshall, convened a committee of shipowners, underwriters and merchants to fuse the two Registry Societies and create a single register. In 1829, Marshall, summarising the proceedings of the Committee, wrote “that the existing system of classing shipping in the register Books at Lloyd’s, operates injuriously towards the Ship Owner, tends to mislead the Shipper and Underwriter, in numerous instances encourages the building of inferior Ships, and prevents essential repairs”.12 By 1834 an apparent compromise was reached when Lloyd’s Register was established, finally combining the Green and Red Books.13 Lloyds’ Register, as with Lloyds’ underwriting company, impacted globally not only on the marine insurance industry, but also on NSW shipowners and the shipbuilding industry, as I will demonstrate in the next chapter. * * * Early evidence of insurance transactions in NSW demonstrates the difficulties attendant on local merchants and ship owners of undertaking business. A group of military officers of the NSW Corps had to arrange insurance through their London agents, Messrs. Cox and Greenwood, for the return voyage of the Britannia to the Cape between 1793 and 1794.14 Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, in his early account of NSW settlement, referred to efforts made to salvage the cargo of the , whose effects were sold at public auction “for the benefit of the underwriters”.15 In

11 Ibid., p. 304. A Register of Shipping had been established in 1760, and was owned by an independent body and access to its list had been restricted to its members. However, there had been a close association between this body and Lloyds, with shared membership, ibid. p. 303. 12 J.M.Marshall, ‘Statement of the various proceedings prior and consequent to the Appointment of a Committee in 1824, to inquire into the mode of Classing the Mercantile Marine at Lloyds, 1829’, quoted in D.E.W. Gibb, op.cit., p. 305. 13 The Register was a separate body to the underwriting business, but nevertheless popularly associated with Lloyds’ insurance company, ibid., pp.325-35. 14 D.R. Hainsworth, The Sydney Traders. and His Contemporaries, 1788-1821. 2nd. edition, M.U.P., Melbourne 1981, p. 29 and note. 15 Lieutenant–Colonel Collins, An Account of the English Colony in NSW from its first settlement in 1788, to August 1801, Vol. II.

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January 1813, the wreck of the Governor Macquarie was sold “for the benefit of the underwriters at the rooms of Joseph Underwood.16 During this early colonial period, there were no local insurance companies. Instead, insurance was arranged through local agents of underwriters in London, Canton or Calcutta. Between 1804 and 1809, Simeon Lord paid heavy insurance premiums through his London agents Plummer & Co., amounting to £9,092 for insuring cargoes of sealskins that only realized £21,480 in London during the war years.17 In September 1808, Lord instructed his London agents to insure the vessel, Commerce, and her cargo for a voyage from Sydney to Macao for £15,000 providing the premium was no more than 10 guineas per hundred tons, or if exceeding that figure, then to insure it for no more than £9,000.18 Of course, one of the absurdities of insuring from a distance, when so few ships visited Sydney, was the possibility that instructions to effect insurance policies might arrive in London at the same time as the ship, for which insurance was sought. Similarly, vessels undertaking voyages in the Pacific or Far East might also have completed their voyages.

The Napoleonic War, the British blockade, and French and American privateering as well as the long and hazardous nature of voyages to the Pacific kept insurance rates high, with marine insurance premiums varying between 13-18%.19 Distance, irregular communication, highly varying rates and the uncertainty around the security of shipping posed a bookkeeping nightmare for local traders and shipowners. Potential misunderstandings could easily arise with London agents if shipping or cargoes were lost before agents received instructions to effect insurance on them. Shipowner, Robert Campbell Senior, suffered serious losses in 1806 when the colonial government (during his absence) utilised two of his ships the Sydney and the Venus for voyages to Bengal and Port Dalrymple respectively for food supplies, without

16 Sydney Gazette, 23 January 1813, p. 1. 17 D.R. Hainsworth, Builders and Adventurers. The Traders and the Emergence of the Colony, 1788- 1821. Cassell, Australia, 1968. pp. 90-91. 18 Letter from Simeon Lord to Plummer and Co., 24 September 1808, ibid., pp.94-5. The name of the Commerce was either permanently or temporarily changed to Boun Cidadeo (sic.), possibly to avoid seizure by the Spanish, or to side step the East India Company monopoly. 19 Hainsworth (1981), op cit. p.152.

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effecting insurance on them.20 Campbell, like other early shipowners whose ships and cargo were not covered by insurance, expected (and sometimes received) compensation from the colonial government.

By 1815, there is some evidence that overseas insurance companies were establishing local agencies in Sydney. When Richard Jones arrived in Sydney in August 1810, he did so as agent of the Calcutta Assurance Company, with the task of auditing Robert Campbell’s accounts.21 Richard Brooks, one of the surveyors of the government brig, Emu, in April 1815, was an “agent to the Underwriters at Lloyds”.22 Throughout the 1820s, insurers relied on effecting marine risks through local agents for Lloyds, or the Calcutta Assurance Company, or through their parent companies in London, Calcutta or Canton and elsewhere. Joseph Moore, shipmaster and owner of the whaler, Woodlark, maintained her insurance through his London connections, Magniac and Company.23 Richard Jones and Alexander Riley’s London agents, Bell, Donaldson & Wilkinson, had power of attorney to act on their behalf in relation to arranging insurance and other mercantile matters in London, as they did for a number of other Australian companies and individuals.24 Robert Duke relied on his brother, John in London, to maintain insurance cover for the whaler Sisters and estimated cargo in the Southern fisheries during the 1820s. 25

In January 1827 Duke was induced to deviate from his whaling voyage to intervene in the capture of the Wellington, when it was piratically seized by convicts about 250 miles from and taken to the Bay of Islands, at New Zealand.26 By returning the convicts to Sydney he broke the terms of his insurance policy, risking

20 Campbell to Macquarie, 26 October 1818, HRA, Series 1, Vol. X, pp. 404-6. 21 M.Shineberg, ‘Richard Jones’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, op.cit., Vol. II, pp. 24-25. 22 Macquarie, 21 April 1815, HRA, Series 1, Vol. 8, p. 587. 23 Insolvency Papers of Henry Moore and Joseph Moore, 10 February 1844, SRNSW, CGS 13654, Nos. 1177-1179. 24 Edward Riley had married Ann Wilkinson at Calcutta in 1813, Edward Riley Papers 1813-1907, Letters and Documents, 1813-1825, ML A5326, Item 2; Alexander Riley Papers, 1804-1838: Mitchell Library Microfilm CY 901 (frames 402-573: A1208; Riley family papers, Vol. 3). Letter to Thomas Street, April 1833. 25 J.H. Duke to Huskisson, 23 January 1828, seeking compensation for possible loss or damage to the ship and loss on a whaling adventure for the cost of renewal of his insurance policy for the Sister and her cargo through the Royal Exchange Assurance Office at London, HRA, Series 1, Vol 8, pp.790-791. 26 Darling to Bathurst, 12 March 1827, with attachments, HRA, Series 1, Vol. 8; pp. 158-161.

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not only the insured value of the ship and voyage, but also the premiums paid on her estimated cargo for the whaling season.27 While Robert Duke and his brother received £1,800 in compensation, clearly neither felt the government’s offer adequate to cover their losses, which included John Duke having to renew their insurance policy with the London Royal Exchange Insurance office. The renewal premium alone cost £800.28 * * * With the transfer of capital, emigration of large numbers of merchants to NSW between 1824 and 1833, and the increase in colonial shipping, existing arrangements for effecting marine insurance through overseas agents were clearly becoming inadequate. In 1831 a group of shipowners and merchants formed the first insurance company in NSW, the Australian Marine Assurance Company.29 Among its Directors and shareholders were the shipowners Prosper Demestre, John Lamb and Richard Jones. In 1834 it was offering quite moderate rates of insurance on freight, ranging from 2½%-5½ % on freight to London and Liverpool, 4% on freight to the Swan River, 2% for freight between Sydney and the South Sea Islands, while rates of 1% were offered on freight between New Zealand and Sydney, and Hobart and Sydney. 30

The Company had a legal setback in its fourth year of operation when the owner of the Sydney whaler Sir William Wallace, John Tooth, applied to the NSW Supreme Court for recovery of an insurance premium paid on an 18-month voyage.31 The Company had quoted rates of 8% for 8 months; 10% for 12 months; 12%, for fifteen months upward, with a drawback of 4 % if the vessel returned within twelve months, or 2% if she returned within fifteen months. She was initially insured for eighteen months. However, after fifteen months, she returned for further provisions and was sent back to sea for eight months to the Bay of Islands. The underwriters, on hearing of her return, determined she had broken her contract. They agreed, however, to

27 Robert Duke to Darling, 19 February 1827, ibid. pp. 159-161; Duke to Huskisson, 23 January 1828, op cit. 28 Duke to Huskisson, ibid.. 29 Australian Pocket Almanack, 1833. 30 Sydney Gazette, 4 November 1834. 31 Tooth v Campbell, NSW Supreme Court, 9 October 1835, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 October 1835.

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continue the contract on payment of a further £210, presumably on an initial valuation of £1,750. The Court ruled in Tooth’s favour. The case is useful in illustrating not only the high costs of insuring whaling ships, but in revealing the individual liability of its Directors. In fact, an attempt by a new insurance company, the Australian Fire and Life Assurance, to establish a limited liability company in 1836, proved such an unpopular notion, that its Directors were forced to withdraw their application from the NSW Legislative Council.32

The case did not prevent the Company from recording a dividend of 9% at their half yearly meeting in January 1836, and declaring a further dividend of 8.5% arising from discounts alone at their annual meeting, chaired by Alexander Spark, in July.33 This was achieved despite the commencement of a rival marine insurance company at the beginning of that year, the Union Marine Assurance Company. Many of its membership naturally overlapped its rival, including Spark, Richard Jones and Nicholas Aspinall. By June 1837 Spark commented that the Australian Marine Assurance Company was “in a flourishing condition”, and its shares were in such high demand that individual shareholdings were restricted to fifty shares each.34 At their annual meeting shareholders were offered 10% dividend from discounts, and the Directors were able to add an additional £7,000 to the Company’s capital.35 By December, the Company were able to divide 6.5% on the enlarged capital to its shareholders.36 In that year, the Company offered 7 guineas per hundred tons on the value of shipping for a voyage from Sydney to Timor and back to Adelaide, a fairly competitive rate for such a voyage.37 It continued to prosper during 1838, despite there being a scarcity of good Bills to engage the Company’s limited funds.38 Spark noted that he was able to sell shares on behalf of the estate of Captain Vine for a premium of £9.10s. at auction in June 1838, and by January 1839 the Directors resolved to add £7,000 to the capital from profits, “being the third time that the

32 A.B. Spark, diary entries for 20 January, and 13 July 1836 in G.J. Abbott & G. Little (eds), The Respectable Sydney Merchant. A.B. Spark of Tempe. Sydney, University Press, Sydney 1976, p. 65. 33 Ibid.,pp. 55 & 65. 34 Ibid.,3 June 1837 and 28 June 1837, pp. 78, 79. 35 Ibid.,19 July 1837, p. 80. 36 Ibid.,20 December 1837, p. 87. 37 The ship concerned was the Lord Hobart. Ibid., 18 October 1837, p. 82. 38 Ibid.,9 May 1838, p. 93.

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original capital has been doubled” as well as to offer a divide 8% from the discounts among its shareholders.39

Despite being able to maintain a dividend to shareholders between 6-7% throughout 1839-1841, and again in January 1843, Spark noted as early as June 1839 that “rival offices have considerably affected original company”.40 Nevertheless, despite the apparent liquidity of the company, the economic crisis of 1841-3 and the insolvent state of many of its shareholders, threatened the Company’s very existence. Spark wrote in his diary on 1 June 1843, that he and some other shareholders were attempting to stop the attempt to “dissolve this flourishing Institution, because some of the Proprietors want their money”.41 A few days later, he complained that some of the shareholders “wish to cripple the Institution” by abstaining from discounts and long risks.42 By August Spark was himself insolvent, and forced to relinquish being a Director of the Company and his shares valued at £2,000.43

One of the shareholders anxious to retrieve their funds during 1842-3 was Richard Jones. On 17 March 1842, William Fanning, newly-arrived agent and debt-collector for China merchants, Dent & Co., confronted Jones with news that they planned to foreclose on his long-standing account, unless he make regular remittances to clear it.44 By November 1843 this debt amounted to over £7,900.45 Under pressure from Fanning, and in a climate of financial anxiety, Jones found it increasingly difficult to conduct normal business. In July 1843, he attempted to clear some of his debt to Dent & Co., by consigning to them a shipment of 120 tons of sandalwood to Macao on the schooner Islay.46 As Dorothy Shineberg suggests, this and similar voyages,

39 Ibid.,14 June 1838, p. 94, and 16 January 1839, p. 102. 40 Ibid.,12 June 1839, p. 107, and 22 January 1840, 22 July 1840, 21 July 1841 and 18 January 1843, pp. 116, 123, 136, and 149. 41 Ibid.,p. 155. 42 Ibid.,7 June 1843, p. 155-6. 43 Ibid.,22 August 1843, p. 159. 44 Barrie Dyster, ‘The Rise of William Fanning and the Fall of Richard Jones’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society, March 1982, Vol. 67, Part 4, p. 367. 45 Insolvency Papers of Richard Jones, 9 November 1843, SRNSW, 2/8761, CGS 13654, No. 1043. 46 NSW Supreme Court Minutes of Proceedings, 5 February 1845.

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represented “a final speculative dash in an effort to stave off ruin”.47 As one of the Directors of the Australian Marine Insurance Company, he was able to partially insure the sandalwood cargo on his own account for the sum of £750, approximately only one-third to one-half its value.48 However, when he attempted to insure the balance with rival General Assurance Company, its agents refused his personal bill, demanding he pay the premium either in cash or by an unexceptionable bill.49 He therefore applied to William Fanning, as the agent for Dent & Co, to pay on the policies and secure Dent & Co. in case the sandalwood was lost. Fanning gave his bills to the Company, but by this time the ship had already sailed. Jones handed the bills of lading to Fanning, and the Insurance Company gave the policies to Fanning, as Jones intended.50

The Islay and her cargo were subsequently lost and within months Richard Jones was declared insolvent. Legally, the proceeds were Jones, as the sandalwood was procured at his expense, to be applied in liquidation of his debt, and any insurance payment should have been paid to Dent & Co. on Jones’ behalf. Fanning, William Dawes (representing the firm of Donaldson, Dawes & Co.) and James Holt were appointed his trustees. That Jones had done everything in his power to secure his consignment to Dent & Co., in part-payment of his debt through these complex insurance arrangements was difficult to prove, given that Dent & Co. were one of a number of creditors fighting for priority over his assets.51

Another marine insurance company, the Union Assurance Company, was established at the beginning of 1836. It was, in fact, not an incorporated company, but rather a large partnership of shareholders, with transferable shares.52 Its deeds of settlement

47 D.Shineberg, They Came for Sandalwood: A Study of the Sandalwood Trade in the South West Pacific 1830- 1865. Carlton, Victoria 1967, p. 65. 48 Dent & Co.’s rivals in China were then quoting prices between £12-20 per ton, depending on quality, Jardine, Matheson to Charles Swanston, 5 July 1843, in Jardine Matheson Archives, Cambridge University Library, European Letter-books, Vol. 5, quoted in Shineberg, ibid. p. 64. 49 Sydney Herald, 8 February 1845, and Supreme Court Minutes of Proceedings on 5 February 1845. 50 Ibid. 51 Dent & Co. received a final dividend of £987/12/1 of their total claim for £7900, with no mention being made of any proceeds from the General Assurance Company claim, Jones, SRNSW, op. cit. Schedule E, and other related credit documents. 52 Commercial Journal, 11 January 1836, p. 1.

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were drawn up on the 6 January.53 Under partnership law, all the partners were entitled to share equally in the capital and profits of the business, as well as contributing equally toward any losses sustained by that business. The main advantage of such an arrangement would certainly have been that all partners were jointly liable for the company’s actions. Its shareholders included both merchants and shipowners, while merchant and shipping agent, Adam Wilson, was appointed Secretary with an annual salary of £300.54

Within eighteen months the company showed an apparent profit of 82% on their original capital.55 With the company performing so well, Spark purchased an additional 32 shares (initially worth £2.10s), for a premium of £3 in April 1838, and by July 1839 the value of the shares had risen to £5.56 Thomas Gore and Company acted as agents for the Union Assurance Company. As nephew and agent of the powerful London wool merchant and shipowner, John Gore, Thomas was able to command ready access to credit and London networks.57 On 9 March 1839 Gore & Co., on behalf of the Union, advised the benefits of shipping oil through the local agency.58 Based on a shipment of ₤6,000, suppliers would save ₤50 or more on London prices for insurance on freights. He quoted London freight insurance prices at ₤120 (that is, a rate of 2%). While the Union’s rates were similar, they heavily undercut other insurance companies’ policy costs of 15 guineas, offering instead freight policies at 10s., with no additional commission charges.

Over the first few years the Union continued to perform well, with Spark, then chairman, recording in his diary on 14 January 1839, that after three years, shareholders were able to add 100% to its capital, as well as to pay a bonus of 10s. per share for the half year.59 In July the shareholders were rewarded an additional

53 Spark, 6 January 1836, op.cit., p. 54. 54 Commercial Advertiser, 25 January 1836. Adam Wilson’s salary was subsequently increased to £400 per annum, on 14 January 1839, reflecting the success of the company. 55 Spark, 10 July 1837, op. cit., p. 80. 56 Ibid, 12 April 1838, p. 92 & 8 July 1839, p. 108. 57 Gore to Thompson, December 1826, & Hay to Darling, 23 December 1826, HRA, Series 1, Vol. XII, pp. 797-8. Commercial Advertiser, 11 January 1836. 58 Commercial Advertiser, 9 March 1839. 59 Spark, 14 January 1839, op. cit, p. 102.

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dividend of 10s. per £5 share.60 By July 1841, however, the Union Assurance Company, afflicted with the same economic ills that plagued many of its shareholders, as well as its clientele, at that time, was reported as having “a miserable show – nearly down to their capital”.61 After apparently struggling for two more years, it was resolved by the membership in July 1843, to call a meeting to dissolve the ailing company.62 By that time most of its shareholders were either already insolvent, or rapidly approaching financial ruin.

A third marine insurance company, the Sydney Alliance Assurance Company had meanwhile been formed in December 1838, on the initiative of Robert Duke, and within a week of its being advertised, was oversubscribed.63 Its shareholders included many of the same shipowners and merchants subscribing in the other companies, including Richard Jones, Thomas Gore, Henry Moore, and Alexander Spark and Ranulph Dacre. 64 By 1844, all of its Directors had been financially crippled by the economic crisis, and the Alliance’s funds had also been heavily drawn on payouts, for the loss of shipping, such as Henry Moore’s three whalers, Tamar, Jane Eliza and Cape Packet.65 By 1845, the Alliance’s shares were apparently worthless.66

A fourth insurance company, the Australian Fire and Life Company (later known as the Australian General Assurance Company) was formed in January 1836. At that time it focussed solely on providing fire insurance on household and business premises, and on life insurance policies. Initially it was proposed to establish a limited liability company, and a deputation was sent to the NSW Legislation Council, to propose a Bill to carry this into effect.67 Within twelve months they were forced to

60 Ibid, 8 July 1839. 61 Ibid, 12 July 1841. 62 Ibid, and 10 July 1843. 63 Ibid, 12 December 1838, p. 100 and 22 December 1838, p. 101. 64 Insolvency Papers of Thomas Gore & Co., 29 July 1842, SRNSW, 2/8694, CGS13654, No. 342, Schedule C; Insolvency Papers of Richard Jones, 9 November 1843, SRNSW, 2/8761, GS13654, No. 1043, Schedule E; Insolvency Papers of Alexander Spark, 22 August 1843, SRNSW, CGS13654, No. 877, Schedule C; Insolvency Papers of Henry Moore, 10 February 1844, SRNSW, CGS13654, , No. 1177 and 1179. 65 Moore, ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Spark, 19 July 1836, op.cit., p. 65.

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withdraw their proposal in the wake of much opposition.68 It was not until January 1839 that the Company’s Directors decided to expand into the apparently profitable field of marine insurance, a decision that forced Alexander Spark, one of the Directors, to relinquish his seat due to a potential conflict of interest.69 However, he retained his shares in this company.70

By 1843 this insurance company ceased both its Life Assurance and its Fire Assurance Branches, retaining only the management of unexpired fire and life policies in those areas.71 Its chief focus was now marine insurance, and during the financial year 1843-1844 it effected policies worth £208,500, providing premiums of almost £8,702, out of which it had paid less than £666 in losses by the end of the financial year in June 1844, with another £98,521 in outstanding policies.72 With the exception of Fotheringham, most of its Directors were not shipowners. The Company’s surveyor was long-term resident shipowner, Captain Samuel Ashmore.73 The Company’s assets amounted to £42,418, of which £16,800 were government debentures, over £10,000 was cash on hand, while another £2,000, represented a secured mortgage taken by the company over John Jones’ whaler Bright Planet.

The Company’s decision to divest themselves of their fire and life risk operations and specialise in marine insurance proved fortuitous. By July 1844 they were the only marine insurance company still operating in the colony.74 This position caused them to rethink their financial strategy, so that instead of declaring a larger dividend for the year, they instead decided to reinvest a portion of their capital, to enable them to offer insurance on larger marine risks. The fact that they were still able to offer a dividend of 10%, while adding £4,000 to their total capital is an indication of the health of the company at a time when many other colonial enterprises were failing.75 The Australian General Insurance Company was one of the few survivors of the financial

68 Ibid, 28 August 1837, p. 81. 69 Ibid, 23 January 1839, p. 102 70 Abbott & Little, op.cit., p. 167. 71 Annual Report, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General trade List,, 20 July 1844, pp. 130-1. 72 Ibid. 73 Francis Low, The City of Sydney Directory for 1844-5. Sydney, E. Alcock, 1844, pp. 133-4. 74 Annual Report, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List,, 20 July 1844, pp. 130. 75Ibid, p. 130-1.

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crisis, and by 1850 had a capital of £400,000.76 The Company offered marine insurance on all shipping over 45 tons (thus excluding many in the coastal trade), offering premiums from 2.5 % for shipping to Great Britain or the Far East, 9-10% for whaling voyages, and between 0.5 –2.5% for inter-colonial voyages and steamers. Time risks varied from 3-9% for a 3-12 month voyage, while additional freight policies varied between 0.125-0.5%. Such rates were highly competitive.

The rapid growth of marine insurance companies in NSW after 1831 is indicative of the popularity of this form of investment, despite the inability of their shareholders to secure limited liability. All were able to record significant profits for shareholders in the form of dividends and rise in share prices during their existence. The business entities themselves were able to significantly increase their capital value, and in the case of the Australian Marine Insurance Company doubled its capital for each of three years in succession. Such profits suggest that despite the high level of losses and damage suffered by shipping in Australasian, Indian and Pacific waters, the accumulated value of insurance premiums far outweighed the value of claims. The failure of a number of marine insurance companies during the early 1840s was not a reflection on their poor business performance. Rather, the problem lay with individual shareholders seeking to recover their assets so they could apply them to pay their creditors for unrelated activities.

After 1846, a very different type of marine insurance organization emerged in NSW with the creation of the Sydney Marine Assurance Office. Unlike the Australian General Insurance Company, the Sydney Marine was conducted “according to the usage at Lloyd’s, under the direction of a Committee of Underwriters”.77 Samuel H. Smyth was the broker for this loose association. Its members included shipowners, such as Fotheringham, Towns and James Simmons, who underwrote each other’s shipping (mostly high risk whalers and sandalwood vessels), employing John Korff as their surveyor. It is likely that the group emerged in response to the profound

76 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 17 August 1850. 77 Ibid.

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difficulty investors in the sandalwood industry experienced insuring their vessels.78 This is hardly surprising given the high risks associated with that industry. As Shineberg has suggested, many shipowners engaged in that industry, particularly after 1840, minimised their capital and operating expenses by investing in cheap old ships, failing to maintain their ships in good repair, employing unreliable crew, and neglecting to supply navigational aids. In fact, such vessels failed the primary and long accepted test for insurance policies, that they were in fact “seaworthy”. * * * A standard marine insurance policy on freight taken out by Captain Simpson of the brig Freak, on behalf of Robert Campbell, Tertius, with the Calcutta Phoenix Insurance Company on 29 December 1847, for a voyage from Port Louis, Mauritius to Calcutta, is indicative of the very broad range of marine risk insurance companies were prepared to cover for freight or hulls. Exclusive of details for the particular voyage or cargo, the policy read: Touching the Adventures and Perils which we the Assurers, are content to bear, and to take upon us in this Voyage; they are of the Seas, Men of War, Fire, Enemies, Pirates, Rovers, Thieves, Jettizons, Letters of Mart and Counter-Mart, Surprisals and Takings at Sea, Arrests, Restraints and Detainment of all Kings, Princes, and People of a What Nation, Condition and Quality soever; barratry of the Master and Mariners, and of all other Perils, Losses, and Misfortunes, that have or shall come to the Hurt, Detriment, or Damage of the said Goods and Merchandizes, or any part thereof… 79 [sic.]

