Many significant shipwrecks have occurred around our island and all are worthy of investigation. There is much information known and recorded about the HMS Sirius and her wrecking on the reef off Norfolk Island, in fact 19 March 2015 marks the 225th Anniversary and already more than 150 people have booked to come to the island for this important day.
However, more than twenty other shipwrecks have
occurred around the island and little is known or recorded about these. It is an ongoing task of the Norfolk Island
Museum to research and record these other shipwrecks and then as part of our
Historic Shipwrecks Program obligations, to upload the details into the Australian
National Shipwrecks Database (ANSDB). Established
by the Commonwealth’s Department of the Environment in 2009 the database
includes all known shipwrecks in Australian waters. It is an incredible information management
system that not only stores the information but is also publicly accessible.
The link to the site is - http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/shipwrecks/database.html
Please go onto the site and click
through to look at those listed for Norfolk Island and let us know if you have
any stories or associated material that may support our listed shipwrecks.
This week we have
been researching the Fairlie, a 756
ton barque recorded and commonly believed to have wrecked between Phillip and
Norfolk Island in February 1840. Our research
has highlighted a major problem with this as it appears that this ship did not
wreck here at all. The Fairlie was built in 1811, chartered by
the East India Company for voyages to India until 1833 when she made her first
voyage to Australia from England with 376 convicts on board. The Fairlie
undertook two convict transport voyages to New South Wales then in 1866 she was
sold for ‘breaking up’ or to be used as a hulk. This ship in fact, never came
to Norfolk.
The ‘shipwreck’ that
did happen in February 1840 was recorded in contemporary eye witness accounts
and newspaper articles; the vessel was a ‘boat’, certainly not a ship of 756
ton! The first reference to this boat
being named the Fairlie appears to be
in “The Norfolk Island Story”, by Frank Clune published in 1967. The HMS Sirius
Expedition Report of 1985 then records the Fairlie shipwreck in one of its
Appendixes referencing the source material to Frank Clune. From there it became as a feature of the Norfolk Island
“Shipwrecks” stamp issues of 1982 (Pictured here - I wonder if this makes the
stamp collectible!). And finally the
story ends up being incorrectly recorded onto the official ANSD.
The incorrect stamp
issue caught the eye of the late Mr EJ Hogan who, according to the Ship Stamp
Society in the U.K. is one of the best researchers of ‘ships on stamps’. He wrote about it being incorrectly
identified in the Ship Stamps Society’s magazine, Log Book Vol 16 page 14.
and it was by happening upon his post
on this site that we were alerted to the error.
Frank Clune, references his information to Thomas Cook,
Overseer and Clerk on the island at the time.
However when you read Thomas Cook’s account, he does not name the boat
at all.
Thomas Cook describes the incident occurring on 14 February
1840 as the “event of a boat being
capsized in attempting to cross the bar ……
the morning part of the day was remarkably fine, and until within an hour of
the boat nearing the land, the bar was perfectly favourable, but alas!” Cook says “by the time the Coxswain had brought her convenient to the Bar the
Seas rose, and with a fury seldom witnessed (although the Seas off that coast
are allowed, with their ground Swells, to be as dangerous as any ever yet seen)
a race of them followed and brought her too far in to admit of their returning
to Phillip Island where they had been on a Shooting excursion, thus leaving the
Coxswain no alternative but to face the Bar, and trust to the exertions of the
Prisoners to save the passengers himself and crew from Watery Graves which then
threatened them. He therefore brought
her up to the Bar, and in attempting to cross, his Boat was caught by the Seas
and thrown up perpendicular, in which position she was again struck and thrown
completely over. A Pickup Boat, as on
other similar occasions was employed with a view to save them, but so powerful
were the Seas that they carried her high and Dry on the Beach. The praise due to the exertions of the men on
this perilous occasion in sacrificing their lives to the object of saving their
fellow creatures surpasses any ordinary calculation.” Cook then refers to
the Commandant of the island at the time, a Major Thomas Ryan as a humane ruler
who was ill and confined to his bed. He
states, “our Worthy Commandant previous
to his illness was particularly guarded against any accident in the occasion of
a Boat crossing the Bar. He was generally in attendance at the Harbour himself,
and in the event of there appearing the
least danger of a capsize, he would have two or three pickup Boats, well
manned, in readiness to assist, also 200 or 300 men at his call to save the
drowning;” Thomas Cook is describing
exactly the same place at Kingston that our freight is carried through today
using motor launches and lighters, these boats all being of a similar size. A
ship of 756 ton would not attempt to ‘cross the bar’.
Other accounts of the incident featured in The Sydney
Herald, The Australasian Chronicle and The Sydney Monitor are very colourful
and graphic, vividly describing the dreadful circumstances and the deaths of
the three men from suffocation, strangulation and drowning. The graves of these three casualties are in
our cemetery, being: Honourable Captain
John Charles Best, Mr. John McLean Esq. Superintendent of Agriculture, and
Corporal McLauglin of the 50th Regiment.
The ANSD has now been updated to reflect the correct
information. The fact that this mix up
in ships involved in this wrecking has lasted for so long as a result of inaccurate
recording highlights the importance of programs such as the ANSD and the need
for research to continue.