While this standard policy states succinctly the range of business risks associated with shipping in the region, it also helps to explain the desirability of securing marine insurance policies through payment of relatively small premiums by merchants and shipowners. While the policies appeared to cover every possible risk, in most cases

78 Towns to De Salis, 13 March 1849, Towns Papers, ML MSS307, General Letter Books, Item 58; and Towns to Brooks, 26 March, 3 April and 12 June 1849, Towns Papers, ML MSS307, Letters to Robert Brooks & Co., Item 69. See also Shineberg, op cit, p. 80, 87, 110-11. 79 Robert Campbell tertius Papers, ML MSS 2129, Item 3, Calcutta Phoenix Marine Insurance Company Policy, Payable in Calcutta, No. 359 on 29 December 1847 on specie per Freak (231 tons). The Freak’s cargo was insured for five thousand three hundred Calcutta rupees, which at a premium of 7 3/5 % of CR 84, or twelve shillings and nine pence. The total cost of insurance (including policy fees) amounted to £94.12.9. The Policy included the condition that the Insurer “Shall pay upon the abatement of 2% and no more, providing sum paid in Calcutta at the expiration of six months after the first notice of loss is given to Messrs. Mackay and Co.”

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merchandise (and shipping) arrived safely at their destination, and the underwriters profited from the transaction.

Insurance companies’ risk was secured by their claim to the ship’s register in the case of loss, and by their salvage rights, in the event of shipwreck.80 The measure was designed to prevent possible fraud by shipowners who might otherwise repair ships sufficiently to be returned to sea, be reinsured, and “liable to be lost again, and paid for by the parties insuring them”.81 Samuel Browning, British agent for NSW shipowner, Benjamin Boyd, challenged this policy, considering it frustrated local enterprise.82 Duncan Dunbar strongly defended British underwriters and shipowners against relaxing the law in favour of Australian interests, fearing it would encourage fraud “if stranded ships sold in the colonies were allowed British registry”.83 Apart from the issue of fraud, underwriters legitimately desired to minimise their own losses in the case of shipwreck by claiming salvage rights, and where possible, any salvageable remains of wrecks and their cargoes were sold by public auction “for the benefit of the underwriters.”

In fact, underwriters did not always consider salvaging shipwrecked or stranded vessels to recover their losses, worth the additional expense. When the steamer Clonmel went on shore near Melbourne on 3 January 1841, less than two months after her arrival from England, all the underwriters jointly resolved to abandon any attempt to salvage her, with an apparent loss of £17,000.84 Instead, salvage rights were sold to J.H. Grose for £110.85 A similar decision was made when the 400-ton barque, Mary Catherine was stranded at Kaipara harbour, on the west coast of New Zealand, with a valuable cargo of spars for London, on the 11 May 1846, her underwriters deciding instead to sell her by public auction, at the buyer’s risk.86

80 Testimony of Samuel Browning, 17 March 1847, Questions 1063-72, BPP (1847, 1st Report). 81 Ibid, Questions 1146-1148. 82 Ibid, also questions 1144, and 1145. 83 Testimony of Duncan Dunbar, Questions 5088-5090, BPP (1847, 4th Report), pp 1-178. 84 Spark, 21 January, 22, 23, 26 and 27 February 1841, op cit. 85 P. Harvey & R. Anderson, ‘Clonmel 1841. Steam on the Coast’, in M. Nash (ed.), Shipwreck Archaeology in Australia, University of , Crawley, 2007, p. 80. 86 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 13 June 1846.

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As a business strategy, designed to minimise the high risk of ship ownership, marine insurance was generally a successful one. Insurance Companies generally paid “an average” for damages incurred on voyages, as well as for total loss. Shipowners sometimes insured for “replacement” value, often a highly inflated estimation of real value of the vessel insured.87 Until the mid-1840s, local insurance companies, paid claims for most shipping and freight losses, with little public dispute. In many cases, the shipowners insuring their vessels were also shareholders in the companies insuring their ships.88 For shipowners such investment helped to offset the costs marine insurance. It also enabled them to share business risks without directly transferring part of a ship’s title, as occurred with fractional ownership. Indirectly, of course, such title was often partly relinquished to marine insurance companies through mortgages (as occurred with the Bright Planet, mentioned earlier). Concurrent investment by shipowners in shipping and the marine insurance company underwriting their vessels theoretically provided some assurance that a ship was seaworthy. However, as I will demonstrate in the next chapter, it could result in a conflict of interest and potentially, fraud.

87 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 28 June 1845 and 30 May 1846. 88 Henry Moore, for example held 5,000 shares in the Alliance, while Richard Jones held £600 of shares in the Australian Marine Assurance. Their holdings were not unique, but rather normal practice in the industry. Insolvency files, SRNSW, op cit.

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CHAPTER 15: MARINE INSURANCE –RISK STRATEGY, OR RISK?

In Chapter Four, I argued that shipowners not only faced normal business risks associated with such factors as competition, and fluctuations in supply and demand, but also contended with the “perils of the sea”. The development of marine insurance was a useful business strategy for responding to these perils, or unforeseeable “Acts of God”. As demonstrated in Chapter Fourteen, this strategy also provided an additional, lucrative form of maritime investment, not only for those directly engaged in maritime enterprise, but also for those who had no desire to risk their capital directly in shipping, but simply considered dividends as an additional form of income. Marine insurance, however, had its critics. In this Chapter, I examine the proposition that investment in marine insurance, in fact, potentially threatened to undermine the shipping industry.

In a series of lectures to packed audiences in Melbourne and Sydney in December 1844 and early 1845, Sydney resident James Ballingall claimed that three quarters of all shipwrecks were “caused by marine insurance”.1 Ballingall argued that if an insured merchant ship was damaged, stranded or exposed to fire, it was in the interests of its owners to secure its total loss rather than attempt to preserve it, and effect necessary repairs. Otherwise, the owners bore the cost of repairs, as well as suffering the effects of the depreciation in the ship’s value.2 He suggested “the evil” arose from the fact that under current insurance policies the owner did not have to bear any proportion of the risk, and that if he did, “no doubt can exist that he would then be as anxious to have a safe vessel safely conducted, in order to save his property”. His lecture tour followed the recent defeat of a British Parliamentary Bill enabling the introduction of a formal system of examination of the qualifications for masters and mates.

1 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 21 December 1844, p. 259. 2 British shipowners, Duncan Dunbar, Money Wigram, George Young and William Tindall calculated depreciation on ships in the India, China and Australia trade (including whaling) at 10% per annum. (BPP: 1847-8).

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Ballingall’s suggestions were by no means novel. Peter Bays, sailing master of the wrecked Sydney whaler, Minerva, in 1831 complained to a fellow Freemason, the Duke of Sussex, to Governor Darling, and to the Trinity Board that ships “actually deemed uninsurable by the Insuring Offices, and others equally unseaworthy” but still fraudulently insured, were being sent on long voyages.3 Bays’ recommendations to the Trinity Board were shortly to become the focus of Parliamentary attention on ship safety and renewed criticism of the insurance industry.4 The leading critic of marine insurance at the House of Commons’ Select Committee inquiry into the causes of shipwreck was Ballingall.5 A brother of British Member of Parliament for Edinburgh, Sir George Ballingall, James was manager of a shipping company and a marine surveyor in Kirkaldy before immigrating to Sydney.6 In 1836 he gave his opinion that the increasing number of shipwrecks was due to “the defective method of building merchant vessels, and frequently the repairing of them”, an observation based on his experience in superintending a ship-building and repair business. He attributed changes in shipbuilding directly to “the abuse of marine insurance”. Ballingall even went so far as to propose that shipowners sometimes appointed incompetent masters and mates, not to economise on wages, but rather because the ship was over-insured. 7

It was, he argued, also in the underwriter’s interest that ships were defective, for he could over a series of policies, increase his profits from premiums without risking his own funds. If a ship was eventually “lost” and the shipowner claimed against his policy, the underwriter would still have made a large profit without becoming insolvent. Indeed, Ballingall concluded, “it is evident that the destruction of the

3 Peter Bays, A Narrative of the Wreck of the Minerva, Whaler, of Port Jackson. B. Bridges, Cambridge 1831 (Rare Book, Mitchell Library), pp. 177-9. Bays was a long-standing member of freemasonry, having been elevated to the ranks of Knights Malta and Templar, using this connection to address the Duke of Sussex, brother of King William on 5 May 1831, pp. iii-iv. 4 House of Commons Report from the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the Causes of Shipwrecks with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index, Sessional papers, BPP, (Shipping Safety 2), Volume xvii, Bill Number 567, August, 1836. HMSO, Shannon, Ireland, 1970, pp I-xii, 1- 388 and 1-39. 5 Evidence of James Ballingall, 1 July 1836, British Parliamentary Papers: House of Commons: Report from the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the Causes of Shipwrecks with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index. Sessional papers (Shipping Safety 2), Volume xvii, Bill Number 567, August, 1836. HMSO, pp. 1-11. 6 The Atlas, Sydney, 7 December 1844, p. 21; Ballingall, BPP (1836), ibid., Questions 1 and 97, pp.1 and 10. 7 Ibid, BPP (1836), pp. 1-2.

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mercantile navy is the fortune of the underwriter; that supposing it were possible to annihilate shipwrecks, his occupation would be gone, for were there no losses at sea there would be no sea insurances, and his business would be valueless”. 8

Ballingall was particularly critical of underwriters’ reliance on the Lloyd’s Registry method of classifying ships in establishing risk.9 The 1834 Registry simply calculated the class of a ship according to its age and place of construction, without reference to a proper survey to examine the manner in which it was built, the wear and damage it had sustained, or the repairs that might have occurred, or, indeed, whether it had been rebuilt.10 This system of classification thereby compromised the shipbuilding industry, obviating the necessity of surveying ships’ hulls, “lessening the inducement to build vessels upon principles of strength and durability, and taking away the encouragement to keep them in the best state of repair”.11 According to Ballingall, many shipowners believed Lloyd’s new system of classification to be flawed, and likely to be injurious not only “to individual shipowners, merchants and underwriters but also to every branch of the trade connected with repairing and refitting vessels”.12

Ballingall’s motivation for his attack on Lloyd’s was not entirely disinterested. The London-based Lloyd’s Register, initially created for the encouragement of shipbuilding, quickly became a world-recognised guide for determining the value of shipping and insurance premiums.13 In 1835, following its publication, Ballingall attended a large public meeting of Scottish merchants, shipowners and shipbuilders at Leith, protesting against the Register’s discrimination in favour of Thames-built shipping.14 The Registry gave clear preference to English oak, more readily available to Thames shipbuilders, while shipbuilders in the northern ports of Great Britain relied on timber imports from the Baltic or America, even though they were penalised

8 Ibid,. p. 11. 9 See Appendix 11. 10 The formation of Lloyd’s Register is discussed on pp.308-9. 11 Ballingall, op.cit., p.5. 12 Ibid. . 13 Charles Graham, 27 April 1847, British Parliamentary Papers: Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws, Vol. 1, Third Report, Question 3359, Table 1, pp. 77-79; question 3377, p. 81. 14Ballingall, op.cit.. Question 64, p. 9. Like Kilkaldy, Leith being one of the Scottish shipbuilding ports on the east coast could access Baltic timber more cheaply and readily than the more prized English Oak.

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by British tariff laws.15 Many shipowners in north Britain, including Ballingall, chose to form “hull clubs”, to insure each other’s vessels, particularly those involved in the bulk-freight trades. By 1847, new rules instituted by Lloyd’s Register, only served to exacerbate this discrimination against Scottish shipbuilders.16 These rules effectively prolonged the life of A1 classification (for ships originally classed with a twelve year rating) up to an aggregate of twenty-seven years, providing they underwent regular repair, maintenance and survey.17 This change even elicited protests from London shipbuilder, George Young.18

Ballingall received various medals and votes of appreciation from public bodies in the United Kingdom. His Melbourne audience was no less appreciative, when he accused shipbuilders, owners and underwriters of greed and callousness in wake of people drowning in ship disasters, by saying:

the ship builder gloats over the new; the owner shrugs his shoulders and elongates his visage affectedly, walks to the underwriters, pockets his five or ten thousand, every sixpence of it levied from the public, and half of it pure gain, sips his claret with his friends, and cants about the ways of Providence being unsearchable.19

In response to his eloquent Melbourne lectures numerous people, including merchants and officials, signed a Petition raised for the purpose of saving “human life and the welfare of mankind”.20

15 Ibid, Question 66, p. 9 and Questions 43-91, pp. 8-10. Sunderland shipyards, for example, could produce ships much more cheaply than those at London or Glasgow. 16 Table One, submitted by Charles Graham, Secretary of Lloyd’s Register of British and foreign Shipping, 27 April 1847, to the Select Committee, op.cit., pp. 77-79. 17 Charles Graham, op.cit. Questions 3363-3376, pp.79-81. Even ships of second-hand English Oak, received a higher rating than those built from timbers utilised by Scottish shipwrights. 18 Testimony of G.F. Young, 20 May 1847, BPP (1847), Question 5261-5279, pp. 73-4 and 1 June 1847, Questions 5453-5481. Young was the son of Admiral Sir George Young, who promoted the settlement at Botany Bay. Young to Lord Sydney, 24 May 1788, HRNSW, Vol. 1, Pt. ii, p.142. 19 The Atlas, 7 December 1844, p. 21. 20 Shipping Gazette &Sydney General Trade List, 21 December 1844.

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In 1843, John Powell, a member of Lloyd’s coffee house, strongly supported Ballingall’s 1836 allegations of fraudulent practices by some shipowners, despite his direct assault on the marine insurance industry.21 Powell, employed by Lloyds in settling claims on underwriters, had once been an agent for St Patrick Insurance Company of Ireland, for the purpose of winding up their affairs. That Company bore a loss of £250,000 over two years, before it failed.22 Powell described one particular claim made by a shipowner for the loss of a ship and freight, where it was discovered that the shipowner had in fact taken out five separate insurance policies with different underwriters - three insurances on the ship itself, and two on the freight, which he failed to disclose. The shipowner was charged with fraud. Under this definition, fraud was common practice among NSW shipowners.

With the establishment of a number of insurance companies in NSW after 1836, it was increasingly common for Sydney ship owners to take out multiple marine insurance policies on the same ship. Such was the case with three whalers, owned by Henry and Joseph Moore, all totally lost within a brief period just prior to and following their insolvency in February 1844. The first of these losses was the 197-ton ship Tamar, shipwrecked at New Ireland on 10 December 1842.23 They acquired the Tamar as creditors of the insolvent estate of Duke & Co. It was they who insured her with the Union Marine Assurance Company, the Marine Assurance Company, the Sydney Alliance Assurance Company, and with the Australian General Assurance Company, for £3,000 for each policy, prior to her whaling voyage.24 Moore recovered £12,000 on all policies, although the Union Marine Assurance Company only paid out after a drawn out legal case. Built in Dumbarton in 1808, probably for less than £12 per ton, she was classified at Lloyds with an E1 rating. Estimating ship depreciation at 10% per annum, according to shipowners’ practice, she was theoretically worthless.25

21 Testimony of John Powell, BPP (1843, 1st Report), op.cit., pp.312-316. 22 Ibid. Question 4989, p. 313. 23 The Tamar’s reproduced log book and business transactions relating to the claim are located in Moore’s Insolvency Papers, SRNSW, CGS13654, 1177, op.cit.. 24 The acquisition was in repayment of a debt to Henry Moore of £2,900, Insolvency Papers of Robert Duke & Co, 29 April 1842, SRNSW, 2/8683, CGS13654, No. 235. 25 This was calculated annually on the ship’s diminishing value and charged against the ship’s operating costs, see footnote 73, p.167, Chapter 7.

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Moore also arranged two insurance policies on the whaling voyage of Jane Eliza on 11 March 1843. The first was with the Alliance Insurance Company for £2,955, and the second with the Australian General Assurance Company for £4,678. 15s. She was lost in a typhoon off Tongabatoo, and condemned by “independent surveyors”. Unlike Tamar, she had an Æ1 rating, having been built at Chatham in 1809, but similarly was worthless under depreciation rules. Their other loss, Cape Packet, was attacked and burnt by Solomon Islanders some time in 1843. Her hull had a nominal value of £340, however her two policies – one with the General Assurance Company for £3,000, the other with the Alliance Assurance Company for £5,000 – were finally claimed in April 1844, without difficulty. Superficially these policy transactions were excessive, however, at 12.5% policy premiums for each whaling voyage, insurance represented a significant operating cost.26 In fact, Joseph and Henry Moore refrained from taking out any insurance policies on their two whalers, the Woodlark and the Clarkstone, which left Sydney on eighteen-month voyages in September 1843. This no doubt reflected the degree of financial difficulty then being experienced by the company.

Powell noted that insurance policies on British South Sea whalers lost after three years are still paid at original value, despite depreciation.27 However, any reduction in the value of insurance over time, proportionate to depreciation costs, would certainly have acted as a very powerful disincentive to the whaling industry.28 What Powell failed to mention was that some shipowners in the whaling trade also continued to pay insurance premiums on the original scale, rather than on a reducing scale

26 When Robert Duke, for example, arranged insurance on three of his whalers, Pocklington, Avon and Caroline in June and August 1841, it cost him £1,735. 10s. in premiums. At the time his company was placed in receivership, he owed the four insurance companies, over £4,873 in unpaid premiums. Insolvency Papers of Robert Duke & Co, 29 April 1842, SRNSW, 2/8683, CGS13654, No. 235. 27 Powell, ibid, question 5014, p. 315. In testimony before the 1847 Select Committee on the Navigation Laws on 1 June 1847, and again on 8 June 1847, London shipowner and shipbuilder, George Frederick Young, estimated the value of depreciation at ten per cent per annum, Fourth Report, op.cit., question 5329, p. 81 and question 5831, p. 126. 28 Insurance rates for whaling voyages were in fact considerably higher than those applying to other trades for ships of similar tonnage, varying from 1 ¾ % to 6%. Testimony of Patrick Colquhuon, dated 5 May 1847, BPP (1847), op.cit., question 4082, p. 139; Testimony of George Young, 1 June 1847, ibid, question 5453, p. 93. Insurance premiums for whaling ships in the colony in fact varied according to the length of the voyage, up to twelve per cent for a voyage of twelve months or more. See Tooth v Campbell, 9 October 1835 re the Sir William Wallace, reported in the Sydney Herald, 12 October 1835.

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commensurate with the rate of depreciation.29 Had this been otherwise, the underwriting profession would not have been quite so attractive, either as a service or as an investment.

The case of the English whaler Harriett, referred to in Chapter Four, missing for a five year period during which her owners, Messrs. Boulcott of London continued to pay insurance premiums, is an illustration of the enormous business risks in that industry.30 Both British and foreign whalers in the south seas were exposed to all the hazards of that zone, and regularly limped into ports in Australia, New Zealand and the East Indies, for repairs after being severely damaged. As Gibb suggested in his history of Lloyd’s, shipmasters were sometimes “caught between the devil and the deep blue sea”, having to call in to islands in the Pacific to effect running repairs after being de-masted and battered by hurricanes, knowing they faced the hazard of being captured or massacred by the natives, and their ship pillaged and destroyed.31

According to Powell the possibilities for fraud inherent in marine insurance went much further than simply overinsuring vessels through multiple policy transactions. If insured ships were totally lost shipowners received the whole value of the insurance, including the gross value of her freight. Whereas, if a ship returned safely to port, the shipowner only received the net worth of her freight, and the value of the ship would have depreciated. 32 Some ships and their cargo were not lost at all, but instead placed in another trade overseas, out of scrutiny.33 “There is a suspicion”, Powell suggested to the Committee, “that a good many vessels are purposely wrecked … and the parties have claimed total losses, and have received the money, and very shortly afterwards the ship has appeared”.34 The possibilities for barratry on the part

29 Thus was the case with the owners of the London whaler Harriett, who continued to pay annual premiums of £1,500 for five years until news of her loss reached them. Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 31 August 1844; also mentioned in A.G.E. Jones, Ships Employed in the South Sea Trade 1775-1861, Vol. II (Parts 3) Roebuck, Canberra 1986, p. 622. 30 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 31 August 1844; also mentioned in A.G.E. Jones, Ships Employed in the South Sea Trade 1775-1861, Vol. II (Parts 3) Roebuck, Canberra 1986, p. 622. 31 D.E.W. Gibb, Lloyds of London: A Study in Individualism. Macmillan, London 1957, p. 65. 32 Powell, op.cit., Question 4975-8, p. 313 33 Ibid, Question 4969, p. 312. 34 Ibid, Question 4972, p. 312.

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of captains or collusion between owners and captains to sell or transfer ownership to parties abroad, while claiming the proceeds of insurance policies at home, were very real with the opening of the Pacific trade.35

Under British legislation, “for the better preventing of the wilful destruction of ships,” underwriters retained the registration of damaged or lost insured ships.36 This was designed to discourage barratry or fraud by shipmasters or owners. In March 1847, Benjamin Boyd’s London agent, Samuel Browning, made representations to the Select Committee on the Navigation Laws, for legislative changes to overturn this legislation.37 Alluding to Boyd’s purchase of the stranded French whaler, the Bourbon, off the Australian coast and her subsequent re-registration and deployment as a colonial whaler, he suggested that colonial shipowners would be much encouraged if permitted to salvage and repair stranded British vessels for re- registration.38 Shipowner Duncan Dunbar strongly opposed the suggestion, referring to the loss of his ships, Elizabeth and Jane and Sir Robert Peel.39 In fact, Boyd’s company purchased the Sir Robert Peel, after she was stranded at Avoca Beach, allegedly attempting to enter Sydney Harbour in foggy weather.40 The subsequent actions of her master, William Champion, suggest his own actions amounted to barratry, as well as a deliberate (and successful) evasion of payment of wages to her crew.41

Marion Diamond’s assessment of Benjamin Boyd as having “a ruthless and completely amoral personality”, is borne out in his unsuccessful attempt to claim

35 Standard marine policies covered shipowners against loss from barratry, piracy or smuggling as well as natural hazards. Papers of Robert Campbell tertius, ML MSS 2129, Item 3, Calcutta Phoenix Marine Insurance Company Policy, No. 359, dated 29 December 1847. See also Powell, ibid., questions 5028 and 5033, p. 316. 36 C.Wright & C.E. Fayle, A History of Lloyds from the founding of Lloyd’s Coffee House to the present day. Macmillan & Co., 1928, London, p. 238. 37 Testimony of Samuel Browning, dated 13 March 1847, BPP (1847), op.cit., question 1063, p. 97-8. 38 Ibid, question 1064, p. 98. 39 Dunbar, 18 May 1847, BPP (1847), ibid, Question 5090, p. 58 40 Sydney Herald: 20, 21, 22, 23, 25 & 30 January; 3 February, 5,9, & 13 March 1847. See also Charles Bateson, (1972) op.cit., pp.202-3. 41 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List: 13 March 1847, pp.422-423. While crewmembers frequently lost wages in the case of shipwreck, in this case they had worked tirelessly to save all the cargo and valuable fittings from the vessel – an action that had entitled them legally to recompense.

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insurance from the Royal Exchange Assurance Company heard before His Majesty’s Queen’s Bench at Guildhall, London on 6 July 1846, for the alleged wreck of the Seahorse. 42 Boyd claimed the 500-ton paddle steamer was irreparably damaged after being stranded near George Town, Van Diemen’s Land on 5 June 1843. The Seahorse nevertheless managed to put to sea with the next high tide and made her way to Sydney, arriving six days later. Boyd lodged a written “protest” (or claim) to the underwriters a fortnight later, claiming the Seahorse unseaworthy as a result of her accident, unable to navigate the seas, and rendered a complete wreck. The incident, he argued, was purely “an act of God”, not attributable to any want of seamanship on the part of the master, mates or crew. The grist of his argument was that there were no facilities in any Australian port where she could be repaired, due to her weight and size. His witnesses argued there was no dry dock available, and the patent slip was too small to accommodate his paddle steamer. Given the alleged inadequacy of local facilities to effect temporary repairs, the Seahorse could not be taken to Bombay, Calcutta or England, for more thorough repairs.

Boyd failed to observe standard practice prior to his claim by neglecting to arrange three independent surveys. The sole survey conducted by Captain R. Scott, employed by Towns, as agent of the Royal Exchange Assurance Company, occurred after Boyd had already abandoned her at Darling Harbour, and in the absence of the shipmaster and carpenter. Scott’s testimony, relating to both the condition of the Seahorse, and the capabilities of the patent slip, was seriously compromised by the fact that he had socialised with Boyd. His condemnation of the Slip’s bad condition and inadequacy is not borne out by the fact that repairs on shipping of larger tonnage than the Seahorse were still being conducted there in 1849, and suggests Boyd had successfully suborned him.

Even so, the Surveyor had not signed off on his certificate to the marine insurance company, so Boyd was unable to finalise the claim. Under cross-examination, Scott

42 M. Diamond, The Seahorse and the Wanderer: Ben Boyd in Australia. Melbourne 1988, p. 2. The case was reported in the Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List of 28 November 1846, pp. 326-7.

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confessed that Boyd had “courted” his witnesses by presiding over a large banquet on the Seahorse in October 1845. Scott was not alone among numerous witnesses testifying in Boyd’s favour to have been “wined and dined”. It was a typically Boyd touch. A Blackwall shipwright claimed to have repaired the Seahorse’s engines in 1842, at a time when the paddle steamer was in fact already operating in the Australian coastal trade.43 His testimony, vital to Boyd’s case that the insured value of the Seahorse at £25,000 reflected her true value, stated that the engines were worth £15,000, while the hull was worth at least another £9,000.44 Boyd took out at least seven separate insurance policies on the Seahorse, five policies of £5,000 each with various Companies, amounting to £25,000, plus two “time policies” on her hull and machinery, each for £11,250. The total pay out figure, had he been successful, would have amounted to £47,500, well above her replacement value. He therefore had a great deal to gain from her total loss, more particularly as she (along with Boyd’s other steamers in the Australian coastal trade) never operated at a profit.45

Despite numerous appeals Boyd was unable to convince Guildhall he had done everything “a prudent uninsured owner would have done” to preserve his ship.46 His litigation costs (including Queen’s Counsel) would have been significant, but given the stakes, it was probably a risk he was willing to take, on behalf of the joint stock company, whose shareholders ultimately bore the legal costs. The Seahorse was finally auctioned in November 1849, having laid at anchor for six years, and purchased by Sydney merchant, John Thacker, for £850 to be employed as a wharf hulk.47

43 The Seahorse arrived in Hobart from London, via Lisbon in April 1841, Hobart Courier, 18 April 1841 and in Sydney on 1 June 1841,Sydney Herald, 2 June 1841. 44 In a letter from Benjamin Boyd then still in London to Lord John Russell, dated 11 December 1840, Boyd described his purchase of the Seahorse, with its 250 h.p. engines “entirely my own property”) at the cost of £30,000. HRA, Series 1, Vol. 21, Enclosure 1, Russell to Gipps, p. 159. 45 The Cornubia, after being found unsuited, due to her deep draught of water to cross river bars was converted into a sailing vessel, while the Juno was sent to Manila, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, Vol. 8, p. 152. 46 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, Vol. 4, pp. 285-7, reporting another unsuccessful appeal before the Queen’s Bench of 25 May 1847. This was a “time policy” for £11,250 on the Seahorse hull, and another “time policy” on her machinery for the same amount for the period 28 February to 27 August 1843, claimed as a “total loss”, and therefore represented two separate policies from those previously discussed. 47 Parsons, op.cit.. p.149.

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Ballingall’s attack on the marine insurance industry, and particularly on the honesty of participating shipowners, is also given some credence by the number of disputed cases for insurance in the NSW Supreme Court. These cases sometimes suggest collusion on the part of shipowner, shipmaster and surveyors. In July 1839 George Porter sued the Australian Marine Assurance Company, who had underwritten his brig Alice, for recovery of extensive repair costs at the Cape, allegedly incurred after she was caught in a gale.48 The Alice had been insured for £2,000 in June 1838 against the perils of the sea, for a voyage from Mauritius to the Cape and thence to Sydney. The underwriters refused to pay, arguing that, based on all the evidence, the brig was unseaworthy when she left Mauritius, and therefore the policy was not binding.

In 1840, another of her owners, Isaac Simmons, sued the Sydney Marine Life and Fire Assurance Company for recovery of £2,300 on a Policy issued in January 1839 for a return voyage from Sydney to Manila.49 About six months later, the same insurance company executed another insurance for £1,200 (at 2.5 guineas %) on her freight from Manila to Sydney. Before the Alice left Sydney, the Company’s Surveyor attempted to inspect the vessel but his efforts were frustrated by the fact that the Alice was already loaded with cargo. The owner claimed she was damaged on her voyage, and found to be leaking so severely on her return voyage, she was forced to return to Manila, where she was surveyed by a group of shipmasters, and condemned as unseaworthy. She was there sold at auction, for $2,100, or £562. 10s., although there were no records of the transaction. The Court proved that both the Alice and her long boat were in fact unseaworthy when she left Sydney. The Court determined that insurance of ships was “prima facie evidence that what was to be insured, had no latent or hidden defect in it,” and if death or loss occurred “the insured was to suffer and not the insurers”. Had the several underwriters paid the two claims, the shipowners would have profited well from their attempted fraud, having purchased her from Daniel Egan for a mere £2,400.

48 Porter v. Jones, Supreme Court 5 July 1839, Sydney Herald, 8 July 1839. 49 Simmons v. Lamb, NSW Supreme Court, 28 October 1840, Sydney Herald, 30 October 1840. It was customary to sue one of the Directors, representing the company (in this case John Lamb).

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Simmons reputation for employing “unseaworthy” ships was not enhanced by his purchase of the Caroline in 1844 for £250. After fitting out the vessel for a voyage to London he offered passages at half the usual rate, attempting to engender public confidence in her seaworthiness by intimating that he and his family intended to sail in her. His fraudulent actions attracted public criticism when he twice attempted to send the “wretched old basket to sea, thereby risking human life”.50 While the efforts of Ballingall and others certainly alerted the public to the unscrupulous activities of some shipowners and shipmasters and issues of seaworthiness, it would also be fair to suggest that Simmons represented a new breed of ruthless shipowners emerging during the 1840s. These included men such as Towns and Fotheringham, who took advantage of the financial crisis to invest in cheap second-hand shipping for deployment in the sandalwood trade. Towns boasted to Robert Brooks that his ships “cost me trifling”.51 Fotheringham purchased two old whalers, Scamander and the Mary for £675 each, the first in such a wretched condition that even Towns described her as a “poor thing”.52 As Shineberg has shown, even their owners considered some vessels they placed in the sandalwood trade during the 1840s virtually unseaworthy, and underwriters were very reluctant to insure them. Hulls were often rotten and excessively leaky, vessels poorly equipped, and navigators and crew often drunk or incompetent. With all the risks inherent in the sandalwood trade, shipowners like Towns and Fotheringham gambled “with the lowest possible stakes”.53 Rather than investing their capital in sound shipping, repairs, and equipment, and ensuring they employed “respectable” seamen by offering reasonable conditions and financial inducements, they preferred the more certain financial returns to be gained through underwriting each other’s shipping through the Sydney Marine Assurance Office (discussed in Chapter Fourteen).

50 Sydney Herald, 4 June 1845. Simmons unsuccessfully sued the paper for libel, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List,, 1 August 1846, p.219. 51 Towns to Brooks, 10 July 1846, Towns Papers, Letters to Robert Brooks & Co., 1844-60, ML Uncatalogued MSS, Set 307, Item 67. Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 25 June 1845, p. 176. 52 Towns to Collins, 11 May 1847, ibid, General Letter Books, 1846-1862, Item 57. 53 D. Shineberg, They Came for Sandalwood. A Study of the Sandalwood Trade in the South-West Pacific, 1830-1865. Carlton, MUP, 1967, pp.86-9.

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This minimal investment approach may have been financially justified in the case of the sandalwood trade. However, when it was also applied to the freight and passenger trade to London, it was a different matter. When the 368-ton barque, Mary, was wrecked off Flinders Island with a cargo of wool, oil and tallow, on the 24 May 1845, bound for London, her owners, Fotheringham, Challis and Campbell, successfully claimed on their Lloyd’s policy, the sum of £18,000, a value far in excess of her purchase price.54 Her cargo and seventeen lives were lost. One survivor, Captain J.G. Collins of the 13th Light Dragoons, seriously questioned the ship’s soundness when she left Sydney, claiming she was very leaky, her sails defective, that she carried no spare set of sails and lacked some navigating equipment. The rapidity of her disintegration following impact raised further questions about her initial seaworthiness. However, Captain Samuel Ashmore, the marine surveyor for Lloyds, assured him that he had properly surveyed the vessel and given her a certificate of seaworthiness prior to her leaving port. This was corroborated by another experienced shipmaster.55

Fotheringham, as part owner, quickly responded to the accusations levelled against his ship, after hearing of the adverse publicity on his arrival in Launceston.56 A copy of Ashmore’s certificate, confirmed and witnessed by Towns, agent for Lloyds, and James Martyr, lessee of the Patent Slip at Sydney, was published in the Launceston Examiner and reprinted in the Shipping Gazette. The certificate was supported by a sworn statement from the Mary’s Chief Officer, Second Mate and the Carpenter (John Stansbery), dated 3 July 1845, attesting to her sound condition and the quality of her sails, rigging, instruments, stores and provisions. Nevertheless, Collins was unimpressed by this evidence, and countered it by publishing a sworn statement Stansbery made on the 9 June 1845, at Flinders Island. This contradicted his later jointly sworn statement, as well as repairs attested to by Martyr and Ashmore. The barque’s history suggests that Collin’s amateur opinion (backed by the carpenter’s initial professional assessment) that she was unseaworthy may have been accurate.

54 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 30 May 1846, p. 151. 55 Ibid, 56 Ibid, 26 July 1845 reprinted from the Launceston Examiner of 8 July 1845, p. 188-9.

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Built in the English port of Ipswich in 1811, the Mary served many years as a whaler, before being severely damaged in 1839. After being allegedly “thoroughly repaired” in Mossman’s Bay she was returned to the fisheries by her owners, Hughes & Hosking, whose estates were later, placed in receivership.57 At the very least, her history suggests Fotheringham’s decision to place her in the freight and passenger trade to London was ill conceived. Despite the unfavourable local publicity, Lloyd’s paid out the insurance policy. This case raises issues about the ability of Lloyd’s Sydney agents to act independently, given shared shipping interests with shipowners.

One of the clearest and most publicised marine insurance rorts in NSW during the period involved the case of the Isabella Anna, a barque engaged in the sandalwood trade, jointly owned by Fotheringham and Towns. In February 1849, Towns brought a civil suit against the barque’s underwriters in the NSW Supreme Court.58 Fotheringham and Towns had taken out multiple insurance policies in November 1848 on a sandalwood voyage –some on the hull, some on the voyage, others in the form of “time policies” – through insurance broker and accountant, Samuel H. Smythe. The court case represented one small part of these claims.

The case involved that loose association of underwriters, the Sydney Marine Assurance Office, formed by a group of shipowners underwriting each other’s shipping. Town’s counsel was critical of the new practice of underwriting. In other marine insurance companies, each shareholder was responsible for the acts of the company. The underwriter’s broker, Smythe, later reminded the Court that the Isabella Anna’s owners, Towns and Fotheringham “were members of this so called company,” and while “they did not underwrite policies on each other’s vessels; they employed me also as their broker”. Altogether, there were at least twelve underwriters

57 Colonial Shipping, City of Sydney Directory for 1844-1845, (compiled by Francis Low), E. Alcock, Sydney 1844, p.170; Commercial Advertiser, 8 May 1839; Insolvency Papers of John Hughes & John Hosking, 7 September & 25 September 1843, SRNSW, 2/8748, CGS13654, Nos. 916-7, No. 954. 58 Towns v Underwriters, NSW Supreme Court, reported in Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 14 April 1849, pp.94-104.

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to the Isabella Anna’s voyage, of whom only one was identified, that of James Simmons, brother of the barque’s previous owner, Isaac Simmons.59

The underwriters contested Town’s insurance claim, arguing that the Isabella Anna’s owners concealed her unsoundness from the underwriters. Smythe, the underwriter’s broker, testified that the underwriters were initially quite reluctant to insure the barque. They agreed only when Fotheringham reassured him that the vessel had been extensively repaired, and informed him that the marine surveyor, Captain Samuel Ashmore, had surveyed her and complimented her on her “soundness”.60 Fotheringham had, in fact, lied. Her timbers were quite rotten, and were merely covered over with copper sheathing. Conveniently perhaps for the owners, John Korff, the underwriters’ usual surveyor, was at Wide Bay at the time the insurance was arranged. Korff later testified that when he and Ashmore partly surveyed the Isabella Anna in December 1845, Ashmore expressed considerable alarm about her poor condition, and both considered her to be “unseaworthy”.61

The question of seaworthiness was a key point determining the validity of marine insurance policies. Want argued, “there is an implied warranty that when a vessel is insured, she is seaworthy, and if not, why of course the policy never attaches”. Nevertheless, he argued, the parties are not bound to state the condition of the vessel when taking out a policy, but there is a prima facie presumption of seaworthiness, that the vessel “could perform the contemplated voyage in ordinary weather”. He argued that the seaworthiness of a vessel might differ according to the length of the voyage, and did not depend entirely on the soundness of the timber, but also on the number of crew, the type and state of the rigging.62 In fact, the principle that a marine insurance

59 Testimony of James Simmons. 10 April 1849, ibid. Also Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 6 June 1848, p.3; See also Ronald Parsons, Shipowners Registering their Ships in Early Sydney. Australian Maritime Historical Society, Ronald Parsons, Murray Bridge, May 2003, p. 86. 60 Smythe, 12 April 1849, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 14 February 1849. 61 Korff, 7 April 1849, ibid. 62 R.J. Want, Counsel for the Plaintiff, leading remarks, quoting legal precedence of these principles were outlined in the case of Phillips v Nairne, 1848, and in 16 L. JCP, p.194, ibid.

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policy was invalid if shipowners failed to disclose their ship’s unsoundness was already well established through legal precedent in British jurisprudence.63

The Isabella Anna was an old “slaver,” captured off the African coast by the British Navy in 1836 and brought to London. There she had undergone extensive repairs, including extensions to convert her from a schooner to a barque at the well-known Thames shipyard of Curling and G.F. Young. She was then re-registered, and given an Æ rating on the first class on Lloyds’ registry in 1839, meaning that she was certified fit for the carriage of dry and perishable cargo. As with many older British ships, she was sold on to the NSW shipping market. However, by the time she was sent on a voyage to Hong Kong in 1844, she was already “rat-eaten,” “hog-backed” and leaky, and after undergoing urgent running repairs, returned to Sydney via Hobart, where she was again sold. Isaac Simmons, a Sydney auctioneer, with extensive interests in shipping and the Pacific trade, purchased her in October 1845. Korff and Ashmore partially examined her, but were prevented from completing their survey by her owner. She was sent on a return voyage to New Zealand and the Pacific in 1846, before being sold at public auction to Fotheringham and Towns, for an undisclosed sum, her new owners placing her in the sandalwood trade.

In February 1848, the Isabella Anna was at New Caledonia, when she was allegedly caught in a hurricane. Heavily leaking, Captain Bradley attempted to take her on to Anatram for repairs, but was forced to return, as the crew were unable to stem the rate of leakage. Other shipmasters confirmed there was a gale or “perfect hurricane” in those latitudes at the time.64 Two sandalwood vessels, the brig, Sarah, and schooner, Castlereagh, were lost at Lifu. At least five other ships on sandalwood voyages were stranded there, and the Islanders suffered considerable loss from the destruction of their houses, crops and trees. The Sarah, belonging to Captain Larkins of Hong Kong, had been fully insured, while the Castlereagh belonging to Fotheringham was insured for £800. In both cases everything of value was saved, while the two wrecks were

63 The leading legal opinion on marine insurance matters to whom NSW legal Counsel referred to at this time was Professor McCulloch, Towns v Underwriters, ibid. 64 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 1 April 1848, p. 85.

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sold to one of their rescuers, Captain Woodin, of the Eleanor, for £120 and £50 respectively, “for the benefit of the underwriters”.65

Bradley later admitted that the barque was already very leaky before and after she left Sydney. Allegedly stranded at New Caledonia, Bradley sought assistance from Strachan, shipmaster of the Lynher, to help him repair the vessel. Strachan refused to assist, instead offering to purchase the barque for £50. Eventually, when the Isabella’s stores were almost exhausted, Bradley accepted the offer and Strachan agreed to return the crew to Sydney, after stripping the vessel of her assets. The facts of the case suggest not only barratry on the part of Strachan (who admitted making £500 from the deal), but also collusion on the part of other shipmasters. Whether Strachan was acting in his capacity as agent to the Lynher’s owner, Towns, in this matter, or entirely on his own account, was not revealed. In either case, only her underwriters would normally have legitimate title to the registry and salvage.

The insurance case involving the Isabella Anna proved to be highly embarrassing and damaging to the reputation of the Isabella Anna’s part-owner and shipwright, Fotheringham, and for his Patent Slip lessees, James Martyr & Co. Fotheringham attested that during December 1847 she was “thoroughly repaired” at his Patent Slip under his supervision over a period of fourteen days, £600 being spent in materials, including replacing timbers and treenails, coppering her with sheathing, and re- caulking her, for which he charged £900.66 Testimony from John Korff, marine surveyor for the underwriters, made it clear that such repairs were impossible given her decayed condition. In fact, Fotheringham’s refusal to provide the underwriters with copies of the numerous surveys undertaken on her at New Caledonia, strongly suggest fraud on his part. Fortunately for Fotheringham and Towns, the Court decided there was insufficient evidence of deliberate concealment. It did however find a verdict for the underwriters both with regard to her being “unseaworthy” at the time the insurance policies were issued, and to the Isabella Anna not having been “lost by

65Ibid. 66 Testimony of Alexander Fotheringham, his Superintendant, Palmer, and Foreman, William Brown; and final cost of repairs in Samuel Smythe’s testimony, ibid.. A proportion of this cost (possibly as much as £600) would have been recovered from Robert Towns.

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the perils of the sea”. This case provides clear evidence that the quality of ship repairs at the Patent Slip was seriously compromised in an effort to reduce operating costs.

Further evidence for shoddy workmanship at the Patent Slip during 1848, is apparent from a report of the barque Tasmania, which after leaving Sydney for London via Cape Horn on 24 September 1848 was obliged to put into Rio De Janeiro, due to the leaky condition of the vessel.67 She was allegedly repaired at the Patent Slip prior to leaving Sydney.68 She was surveyed by John Korff (Surveyor for Phoenix Marine Insurance Company of Calcutta at Sydney as well as for the Sydney Marine Assurance Office), and Captain Samuel Ashmore, Surveyor for the General Assurance Office of Sydney on 27-29 July 1848, after the lower hold was nearly stowed).69 Both recommended she undergo specific repairs, above her copper line, to make her seaworthy.70 These repairs would not have addressed the more serious damage below deck. The Tasmania was leaking almost from the time she left port, her condition not improved by the severe weather and icebergs encountered from the Chatham Islands to the Horn. While the Tasmania was one of Dunbar’s vessels, neither her Sydney agents nor the charterers, had ensured her seaworthiness. Ship surveyors at Rio ordered her to be discharged of her cargo, with the result that arrangements had to be made to tranship the cargo to London on the John Patchet, at 35s. per ton.71 Whether her owners were able to recover the full extent of their expenses from their underwriters was not revealed. By May 1850 she again arrived in Sydney from Hobart with passengers and cargo, and was advertising for passengers bound for London. This suggests the standard of marine surveying and ship repairs at Rio were of a higher quality than that offered at Sydney’s Patent Slip.

67 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 14 April 1849, p.94. According to her register she was a vessel built at Sunderland docks in 1841 of “Hambro’ oak”, and thus a comparatively young ship. 68 Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 14 April 1849, p.94. 69 A letter from John Korff, shipbuilder, and Captain Samuel Ashmore certifying that they had surveyed the Tasmania on the 27th and 28th July 1848, at the request of JC Tucker, was published in the Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List on 14 April 1848, Vol 6/265, p. 94. The survey took place at Circular Wharf, after she had already received much of her cargo. 70 ibid.. By 5 August 1848, she had loaded most of her heavy cargo, including lead ore, oil, tallow, and treenails. 71 Campbell and Smith were in fact the Sydney agents of Duncan Dunbar. See Frank Broeze, Mr. Brooks and the Australian Trade. Imperial Business in the Nineteenth Century. Melbourne University Press, 1993, p. 237

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There were a number of common issues in these contested insurance cases. A primary issue was the management practice of minimising capital and operating costs through purchasing cheap second-hand shipping, neglecting ship repairs and reducing refitting expenses. Restricting marine surveys undertaken to secure marine insurance compounded this problem. This was achieved, in some cases by stowing vessels before survey, thus denying surveyors the opportunity to effectively inspect the ship’s hull. Sometimes, especially in the case of vessels allegedly damaged at sea, the integrity of surveyors (usually shipmasters) was compromised by personal interest. One resident shipmaster, forced to call at Sydney on his way from Adelaide to Swansea in 1847 after his “copper ship” limped into port leaky, was sufficiently dubious about the quality of her initial surveys and repairs he demanded his ship be fully unloaded, and fresh surveys and more extensive repairs undertaken, a process delaying the ship by several months.72 A comparison of the speed with which two other “copper ships” insurance claims were paid suggests that marine insurance may actually have favoured total losses.73 A few other shipmasters opted to withdraw from their articles of agreement rather than sail in leaky ships.74 Such actions were however uncommon, no doubt because their personal reputation and finances suffered.

The practice of taking out multiple insurance policies for the same ship, and on the same voyage, was not uncommon in New South Wales during the period. Whether such a practice amounted to criminal fraud is a different matter. Boyd’s strategy was an attempt to, not only recover the full new value of the Seahorse and its machinery, but also for the loss of projected earnings. Boyd made a serious blunder in his initial decision to both purchase the Seahorse, and to employ her in the Australian coastal trade in 1841. She was ill adapted for that trade, being fitted with an over-abundance of luxury accommodation, she was expensive to run, and the trade already had an

72 Extracts of the Journal of John Smith Papps, shipmaster of Harpooneer, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 28 April 1847. Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 22 June, 10 July, 11 September 1847; Maitland Mercury, 24 July 1847. 73 Mel Davies, ‘Shipping Freight Costs: South Australian Copper and Copper-Ore cargoes, 1845-1870, The Great Circle’, Vol. 20, No.2, 1998. The two ships were the Brechin Castle and the Hindoo. 74 Captain Aitken, shipmaster of Caroline,

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abundance of both steam and sail shipping, that could not find sufficient paying business. The case of the Seahorse was an extreme example of how the system of underwriting could be exploited by shipowners to cover their losses.

James Ballingall’s allegations regarding the abuse of marine insurance appear borne out in the cases of the Alice, Seahorse and that of the Isabella Anna. On the other hand, given the lucrative nature of the NSW insurance industry, it is unlikely that shipowners, in general, fully recovered their premiums over time, or even that abuse was a widespread activity. Profitable dividend returns encouraged investment from a broad occupational profile, including pastoralists, gentlemen, and merchants as well as shipowners. However, at least in NSW, it remained outside their core business activities. Thus, even when profits from insurance companies were high, shareholders under financial stress divested themselves of their shares to concentrate on core activities. Marine insurance may have acted as an incentive to investors in speculative ventures as whaling, where both natural and business risks were high, but it was by no means a universally adopted business solution. Some shipowners, particularly in the coastal and steamship trades, chose to risk receiving no compensation for loss rather than paying insurance premiums.75 This expense may have been better employed in properly maintaining and repairing shipping and securing the loyalty of skilled, sober seamen through permanent employment. However, in such a hazardous environment as the sea, neither the quality of shipping nor the skill of seamen provided any guarantee against loss. Thus, marine insurance was a useful risk management strategy providing some element of reassurance in an uncertain environment.

75 This policy was adopted by the A.G.S.N.C., Spark, 1 July 1840, G.J. Abbott & G. Little (eds.), The Respectable Sydney Merchant. A.B.Spark of Tempe, Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1976, p.123. Another steamer, the Phoenix, with an estimated value of £6,000, owned by E. Manning, was not insured when it was wrecked at the Clarence River in March 1850, C. Bateson, Australian Shipwrecks, Including Vessels wrecked en route to or from Australia, and some strandings, Vol. 1: 1622-1850. Sydney, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1972, pp.235-6. There is insufficient information available to even estimate the proportion of shipping insured.

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CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

Expectations of opportunity and wealth permeated through British commercial and government circles, when they reviewed Cook’s discoveries in the Pacific. Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch discoveries gold, silver and exotic spices in the New World inspired expectations of finding new sources of untapped wealth. Proposing a settlement at Botany Bay, James Matra, one of the Endeavour’s able seamen, predicted that with the industry of a “few Settlers,” in NSW, “in 20 or 30 Years they might cause a Revolution, in the whole system of European Commerce, & secure to England a Monopoly of some part of it, & a very large share of the whole”.1 He believed the colony not only offered access to timber and flax, but had such excellent climatic and soil conditions as to render it admirably suited for producing a range of valuable agricultural products, including spices.2 Unrealistic though his timeframe may appear, his ideas, nonetheless, reflect the enthusiasm of his time. It was this spirit of optimism that continued to drive the development of NSW shipping industry up to 1850, despite the many obstacles impeding its progress.

NSW shipowner, Robert Towns, epitomises the sense of optimism and speculation still prevailing in the maritime community when he wrote to London merchant, Robert Brooks in 1847: “I will not be satisfied until I get 12 whalers. I am convinced the thing is no speculation, all is in the management and men”.3 As suggested in this thesis, the spirit of entrepreneurship differentiated NSW shipowners from many of their counterparts in Great Britain. This approach was a prerequisite for developing a shipping industry in a remote, new economy, where freight was closely associated with extractive industries, with fledgling infra-structural support. My thesis has argued that those at the forefront of marine exploration, shipmasters, were also those most able to take advantage of marine and coastal resources, usually with the financial backing of merchant houses. For them, distance represented not a “tyranny,” but rather an opportunity. Fittingly then, the period examined in this thesis ends just at the

1 Alan Frost, The Precarious Life of James Mario Matra, Voyager with Cook, American Loyalist, Servant of Empire. Carlton, M.U.P. & The Miegunyah Press, 1995, p.111. 2 Proposal for establishing a Settlement in New South Wales, dated 23 August 1783, ibid,, pp.111-2. 3 Towns to Brooks, 24 March 1847, Towns Papers, ML MSS307, Item 68.

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point when a new wave of excitement and speculation occasioned by the discovery of gold in California, followed swiftly by Australian gold discoveries, gave fresh impetus to the NSW shipping industry.

The history of the NSW maritime community between 1820-1850 suggests that it were well placed to take advantage of local and regional opportunities that arose from the increasing volume of British, European and American shipping. The NSW maritime industry was critically important to the settlement and economic growth of both Australia and Great Britain. Investment in shipping provided access to maritime resources such as seals, sandalwood and whale oil. As I have shown, it facilitated settlement, through the discovery and exploration of navigable bays and coastal rivers suitable for settlement, and discovery and exploitation of local resources, such as timber, coal, limestone, and salt. Through the establishment of the local shipping industry, overseas shipowners were saved the inconvenience of engaging in extended “searching” voyages to collect timber, coal and ultimately whale oil. Instead, these activities were pursued on a local level, and the products then loaded on to ships as return freight to Great Britain. Private infrastructure development, in the form of wharves, warehouses and ship-repair facilities, was essential to the extension of trade between Australia, Great Britain and the Pacific. It also provided an important safety net for southern whaling ships, by offering refitting, repair and provisioning facilities, that extended the effective working life of ships and their crew.

Nevertheless, the period from 1820 to 1850 was, for the NSW shipping interest, one of great challenge. From the beginning of settlement substantial legal barriers were imposed, designed to comply with the EIC’s charter, to contain a penal colony, to promote Britain’s hegemony over world trade, and to protect its shipping and “nursery of seamen” from competition and predation. In order to fulfil these extraordinarily contradictory aims, a series of strategies emerged during the first thirty years. Successive Governors quietly sanctioned the development of a local shipbuilding industry, condoned or encouraged visitation by foreign shipping, or distanced themselves from activities of private enterprise that contravened or challenged the monopolies of the EIC and Great Britain’s Southern Whale Fishery.

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By 1819, NSW business interests had become impatient with the many government hindrances, including a double-tariff system, put in the way of their pursuit of profit.

Such events inevitably triggered renewed British Parliamentary discussions about the efficacy of its protective policies. By degrees, the EIC’s charter, discriminatory tariff laws, and the British whaling industry’s “bonus system,” were eroded. The 1819 Petition marked a significant step in a campaign against government intervention that was to overturn the EIC’ charter, and bring the end of the tariff system and the British Navigation Laws. It was significant simply because it united otherwise disparate and competitive interests together in political action. From the mid-1830s, as I have shown, the NSW shipping interest participated in a vigorous public campaign, mirroring that occurring in Great Britain, in favour of laissez-faire. How much of this was being engineered from abroad, and how much it reflected a genuine local demand from the maritime business community are some of the questions raised from the discussion in this thesis. I suggest that the real local campaign against the effects of the 1835 Maritime Seamen’s Act was in fact high jacked by the pastoral interest, which deflected the attack onto a campaign for the repeal of the British Navigation Laws. The culmination of that campaign may be seen as marking a turning point for the local maritime community. The mid-1840s represented a period during which many investors were beginning to divest themselves of non-core business to specialise in pastoral, merchant or maritime activities. By 1849, investors in the NSW shipping industry were increasingly mariners, whose core business depended on their control of shipping.

While Matra may have been over-optimistic regarding the timing of development, on one essential point at least, his predictions were correct. The importation and improvement of Merino and Saxony sheep breeding stock from Germany and Spain by men such as John Macarthur, Richard Jones and William Walker, sometimes with the financial backing of absentee landowner, Walter Davidson, did cause an economic “revolution” in Britain.4 After 1830, northern textile manufacturers in Britain

4 The relationship between Sir Joseph Banks, John Macarthur, and the Henty brothers for example, in relation to the development of the wool industry, and links to textile manufacturers in northern England

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increasingly benefited from the export of colonial wool and Britain’s enormous balance of payments deficit was steadily reduced, as she became a significant exporter of manufactured textile articles. Britain became less dependent on raw wool imports from Europe.5 This “revolution” also had political implications for the “balance of power,” which shifted to Britain’s northern industrial areas, and increasing pressure was asserted on the Home Government to introduce the Reform Acts from 1832 onward.

Far from the colony being dependent on overseas (specifically English) shipping, the relationship was rather one of mutual inter-dependence. Ultimately, the impetus for maritime business development in Australia was a response from overseas investors to the “tyranny of distance”. It was perhaps the mariners themselves who gained most from distance. For them it proved to be a real opportunity to transform their financial and social status, by becoming shipowners. As such they were masters of their own destiny. Sailing their ships on “the world’s edge” converted many local shipowners and shipmasters from mere freight carriers into entrepreneurs and daring opportunists, willing to risk lives and their ships in search of fresh opportunities and wealth. Marine insurance was the linchpin in this, often ruthless, pursuit of wealth. It provided a safety net for risk-taking but conversely, as a lucrative source of wealth, ultimately threatened to discredit the shipping industry.

While local shipmasters and merchants were well placed to identify and pursue new opportunities, their ability to do so was limited by available capital. While overseas shipowners and merchants, such as the Australian Company of Edinburgh and Leith, Robert Brooks and others were happy to reap the benefits of their agents’ enterprise, they were less than happy when shipmasters and mercantile agents redirected their

might be deserving of further investigation. See correspondence between Davidson, Murray and Darling, 18 November 1829, HRA, Series 1, Vol. XV, pp.400-402. 5 By 1842, New South Wales had become the largest exporter of wool to Great Britain, supplying almost double the quantity of wool exported by Germany, and seven times the quantity drawn from Spain, based on figures published by the London firm of Donaldson, Lambert & Co. in the Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 15 June 1844.

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profits in pursuit of independent speculations.6 Prompt action was essential to maximise profits from new speculations. Given that any communication between principals and agents involved at least a six-month delay, local entrepreneurs frequently adopted the practice of diverting their principal’s remittances to respond to identified local market demands or fund new enterprise. Agency Houses representing their (usually) British Houses’ shipping and mercantile interests in New South Wales were a common feature of the local maritime business community throughout the period. This strategic model enabled agents to access investment funding overseas while representing the interests of their own and other business houses. It was not a new phenomenon, but rather a model already employed by the British in Canton.7 Frequently emerging from this structural relationship between agency and central business house was the agent conducting business on his own account in the colony, taking up residence on either a temporary, or permanent basis. While such a businessman might well maintain his existing network, he now acted as agent for a multiplicity of business houses abroad, maintaining independence in the pattern and scope of his investment.8

Clearly not all agents demonstrated such flexibility with their financier’s assets, particularly after the financial crisis in the early 1840s, when many local agents were replaced. John Dunmore Lang, in his account of the growth of New South Wales in 1852, suggested that the colony’s business enterprise was under the control of British agency houses, representing the interests of their British principals rather than the

6 Terry v. Brown, NSW Supreme Court, 24 March 1834, Sydney Gazette, 27 March 1834; Michael Nix, ‘The Australian Company of Edinburgh and Leith’, Parts 1, The Great Circle, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 21-39 and Part 2, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp.13-35; Frank Broeze, Mr. Brooks and the Australian Trade: Imperial Business in the Nineteenth Century, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic. 1993, pp. 84ff, 113, 164-5, 172ff. 7 Greenberg, Michael, British Trade and the Opening of China 1800-1842. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1951; Cheong, WE: Mandarins and Merchants. Jardine Matheson & Co., a China Agency of the Early Nineteenth Century. Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, No. 26. Curzon Press, 1979. 8 Such, for example was the case of AB Spark, who represented numerous British merchant and shipping houses, apparently balancing their varying, and sometimes, competing interests without undue favour. See GL Abbott & G Little (eds), The Respectable Sydney Merchant. A.B. Spark of Tempe. Sydney University Press, Sydney 1976.

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interests of the colony.9 Through their “chain of monopoly”, controlling shipping, banking and all commercial transactions, and their close links with government decision-making, they controlled the prices offered locally for the benefit of their principals in London. For all Lang’s vindictive attack on the alleged greed and disloyalty of local merchants, his attitude failed both in its understanding of the varying structures of local merchant houses and agencies and in its understanding of the nature of the business risks associated with mortgage liens on products such as wool.

In NSW, the world financial crisis in the late 1830s and early 1840s created a flurry of activity in the shipping industry as creditors attempted to redress their burden of mounting debt. This activity was particularly marked in the shipbuilding and coastal trades. Short voyages to procure timber, coal, agricultural products and copper and to service new settlements were designed to secure a cash flow and to address the vexing problem of remittances to Great Britain. By the mid-1840s, investment in both maritime and pastoral industries was marked by the adoption of a more cautious business approach. Those who gained most from the immediate crisis were shipbuilders and mariners, responding to the need for heightened coastal traffic, or tough-minded speculators such as Towns and Fotheringham.

In this thesis I have examined one aspect of NSW business history, maritime industry in the period 1820-1850. Specifically, I have examined opportunities and risks facing individuals engaged in a range of maritime industries in a colony during its formative stages, and the strategies employed to overcome a range of political, regulatory, and financial obstacles and constraints. Their entrepreneurial activities were frequently speculative in nature, and marked by a willingness to risk (often borrowed) capital. While improvement in social status was an important aspect of motivation, it was by no means the sole of activity. Most were instead caught up in a struggle to find

9 Dunmore-Lang, J: An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales. 3rd ed. Vol. 2, Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, London 1852, pp. 185-6.

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sustainable, rewarding employment to free them from the demands of their creditors. Career transition is the underlying theme of the NSW maritime community during this period. For mariners it was the transition from a life at sea to a life ashore, some developing shipping agencies as a stepping-stone to establishing merchant houses. For merchants, this transition involved short-term investment in shipping and whaling activities while developing pastoral holdings. Local opportunities also prompted a reverse transition from life ashore to a life at sea, particularly for many engaged in the coastal trades. Thus, participants in this maritime community shared several important characteristics. These were a sense of optimism, resourcefulness, flexibility, and daring, all essential ingredients for men living on the new frontier.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Section Summary Primary Sources: 1. Government Publications: 1.1.Legislation (Acts & Bills) 1.2.1 Reports of Inquiries (NSW) 1.2.2Reports of Inquiries (Great Britain) 1.3. Government Minutes, Votes & Proceedings 1.4 Musters and Census Records 1.5.1 Shipping Records (NSW) 1.5.2 Shipping Records (Great Britain) 1.6 Miscellaneous NSW Government Records 2. Newspaper Publications 3. Private Papers and Archived Business Records 4. Ship Logs, Diaries and onboard Journals 5. Published Papers, Correspondence, Diaries & other Contemporary Sources

Secondary Sources: 6. Articles and Chapters 7. Books and Monographs 8. Film Documentaries * * *

Bibliography Primary Sources: 1. Government Publications:

1.1. Legislation (Acts & Bills):

An Act for the Relief of Debtors in Execution for Debts which they are Unable to Pay, 2 George

1

IV, No. XI. Proclaimed and published in NSW Government Gazette, Vol. 24, 28 March

1832, pp.33-37.

An Act for the Better regulation and Government of Seamen, 2 George IV, No.10. Proclaimed and published in NSW Government Gazette, Vol. 24, 28 March 1832, pp. 29-32.

Regulation of Shipping in Harbours of NSW of 14 August 1832, Vol. 24, 15 August 1832, NSW Government Gazette, pp. 232-3. An Act to amend and consolidate the Laws relating to the Merchant Seamen of the United Kingdom, and for forming and maintaining a Register of all the men engaged in that Service, 5 & 6 William, Cap. XIX (30 July, 1835), NSW Government Gazette, No. 211, 2 March 1836, pp. 179-192. An Act to empower the Governor of New South Wales to appoint Commissioners with certain powers, to examine and report on Claims to Grants of Land in New Zealand., Victoriae Reginae No. 7, 1840. NSW Government Gazette, No.56, September 1840, pp. 814-817. A Bill for the Better Regulation and Government of Seamen within the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependencies, and for other purposes thereto. NSW Government Gazette, No 57, 16 September 1840, pp. 903-904. An Act for the further and Better Regulation and Government of Seamen within the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependencies, and for establishing a Water Police, Victoriae Reginae, No 17, 1840, NSW Government Gazette, Supplement, No 68, 24 October 1840, pp. 1083-1090. An Act to Regulate the Payment of the Duties of Customs in Her Majesty’s Dominions in the Islands of New Zealand, Victoriae Reginae, No 19, 1840. NSW Government Gazette, Supplement No 70, 31 October 1840, pp.1113-1115. An Act to ensure the fulfilment of engagements, and to provide for the adjustment of disputes between Masters and Servants in New South Wales and its Dependencies. Victoriae Reginae No 23, 1840. NSW Government Gazette, Supplement No 72, 4 November 1840, pp. 1161-1164. An Act to prevent the Desertion of Seamen belonging to Foreign Ships and Vessels, 10 Victoriae Reginae, 3 (Assented to, 30 October 1846) NSW Government Gazette, Supplement, 30 October 1846, pp. 4-5.

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An Act for the Protection of Seamen entering on board Merchant Ships, 11 Victoriae Reginae 23, (Assented to, 1 October 1847), NSW Government Gazette, Supplement, 1 October 1847, pp. 85-88. An Act for the Regulation of Steam Navigation, and for requiring Sea-going Vessels to carry boats, 11 Victoriae Reginae 3 (Assented to, 24 July 1847), NSW Government Gazette, Supplement, 24 July 1847, pp. 5-12. Mercantile Marine Act, 1850, Cap XCIII (Assented British House of Commons 14 August 1850). Published in NSW 1851, NSW Government Gazette, Supplement Vol. 30, No 79, 11 July 1851, pp 1093-1131.

1.2.1 Reports of Inquiries (NSW): Bigge, J.T. Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry on the State of Agriculture and Trade in the Colony of New South Wales (Common’s Paper 136, ordered to be printed 13 March 1823. Lord’s Paper 119, ordered to be printed 4 July 1823 , published and printed as ‘The Bigge Reports’ by Library Board of South Australia, Australiana Facsimile Editions No. 68, 1966. Bigge, J.T. Appendix to Report: Evidence, Bonwick, James Transcripts of Papers held in the Public Records Office (PRO), London: CCO 201/139-142, BT 1-36, BT 11, 1-362 and and BT 25, Mitchell Library Microfilm. New South Wales Legislative Council Select Inquiry into Immigration, June 1835. Committee on Immigration, NSW Legislative Council, Votes and proceedings 1824-1837. Sydney Printing Office 1847.

1.2.2 Reports of Inquiries (Great Britain) British Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons. Report from the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the Causes of Shipwrecks with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index. Sessional papers (Shipping Safety 2), Volume xvii, Bill Number 567, August, 1836. HMSO, Shannon, Ireland, 1970, pp I-xii, 1-388 and 1-39. British Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons. Report from the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the Causes of Shipwrecks with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index. Sessional papers (Shipping Safety 3), First Report, 1843, Shannon, Ireland, 1970.

3

British Parliamentary Papers. First Report from the Select Committee on Navigation Laws 19 January 1847-9th March 1847, Ordered to be printed by the House of Commons 26 March 1847, Sessional Papers, Vol 6, 1847 (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws Vol 1). British Parliamentary Papers. Second Report from the Select Committee on Navigation Laws, 11 March 1847-May 1847, Ordered to be printed by the House of Commons 26 March 1847, Sessional Papers, Vol 6, 1847 (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws Vol 1). British Parliamentary Papers. Third Report from the Select Committee on Navigation Laws 27 April 1847-6th May 1847, Ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, May 1847, Sessional Papers, Vol 6, 1847 (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws, Vol 1), pp 1-146. British Parliamentary Papers. Fourth Report from the Select Committee on Navigation Laws, 11 May 1847-10 June 1847, Ordered to be printed by the House of Commons June, 1847, Sessional Papers, Vol 6, 1847, (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws Vol 1), pp 1-178. British Parliamentary Papers. Fifth Report from the Select Committee on Navigation Laws, 1 July 1847-13 July 1847, Ordered to be printed by the House of Commons 26 March 1847, Sessional Papers, Vol 6, 1847 (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws, Vol 1), pp 1- 145. British Parliamentary Papers. Index, Summary and Report from the Select Committee on Navigation Laws, 1847, Ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, July 1847, Sessional Papers, Vol 6, 1847 (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws Vol. 1), pp.1-98. British Parliamentary Papers. First Report from the Select Committee into the Policy and Operation of the Navigation Laws together with Minutes of Evidence, taken from 9 March –5 May 1848. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 19 May 1848. (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws, Vol. 2). British Parliamentary Papers. Third Report from the Select Committee into the Policy and Operation of the Navigation Laws together with Minutes of Evidence, taken from 9 March –5 May 1848. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 19 May 1848. (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws, Vol 2). British Parliamentary Papers. Fourth Report from the Select Committee into the Policy and Operation of the Navigation Laws together with Minutes of Evidence taken from 9 March –5 May 1848. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 19 May 1848. (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws, Vol. 2).

4

British Parliamentary Papers. Fifth Report from the Select Committee into the Policy and Operation of the Navigation Laws together with Minutes of Evidence taken from 9 March –5 May 1848. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 19 May 1848. (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws Vol 2).

1.3. Government Minutes, Votes & Proceedings: NSW Legislative Council, Votes and Proceedings, 1824-1837. Sydney Printing Office, 1847. NSW Legislative Council: Votes and Proceedings, NSW Government Printer, Sydney 1846.

1.4 Musters and Census Records: State Records of NSW. 1828 Census Householder’s Return, CGS 1273-1274, Reels 2551-2552, 2506-7. Baxter, Carol J.(ed). General Muster of 1811. ABGR in association with Society of Genealogists, Sydney. Baxter, Carol J.(ed).General Muster of 1814. ABGR in association with Society of Genealogists, Sydney 1987. Baxter, Carol J. (ed). General Muster and Land and Stock Muster of New South Wales, 1822. ABGR in association with Society of Genealogists, Sydney. Sainty, Malcolm R. & Johnson, Keith A (eds.). Census of New South Wales, November 1828.

Library of Australian History, Sydney 1985.

Johnson, Keith A. & Sainty, Malcolm R. (eds). Index of Convict Pardons, 1 January 1810-31 December 1819 granted by M.G. , Governor of New South Wales. privately printed in Sydney, 1974.

1.5.1 Shipping Records (NSW): State Records of NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Office: Musters and Other Papers Relating to Convict Ships 1790-1849, CGS 1155, Reels 2417-2428. State Records of NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Office: Naval Officer’s Quarterly Reports of the Arrival and departure of Vessels, 1810-1824, X698-X701, Reels 2665-2666. State Records of NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Office: Sydney Harbour Master’s daily reports of

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vessels arriving and departing, 1826-1850, 4/5139-4/5186. State Records of NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Office: Reports of Vessels Arrived, 1826-1850, 4/5198-4/5238, Reels 1263-1277. State Records of NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Office: Shipping Arrivals, 1828-1850, 4/4823- 4/4907, Reels 1286-2459. State Records of NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Office: Wage Agreements and Entitlement Certificates of Persons on Bounty Ships, 1844-1845, 4/4825-4/4891, Reels 1286-1349. State Records of NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Office: Ship’s Musters, 1816-1825, 4/4771-4/4775, Reels 561-2. State Records of NSW, Colonial Secretary’s Office: Return of All Registers of Vessels, 1817- 1827, 4/1710, pp.135-150, Reel 2281.

1.5.2 Shipping Records (Great Britain): Lloyds Register of British and Foreign Shipping 1846-1860. National Library of Australia, microfiche copies. Original records in the University of Wisconsin, Madison Memorial Library

1.6. Miscellaneous Archives of the State Records of NSW Office: Index to Land Grants 1788-1865 and Selected Registers CGS 1217, 1219, 13836-13837, Reels 2548-50: Register of Depasturing Licenses 1837-1851, CGS 14404, Reels 5067-5081. NSW Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence. Returns of the Colony (Blue Books) 1822-1857, CGS 1286 Fiche 438-613. NSW Colonial Secretary: Land Records (NSW State Records): Bass, Henry Tompson (1832-1837), 2/7797, Reel 1089. Cooper, John (1835-1853), 2/7831, Reel 1113. Dacre, Ranulph, 1834-1842, 2/7838, Reel 1117. Demestre, Prosper, (1827-1840), 2/7841, Reel 1119. Flower, Phillip William, 1829 2/7860, Reel 1129. Fotheringham, Alexander (1832-1840), 2/7860, Reel 1129. Gee, Robert: (1836-1852), 2/7864, Reel 1130.

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Green, George (1834-1851), 2/7869, Reel 1133. Grono, John: 1828-1836, 2/7871, Reel 1134. Grose, Joseph Hickey: 1830-1841, 2/7871, Reel 1134. Imlay, A. (1830-1836), & P. (1852-1852), 2/7888, Reel 1144. Jones, Richard: (1827-1842), 2/7894, Reel 1147. Korff, John: 1854-1854, 2/7901, Reel 1150. Lamb, John: 1829-1850, 2/7902, Reel 1150. Long, William: (1830-1853) 2/7909, Reel 1154. Lowe, William: (1832-1842), 2/7910, Reel 1154. Marshall, James: (1842-3), 2/7915, Reel 1156. Papps, John Smith 1840-1840, 2/7945, Reel 1170. Peacock, John Jenkins (1828-1841), 2/7947, Reel 1171. Russell, John William 1833-1840, 2/7964, Reel 1179, Including land owned by HT Bass, (1833-1834). Thomas Street, 1827-1831, 2/7977, Reel 1184. Warden, David, (1836-1852), 2/7998, Reel 1194. Weller, George (1826-1839), Joseph (1830-1837), Joseph Brooks (1828-1834), Fanny (1831-1840), 2/8002, Reel 1196. Winship, Taylor (1836-1839), 2/8009, Reel 1199. Wright, James & Long, William (1831-1835), 2/8011, Reel 1200. State Records of NSW: Probate Records: Thomas Chowne, NRS 233752, Series 1, 14/3441,item 8386. (1870). William Henry Chowne, NRS 228555, Series 1, 14/3275, Item 3174, (1853). Edward David Intestate Estate 6/3484, File 73, Captain of Nelson, whaler (1832), Bundles 1 & 2. Edward David Intestate Estate Papers, NRS 13502, 6/4190, 1832. Edward David, ditto, Series 1, 14/3447, Item 8583. Series 1, 14/3188, Item 585. Series 1, 14/3186, item 476, (1832). Alexander Fotheringham Probate Records NSR-Item 233946, Series 1-8583, Granted 12/8/1870. David Fotheringham Probate Records NSR- Item Series 1- 8555, Granted 1/8/1870.

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John Korff, NRS 234191, Series 1, 14/3454, Item 8831 (1870). Timothy Goodwin Pitman, NRS 13502, 6/4190 (1832). John William Russell, NRS 234948, Series 1, 14/3477, Item 9595 (1872). Thomas Street Probate Records, State Records of NSW: UAID (NSR-ITM-229083), Series 1-3712, (date of death, 4/3/1855, probate granted 7 February 1857 State Records of NSW: Supreme Court, Insolvency Jurisdiction, 1824-88, CGS13521, 5/4639- 5/4643B, 1830-1845: Black v. Thomas Raine, 5/4639,September 1830 Plomer v. John Raine, ibid., December 1830. Nash v. John Raine, ibid, December 1830. Lyons and Norton v. Long, 5/4640, April 1840. Wright v. Drummond, ibid, May 1840. Walford v. Peacock, ibid., July 1840. Burdekin and Sandemann v. Papps, 5/4641, January 1841. Lamb and others v. Longmore, ibid, February 1841. McDermott v Peacock, ibid, February 1841. Peacock and another v. McKay, ibid, July 1841. Dunlop et al. v. Spilsbury, ibid., July 1841. Dunlop et al. v. McEachern, ibid. July 1841 Sparke et al. v. Cohen, ibid., July 1841. Walford v.Peacock, ibid. July 1841. Burdekin v. Weller, 5/4642, December 1841. Campbell v. Long, ibid, December 1841. Creditors v. Grono, ibid., July 1842. Creditors v. Gore, ibid., August 1842. Miscellaneous v. Dunlop & Company, 5/4643B, 1845. State Records of NSW: Supreme Court, Registrar in Bankruptcy, Insolvency files, 1842-87, CGS 13654: Ayerst, Thomas: 20 February 1844, 2/8783, Item 1292. Cape, Henry: 27 April 1847, 2/8808, Item 1628. Chowne, Thomas William: 19 April 1865, 2/9144, No. 7085.

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Chowne, William Henry (Pyrmont): 16 June 1842, 2/8691, No. 321. Cunningham/Cunnyngham, Robert Drybrough: 2/8783, Item 1296. Curtis, John James (Miller’s Point), 29 April 1842, 2/8683, No. 235 Dacre, Ranulph (Hunter Street, Sydney), 9 June 1846, 2/8801,No. 1533. De Mestre, Prosper, 21 August 1843, 2/8744, No. 876, (very fragile). Dillon, Thomas: 26 September 1842, 2/8708, Item 462. Duke, Robert (& Co.) (Miller’s Point), 29 April 1842, 2/8683, No. 235 Dunlop, Robert Glasgow: 25 April 1843, 2/8729, No. 71. Dunlop, Robert Glasgow: 27 July 1843, No. 823. Egan, Daniel (Hunter Street, Sydney): 15 September 1843, No. 933. Gillies, John: 1 December 1843, No. 1090. Gore, Thomas & Co.: 29 July 1842, 2/8694, No. 342. Grose, Joseph Hickey (Darlinghurst): 20 September 1843, 2/8751, No. 947. Hosking, John: 7 September 1843, 2/8748, No. 917. Hosking, John: 25 September 1843, 2/8752, No. 954. Hughes, John Terry: 7 September 1843, 2/8748, No. 916. Hughes, John Terry: 25 September 1843, 2/8752, No. 954. Hughes, John Terry: 6 June 1849, No. 1916, (papers merged with 2/8748?) Hughes, John Terry: 4 June 1850, No. 3070, (papers merged with 2/8748?) Jones, John: 20 September 1843, 2/8751,No. 944. Jones, John: 14 May 1844, 2/8780, No. 1263. Jones, Richard: 9 November 1843, 2/8761,No. 1043. Kemp, Richard: 19 April 1842, 2/8680, Item 210. Korff, John: 19 February 1842, 2/8663, No. 80. Lister, John Hardson: 31 January 1843, 2/8722, Item 629. Manning, Edye: 4 May 1844, No. 1256. Manson, David: 1 August 1843, 2/8740, item 837. Marshall, James: 24 July 1844, 2/8783, item 1293. Mitchell, Charles and Francis: 29 September 1843, No. 976. Mohan, James, 9 December 1843, 2/8766, Item 1108. Moon, Henry: 23 February 1842, 2/8665, No. 93.

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Moore, Henry: 10 February 1844, No. 1177 and 1179. Moore, Joseph: 10 February 1844, No. 1177 and 1178. Newton, Alexander, Ferrier & Co., 2/8798, Item 1491. Nicholson, John, 2/8670, Item 130 (very fragile). Papps, John Smith: 21 March 1843, No. 163. Papps, John Smith: 12 February 1851, No. 3026. Peacock, John Jenkins: 2 September 1843, 2/8746, No. 904. Russell, John: 23 June 1843, 2/8735, No. 781. Russell, John William, jnr. 16 January 1878, No. 13825. Sheldon, Henry Terry: 7 September 1843, 2/8749, No. 918, Spark, Alexander Brodie: 22 August 1843, No. 877. Summerbell, Andrew: 25 April 1842, 2/8682, Item 225. Thom, George: 30 October 1843, 2/8758, item 1022. Thom, John: 18 December 1843, 2/8768, item 1124. Weller, Edward: 30 March 1842, No 178. Weller, George: 30 March 1842, No. 179. Williams, Josiah: 12 July 1847, 2/8809, Item 1652. Wilson, Adam: 10 November 1842, No. 532. Wilson, William: 10 November 1842, Nos. 530, 532. Wilson, John Thomas: 1 February 1842, 2/8650, Nos.1-3. Wilson, John Thomas: 8 September 1842, 2/8704, No.430. Winship, Taylor: 25 June 1842, 2/8692, No. 334. Wright, Edward: 16 March 1842, 2/8672, No. 153. Wright, Robert Lee: 11 November 1842, No. 535. Wright, William (Charlotte Place): 2 April 1842, No. 183. NSW Early Church Records of Births, Deaths & Marriages. New South Wales Government Gazette, Volumes 1-42, 1832-1858, Government Printer, Sydney Governor Darling’s Despatches: (1828-1831): Mitchell Library Microfilm A103-AA1208 and SW Enclosures, 1831-1832, Mitchell Library Microfilm A1267-10/14.

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2. Newspaper Publications:

Arden’s Sydney Magazine of Politics and General Literature (Sydney) 1843. Colonial Magazine and Commercial Maritime Journal (London), 1840-1842. Commercial Journal and Advertiser (1835-1840). Commercial Journal and General Advertiser (Sydney) 1845. Fisher’s Colonial magazine and Commercial Maritime Journal (London), 1842-1843. Fisher’s Colonial Magazine and Journal of Trade, Commerce and Banking (London) 1844- 1845. Free Press and Commercial Journal (Sydney) 1841. New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette 1840. New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser 1842-1843. The Atlas: Sydney Weekly Journal of Politics, Commerce and Literature 1844-1848. The Australian and New Zealand Monthly Magazine 1842. The Bee of Australasia, 1844. The Colonial Observer: Weekly Journal of Politics, Commerce, Agriculture, Literature, Science and Religion for the Colony of New South Wales 1841-1844. The Dispatch (Sydney), 1842-1844. The Launceston Courier (Launceston), 1840-1843. The New South Wales Examiner (Sydney), 1842. The New Zealander, June 1845-1852 The Sentinel, 1845. The Sydney Gazette. The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List (1843-1855). Sydney Free Press, (Sydney) 1841-2. Sydney Herald. Maitland Mercury, (1840-1850) The South Australian Register. The Hobart Courier.

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3. Private Papers and Archived Business Records: Bank of Australasia Records, ML MSS 1591/1. II: Minute Book 30 July 1845-4 July 1848. III: Item 17 (Correspondence, 1829-1883). ML MSS 1541/4, Item 2, Item 7, Item 11, Item 14 Item 16 (Property Account: Hughes & Hosking). ML MSS 1591/5x (Property Book). Benjamin Boyd 1842-1847 Manuscript MS2588 (National Library of Australia). Robert Brooks & Co. (Letterbooks) Records (M582-583), 1822-1890, Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP), Microfilm MAV/FM 4/2347-8. Journal January 1828-September 1828. Ledgers 1826-1832. Acceptance Book 1846-1853. Letterbook February 1841-May 1843. Robert Campbell Papers, 1829-1861, Mitchell Library, MSS 2129. Robert Campbell Tertius Papers, 1848-1872, Mitchell Library, MS 3348 Memoranda extracted from an old book kept by Mr. Chowne of Pyrmont from 1841 (newspaper cuttings, Mitchell Library F991.1N. HT Fox Diaries, 1845-1855. ML: MSS 1045/1. Alexander Imlay, Mitchell Library A3031 Shipping and Whaling Account Book, 1837-1840, p.214ff. Lamb and Parbury, Mitchell Library, MSS3418, records 1854-1875 (CY Reel 952). Macarthur Papers, Mitchell Library D185, Volume 109 (1839-1840). Norton Smith Papers, (Deed of Power of Attorney between FM Stokes and J Korff & Henry Tompson Bass, dated 13 June 1837) Mitchell Library, A5320-3, Item 176. Samuel Peek, Francis Mitchell, John Hardman Lister & Alexander Fotheringham, Assignment and Mortgage documents, dated 1 & 2 November 1839, ML MSS 752, Parts 3 & 4. Street and Tranter Family History, Mitchell Library, MSS, 1102 and PIC.Acc 1121. Newton Family, Alexander Newton Papers 1810-1933: Mitchell Library MSS 2018. Shipbuilder: ML MSS 2191. R Pockley, Logbook of brigantine Martha and Elizabeth, MLA 3575. Riley, Alexander: Papers, 1804-1838: Mitchell Library Microfilm CY 901 (frames 402-573: A1208. Riley family papers, Vol. 3). Russell and Nichol Families, Mitchell Library, ML MSS.1310, III, Items 2 & 3. Robert Towns Papers, Z Vol. Mitchell Library MSS 1279/2 (CY Reel 2648), 1829-1887.

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4. Ship Logs, Diaries and onboard Journals: 4.1 Published Ship’s Logs, Diaries and onboard Journals: Bayly, George. A Life on the Ocean Wave: The Journals of Captain George Bayly 1824-1844. (Introduced and edited by Pamela Statham and Rica Erickson) The Miegunyah Press, MUP, 1998. Bays, Peter. A Narrative of the Wreck of the Minerva, Whaler, of Port Jackson. B. Bridges, Cambridge 1831 (Rare Book in Mitchell Library). Bishop, Charles The Journal and Letters of Captain Charles Bishop, 1794-1799. Edited by Michael Roe, Cambridge, Hakluyt Society, CUP, 1967. Bradley, Joseph .Adventures of a Native of Australia when Astray from his Ship, the barque “Lynx”, and his Consequent Cruise in a Boat on the Ocean. A true narrative. (circa 1860, J.J. Beukers, Parramatta). Re-issued and Annotated by M.D. Cobcroft. Whaling Primitive Series, No. 1, Amphion Press, Brisbane 1988. Bradley, Joseph A Nine Months’ Cruise in the “” Schooner from San Francisco in Company with the “Wanderer”, of the Royal Yaght (sic) Squadron, belonging to Benjamin Boyd, Esq. (circa 1860, J.J. Beukers, Parramatta), Reissued and annotated by M. Cobcroft, foreward by I.H. Nicholson. Whaling Primitive Series No. 2, 1991, Amphion Press, Brisbane. Dalton, William Dr. The Dalton Journal: Two Whaling Voyages to the South Seas 1823-1829. (Edited by Niel Gunson). National Library of Australia, Melbourne, 1990. Dana, Richard H. (Jnr.) Two Years Before the Mast. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. 1946 (originally published 1840). Fenwick, John The Diary 1854 (edited by L Wynd, Geelong Historical Society Publication, November 1969. Melville, David The Ship “North Briton” Voyage to Australia 1838/39, Diary (presented by Juanita Minter), privately published by R & J Minter, Balmain 1992. Nicol, John, Mariner Life and Adventures 1776-1801 (Edited by Tim Flannery) Text Publishing, Melbourne 1997 (originally published 1822). Rhodes, Captain W.B. The Whaling Journal – Barque Australian of Sydney 1836-1838 (Introduction and Notes by C.R. Straubel) Christchurch, Whitcombe and Tombs, circa 1954.

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Tregurtha, Capt. Edward Primrose The Tregurtha Log relating to the Adventurous Life of Capt. Edward Primrose Tregurtha (edited by Dan Sprod), Sandy Bay,Blubber Head Press, 1980. Webster, John The Last Voyage of the Wanderer. Sydney, F Cunninghame, circa 1858/61?

4.2 Unpublished Ship Journals: Kent, J.R. Journal of the Proceedings of His Majesty’s Colonial Cutter Mermaide from the 8th day of May to the 15th day of August 1823, inclusive. Microfilm MS504, Wellington T University (WTU). Log of the Proteus. Manuscript in Mitchell Library.

5. Published Papers, Correspondence, Diaries & other Contemporary Sources: Castle, T.D. & Kercher, Bruce (eds.) Dowling’s Select Cases 1828-1844: Decisions of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, The Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History, Sydney 2005 City of Sydney Directory for 1844-1845. (compiled by Francis Low). Sydney, E. Alcock, 1844. Collins, Lieut.-Col. An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales from its first settlement in 1788, to August 1801, Vol. II. Dowling, James Sheen Reminiscences of a Colonial Judge, 1819-1902: edited by A Dowling, Sydney, Federation Press with the Assistance of the Law Society of NSW, 1996. Dunmore-Lang, J. An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales. 3rd ed., Vols. 1 & 2, London, Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1852. Earle, Augustus Narrative of a Residence in New Zealand. (Edited by EH McCormick) Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1966. Elder, J.R. (ed.) The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, 1765-1838. Dunedin, Coulls Somerville Wilkie, Ltd. & A.H. Reed for the Otago University Council, 1932. Historical Records of New South Wales (HRA), Sydney. C. Potter. 1893-1901. Lloyd, Christopher (ed.) The Keith Papers: Selected from the Records of Admiral Viscount Keith, Vol. III, 1803-1815. Presented for the Navy records Society, London, 1955. Maclehose, James Picture of Sydney and Strangers’ Guide in New South Wales for 1839. This edition John Ferguson in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1977.

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Meade, R.W. A Treatise on Naval Architecture and Ship-Building or an Exposition of the Elementary Principles Involved in the Science and practice of Naval Construction. Compiled from various standard authorities, Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott & Co. 1869, (2nd ed.), transcribed by Lars Bruzelius, and republished as a web document, www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/Etymology/English/Meade(1869)_p455.html NSW Calendar & General Post Office Directory for 1832, Trustees of the Public Library of NSW. 1966 Facsimile Edition, William Dixson Foundation Series No. 7, Sydney. Paine, Daniel The Journal of Daniel Paine 1794-1797 (together with Documents Illustrating the beginning of Government Boat-Building and Timber Gathering in New South Wales)(edited by R.J.B. Knight and the Manuscripts Department of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, and Professor Alan Frost, La Trobe University, Victoria), Sydney, National Maritime Museum and Library of Australian History, 1983. Spark, A.B. The Diaries. (selections from diaries and letters 1836-1856 in Abbott, Graham & Little, Geoffrey (editors and compilers) 1976. Sydney Commercial Directory for the Year 1851 up to 31st December 1850. Sydney, W. & F. Ford, 1851.

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6. Articles and Chapters: Abbott, G.J. ‘A Note on the Volume of New South Wales Treasury Bills Expenditure 1788- 1821’, Business Archives and History, Vol 6, pp.81-88. Abbott, G.R. ‘Staple Theory and Australian Economic Growth 1788-1820’, in Business Archives and History (BAH) Vol 5, August 1965, pp. 142-154. Albion, R.G. ‘Early Nineteenth Century Ship-Owning: A Chapter in Business Enterprise’. Journal of Economic History Vol. 1, 1941, pp.1-11. Alderman, G. ‘Joseph Chamberlain’s Attempted reform of the British mercantile marine’. Journal of Transport History, New Series I, 1972, pp.169-184. Alderman, G. ‘Samuel Plimsoll and the Shipping Interest’, in Maritime History, I (1970), pp.73- 95. Anonymous ‘Aboard a Sperm Whaler’, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 8, Issue 47, April

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1854, pp. 670-674. Ashton, T.S. ‘The Relation of Economic History to Economic Theory’, Economica, Vol. 13, 1946, pp.81-96 Atkinson, Alan ‘Whigs and Tories and Botany Bay’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 61, Part 5, March 1976, pp. 289-310. Atkinson, Alan ‘Botany Bay: a counter-riposte’, Australian Economic History Review, Vol. XVII, No. 1, March 1977, pp. 78-82. Atkinson, Alan ‘First Plans for Governing New South Wales, 1786-87’, Australian Historic Studies, Vol. 24, No. 94, April 1990, pp. 22-40. Barnett, Len ‘Education and Training in the Royal Navy 1756-1918 as an element of the impact of industrialisation on war and the military establishment’. 2001. http://www.barnettresearch. freeserve.co.uk/education.htm. Bausse, Rudy ‘The Critical Importance of Rio de Janeiro to British Interests, with Particular Attention to Australia in her Formative years, 1787-1805’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 65, Part 3, December 1979, pp. 145-172. Bax, A.E. ‘Australian Merchant Shipping 1788-1849’, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal, Vol 38, Part VI, 1952. Bergman, G.F.J. ‘Solomon Levey in Sydney’. Royal Australian Historical Society Journal, Vol. 49, Part 6, 1963 pp.401-422. Bergman, G.F.J. ‘Levy, Solomon (1794-1833)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 2, Melbourne University press, 1967, pp. 110-111. Bergman, G.F.J. ‘Solomon Levey: From Convict to Merchant Prince, Part II: The Foundation of Western Australia’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 54, Part 1, 1968, pp.22-44. Berryman, Ian ‘ Solomon Levey: Business Entrepreneur’ in Rubinstein, W.D. (ed.) Jews in the Sixth Continent, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1987, pp. 63-75. Blainey, G. ‘“A Reply, I Came, I Shaw….”.’ Historical Studies (Aus & NZ), Vol. 13, April 1968, pp.204-206. Blainey, G. ‘Botany Bay or Gotham City?’ Australian Economic History Review, Vol. 8, 1968, pp. 154-163. Reprinted in Martin, Ged (ed.) The Founding of Australia. The Argument about Australia’s Beginnings. Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1978, pp. 105-114.

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Bolton, G.C. ‘The Hollow Conqueror: Flax and the Foundation of Australian Trade’, Australian Economic History Review, Vol. 8, March 1968, pp. 3-16 Bolton, G.C. ‘Broken Reeds and Smoking Flax’. Australian Economic History Review, Vol. IX, No.1, March 1969, pp.64-70. Broeze, F. ‘British Intercontinental Shipping & Australia 1813-1850’, Journal of Transport History, Vol. 4, 1978, pp.189-207. Broeze, F. ‘Foundation of Fortune: The Imperial Axis, Flower- Salting-Challis’, The Push From the Bush, No. 8 (1980), pp.50-74. Broeze,F. ‘Distance Tamed: Steam Navigation to Australia and New Zealand from its beginnings to the outbreak of the Great War’. Journal of Transport History, Vol. 10, 1988, pp.1-21. Broeze, F. ‘Robert Brooks’, in R.T.Appleyard and C.B. Schedvin (eds.) Australian Financiers. Biographical Essays. Melbourne, The Macmillan Company, 1988, pp. 34-51. Broeze,F. ‘From the Periphery to the Mainstream: The Challenge of Australia’s Maritime History’, The Great Circle, Vol. XI, pp. 1-13. Broeze, F. ‘Australia, Asia and the Pacific: the Maritime World of Robert Towns 1843-1873’, Australian Historical Studies, No 95, 1990, pp. 221-238. Broeze, F. ‘Private Enterprise and Public Policy: Merchant Shipping in Australia and New Zealand 1788-1992’, Australian Economic History Review, XXXII, No. 2, 1992, pp.8-32. Broeze, F. ‘The Ports and Port System of the Asian Seas: An Overview with Historical Perspective from circa 1750’, The Great Circle, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1996, pp.73-96. Broeze, F. ‘The Cost of Distance: Shipping and the Early Australian Economy’, Economic History Review, Vol. XXVIII, 1975, pp. 582-597. Broeze, F. ‘Maritime History at the Crossroads. A Critical Review of Recent Historiography’, Research im Maritime History, No. 9. St Johns, Newfoundland, 1995. Bromley, J.S. ‘The British Navy and Its Seamen: Notes from an Unwritten History’, in Adam, Paul (ed.) Seamen in Society. Papers presented at the meeting of the International Commission on Maritime History, Bucharest, 11-12 August 1980. mimeographed and bound, pp. Part II, pp.36 45. Bruijn, Jaap R. ‘Career patterns’, in Royen, Paul Van, Bruijin, J.R. & Lucassen, J. (eds.) “Those Emblems of Hell”? European Sailors and the Maritime Labour Market, 1570-1870.

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Walsh, G.P. Gilchrist, John’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, ibid. Vol. I, p. 442. Walsh, G.P. ‘Lamb, John’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, ibid, Vol. 2, pp.72-73. Watson, J.H. ‘The Mercantile Marine: Its Contribution to Australian History’, Royal Australian Historical Journal and Proceedings, Part VI, Vol. 3, 1910, pp.227-257. Watson, J.H. ‘Early Settlement of the Macleay River’, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings, 28 June 1921, pp. 198-212. Wellings, H.P. ‘Imlay, Peter, George and Alexander’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, op.cit.. Vol. 2, pp. 2-3. Williams, David M. ‘ “Advance Notes” and the recruitment of maritime Labour in Britain in the Nineteenth Century’, reprinted in Boyce, Gordon & Gorski, Richard Research in Maritime History IMEHA, No 18, St Johns, Newfoundland, 2002, pp. 253-272. Williams, David M. ‘The Quality, Skill and Supply of Maritime Labour: Causes of Concern in Britain, 1850-1914’. in Boyce, Gordon & Gorski, Richard Research in Maritime History IMEHA, No 18, St Johns, Newfoundland, 2002, pp. 273-292. Williams, David M. ‘The Market for Seamen in the Age of Sail’, reprinted in Fischer, Lewis R. (ed) Research in Maritime History, IMEHA, St Johns, Newfoundland, No 7, 1994. Williams, David M. ‘Bulk Passenger Freight Trades 1750- 1870’, reprinted in Scholl, Lars (ed.) Merchants and Mariners: Selected Maritime Writings of David M Williams, Research in Maritime History, No 18. St Johns, Newfoundland, 2000, pp. 185-207. Williams, David M. ‘State Regulation of Merchant Shipping 1839-1914: The Bulk Carrying Trades’, Scholl, Lars (ed.) Merchants and Mariners: Selected Maritime Writings of David M. Williams, Research in Maritime History, No 18. St Johns, Newfoundland, 2000, pp 127-155. Williams, David M. ‘Customs Evasion, Colonial Preference and the British Tariff, 1829-1842’, Ibid. pp.157-183. Williams, David M. ‘James Silk Buckingham: Sailor, Explorer and Maritime Reformer’, Ibid, pp.109-125. Williams, David M. ‘Henry Mayhew and the British Seamen’, ibid, pp. 209-228. Williams, David M. ‘Mid-Victorian Attitudes to Seamen and Maritime Reform: The Society for Improving the Condition of Merchant Seamen, 1867’, ibid, pp. 229-252. Williams, David M. ‘A Period of Transition’: Personnel in the British Mercantile Marine in the

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7. Books and Monographs:

Abbott, G.J. & Nairn, N. Bede Economic Growth of Australia, 1788-1821. Melbourne, M.U.P., 1969. Abbott, G..J & Little, G. (eds) The Respectable Sydney Merchant. A.B. Spark of Tempe. Sydney,Sydney University Press, 1976. Adam, P. (ed.) Seamen in Society. Papers presented at the meeting of the International Commission on Maritime History, Bucharest, 11-12 August 1980. Mimeographed and bound. Albion, R.G. Forests and Sea Power, The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652-1862, Cambridge Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1926. Anonymous Quarterdeck Cambridge: The Quest of Francis Price Blackwood, Captain RN. Cambridge, Ellisons’ Editions, 1991. Appleyard, R.T. & Schedvin, C.B. (eds.) Australian Financiers. Biographical Essays. Melbourne, The Macmillan Company, 1988. Atkinson, Alan & Aveling, Marion Australians 1838. Sydney, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Assoc., 1987. Bach, J. A Maritime . Thomas Nelson (Australia), W. Melbourne, 1976. Bairstow, Domaris A Million Pounds, A Million Acres. The Pioneer Settlement of the Australian Agricultural Company. Self-published, Cremorne, NSW 2003. Barkley, Jan & Michelle Nichols Hawkesbury 1794-1994. The First 200 Years of the Second Colonisation, Windsor, Hawkesbury City Council, 1994. Barriskill, D.T. (Compiler) A Guide to the Lloyd’s Marine Collection and Related Marine Sources at Guidhall Library. London, Guildhall Library Research Guide No 7. 1994.

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Bateson, C. Gold Fleet to California: Forty Niners from Australia & New Zealand. Sydney, 1963. Bateson, C. The Convict Ships, 1787-1868. Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow. 1959/1985. Bateson, C. Australian Shipwrecks, Including Vessels wrecked en route to or from Australia, and some strandings, Vol. 1: 1622-1850. Sydney, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1972. Bassett, Marnie The Hentys: An Australian Colonial Tapestry. London, O.U.P., 1954. Bennett, J.M. A History of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Sydney, The Law Book Company, 1974. Bennett, J.M. Lives of the Australian Chief Justices: Sir Francis Forbes, First Chief Justice of New South Wales 1823-1837. Sydney, Federation Press, 2001. Birch, Alan & Macmillan, David S. (eds.) Wealth and Progress. Studies in Australian Business History. Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1967. Bird, James Seaport Gateways of Australia. London 1968. Blainey, G. The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia’s History. Melbourne, Sun Books, 1966. Bloxam, G. & Nicholson, I. (Comps) Shipping Arrivals and Departures Vol. III, 1841-1844. Canberra, Roebuck, 1988 Bowden, K.M. Captain James Kelly of Hobart Town. Melbourne 1964 Boyce, Gordon & Gorski, Richard (eds) Research in Maritime History. International Maritime Economic History Association, No 18, St Johns, Newfoundland, 2002. Bradfield, Raymond A. Serving a Sea-Girt Land: Some Early Maritime History. Castlemaine, Castlemaine Mail, n.d. Broeze, F. Mr. Brooks and the Australian Trade: Imperial Business in the Nineteenth Century. Carlton, Vic., Melbourne University Press. 1993. Bruijn, J.R. & Bruyns, M.(eds.) Anglo-Dutch Marine Relations, 1700-1850, Rijksmuseum Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam, 1991. Butler, D.A. & Duncan, W. D.Maritime Law in Australia. Redfern, Legal Books, International Business Communications, 1991. Butlin, S.J. The Foundation of the Australian Monetary System 1788-1851. Melbourne, 1953, Reprinted by S.U.P., 1968. Canning, John (ed.) The Illustrated Mayhew’s London, London, Guild Publishing, 1986.

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Cheong, W.E. Mandarins and Merchants. Jardine Matheson & Co., a China Agency of the Early Nineteenth Century. Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, No. 26, Curzon Press, 1979. Cook, Capt. James Voyages of Discovery. Everyman. Ed E. Rhys. London , J.M. Dent & Sons, 1906. Cordingly, David Women Sailors and Sailors’ Women: An Untold Maritime History. Random House, New York, 2001 Cumpston, J.S. Shipping Arrivals and Departures, Sydney 1788-1825. Canberra, Roebuck, 1964. Cumpton, J.S. Kangaroo Island, 1800-1836. Australian Association of Maritime History, No. 1, Aranda, ACT, Roebuck, , no date. Dakin, W.J. Whalemen Adventurers in Southern Waters, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1977. Dallas, K.M. Trading Posts or Penal Colonies: The Commercial Significance of Cook’s New Holland Route to the Pacific, Devonport, Tas., C.L. Richmond & Sons, 1999. Davidson, J.W. Peter Dillon of Vanikoro: Chevalier of the South Seas. (Edited by O.H.K. Spate), Melbourne, OUP, 1975. Davies, JD Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: The Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1991. Davis, Ralph The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London, Macmillan & Co., 1962. Day, David Smugglers and Sailors: The Customs History of Australia. Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1992. Dening, Greg Mr Bligh’s Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 1992. De Salis, M. Captain Thomas Raine, An Early Colonist. Sydney, 1969. Diamond, M. The Seahorse and the Wanderer: Ben Boyd in Australia. M.U.P., Carlton, 1988. Doty, Joseph The British Admiralty as a factor in Colonial Administration 1689-1763. Doctoral Thesis presented at University of Philadelphia, 1930. Dow, Gwyneth M. Samuel Terry: The Botany Bay Rothschild. Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1974. Druett, Joan Hen Frigates: Wives of Merchant Captains under Sail. London, Souvenir Press, 1998.

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Dunbabin, Thomas Sailing the World’s Edge. London, 1931. Dundon, Gwen The Shipbuilders of Brisbane Water NSW, East Gosford, Gwen Dundon, 1997. Eastwood, Jill The Economy of New South Wales 1788-1810 Essays in Economic History of Australia. Brisbane, 1967. Eccles, A. & Reed, A.H. John Jones of Otago. Wellington, 1949. Finnis, Bill Captain James Cook. Seaman and Scientist. London, Chaucer Press, 2003. Fisher, Stephen(ed) British Shipping and Seamen, 1630-1960: Some Studies. Exeter Papers in Economic History. No 16, University of Exeter, 1984. Fisher, Stephen(ed) Studies in British Privateering, Trading Enterprise and Seamen’s Welfare, 1775-1900. Exeter Papers in Economic History, No 17, Dept of Economic History, University of Exeter, 1987. Fisher, S (ed.) Lisbon as a Port Town, the British Seaman and other Maritime Themes, Exeter Maritime Studies (2) Exeter University. 1988. Fischer, Lewis R. The Market for Seamen in the Age of Sail, Research in Maritime History, No. 7, St Johns, Newfoundland, 1994. Fitzgerald, S. & Keating, C. The Urban Miller’s Point Village. Sydney, Halke and Iremonger Pty Ltd, 1949. Forster, H. The South Sea Whaler: An Annotated Bibliography of Whaling in the Nineteenth Century, Sharon, Mass., Kendall Whaling Museum, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, 1985. Forster, H. More South Sea Whaling: A Supplement to the South Sea Whaler. Canberra, Roebuck, 1991. Frost, Alan Convicts and Empire. A Naval Question 1776-1811, Melbourne, O.U.P., 1980. Frost, Alan Botany Bay Mirages. Illusions of Australia’s Convict Beginnings. . Carlton, M.U.P 1994. Frost, Alan (ed. The Precarious Life of James Mario Matra, Voyager with Cook, American Loyalist, Servant of Empire. Carlton, M.U.P. & The Miegunyah Press, 1995. Gibb, D.EW. Lloyds of London: A Study in Individualism. London, Macmillan, 1957 Graham, Sally (ed.) Pioneer Merchant: The Letters of James Graham, 1839-1854. Melbourne, 1985. Greenberg, Michael British Trade and the Opening of China 1800-1842. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1951.

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Greenwood, Gordon. Early American-Australian Relations from the arrival of the Spaniards in America to the close of 1830, Carlton, M.U.P/O.U.P., 1944. Haines, Robyn, Schlomowitz, R & Brennan, L. Maritime Mortality Revisited. Flinders University, No 69, April 1996. Haines, Robyn Life and Death in the Age of Sail: The Passage to Australia. Sydney, University of New South Wales, 2003. Hainsworth, D.R. The Sydney Traders: Simeon Lord and His Contemporaries 1788-1821. Sydney, 1981. Hainsworth, D.R. Builders and Adventurers: The Traders and the Emergence of the Colony 1788-1821. Sydney, Cassell, 1968. Harper, L.A. The English Navigation Laws: A Seventeenth Century Experiment in Social Engineering, New York, 1939. Hinton, Peter Disasters, Image and Context, Leichhardt, Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture, 1992. Hodgkinson, Richard Eber Bunker. Canberra, Roebuck, 1975. Holden, Robert The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Sydney, Harper Collins, 2003. Horsman, John The Coming of the Pakeha to Auckland Province, Wellington, Hicks Smith & Sons, 1971. Howell, C. & Twomey, R. (eds) Jack Tar in History: Essays in the History of Maritime Life and Labor. New Brunswick, 1991. Jackson, Gordon The British Whaling Trade. Research in Maritime History, No. 29. International Maritime Economic History Association, St John’s, Newfoundland, 2005. Jones, A.G.E. Ships Employed in the South Sea Trade 1775-1861, Vols. I & II, (Parts 1-3) Canberra, Roebuck, 1986. Jones, Colin Australian Colonial Navies. Canberra, Australian War Memorial, 1986. Karskens, Grace The Rocks. Life in Early Sydney. Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1997.

Kelly, Max & Crocker, Ruth Sydney Takes Shape, A Collection of Contemporary Maps from

Foundation to Federation. The Macleay Museum, University of Sydney, 1977.

Kelly, Max (ed.) Nineteenth Century Sydney: Essays in Urban History. Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1978.

36

Kemp, Peter The British Sailor: A Social History of the Lower Deck. London, JM Dent & Sons, 1970. Kemp, Peter (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, London, O.U.P., 1976. Keneally, Tom The Commonwealth of Thieves. Sydney, The Sydney Experiment. Random House, 2005. Kindleberger, Charles P. Mariners and Markets. New York, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992. Kverndal, Roald Seamen’s Missions : Their Origin and Early growth: A Contribution to the History of the Church Maritime. Pasadena, Carey Library, 1986. Lane Cove Historical Society Thomas Hyndes. Newsletter, No. 79, August 1991. Langdon, R. (ed) American Whalers and Traders in the Pacific. A Guide to Records on Microfilm. Canberra, Pacific Manuscripts Bureau. ANU, 1978. Lawrence, Bob Benjamin Boyd. Chatswood Press, 1993. Lawrence, S. & Staniforth, M. (eds.) The Archaeology of Whaling in South Australia and New Zealand. Gundaroo, Australian Society for Historical Archaeology and the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology Special Publication, No. 10, 1998. Lipscombe, Trevor On Austral Shores, Annandale, Envirobook, 2005. Lloyd, Christopher The British Seaman 1200-1860: A Social Survey. London, Collins, 1968. Lubbock, B. The Colonial . Glasgow, 1948. McHugh, Evan Shipwrecks: Australia’s Greatest Maritime Disasters. Penguin, Australia 2003. McLean, G. The Southern Octopus: The Rise of a Shipping Empire. Wellington, New Zealand Ship & Marine Society, 1990. McLennon, Mal & Rosemary (eds) Son of Carlisle- Maori Missionary: the Diary of CMS Missionary William Hall. New Zealand, Galson, 2001. Macmillan, David S. Scotland and Australia 1788-1850, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1967. McNab, Robert The Old Whaling Days. (originally published 1913). New Zealand, Golden Press, 1975. McNab, Robert Muri hikui: A History of the South Island of New Zealand and the Islands Adjacent and Lying to the South, from 1642 to 1835. Wellington, Whitcombe & Tombs, 1909. Martin, Ged (ed.) The Founding of Australia. The Argument about Australia’s Beginnings. Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1978.

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Masters, David The Plimsoll Line. London, Cassell & Co, 1955. Maude, H.E. Of Islands and Men: Studies in Pacific History. Melbourne 1969. Mayhew, Henry London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those that Will Work, Those that Cannot Work, and Those that Will Not Work: The London Street Folk, Vol. 2, and Vol.4. London, Frank Cass & Co., 1967, (First Edition, 1851). Mayhew, Henry The Unknown Mayhew: Selections from the Morning Chronicle 1849-50 (edited by Thompson, EP & Yeo, Eileen), , Harmondsworth, Penguin,1971. Mawer, Allen Ahab’s Trade. The Saga of South Seas Whaling. St Leonards Allen & Unwin, 1999. Melton, J. Ship’s Deserters 1852-1900. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1986. Miller, John Early Victorian New Zealand. A Study of Racial Tension and Social Attitudes 1839-1852. London, OUP, 1958. Nash, Michael (ed.) Shipwreck Archaeology in Australia, University of Western Australia Press, 2007. Newman, C.E.T. The Spirit of the Wharf House, Sydney, 1961 New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol. 1 & 2, 1769-1869. Allen & Unwin, 1990. Nicholson, I. (comp.) Shipping Arrival and Departures, Sydney. Vol. II (1826-1840) Canberra, 1977. Nicholson, I. Shipping Arrivals and Departures Tasmania 1834-1842 (Vol. 2) and Gazetteer of Tasmanian Shipping 1803-1842. Canberra, Roebuck, 1985. Nicholson, I. Log of Logs, Vols 1-3, Australian Association of Maritime History, No. 41, Roebuck (no date). Ommer, R. & Panting, G. (eds.) Working Men Who Got their Feet Wet. St Johns, 1980. Palmer, Sarah Politics, Shipping and the repeal of the Navigation Laws. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990. Parkhurst, Peter Ships of Peace: A record of some of the problems which came before the Board of trade in Connection with the British mercantile marine from the early days to the year 1885. New Malden, Surrey, 1962. Parry, J.H. Trade and Dominion: The European Overseas Empires in the Eighteenth Century.

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London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1971. Parsons, R.H. An History of Australian Steam Navigation Company and Australian United Steam Navigation Co. Ltd., typewritten, part published in the Daily Commercial News and Commercial List, December 1947. No date, U.N.E. Dixon Library holdings. Parsons, R.H. & John C. Tolley Paddle Steamers of Australasia. River Murray System Vessels. 3rd. ed., Lobethal, S.A.,Ronald Parsons, 1973. Parsons, Ronald Southern Passages. A Maritime History of South Australia. Netley, S.A., Wakefield Press, 1986. Parsons, Ronald Australian Shipowners and their Fleets. Volume 1: Northern Rivers of New South Wales, Lobethal, S.A., Ronald Parsons and National Library of Australia, 1972. Parsons, Ronald Australian Shipowners and their Fleets, Volume 2: Northern Rivers of New South Wales and Central Coast of New South Wales, R. Parsons, and National Library of Australia, 1973. Parsons, Ronald Australian Shipowners and their Fleets, Volume 3: Newcastle, R. Parsons, and National Library of Australia, 1975. Parsons, Ronald Coastal Passenger Ships. Magill, S.A. 1972-1982. Parsons, Ronald Steamers in the South. Adelaide, Rigby, , 1979. Parsons, Ronald Shipowners Registering their Ships in Early Sydney. Murray Bridge, S.A., Ronald Parsons, May 2003. Pemberton, P.A. Pure Merinos and Others: The “Shipping Lists” of the Australian Agricultural Company. Canberra, Australian National University Archives of Business and Labour, ANU, 1986. Pemberton, B. Australian Coastal Shipping. Melbourne 1979. Phillips, C.H. The East India Company 1784-1834. Manchester UP, 1961. Proudfoot, P.R. Seaport Sydney: The Making of the City Landscape, Sydney, University of NSW Press, 1996. Prouty, R.W. The Transformation of the Board of Trade 1830-1855: A Study of the Administrative Reorganization in the Heyday of Laissez-Faire. London, Heinemann, 1957. Rediker, M. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750. New York, Cambridge University press,

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1987. Rees, Siận The Ship Thieves. Sydney, Hodder, 2005. Reynolds, Peter L. & Flottmann, Paul V. Half a Thousand Acres, Balmain. A History of a Land Grant. Balmain, The Balmain Association, 1976. Richards, Mike North Coast Run. Men and Ships of the New South Wales North Coast. 3rd. ed. Sydney, Turton & Armstrong, 1977/1996. Richards, Rhyce & Chisholm, J. Bay of Islands Arrivals and Departures 1803-1840, Wellington, N.Z., Paremata Press, 1992. Richie, John (ed.) The Evidence to the Bigge Reports. New South Wales under Governor Macquarie. Vol. 1: The Oral Evidence. Melbourne, Heinemann, 1971. Ross, J. O’Connell William Stewart, Sealing Captain, Trader and Speculator. Canberra, Roebuck Society, No 37, Aranda Press, 1987. Royen, P. Van, Bruijin, JR & Lucassen, J (eds.)“Those Emblems of Hell”? European Sailors and the Maritime Labour Market, 1570-1870. Research in Maritime History, No 3. St. Johns, Newfoundland, 1997. Rubinstein, W.D. (ed.) Jews in the Sixth Continent. Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1987. Scholl, Lars U. Merchants and Mariners: Selected Maritime Writings of David M. Williams, Research in Maritime History, No 18. St Johns, Newfoundland, 2000. Shineberg, D. They Came for Sandalwood: A Study of the Sandalwood Trade in the South West Pacific 1830- 1865, Carlton, M.U.P., 1967. Sinclair, W.A. The Process of Economic Development in Australia, Melbourne, Cheshire, 1976. Smith, K., Watts, C.T. & Watts, M..J. Records of Merchant Shipping and Seamen. Public Record Office reader’s Guide, No. 20, Kew, PRO Publications, 1998. Stackpole, E.A. Whales and Destiny: The Rivalry Between America, France and Britain for the Control of the Southern Whale Fishery, 1785-1825. University of Massachusetts, 1972. Steven, Margaret Merchant Campbell 1769-1846, Melbourne, O.U.P. 1965. Steven, Margaret Trade, Tactics and Territory. Britain in the South Pacific, 1783-1823, Carlton, M.U.P., 1983. Swords, Meg Alexander Berry and Elizabeth Wollstonecraft, Sydney, North Shore Historical Society, 1978. Symes, Marten A. Shipping Arrivals to Victorian Ports: 1798-1845, Vol. I, Canberra, Roebuck,

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1985. Symes, Marten A. Shipping Arrivals to Victorian Ports, 1846-1855, Vol. II. Canberra, Roebuck, 1987. Tapp, E.J. Early New Zealand. A Dependency of New South Wales, 1788-1841, Melbourne, M.U.P. 1958. Thorne, Les G. North Shore Sydney from 1788 to Today, (ed. Leslie Jillett), Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1968. Turner, Ralph E. James Silk Buckingham 1786-1855. A Social Biography, London, Williams & Norgate, 1934. Vader, John Red Cedar. The Tree of Australia’s History. French’s Forest, Reed Books, 1987. Vader, John Red Gold: The Tree that Built a Nation, Sydney, New Holland Publishers, 2002. Vijoen, John & Dann, Susan Strategic Management, 3rd ed., Frenchs Forest, Pearson Education Australia, Longman, 2000. Wright, C. & Fayle, C.E. A History of Lloyds from the founding of Lloyd’s Coffee House to the present day. London, Macmillan & Co., 1928. Young, J.M.R. Australia’s Pacific Frontier: Economic and Cultural Expansion into the Pacific 1795-1885, Melbourne, M.U.P., 1966.

8. Film Documentaries:

Collingridge, Vanessa Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery, an ABC documentary, 2007.

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: RETURN OF SHIPPING INWARDS to PORT JACKSON– 1835-1848

Year From Great From British Colonies From South From Fisheries From United From Foreign Total Britain New Zealand Elsewhere Sea Islands States States No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons 1835* 47 17,530 132 28,507 12 2,282 23 5,899 6 1,400 40 7,401 260 63,019 1836* 60 23,610 41 5,430 124 25,861 4 546 25 6,031 3 975 12 2,962 269 65,415 1837* 56 21,816 36 5,480 233 38,751 5 581 48 13,004 5 1,220 17 4,262 400 80,114 1838* 102 41,848 38 4,291 241 34,469 6 616 31 7,928 1 274 9 2,351 428 91,777 1839* 137 58,123 51 8,368 290 45,928 7 836 36 9,321 4 1,177 33 11,751 563 135,474 1840* 190 80,806 68 13,123 347 58,625 6 750 27 8,087 8 2,520 63 20,047 709 178,958 1841 251 106,332 48 7,601 322 43,922 3 358 23 6,183 13 4,754 54 14,648 714 183,778 1842 137 55,144 81 14,085 282 42,365 19 2,902 20 5,806 7 2,702 82 20,857 628 143,921 1843 87 35,914 43 6,229 325 43,934 25 4,194 30 7,967 5 1,116 43 11,510 558 110,864 1844 78 34,765 54 7,189 226 31,195 13 1,831 27 7,888 3 1,005 16 3,666 417 87,539 1845 80 29,954 62 6,237 364 47,532 24 2,612 37 11,900 1 243 29 6,874 597 105,352 1846 84 36,761 65 10,865 475 57,485 27 3,005 79 24,375 1 370 36 8,606 767 141,467 1847 88 37,941 75 10,516 565 69,614 25 2,443 78 22,558 1 160 46 11,672 878 154,904 1848 119 57,604 118 24,833 639 87,522 23 2695 63 17,473 1 406 35 8771 996 199,304

Sources: Shipping Inwards, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, (1834-1843), 22 June 1844, p. 100; Shipping Inwards, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, (1838-1847), 17 June 1848, p. 145 and 30 June 1849, pp.170-171.

(Years marked * denote inclusion of convict transports from Great Britain– 1835 = 14; 1836 = 16; 1837= 15; 1838= 13; 1839=11; 1840=12. (Figures are based on transports to New South Wales listed in the Appendix to Charles Bateson’s The Convict Ships, 1787-1868. Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow. 1959/1985.)

There were a total of 286 convict transports arriving in Port Jackson between 1821-1840, when transportation to the colony ceased. An additional six arrived in 1849, under protest. Between 1840-1847, 13 transports were sent to Norfolk Island, and between 1844-1849, 13 convict transports were sent to Port Phillip.

42

APPENDIX 2: SHIPPING OUTWARDS FROM PORT JACKSON – 1835-1848

Year To Great To British Colonies To South Sea To Fisheries To United To Foreign Total Britain New Zealand Elsewhere Islands States States No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons No. Tons 1835 31 11,261 90 15,281 148 39,882 269 66,964 1836 32 9,759 36 4,709 106 22,895 36 8,484 54 16,987 264 62,834 1837 43 13,398 45 6,721 280 34,295 42 10,344 42 13,262 402 78,020 1838 35 12,367 39 5,358 216 28,494 5 362 40 10,385 1 289 73 35,749 409 93,004 1839 39 13,886 81 13,581 303 52,749 7 1,216 28 7,718 2 621 88 35,005 548 124,776 1840 54 18,774 83 17,111 350 66,181 6 787 22 6,199 4 950 146 53,802 665 163,704 1841 54 16,418 80 14,607 340 68,449 10 2,002 19 5,058 1 341 186 65,248 690 172,118 1842 54 16,232 78 13,080 328 56,894 15 2,749 25 7,318 2 705 131 37,904 633 134,970 1843 70 22,154 54 10,018 322 43,874 42 9,783 21 5,793 55 18,404 564 110,026 1844 67 24,163 58 8,590 357 52,561 21 2,796 24 6,724 42 14,418 569 109,242 1845 67 25,221 67 8,781 392 48,392 25 2,993 40 11,763 23 6,811 614 103,961 1846 57 22,545 77 16,033 482 59,552 28 3,359 73 21,873 37 11,666 754 134,998 1847 75 30,991 102 19,371 591 74,253 29 3,383 80 23,702 56 16,964 933 168,664 1848 75 31,722 154 35,400 590 83,557 31 5316 57 16,039 38 15,288 945 187,322

Sources: Shipping Outwards, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, (1834-1843), 22 June 1844, p. 100; Shipping Outwards, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, (1838-1847), 17 June 1848, p. 145 and 30 June 1849, pp.170-171.

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Appendix 3: Origin/ Destination and Value of Imports and Exports –New South Wales 1832-1849 (including Port Phillip)

Year Other Australian Great Britain New Zealand South Seas Islands Fisheries United States Foreign Colonies

Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports

247,109 33,314 21,952** 1832*** 409,344 22,963 7,065 47,895 89,020 50,809 144,793 4997* 30,620* 46,352* 1834 669,663 400,738 0 0 124,570 128,211 0 0 0 0 0 0 197,757 58,601 1835 707,133 496,345 35,542 39,984 144,820 83,108 1420 2606 141,823 38,445 13902 18,594 70,161 3011 1836 794,422 513,976 3255 36184 220,254 136,596 1972 9628 103,575 35,913 22,739 13,697 62,289 2625 1837 807,254 518,951 42,886 39,528 257,427 118,447 1764 485 80,441 54,434 9,777 10,617 97,982 17,592 1838 1,102,127 583,154 53,886 46,924 255,975 113,716 5548 7137 71,506 33,988 8066 11,324 82,112 6525 1839 1,251,269 597,100 71,100 95,173 504,828 194,684 3863 1347 186,212 34,729 23,092 18,558 194,667 7175 1840 2,200,305 792,494 54,192 215,486 376,954 304,724 1348 6621 104,895 27,864 24,164 27,885 252,331 24,618 1841 1,837369 706,336 45,659 114,980 286,637 123,968 24,361 13,144 97,809 18,417 35,282 4837 200,871 41,715 1842 854,774 685,705 37,246 131,784 260,955 166,239 10,020 3005 64,999 22,862 20,117 17,101 206,948 40,715 1843 1,034,942 825,885 15,738 79,764 211,291 205,993 22,387 17,934 42,579 18,827 12,041 0 211,566 23,918 1844 643,419 854,903 20,795 70,799 133,128 165,553 10, 624 14,106 32,507 11,623 17,187 0 73,600 11131 1845 777,112 1,254,881 34,470 77,017 203,289 199,771 40,048 17656 43,503 1,593 7416 0 128,016 5068 1846 1,119,301 1,130,179 23,367 106,277 239,576 222,645 21,799 13,441 56,461 590 4459 0 165,559 8,407 1847 1,347,241 1,503,091 27,159 122,205 361,565 212,932 6919 14,231 41,557 0 1550 0 196,032 17,587 1848 1,084,054 1,483,234 9,548 166,255 254,239 169,632 2542 6944 73,715 0 2065 0 130,287 4303 1849 1,371,178 1,572,557 25,346 91,405 209,968 154,772 3002 10,160 44,516 0 5516 58,387 133,894 30,890 TOTAL 18,010,907 13,919,529 523,152 1,440,830 4,093,371 2,700,991 74,944 138,445 1,275,118 350,094 207,373 181,000 2,548,865 303,881 *** Figures for 1832 are extracted from Customs House, 19 January 1833 published in the Sydney Gazette late January 1833. They are counted somewhat differently to later statistics, and can therefore not be directly compared. Produce of NSW, New Zealand Fisheries and the South Sea Islands are counted together as Exports. **Exports to Foreign States and the Fisheries are counted together. *Additional figures represent British goods exported from NSW. Imports from British Colonies are counted together, and the imports from Foreign States are also counted together. (NSW Legislative Council Votes and Proceedings, CSO: 21 May, 1846; SG& SGTL: 13 July 1844, p.124 & 9 August 1845, p. 204).

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Appendix 4: Some Imports and Exports from 1835–1848

(Sources: NSW Legislative Council Votes and Proceedings, CSO: 21 May, 1846; Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 13 July 1844, p.124 & 9 August 1845, p. 204). ** Figures for 1832 were drawn from the NSW Custom House Report for period 5/1/32-5/1/33, printed in the Sydney Gazette 25 January 1833. Figures for 1844- 8 drawn from Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 30 June 1849.

Year IMPORTS EXPORTS Timber * Sandalwood Total Cedar Blue Treenails Total Sperm Black Whalebone Seal Skins Total (tons) Value (Superficial Gum, Value Oil Oil (Number) Value of feet) Pine, Timber (Tuns) (Tuns) Marine Other (Returns produce timber of (feet) Exports) Tons Cwt. 1832** 30,773 ft. £4591 418,930 233718 186,831 £6142 2491 695 43 1. 5 1415 £147,393 1834 899,492 30,065 212,467 £7941 2760 975 43 15 890 £157,334 1835 907,921 145,628 178969 £10,489 2898 1159 112 641 £180,349 1836 * 107 £10,156 1,409,467 3,778 35,094 £14,611 1682 1149 79 ---- 386 £140,220 feet & 106 logs 1837 * 90 £4,195 116,828 18,828 62,989 £14,463 2559 1565 77 8 107 £183,122 1838 * 415 £10,541 699,066 9,000 73,450 £6382 1891 3055 174 --- 3 cases £197,644 1839 nk 729001 823 40,588 £8815 1578 1229 134 14 7 cases £172,315 deals,15 logs, 1840 n/k 1,250,786 4,350 £20,971 1854 4297 250 --- 474 £224,144 1841 n/k 513,139 26,890 £7004 1545 1018 84 13 41 £127,470 1842 n/k 522,882 55,644 £5800 957 1171 60 5 162 £77,012 1843 107 944,121 155,294 £9813 1115 190 22 8 155 £72,989 1844 90 1,222,533, 105,428 £8825 810 526 15 18 3 bales £57,493 plus 214 pieces, 24 logs 1845 415 781,415 105,908 £8074 1352 571 21 13 2 casks & £96,804 10 skins 1846 44 956,516 39,006 113,962 £7851 1054 344 17 9 Nil £70,126 1847 351 953,995 48,850 165,648 £7333 1214 381 8 3 ¼ Nil £80,528 1848 50 863,507 22,450 76201 £5574 1186 196 11 2 4 cases £68,969 Value of the major NSW Exports for 1832 in order of value were: Sperm oil (2491 tons) : £122,772; Wool (1,515,156 bales): £73,559; Black whale oil (695 tons): £20,165; Salt provisions (1,265,764lbs.): £19,932 (£12,489 to Fisheries and foreign states); New Zealand Flax (806 tons, 9cwt. 15lbs.): £15,949. There were a range of other exports, including Cedar £4518; and whalebone £3081, while seal skins were worth £1391.

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APPENDIX 5: SUMMARY OF NSW IMPORTS AND EXPORTS, 1826-1848, WITH VALUE OF MAIN EXPORT CATEGORIES

TOTAL TOTAL MAJOR EXPORT CATEGORIES BY VALUE IN £ STERLING YEAR EXPORTS (£ IMPORTS (£ OIL/OTHER TIMBER WOOL OTHER STERLING ) STERLING) 1826 106,600 360,000 not quoted not quoted 46,364 (43.49%) 60,236 1827 76,314 362,324 not quoted not quoted 24,306 (31.85%) 52,008 1828 90,050 570,000 26,431 (29.35%) 11,428 40,851 (45.36%) 11,340 1829 161,716 601,004 54,975 (33.99%) 18,293 63,555 (39.30%) 24,893 1830 159,659 420,480 59,471 (37.25%) 5,218 34,907 (21.86%) 60,063 1831 324,168 490,152 95,969 (29.60%) 8,401 75,979(23.44%) 143,819 1832 384,344 604,620 147,409 (38.35%) 6,132 73,559 (19.14%) 157,244 1833 394,801 713,972 146,855 (37.20%) 13,153 103,692 (26.26%) 131,101 1834 587,640 901,990 157,334 (26.77%) 7,941 213,628 (36.35%) 208,737 1835 682,193 1,114,805 180,340 (26.44%) 10,489 299,587 (43.92%) 191,777 1836 748,624 1,237,406 140,220 (18.73%) 14,611 369,324 (49.33%) 224,469 1837 760,054 1,297,491 183,122 (24.09%) 14,463 332,166 (43.70%) 230,303 1838 802,768 1,579,277 197,644 (24.62%) 6,482 405,077 (50.46%) 193,565 1839 949,776 2,236,371 172,315 (18.14%) 8,815 442,504 (46.59%) 326,142 1840 1,399,692 3,014,189 224,144 (16%) 20,971 586,112 (41.87 %) 568,465 1841 1,023,397 2,527,988 127,470 (12.46%) 7,004 517,537 (50.57%) 371,386 1842 1,037,414 1,455,059 77,012 (7.42%) 5,800 595,175 (57.37%) 359,427 1843 1,072,320 1,550,544 72,989 (6.81%) 9,813 685,647 (63.94%) 303,871 1844 1,178,115 931, 260 57,493 (4.88%) 8825 645,344 (54.78%) 466,453 1845 1,555,936 1,233,854 96804 (6.22%) 8074 1,009,242 (64.86%) 441,616 1846 1,481,539 1,630,522 70,126 (4.73%) 7851 1,019,985 (68.85%) 383,577 1847 1,870,046 1,982,023 80,528 (4.31%) 7333 1,272,118 (68.03%) 510,067 1848 1,830,683 1,556,550 68,969 (3.77%) 5574 1,240,144 (67.74%) 515,996 TOTAL 18,677,849 28,371,881

Source: The yearly values for exports and imports, and for the major categories (oil, timber and wool only) have been reproduced from the Colonial Observer, dated 1843, p. 1294. Totals for all exports and imports based on these values, together with the yearly and total values of other exports have been calculated, based on the published values. Note that the category described as oil included whalebone and sealskins. Values for 1843-1848 quoted from Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List of 30 June 1849. From 1844 tallow became an important export item to Great Britain.

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APPENDIX 6: OCCUPATIONAL PROFILE OF SHIPOWNERS IN NEW SOUTH WALES – 1832 –1849

Occupation 1832 1842 1844 1847 1849 Number of Total Number of Total Number of Total Number of Total Number of Total Persons Tonnage Persons Tonnage Persons Tonnage Persons Tonnage Persons Tonnage Ship owners 3 694 2 185 5 333 3 101 7 1275 Mariners 7 890 27 2462 40 3350 37 2176 95 5990 ShipBuilders 1 71 13 1127 22 2453 19 2131 15 988 Related 2 273 7 234 15 466 12 589 4 174 Maritime Merchants 24 5576 32 7459 52 9370 28 5006 18 4774 Companies 8 61 12 5593 10 3967 7 3188 8 2288 Timber 3 361 8 760 3 383 5 858 2 326 merchants Coal 3 234 0 0 3 586 0 0 0 0 merchants Retailers 2 17 7 246 17 1022 16 907 8 701 Shipping & 0 0 3 1193 8 377 8 535 1 6 Commission Agents Landowners 2 80 6 206 10 1352 7 481 1 222 and gentlemen Professional 0 0 6 162 6 455 11 632 10 317 Tradesmen 1 60 8 505 8 503 15 780 4 217 Auctioneers 0 0 4 1518 7 691 4 966 1 26 Missionary 2 145 1 37 1 99 1 79 0 0 Not known 1 594 25 1558 32 1278 36 2296 17 579 TOTAL: 59 9056 161 23245 239 26685 209 20725 191 17879

Sources: (1)1832: List of Vessels Registered in Sydney, in the NSW Calendar & General Post Office Directory for 1832. Trustees of the Public Library of NSW. 1966 Facsimile Edition, William Dixson Foundation Series No. 7, Sydney; (2) 1842: “Colonial Marine”, in Fisher’s Colonial Magazine and Commercial Maritime Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3, August, 1842; (3) List of Vessels Registered in Sydney, in City of Sydney Directory for 1844-1845. (compiled by Francis Low). E Alcock, Sydney 1844; (4) 1847: “Colonial Shipping”, Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, 20 March 1847, pp. 428-9. Additional occupational information gathered from Directory listings, and State Archival material such as church records, insolvency files and newspaper reports. Definition: “Retailers” include Dealers, Grocers, butchers, drapers, slop-sellers, publicans and other related trades

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Appendix 7: Summary of Occupational Groups, 1832-1849, as percentages of Total Owners and Total Tonnage owned

Occupational % of % of % of % of % of % of % of %of % of % of Group Owners Tonnage Owners Tonnage Owners Tonnage Owners Tonnage Owners Tonnage

Individuals 1832 1842 1844 1847 1849 Shipowners 5.08 7.66 1.24 0.80 2.09 1.25 1.43 0.49 3.66 7.13 Mariners 11.86 9.83 16.77 10.59 16.74 12.55 17.70 10.50 49.74 33.50 Shipbuilders 1.69 0.78 8.07 4.85 9.21 9.19 9.09 10.28 7.85 5.53 Allied maritime 3.39 3.01 4.35 1.07 6.28 1.75 5.74 2.84 2.09 0.97 trades Total Maritime 22.02 21.28 30.43 17.31 34.32 24.74 33.96 24.11 63.34 47.13 Trades

Merchants 40.67 61.57 19.98 32.09 21.76 35.11 13.40 24.15 9.42 26.70 Other* 22.03 9.91 26.71 19.91 26.36 20.49 32.06 25.27 14.14 10.15 Total Commerce 62.70 71.48 46.69 52.00 48.12 55.60 45.46 49.42 23.56 36.85 and Industry

Companies 13.56 0.67 7.45 24.06 4.18 14.87 3.35 15.38 4.19 12.80 Not Known 1.69 6.56 15.53 6.70 13.39 4.79 17.22 11.08 8.90 3.22 Total Percentage 99.97 99.99 100.1 100.07 100.01 100 99.99 99.99 99.99 100

Explanation:. * “Other” includes timber & coal merchants, retailers, shipping agents, other tradesmen, and auctioneers, as well as landowners, professionals (such as accountants, lawyers and missionaries). The issue of “companies” is more complex. Some partners in business firms preferred to maintain their discrete financial interest in shipping as individuals, rather than have their interest identified in their company’s name. In these cases their interest is listed under “individuals.” In other cases, it is possible that an individual representing a company may have registered a vessel in his own name rather than in the name of a company. By 1844 the issue of company registration had largely been resolved, probably reflecting the financial crisis of the period. In 1849, two companies were joint stock companies, (one having a ), the others were merchant and building firms.

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Appendix 8: Leading NSW Shipowners, 1826-1849

Total Number Year Shipowners Occupation Tonnage of Vessels 1826 Thomas Street* Shipowner 1069 26 1832 Walker & Co. Merchants 898 tons 4 R Campbell Jnr. & Co. Merchants 746 tons 6 Bettington & Co. Merchants 728 4 Thomas Street* Shipowner 597 9 R Campbell & Co. Merchant 444 3 Kemmis & Brown Merchants 398 3 TH James Merchants 392 2 T. McDonald* Shipmaster 392 1 Cooper & Levey Merchants 318 2 1839 Thomas Street* & JH Grose Shipowners 4033 21 Robert Duke & Co.* Marine Co./ Merchant 2929 13 Hughes & Hosking Merchants 2595 8 John Jones* Merchant 1696 8 1842 Joseph* & Henry Moore Marine Co./ Merchants 1399 6 John Jones* Merchant 1153 9 JH Grose Merchant 1134 5 Hughes & Hosking Merchants 1060 5 Ranulph Dacre* Merchant 758 6 Isaac Simmons Auctioneer/Merchant 725 4 Edye Manning Merchant 700 9 JJ Peacock* Merchant 654 9 1844 Benjamin Boyd Landowner 1485 7 Hughes & Hosking Merchant 1450 7 Joseph *& Henry Moore Marine Co./Merchants 1395 6 Fotheringham*/Campbell/ Merchants/shipmaster 1179 6 Towns*/Challis/Fowler* Lamb* & Parbury Merchants 861 4 Richard Jones Merchant 847 3 1847 R Campbell, tertius & Co. Merchants 2278 10 Benjamin Boyd Landowner 2262 10 Alexander Fotheringham* Merchant 1812 8 Robert Towns* Merchant 1144 5 Hunter River Steam Navigation Joint stock company 890 6 Company Duncan Forbes* Shipmaster/merchant 531 2 V & E Solomons Auctioneers 470 2 T. Larkins* Shipmaster 435 2 Thacker, Masson & Co. Merchants 403 2 1849 A Fotheringham* Merchant 1150 5 TW Campbell Shipmaster 933 5 HRSNC Joint stock company 909 6 Robert Towns* Merchant 789 5 Thacker & Co. Merchants 657 3 Moses Joseph Merchant 494 3 1/3 John McNamara Shipping Agent 445 3

* Indicates occupational background as shipmaster.

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Appendix 9: NSW Whaling Fleet (1821-1850) (this may be incomplete, and tonnage variable)

Main Year of Cost Occupation Name of Tonnage Year Purchase Investors Where & when Purchase or (If Purchaser (* if ex- vessel (89) (23,062) Type Sold Price Built Transfer known) mariner) Richard Siddens shipmaster Lynx 187 brig/ba Java, 1815 rque Underwood, Shipbuilders/ Midas 430 ship Hull 1820 Kable & Co merchants Reiby & Wills Merchants* John Bull 178 Calcutta 1824 1826 Jones & Walker 1830 John Lamb & Kemmis & Brown R. Jones, Riley Merchants Harriet 417 New York, n.k. 1824 & Co. Prince Regent 527 Shields, 1810 1820 Saracen 402 Southampton, 1820 n.k. Pocklington 204 barque Stockwith, 1824 Notts. 1810 Richard Jones merchant Alfred 243 ship Prize, 1812 1825 1828 Shares: W. Walker (27) & J. Moore (10) Macclesfield 280 ship Prize, 1813 1835 Orwell 304 ship Ipswich, 1832 1833 Mercury 156 brig Virgin Islands Richard Jones & Merchant Fame 203 barque Quebec, 1815 1831 Co. W. Walker & Merchants Earl Stanhope 296 ship circa 1831 Co. Wolf 275 barque British 1831

50

Main Year of Cost Occupation Name of Tonnage Year Purchase Investors Where & when Purchase or (If Purchaser (* if ex- vessel (89) (23,062) Type Sold Price Built Transfer known) mariner) Joseph Moore Shipmaster/ Woodlark 243 barque Newcastle, 1819 Part-owner Tyne, 1808 J & H Moore Merchants* Caroline 198 barque N. America, 1844 W. Walker & 1825 Co. Clarkstone 244 barque North America, 1829 Caenarvon 220 barque British, 1823 1844 Captain Irving Jane Eliza 419 Finsbury, Kent, 1840 (from 1845 £50 Captain 1809 John Jones) (wreck) Larkins Giraffe 260 barque South Shields, 1839 1844 Fotheringham 1834 & R Campbell, jnr. Cape Packet 210 brig British, 1823 R. Campbell Jnr Caroline 193 barque Granville, NS, 1829 1838 J. Jones & Co 1825 1841 R. Duke & Co. 1842 W. Walker 1846 R. Towns W. Brown, P. de Merchants* Elizabeth 268 barque 1825 1831 Mestre, R. Campbell & Co. (jnr), & G. Bunn P. de Mestre, W. Psyche 256 Chittagong, 1839 £3000 I. Simmons Duke 1834 R Campbell & Harriet 255 barque 1819 Co. R. Campbell, Elizabeth 239 ship Prize Snr. & J. Guard D. Cooper & Merchant* Minerva 158 brig Prize 1828 Levey

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Main Year of Cost Occupation Name of Tonnage Year Purchase Investors Where & when Purchase or (If Purchaser (* if ex- vessel (89) (23,062) Type Sold Price Built Transfer known) mariner) Cooper, Levey Australian 306 barque Pitt Town, 1829 1836 £1400 William & Grono Hutchinson J. Grono, shipwright/ Governor 214 barque Pitt Town, 1833 Shares: mariner Bourke 1836 £1300 J Wright, W Long & R.Richards 1838 JH Grose, then T Street D. Cooper & T merchant*/ Courier 184 Halifax, 1822 Street shipowner* T Street Shipowner* Lunar 165 Sunderland, 1833 1828 JH Grose merchant Governor 332 Prize 1838 1839 T. Street Halkett Raine & Ramsey merchants* Ann 179 brig Prince Edward 1824 1829 T. Street Island, 1823 Raine Merchant Emeline 296 barque Hughes & Merchants/ Tigress 192 brig British, 1827 Hosking landowners Hughes & Merchants Sir William 271 ship St Martins, NB, 1838 (from Hosking, and JJ Wallace 1824 John Tooth) Peacock* Hughes & Merchants Mary 368 ship Ipswich, 1811 1836 1844 $575 Fotheringham Hosking Mary 250 barque West Indies

John Jones & merchants Genii 160 barque Dorset, 1818 1845 £700 Kerr Francis Mitchell Bright Planet 187 barque Bombay, 1816

John Jones merchant Jane 365 ship Liverpool, 1816 1842 Jessie 314 barque Kingston, 1820 1839 1841 J & H Moore

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Main Year of Cost Occupation Name of Tonnage Year Purchase Investors Where & when Purchase or (If Purchaser (* if ex- vessel (89) (23,062) Type Sold Price Built Transfer known) mariner) Mic Mac 157 brig Prince Edward 1836/1838 Is. 1835

JB Weller merchant/ Lucy Ann 213 barque N. America, 1831 1841 TG Gore & landowner 1819 Peacock 1841 Duke & Co. 1842 Dacre & J. Jones F. Mitchell & R. Chandler Nelson 274 brig Southhampton, 1842 Dacre Merchant* 1815 Mitchell & Chandler/ Scamander 230 brig St Johns, 1825 others merchants Williamson, shipmaster, Lindsays 270 barque Prize, 1833 1842 Russell & shipwright Mitchell merchant

R. Dacre, A. Merchants** Proteus 254 ship Java, 1815 9/1836 1838 McDonald/ Fotheringham (Wright & Fotheringha Long) m / Dacre

Fotheringham & Isabella Anna 225 barque Prize, 1836 1845 (I. Towns Simmons) J. Bettington & Merchants Albion 311 barque North Hylton, 1831 Co. 1822 Mary Jane 249 barque n.k. 1831 A. Kemmis & Merchants Caroline 405 ship n.k. 1831 Browne A. Mossman Merchant Jane 221 ship/ Rotherhithe, 1831 1839 Hughes & barque 1816 Hosking Mossman & Merchants William 178 brig Leith Davidson Stoveld

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Main Year of Cost Occupation Name of Tonnage Year Purchase Investors Where & when Purchase or (If Purchaser (* if ex- vessel (89) (23,062) Type Sold Price Built Transfer known) mariner) T. Collins Shipmaster Elizabeth 363 ship Kingston, 1813 1831 n/k Harmony* 373 R Duke & Co Shipowners/ Avon 264 ship Whitby, 1826 1839 1842 W. Walker & Merchants* Co. R Duke shipmaster Sisters* 284 barque American 1819 Roslin Castle 450 barque Bristol, 1819 1838 John Northwood shipmaster Tamar 197 ship British 1840 1840 £4000 Duke & Co. 1840 mortgage PW Flower 1842 J & H Moore Daniel Egan Shipwright/ Lady 196 Brig Little Falmouth, 1837 Merchant Wellington Cornwall, 1830 Lamb & Parbury Merchants* Lady 254 barque Bengal, 1821 1843 J & H Moore Blackwood Lamb & Parbury British 365 ship N. America, Sovereign 1828 A Imlay Landowner Brougham 227 barque Calcutta, 1820 1836 G. Ward Cole shipmaster Magnet 148 brig Dartmouth, 1837 John Jones 1815 Benjamin Boyd Landowner/ Juno 212 barque North America, merchant/ 1827 gentleman Terror 257 barque Britain, 1840 Rebecca 343 barque Greenock, 1816 1847 1848 £1000 Birns & White (Hobart) Velocity 164 schoon N. America, er 1840 Margaret 215/184 North America, 1837 G.& J. Blaxland shipmaster / William 324 barque Quebec, 1829 1839 T Street landowners 1840 JH Grose 1844 B. Boyd

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Main Year of Cost Occupation Name of Tonnage Year Purchase Investors Where & when Purchase or (If Purchaser (* if ex- vessel (89) (23,062) Type Sold Price Built Transfer known) mariner) George Blaxland shipmaster Merope 312 barque East Indies, 1843 1818 R Milne shipmaster & Nimrod 232 brig Greenock, 1824 1839/1840 £2100 merchant Isaac Simmons Auctioneer Jewess 204 Sydney, NSW, 1840 £3900 J & H Moore & shipowner 1839 Simmons & Co. Auctioneer Vittoria 282 ship Prize, 1813 1839 £1500 Hughes & Hosking Aspinall & Merchants Venus 245 brig 1831 Brown Francis 190 Falmouth, 1807 1831 1835 JJ Peacock,J. Freeling Jones, D Egan, R. Milne G. Bunn & Merchants Lady Rowena 323 ship circa 1831 others H. McKeon Timber Australian 222 barque Sydney, 1842 1842 merchant Oak A. Devlin shipmaster Hope 273 ship British Morrison shipmaster Amelia 223 brig North American, 1839 G. Hill Australasian 205 brig British 1828 Packet JT Wilson Auctioneer Nereus 139 British, 1820 n/k Caroline 244 Lewis Leon Auctioneer Portentia 221 brig British, 1829 & Oil Man n/k Renown 316 M Joseph Merchant Eleanor 253 British, 1830 T. Lewis Waterwitch 252 barque 1843 n/k Frolic 286

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Appendix 10: Exports of Colonial Produce from Sydney to Great Britain from 19 October 1843 to 1 July 1844

Ship Where Bound Wool Oil Beef Tallow Whalebone Cedar Hides Sundries Hoofs Horns Treenails Treenails

Date of Clearance Date of Clearance Bales lbs. weight Sperm Tuns Black Tuns Casks Weight ton cwt Casks Weight- tons, cwt Bundles Weight Packs Feet Quantity Weight – tons, cwt Jean 1843- London via Port 17 77 20.2 786 20.0 Phillip October Morayshire ditto 20/10 495 74. 5 103 30,000 374 9.6 2150 26 bales flax Ann London 2/11 428 106,736 3086 27, 3 Montezuma ditto 14/11 16 3830 72 238 35 14 39 5 17 3. 5 5000 Hemp. rope, tea St Helier ditto 28/11 45 11,000 340 51 32 12 310 8 600 2400 5000 hams, bones, etc Reflector ditto 1/12 524 131,307 149 211 31.13 83 20.6 159 4.10 400 10 23,880 1656 sheepskins, 8 tierces horns, etc. Constant ditto 19/12 693 173,004 45 137 18.5 217 54,000 8000 61 tons sugar Standerings ditto 29/12 753 192,698 10 97 14.7 14 3.10 54 1 338 8.10 4780 47 bales flax, 45 tons coconut oil Wilson London 1844- 1377 342,901 60 42 151 30.10 2331 58.5 3520 bark, coconut 3/1 oil etc Fortitude ditto 9/1 9 88 50 7.10 33 8748 181 4.10 8000 Fanny ditto 16/1 852 214311 250 37 65 13.15 40 1.3 80 tons copper and manganese ore

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Ship Where Bound Wool Oil Beef Tallow Whalebone Cedar Hides Sundries Hoofs Horns Treenails Treenails

Date of Clearance Date of Clearance Bales lbs. weight Sperm Tuns Black Tuns Casks Weight ton cwt Casks Weight- tons, cwt Bundles Weight Packs Feet Quantity Weight – tons, cwt Persian ditto 19/1 1026 254,738 6 7 43 6. 9 148 28. 27 0. 236 56,000 322 8.0 320 Rice, lignum 12 13 & 9 vitae, casks arrowroot etc. Glenroy Liverpool 20/1 552 141,231 21 3.3 8 ½ tons lignum vitae Ocean London 27/1 310 80,155 22 3.6 10 4.0 349 169,650 Flax, iron, butter Jean ditto 29/1 797 203,981 63 74 23,000 Honduras ditto 30/1 1185 358,896 170 31,400 50 tons pig iron Salus ditto 31/1 529 141,785 100 15.0 20 5.17 224 5.10 94 boxes of tea Cuba ditto 2/2 803 194050 240 36.0 3 1.0 37 9000 183 4.12 400 52 tons copper ore Sarah Scott ditto 3/2 769 181550 224 33.12 120 24.8 192 51000 620 15.10 46 cwt. cloves, 6 ¼ tons tamarinds Colombian Liverpool 17/2 1000 265075 100 2.10 37 pipes wine, 10 boxes bone Clara London 20/2 1036 259000 49 3 142 53. 61 18000 202 5.0 1100 11274 11 bales ¼ ½ 16 waistcoatings Hamlet ditto 21/2 1123 280017 119 35.4 180 4.16 331 8.5 Kelso ditto 23/2 1914 478100 37 11.6 3300 Palestine ditto 24/2 1473 393709 250 37.10 192 45.0 410 10.5 9500

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Ship Where Bound Wool Oil Beef Tallow Whalebone Cedar Hides Sundries Hoofs Horns Treenails Treenails

Date of Clearance Date of Clearance Bales lbs. weight Sperm Tuns Black Tuns Casks Weight ton cwt Casks Weight- tons, cwt Bundles Weight Packs Feet Quantity Weight – tons, cwt Andromeda ditto 7/3 1192 298060 5 35 5.5 105 26.13 130 28500 372 9.5 23 bales ¼ sheepskins, 3 casks tongues Isabella London 12/3 10 1200 228 34.4 38 9900 Sundries & Leith via Port Phillip Midlothian London 13/3 1570 416926 26 11 9 2.0 ¾ Herald ditto 20/3 2681 701565 188 50.15 980 24.10 wine, bark, & Welsh flannels Diamond Liverpool 28/3 927 238319 11 2.7 Manganese & copper ore Adrastus London 30/3 957 241505 8 97 23.5 292 6.14 3043 33 ½ tons coconut oil General ditto 3 /4 2912 729989 36 51 304 84.10 79 2.8 156 3.18 466 16344 Felloes, Hewitt ¼ planks, iron, etc. Gannet ditto 15/4 834 214230 27 104 21.0 106 2.13 7 tons Sapan & 22 wood casks 1.10 Sultana ditto 30/4 1073 277242 29 70 29.10 9600 3000 178 bushels wheat, 10 ½ tons flour

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Ship Where Bound Wool Oil Beef Tallow Whalebone Cedar Hides Sundries Hoofs Horns Treenails Treenails

Date of Clearance Date of Clearance Bales lbs. weight Sperm Tuns Black Tuns Casks Weight ton cwt Casks Weight- tons, cwt Bundles Weight Packs Feet Quantity Weight – tons, cwt Caledonia ditto 7/5 1202 362270 ½ 171 50. 228 5.14 3 casks of 13 old copper Penyard ditto 16/5 1410 368444 13 176 45.18 14 0.10 1812 45.4 6000 10 tons bark Park ¼ William ditto 29/5 640 156677 1 ¾ 24 5.9 1835 bones & Stoveld pearl shells Cremona ditto 30/5 740 186030 18 ¾ 538 101.3 79 50000 1347 33.3 9000 2300 bushels ½ wheat, 30 tons coconut oil Arachne ditto 4/6 614 151748 74 16.10 271 50000 726 18.0 3500 294 bales tobacco, 28901 lbs. flax Skerne ditto 15/6 18 5129 4 ¾ 6 166 47.15 136 3.5 14 hogsheads & 7 whisky, 1 casks 1.5 bale flax Jane ditto 20/6 517 131516 277 85.3 489 12.3 3172 45 Bones, Goudie bags ironmongery etc.

Source: The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List, dated 20 July 1844, p. 130

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APPENDIX 11: TABLE DESCRIBING THE PARTS OF A SHIP’S FRAME, THE DESCRIPTIONS OF GOOD QUALITY TIMBER APPROVED FOR EACH PART AND THE CLASS TO WHICH A VESSEL IS APPOINTED BY LLOYD’S REGISTRY. Parts of the CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS Frame of a Twelve Years Ten Years Nine Years Eight Years Seven Years Six years Five Years Four Years Vessel Floors English} The same as for The same as for The same as the The same as in the The same as the The same as The same as in African} Oak preceding Class, the preceding preceding class preceding class, as preceding class, preceding class, the preceding Live } as well as: class, as well as well as: as well as: as well as: class, as well as East India Teak Live Oak and Red other foreign English ash; Larch; Baltic Fir; White Spruce Morung Saul Cedar alternately; white oak. Sound second- Hackmatack; Red Pine; Greenheart Adriatic} hand English or Tamarac; Black Birch; Morra Spanish} Oak Red Cedar. African oak, or Juniper; Witch Hazel; French} Teak. Elm or Ash; South American Hard wood of or New South good quality; Wales Hardwood; English Beech Mahogany; 1st Futtocks English} The same as for The same as for The same as The same as The same as The same as the The same as African} Oak preceding Class, the preceding preceding class. preceding class, as preceding class, preceding class, preceding class Live } as well as: class, as well as well as: as well as: as well as: as well as White East India Teak Live Oak and Red other foreign other Foreign English Ash; Baltic Fir; Red Spruce; Morung Saul Cedar alternately; white oak below White Oak above Larch; Pine; Black Greenheart Adriatic} the light water light water mark; Hackmatack; Birch; Witch Morra Spanish} Oak mark. Sound second- Tamarac; Hazel; French} hand English or Juniper. Elm or Ash; South American Red Cedar African Oak, Hardwood of Hardwood; Teak. good quality Mahogany; 2nd Futtocks English} The same as The same as The same as The same as The same as The same as in The same as in African} Oak preceding class, as preceding class, preceding class preceding class, as preceding class, the preceding the preceding Live } well as Live Oak as well as: well as other as well as: class, as well as class, as well as: East India Teak and Red cedar Adriatic} foreign white oak Larch; Baltic Fir; Elm; Morung Saul alternately. Spanish} Oak Hackmatack; Red Pine Ash; Greenheart Mahogany French} Tamarac; Black Birch; Morra South American Juniper; Witch Hazel; hardwood. Sound second- White Spruce Red cedar hand English or African Oak or Teak

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Parts of the CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS Frame of a Twelve Years Ten Years Nine Years Eight Years Seven Years Six years Five Years Four Years Vessel 3rd Futtocks & English} The same as in the The same as in As same as in The same as in the The same as in The same as in The same as in Top Timbers African} Oak preceding class, as the preceding the preceding preceding class, as the preceding the preceding the preceding Live } well as Live Oak class, as well as class well as other class, as well as: class class, as well as: East India Teak and Red Cedar Adriatic} foreign White Red Pine; Baltic Yellow Pine; Morung Saul alternately. Spanish}Oak Oak; Fir; larch; Elm; Ash; Greenheart Mahogany. French} Hackmatack; Black Birch; Morra South American Tamarac; Witch Hazel; Mahogany, or New South Juniper; Pitch White Spruce except for Wales hardwood; Pine; sound Roughtree Red Cedar; second-hand stantions (sic) English or African oak, or Teak Stem & Stern English} The same as in the The same as in As same as in The same as in the The same as in The same as in The same as in Post African} Oak preceding class, as the preceding the preceding preceding class, as the preceding the preceding the preceding Live } well as Mahogany class, as well as: class well as other class, as well as class class, as well as East India Teak Adriatic} foreign White Larch; Black Birch; Morung Saul Spanish} Oak Oak; Hackmatack; Witch Hazel. French} Tamarac; South American Juniper. Hardwood; Red Cedar Transoms, English} The same as in the The same as in The same as in The same as in the The same as in The same as in The same as in Knightheads, African} Oak preceding class, as the preceding the preceding preceding class, as the preceding the preceding the preceding Hawse Live } well as Mahogany class, as well as: class well as other class, as well as class as well as class, as well as Timbers, East India Teak Adriatic} foreign White Oak Larch; Baltic Fir; Red Yellow Pine; Apron, Morung Saul Spanish} Oak Hackmatack; Pine, Elm; Ash; Black Deadwood French} Tamarac; Birch; Witch South American Juniper; sound Hazel; White Hardwood; second-hand Spruce. Red Cedar English or African Oak, or Teak

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Parts of the CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS Frame of a Twelve Years Ten Years Nine Years Eight Years Seven Years Six years Five Years Four Years Vessel Main Kelson English} The same as in the The same as in The same as in The same as in the The same as in The same as in The same as in African} Oak preceding class, as the preceding the preceding preceding class, as the preceding the preceding the preceding Live } well as: Adriatic} class, as well as class well as Pitch Pine; class, as well as class, as well as class, as well as East India Teak Spanish} Oak other foreign larch; Baltic Fir; Red Ash. Yellow Pine; Morung Saul French} white oak Hackmatack; Pine; American Black Birch; Greenheart South American or Tamarac; Juniper Rock Elm; Witch Hazel; Morra New South Wales White Spruce. Mahogany hardwood; Red Cedar Beams, English} The same as in the The same as in The same as in The same as in the The same as in The same as in The same as in Hooks, and African} Oak preceding class, as the preceding the preceding preceding class, as the preceding the preceding the preceding Knees Live } well as Adriatic} class class, as well as well as Pitch Pine; class, as well as class, as well as class as well as East India Teak Spanish} Oak other foreign Larch; Baltic Fir; Red Elm or Ash Yellow Pine; Morung Saul French white oak Hackmatack; Pine; sound Black Birch; Greenheart South American Tamarac; Juniper; second-hand Witch hazel; Morra Hard Wood; New Knees of Fir; Pine, English or White Spruce. Mahogany South Wales or Spruce. African oak, or Hardwood; Red Teak Cedar for beams only

Source: Adapted from Table 1, submitted by Charles Graham, Secretary of Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping (since its inception in January 1834) to the British House of Commons Select Committee on the Navigation Laws, 27 April 1847, in British Parliamentary papers: Third Report from the Select Committee on Navigation Laws 27 April 1847-6th May 1847, Ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, May 1847, Sessional Papers, Vol 6, 1847 (Trade and Industry: Navigation Laws Vol 1), pp. 77-79.

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Appendix 12: Sydney ship-chandler, Francis Mitchell’s, Account for the Supply Repair of sails for the English whaler, Nelson, 18311:

New foresail containing 177 yards 2 topsails ditto 464 ½ yds 2 lower steering sails each 82 ditto 164 yds 1 mainsail ditto 214 yds 1 topmast steering sail ditto 73 yds 1 main top gallant sail ditto 88 ¼ yds 1 top gallant sail ditto 8 ¼ yds 1 foretopmast stay sail ditto 50 yds. (?) 1 mizen topmast staysail ditto 54 ½ yds 1 main try sail ditto 117 yds 1 top gallant staysail ditto 3 yds 1 Topsail ditto 232 ¼ yds 1 flying jib ditto 59 yds @ 6 ½ d Total 1834 ¾ yds £49/13/9 ½

Repair: Topmast steering sail 13 ½ yds Foretopmast staysail 5 yds Trysail 25 yds Topsail 36 ¾ yds Topsail 21 yds Foresail 21 yds Mainsail 16 ½ yds Trysail 9 ½ yds Steering sail1 5 yds Three Royals 18 yds Two Gaff Topsails 17 yds. 198 ¼ Total: 2033yds

For repairing the above sails: To 3lbs. Rope 2/6d , 49 Holes 2/5 ½, 7 cringles 7/- 11/11 ½ To 552 Yars sticking 69/-, 3 thimbles 1/6 £3/10/6 To 1 cloth marled 6d., 2 Points 1/- 1/6 Twine & labour on the above £23/5/-

Invoice Total: £77/2/9

1 Edward David Intestate Estate 6/3484, File 73, Captain of Nelson, whaler (1832), Bundles 1 & 2.

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Appendix 13: Invoice for goods supplied by Lamb Buchanan & Co. for the Nelson2

10 June 1831 1 bag containing 0.1.3 Sheathing nails 1/6 , £2/6/6 36.0.0 of ship Bread 14/-, £25/4/- 2 coils of coir rope 0.2.10 40/-, £1/3/7 21 June 1831 6 hogsheads of arrack viz: 6 *60 gallon 7 *55 gallons 8 * 68 gallons 369 g @ 2/6 46/2/6 9 * 84 gallons store rent 2/15/6 10 * 50 gallons cartage 3/- £49/1/- 15 * 55 gallons 1 keg of white lead 10/- 10 gallons of rum @ 10/- £5/-/- 3 bags of sugar 3.3.21 @ 19/- £3/14/10 36 bags of sugar 44.3.10 @ 18/- £40/7/2 20 bushels of split peas @ 14/3 £14/5/- 22 June 1831 1 hogshead of porter £6/10/- 1 puncheon of vinegar (86 gallons) @2/6 £10/15/- 4 chests of tea @ 4/-/- £16/-/- 60 harpoons @ 9/- £27/-/- 36 lances @ 9/- £6/4/- 8 spares (Spears??) @ 13/6 £5/8/- 10 kegs of black paint (280 lbs @ 4d) £4/13/4 6 kegs green paint (168 lbs. @ 1/-) £8/8/- 7 kegs of white lead (3.2.0 @ 32/-) £5/12/- 2 kegs red paint (0.2.0 @ 6d.) £1/8/- 28 June 1831 10 gallons of rum @10/- £5/-/- 1 July 1831 7 Belles of 2inch hoop 3.2.16 7 belles of 2 ¼ in. hoop 3.2.0 @ 28/- £10/-/- 94 lb. rivets @ 7d. £2/14/10 2 July 1831 30 gallons linseed oil @ 3/6 5/5/- cask @ 16/- £6/1/- 2 kegs butter net 145 @ 1/6 10/17/6 2 kegs 12/- , packing 2/-14/- £11/11/6 11 July 1831 5 tons oil casks @ 90/- £22/10/- 2* 18-gallon casks (3.5.9) £1/12/- £303/5/9 11 July 1831 Repairs of launch £ 2/-/-

Total: £305/5/9

2 ibid.

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Appendix 14: Invoice from Francis Mitchell & Co, Sailmakers & Ship Chandlers (1841): (Account of John Korff, shipbuilder)3:

25/8/41 2 gallons of coal tar 4/- & 100 sheets copper 5/1/24 £40/16/- £41/-/- 17lb. copper bolts 1/9 & 1 tar brush 3/- £1/12/9 1 lath tool 1/6 & 1 Hawks line 5/- 6/6 Freight 8/-& 3.9 Europe rope 70/- £3/6/2 12 skeins marline 10/- & 1 skein twine 1/6 11/6 3 skeins tarred yarn 1/6 (4/6) & 3 log lines 11/- 16/6 1.3 yard ensign 2/10/- & 1 ball lamp cotton 1/- £2/11/- Freight 6/- 1 new boom main sail 140 yards £14/-/- £14/6/- 29/10/41 36 white line points 13/6 & 1 new mizzen 57 yds. £5/14/- £6/7/6 12 white line points 4/6 & 1 new fore sail 41 yds £4/2/- £4/6/6 6 white line points 2/3 & 1 new square sail 107 yds. £10/14/- £10/16/3 1 new gaff top sail 54 yds. 5/8/- & 1 new 1st. jib 58 yds. £5/16/- £11/4/- 1 new 2nd jib sail 36 yds. 3/12/- & 1 new tarpaulin 47 yds. £4/14/- £8/6/- 1/11/41 1 Anchor 1.2.14 @ 48/-, & 1 anchor 3.13. @ 54/-,£ 2/4/10 £6/4/10 Freight 4/- & 1 dozen hanks ? 5/- 9/- Cash ps. freight of sails 20/- & 1.16 Europe rope 70/-, £1/7/6 £2/7/6 27/11/41 3 skeins marline 3/- & 1 signal lamp 15/- 18/- 2 brass thimbles 1/- & 1 deck scrubber 3/6 4/6 1 ladle 4/- & 1 tin dish 3/6 7/6 4 yds bunting 6/- & 1 compass 1/15/- £2/1/- 28/1/42 45 lbs pitches 11/3 Total: £118/14/3

3 New South Wales State Archives: Supreme Court, Registrar in Bankruptcy, Insolvency files, 1842- 87, CGS : 13654: John Korff 19 February 1842, 2/8663, No. 80; date SC: 27 October 1842.

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Appendix 15: Invoice from J West, Mast, Oar, Block, Pump & Gun Carriage Maker from March 26, 1841 to John Korff, shipwright4:

26/3/41 4*.8 inch single bushed blocks 16/- 2 *.10 inch double bushed blocks for iron binding 11/8 2.*9 inch single thick blocks 12/- 1 double & 3 single 9 inch block for iron binding £1/1/6 4 single & 3 double 7 inch bushed blocks £1/8/- 2 single & 1 double 6 inch bushed blocks 12/- 1 iron sheave 14 lbs 10/4 7 inch bulleyes 10/- £1/4/- 31/3/41 1 sheave, 9 inch by 2 ¼ inch 18d. 3 ½ in flanks 4/6 13/- 12* 16 inch masthooks £2/8/- 7/4/41 2 * 7inch single thick blocks 9/4 2 * 5 inch single & 2 * 5 inch double blocks 15/- 7/7/41 2 * 8 inch blocks 8/-, 23 1/6 inch double block 6/- 14/- 23/7/41 2 * 6 inch single thick blocks 8/-, 1 brushed sheave to 5 inch block, 1/3 9/3 11/9/41 5 * 7inch single & 1 7 inch double blocks £1/4/6 6 * 8 inch single & 1* 8 inch double blocks £1/12/- 8 * 6 inch single & 6 * 6 inch double blocks £3/-/- 4 * 5 inch single & 2 * 5 inch double blocks £1/-/- 2 * 8 inch single thick blocks 10/8 1 * 6 inch single thick block 4/- 6 * 11 inch Mast Hoops 19/3 1 doz. trucks 3/- £1/2/3 12 *14 inch Mast Hoops £2/9/- 4 * 4 inch single & 4 * 4 inch double block shells 12/- 25/10/41 1 * 6 inch & 3 * 5 inch single blocks 10/6 27/11/41 1 * 8 inch & 4 * 4 inch single blocks 12/-

Total: £24/10/8

4 New South Wales State Archives: Supreme Court, Registrar in Bankruptcy, Insolvency files, 1842- 87, CGS : 13654, John Korff: 19 February 1842, 2/8663, No. 80; date SC: 27 October 1842;

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Appendix 16: Copy of the Import Manifest for the ship, Elizabeth, owned by Sydney ship-owner, Thomas Street, from London, August 1838

The Manifest of the Elizabeth

“The Elizabeth brought a valuable cargo of merchandise from London for the colony”, including:

1. W Walker & Co. consignment consisting of 15 pipes, 15 hogsheads and 10 quarter-casks of wine, 37 bundles cork, 2 cases of lemon essence, 2 bags of ginger, 1 carriage, 2 bales saddlery, 4 bales woolbagging, 42 bundles of ironmongery, 4 bundles wheels, 25 casks of crushed sugar, 10 bags of corks, 6 crates of ginger beer bottles, 10 casks of lime juice, 6 half- barrels, and 6 half-barrels of gunpowder; 2. Tingcombe and Watkins consignment: 2 cases of millinary, 25 casks wine, 4 bales of cottons, 193 bars of iron; 3. Levick and Younger: 4 cases of fenders; 4. Thomas Burdekin: 629 bars and 26 bundles of iron, 3 hogsheads of hardware and 3 casks, 100 bundles of ironmongery; 5. Reverend J Williams: 3 cases of books; 6. Cooper and Holt: 100 cases of gin, 44 oars, 2 copper coolers, 1 case of copper bolts; 7. Thomas Gore and Co consignment: 30 hogsheads gin, 25 kegs of peas, 20 kegs of meal, 10 kegs of Scotch barley, and 5 kegs of pearl barley; 8. Salting & Co: 4 packages; 9. T Smith: 6 bales wool bagging; 10. JG Richardson: 3 cases of hats; 11. A Saunders: 4 cases; 12. A Hordern: 5 cases. 13. Wellington: 3 sacks of wheat; 14. D Peden: 3 casks of hosiery, 1 case of millinery, 1 cask of buttons; 15. S Marsden: 7 casks of peas, 6 cases and 2 bales of apparel, 2 casks of rice, 5 cases of ironmongery, 1 case of calicoes, 1 case of prints, 4 cases and 1 bale of haberdashery, 1 case of gloves, 11 cases of hardware, 2 cases of cottons, 16 cases of British goods, 1 grindstone; 16. On order: 8 bags and 4 cases of biscuit, 10 cases of wine, 130 boxes of glass, 2 cases, 6 crates and 10 bags of British goods. 17. Thomas Street: 24 casks (undisclosed), 3 iron boilers, 4 trypots, 17 iron bars, 7 kedges, 40 baskets and 10 crates of glass, 30 pipe packs; 18. Thomas Street: 1 steam engine, 2 carriages, 2 gigs, 8 furnace bars, 4 iron knees, 4 iron bars and frames, 2 copper boilers, and one leather hose.

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Appendix 17: Copy of the Import Manifest for the ship, Despatch, owned by Sydney ship-owner, Thomas Street, from London, August 1838

The full manifest for the Despatch was reported in the Sydney Gazette on 3 September 1838, giving Street as the agent. It suggests a very profitable cargo: 1. For the account of Lamb and Parbury: 25 cases of oil; 534 bars and 60 bundles of iron; 4 hogsheads and 4 quarter-casks of Marsala wine; 8 cases of champagne; 106 boxes of raisins; 3 caroteels of currents; 131 drums of figs; 2. For the account of Willis, Sandeman & Co: 2 cases of books; 40 casks of beer; 17 bales of sail-cloth; 16 packages of cordage; 2 casks of whale-lines; 3. For the account of JG Richardson: 67 cases and 10 hogsheads of wine; 3 cases of haberdashery; 2 cases of British goods; 4. For the account of W & S Lyons: 3 cases of slops; 2 cases of corrosive sublimate; 1 case of sulphuric acid; 1 case of gold leaf; 1case of billiard balls, 1 case of furs; 4 cases of wearing apparel; 5. For the account of Salting & Garrard: 3 cases of perfumery; 4 bundles of scythes; 3 casks of saddlery; 1 case of copper; 200 bundles or iron; 6. For the account of Thomas and Michael Woolley: 1 case of perfumery; 7. For the account of Edwards and Hunter: 4 tons of ironware; 25 iron pots; 4 bales of slops; 4 bundles of frying pans; 1 cask of ironmongery; 2 casks of boots and shoes; 1 bale of blankets; 8 quarter-casks Port; 4 quarter-casks of sherry-wine; 8. For the account of J Jaggars: 1 box of apparel; 9. For the account of C Appleton & Co.: 4 packages of furniture; 2 cases of Turkey stones; 4 bales of carpet; 10. For the account of T Caddell: 6 bags of hops; 11. For the account of W Walker & Co.: 8 bales of Manchester goods; 6 cases of haberdashery; 2 cases of millinery; 2 cases of bonnets; 5 cases of toys; 23 cases of floor cloth; 40 bales of wool mattresses; 1 case of playing cards; 66 cases of pickles; 16 casks of glassware; 10 cases of looking-glasses; 1 bales and 1 box of saddlery; 5 bales of canvas; 14 bales of wool-packs; 1 case of stationery; 23 packages of furniture; 12. For the consignment of Thomas Gore and Co.: 1 case of stationery; 6 casks of ink; 100 hogsheads of stout; 20 hogsheads of ale; 13. For the consignment of G Le Briton: 1 case of apparel; 14. For the consignment of John Gilchrist: 6 cases of muslin; 3 casks of ironmongery; 1 case of whips; 15. For the consignment of Thomas Burdekin: 11 cases and 1 cask of saddlery; 4 casks and case of carpenter’s tools; 1 boiler; 16. For the consignment of R & T Jones: 4 casks of flint glasses, 3 cases (undisclosed contents); 17. For the consignment of G Porter & Co: 51 cases of oilman’s stores; 18. For Baker’s consignment: 1 case of apparel; 19. For T Smith’s consignment: 30 tins and 11 bales of British goods; 20. Whitehill’s consignment: 1 case; 21. Colonel Snodgrass: 1 case; 22. For the consignment of Cooper and Holt: 1 case (piano); 14 cases of brandy; 5 cases of gin; 1 phaeton, 2 bales of calico; 3 bales of wool bags; 14 bales of canvas; 1 case of haberdashery, 1 case of china; 1 chest of plate; 14 packages of household furniture; 23. Colonel Gibbes: 1 case; 24. Bank of Australasia: 1 case; 25. J McKenny: 160 packages of sundries; 26. Conrad: 1 case of apparel; 27. Pitcairn: 1 case of saddlery; 28. Wilks: 1 case of apparel; 29. McArthur: 1 case; 30. Chapman: 1 bale and 1 case; 31. Rhode: 1 box of apparel; 32. Major Cotton, 28th Regiment: 1 box of apparel; 33. Mansell: 1 case; 34. Thomas Street: 12 carriages; 2 flour mills; 1 printing press; 25 casks and 19 cases of wine; 5 cases of silk; 116 packages of British goods; 1 truss and 4 cases of cottons; 28 packages of oilman’s stores; 10 case of plate glass.

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Appendix 18: Details of Shipments to London on the Account of the Sydney firm of Henry and Joseph Moore, 1843

(Source: Supplementary Schedule prepared by the Trustees of the Insolvent Estate of Joseph and Henry Moore (G.B. Griffiths, W.S. Deloitte, and Frederick Parbury), dated 2 February 1844, in SRNSW: CGS13654, Insolvency Papers of Henry and Joseph Moore: 10 February 1844, No. 1177, 1178 and 1179; date Sequestration Certificate: 19 June 1844 and 12 June 1844.

Date Ship Quantity Estimated London Invoice Amount Consigned to Amount Advanced Price per ton 3 March 1843 Spartan 39 Casks Sperm £65 £1603/11/- Walker Brothers & £1600 in favour of oil, or 25 227/252 Co. Thacker, Mason & tuns Imperial Co. 3 March 1843 69 Casks of Sperm £70 £2813/12/3 Magniac, Jardine & £2652/16/8 in Herald Oil, or 40 40/252 Co. favour of Thacker, tuns Imperial Mason & Co 105 bundles of £157/10/- £310/18/2 6 May 1843 Caledonia whalebone (45. £702/10/2 Magniac, Jardine & £650 0.25) Co. 9 Casks, (356) seal 22/- £391/12/- skins

44 casks of Sperm £65 £2234/10/1 5 June 1843 Talent Oil, 34 95/252 tuns £2775/13/- Magniac, Jardine & £3000, less £300 Imperial Co unpaid here = 12 casks American £50 £306/6/11 £2700 Sperm Oil, 6 32/252 18 Casks Coconut £26 £194/16/- Oil, 7 124/252 Imperial tuns 4 Casks Black Oil, £24 £40 1 168/252 tuns

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Details of Shipments to London on the Account of the Sydney firm of Henry and Joseph Moore, 1843 (Contd.)

Date Ship Quantity Estimated London Invoice Amount Consigned to Amount Advanced Price per ton

24 June 1843 Fama 74 casks Sperm £65 £4046/10/2 £4046/10/2 Magniac, Jardine & £3610/10/- Oil, 62 64/252 tuns Co. Imperial 7 August 1843 39 Casks of Manila Insured Value £750 Parbury, Thacker & £470/4/- Exporter Cigars, 415th. No. Co. 5, and 261 Batidas 14 August 1843 113 casks Sperm £65 £5609/17/2 £5609/17/2 John Flower £4500 Reflector Oil , 86 77/252 Imperial tuns 21 August 1843 107 Casks Sperm £65 £3751/11/2 £3751/11/2 Magniac, Jardine & £3216/10/- Alert Oil, 57 155/252 Co. Imperial tuns

Summary: Total Value of Shipments: £22,113/5/1, Less Advance £19,400/-/8. Surplus £2705/4/5.

It was instructed that the Value of any surplus consigned to Magniac, Jardine & Co.’s Account was to be used by them to reduce their existing account with the firm of Joseph and Henry Moore. It was further noted that Captain Simpson was entitled to 1/12 th. of the nett proceeds of oil on the Reflector, less £372 advanced to him on 15 August 1843.

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