A Biographical Dictionary of First Fleet Ships

November 2022 ‘A Fine Passage’: Insights into Early Australian Convict Transportation Issue 2: A Biographical Dictionary of First Fleet Ships – Gary L. Sturgess Summary The ships which carried convicts and stores to Botany Bay as part of Australia’s First Fleet had personalities and life stories of their own, but complete and accurate biographies have never been compiled. This study documents the careers of these 11 vessels, from when and where they were born to how and when they died. Seven of the nine merchantmen were involved in the Baltic and West India trades at some point in their careers. Four were employed as east coast colliers. Five of them were chartered by the Navy as transports during the Anglo-French wars, although only one of them was offered for a second voyage to New South Wales. One was involved in the slave trade, and this same ship was sent several times into the Southern Whale Fishery. Of the 11 ships, seven ended their lives violently. Five were wrecked, one was scuttled, another was taken by a privateer and burned. Two more were taken by privateers, although one of them was recaptured and the other sold. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 1 A Biographical Dictionary Some of the most significant characters in the story of Australia’s First Fleet are the nine merchantmen which carried the convicts, marines and stores to the far side of the world, and the two naval vessels which accompanied them. The Sirius, ‘so deep with stores and having such broad buttocks, we could hardly steer her until we got better acquainted’. The Supply, ‘small and rather uncomfortable’, a ‘very strong vessell, altho’ rather too small for the service’. The ‘two ladies’, the Charlotte and the Lady Penrhyn, both ‘very slow sailors’ and, in the beginning at least, ‘a very great hindrance’ to the fleet. The ‘little Friendship’, a good sailor which pitched and rolled ‘most tremendously’ as they crossed the Southern Ocean.1 These ships had personalities, but they also had back stories, and the hope of long and prosperous futures. There are tales of great courage. On leaving New South Wales, the Charlotte and the Scarborough launched into the largely uncharted waters of the western Pacific on their way to China. Their crews were already suffering from scurvy and their officers had no idea where they might safely procure fresh food and water. On their way north, they would discover the Marshall and Gilbert (Kiribati) archipelagos, named after the masters of these two ships. There are also great tragedies. The Borrowdale, a Sunderland collier which, prior to being taken up for New South Wales, had shuttled back and forth between Newcastle and London five or six times a year. Under her 26 year old captain, Hobson Reed, she would become the third ship in history to circumnavigate the globe from west to east (following Cook’s second expedition). Six months after returning from the Antipodes, the Borrowdale and her crew were lost in a violent storm off Yarmouth. The memory of the Borrowdale and her epic voyage would be preserved in the names of the Reed family for generations.2 With some qualifications, we are able to follow the histories of these ships, from when they were launched until they were lost or retired. The biographies that follow help us to understand the wider context of the penal settlement that was established in New South Wales from 1788, reminding us that from 1775 to 1783 and from 1793 to 1815, Britain was almost continually at war; that from the beginning, the transportation of convicts was closely associated with the Industrial Revolution; that the decision of the Pitt government to establish a colony in the south-west corner of the Pacific was intimately connected to the opening of this region to European commerce. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 2 Alexander (1784 to 1806) Largest of the merchant ships hired for the First Fleet, the Alexander was built for a northern shipping family in 1784. She undertook four voyages to St Petersburg over the next two years, returning shortly before she was offered to government for New South Wales. For her, this was a difficult voyage, losing around 15 percent of her convicts to typhus, and three-quarters of her crew, mostly to scurvy on the way home. On her return to England, she was sent to Dominica and St Petersburg numerous times, before being contracted to government for the transportation of troops. In 1806, she carried soldiers from the Cape of Good Hope to the River Plate in South America, where they were used for an unapproved (and unsuccessful) invasion of the Spanish colonies. She never returned. On the voyage home in October 1807 with sick and wounded , she parted from the fleet in a gale, and was leaking so badly that the captain gave the order to abandon ship. Two of the boats managed to get away before the ship for some reason exploded. The captain, the naval agent and four other men were rescued four days later. Twenty-one sailors and soldiers, along with a woman and a child, escaped in the long boat. They were discovered after six days adrift, ‘much distressed’: they had virtually no provisions and not knowing when they might be rescued, they had started to eat the remains of one of the soldiers who’d died. Borrowdale (1784 to 1788) From her launch at Sunderland in 1784 until she was taken up for the First Fleet two years later, the Borrowdale was employed as a collier, shuttling back and forwards between Newcastle and London once a month. On sailing from New South Wales in July 1788, she crossed the Pacific Ocean, becoming the third ship in history to round Cape Horn from west to east. She lost several of her crew to scurvy, arriving back in the Thames in April 1789 and immediately going on to Sunderland, so she could be refitted for the coal trade. In the early hours of 31 October 1788, as she was making her way along the coast of Norfolk, the Borrowdale was struck by a violent storm. Hobson Reed, the young captain who had commanded her on the voyage to and from New South Wales, tried to take her into Yarmouth Roads, but she foundered on the sands and sank, with the loss of all but one of the crew. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 3 Forty-two ships were driven onto Yarmouth sands that night and 23 of them were wrecked. Reeling from the losses, the northern ship owners and insurance underwriters pressed Trinity House for lights to be installed, and in 1790, two lighthouses were erected nearby at Hasbro’. Charlotte (1784 to post-1816) The Charlotte was built in the River in 1784 for a London financier. In addition to his other clients, Robert Matthews was the friend and agent of Matthew Boulton, the Birmingham engineer who commercialised the ground-breaking improvements to the steam engine made by James Watt, which helped to power the Industrial Revolution. The ship was named after his wife, Charlotte Marlar, a remarkable woman who would take over the management of the business following his untimely death in 1792. Before negotiating the contract for the First Fleet, Matthews sent the Charlotte to St Petersburg twice, and once to Antigua. She was one of the three Botany Baymen taken up by the East India Company to backload with tea from China. On her return in June 1789, she was sold, and for the next decade and a half, she was a constant trader between London and Jamaica, sailing out with dry goods and plantation stores, and coming home with sugar and rum. From 1805, she was employed by government as a naval transport, carrying troops to the Cape of Good Hope in support of yet another invasion, when the British captured that strategically important colony from the Dutch. In these years, she was one naval transport among many, and it is difficult to follow her movements. But in October 1816, she ran aground in the St Lawrence River (in Canada), losing her rudder and suffering other damage. Her captain took her to Quebec for repairs and sold her there. Her ultimate fate is unknown. Fishburn (1780 to 1788) Three colliers, all owned by the Leighton brothers of Sunderland, were taken up as storeships for the expedition to Botany Bay – the Borrowdale, the Fishburn and the Golden Grove. The Fishburn had been constructed at Whitby by the legendary shipbuilder, Thomas Fishburn, who was also responsible for the Earl of Pembroke, a collier acquired by the Navy in the 1760s and renamed the Endeavour. In the six years prior to her being contracted for the First Fleet, the Fishburn was employed as a A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 4 naval transport and an east country collier, and she undertook one voyage to Riga for lumber. She arrived back from New South Wales in May 1789, one of four ships which returned home by rounding Cape Horn. In October of the same year, as she was making her way down from Newcastle with another cargo of coal, the Fishburn was wrecked on Gunfleet Sand, in the northern approach to the Thames. The crew were all saved but the ship was lost. It was probably her first commercial voyage after returning from New South Wales. Friendship (1784 to 1788) Built for the Hopper family at Scarborough, the 278-ton Friendship was launched in late 1784 and immediately sent to Antigua for a cargo of sugar and rum. After a short time in the coastal coal trade, she was dispatched to St Petersburg in June 1786, for iron, hemp and timber. She returned to the River in October, four days before she was offered to the Navy Board by William Richards, the First Fleet contractor. The Friendship sailed from Port Jackson in July 1788, in company with the Alexander, the Borrowdale and the Prince of Wales, under the command of Lieutenant John Shortland, the agent for transports. They were to make their way through the East Indies and return home direct, but the Borrowdale and the Prince of Wales were separated in a storm shortly after sailing. Having had almost no fresh fruit or vegetables for eight months, the crews of the Alexander and Friendship were suffering terribly from scurvy, and by the time they blundered into the Little Paternosters (the Balabalagan Islands) in the Macassar Strait, the Alexander had lost 10 men out of 30, and the Friendship, one out of 17. A number of those who remained were incapable of keeping a watch – and some of them would die shortly thereafter. Exhausted from negotiating the shoals and the shallows of the Little Paternosters, Lieut. Shortland was (rightly) worried about an attack by pirates. He ordered the crew of the Friendship to be transferred to the Alexander, and on the evening of the 27 October (28 October by sea time), four holes were bored on either side of the bow, and she was cut adrift. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 5 The coordinates given for the Friendship’s whereabouts were 2°36’ South, 117° East: a chart drawn by Shortland’s son showed her physical location. Golden Grove (1780 to post-1805) Designed for the Baltic trade, she began her life as the Russian Merchant, shuttling back and forth through the Danish Sound, twice a year. She was renamed the Golden Grove in 1782 and sent to the West Indies several times, before settling into the coastal coal trade, sailing between Newcastle and London. On her return from New South Wales, she was briefly returned to the coal trade, and then spent most of the decade and a half that followed sailing between Liverpool and Riga (now the capital of Latvia) and Pärnu (in Estonia), to bring back masts and spars. There was the occasional mishap, but for the most part, under successive owners and masters, she had a workmanlike career. However, in May 1805, as she was making her way home from Virginia, the Golden Grove was intercepted by a Spanish privateer and taken into Florida, where her captors fitted her out with six-pounders and swivel guns, for use as a privateer. Two months later, she was retaken in a daring raid by a group of British mariners and marines who had sailed up the St Marys River (which lies between Georgia and Florida) and attacked the privateers’ base on the southern side of the water. Her ultimate fate is unknown, but she was almost certainly sold in the Americas. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 6 Prince of Wales (1779 to 1829) From when she was built in 1779 until 1784, the Prince of Wales was known as the Europa, and then from 1784 to 1786, as the Hannibal. In these early years, she undertook two slaving voyages, although one of them did not proceed. Immediately before being taken up for New South Wales in 1786, she was almost completely rebuilt, an overhaul that was so extensive that in some official records, she is described as having been constructed in that year. She was not commissioned for the First Fleet until December 1786, when it was realised that additional tonnage would be required to carry out the remainder of the convicts and marines. In the winter of 1788, the Prince of Wales accompanied the Borrowdale in returning home across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean and making her way around Cape Horn: she also suffered badly from scurvy, losing her captain and a number of the crew on the way. On her return to the Thames, she was sent back into the Southern Whale Fishery, three times. Her owners, the Mather family, had invested in the fishery for a decade or more. It seems likely that her name was a play on words – ‘the prince of whales’ – in which case, the Mathers deliberately contracted her for the First Fleet so they could reconnoitre the whaling grounds of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. On her final voyage into the Southern Whale Fishery, she came home with 125 tons of sperm oil, 30 tons of whale oil, 20 hundredweight of whale bones and 2,000 seal skins. She was then sold to a Liverpool merchant, who sent her to Africa for slaves: this phase of her career was cut short when, in February 1795, she was taken by a privateer and sent into the Caribbean island of St Thomas. Within months, she was trading again under British colours, which means that she was either sold after being condemned by a Vice-Admiralty Court, or the captain made a private arrangement with her captors. She was worked hard over the next three and a half decades, in the West India, Baltic and North American trades, and hired out for several years as a naval transport. The last evidence we have of the Prince of Wales is her arrival at Hull in July 1829 from Riga with timber, and it is likely that she was then retired. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 7 Lady Penrhyn (1786 to 1811) The Lady Penrhyn was fresh off the stocks when William Richards offered her for the First Fleet in September 1786. She was taken up by the East India Company to backload a cargo of tea, and her owners signed an agreement with another merchant to send her to the north-west coast of America for sea-otter furs before sending her to China. But with a crew severely weakened by scurvy, the captain took her direct to Canton: she was the last of the First Fleet merchantmen to come home from New South Wales. On her return, she was committed to the West India trade, sailing numerous times to Jamaica and Grenada with dry goods and returning with sugar and rum. For the most part, these voyages were uneventful, although in 1795, she carried troops to Saint Domingue, in support of a British invasion that followed the outbreak of war with France. In the summer of 1811, as she was making her way to Grenada yet again, she was captured by the Duke of Dantzig, a heavily-armed privateer from Nantes. Her cargo was removed and the Lady Penrhyn was burnt. Scarborough (1782 to 1805) After being launched (at Scarborough) in 1782, the Scarborough was used as a naval transport until the end of the American War of Independence, before being sent into the Baltic and then to Jamaica. She was the third ship taken up by the East India Company to return from Canton with a cargo of tea. On arrival in the Thames, she was immediately taken up for Australia’s Second Fleet, and once again contracted to the Company to bring back tea. Richards offered her for a third voyage to the Antipodes in 1792, but she was rejected. In place of Botany Bay, her owners sent her to St Petersburg, and then chartered her the Transport Board for the shipment of troops. She later returned to the West India trade, sailing several times to and from Demerara, but in April 1805, as she was making her way to join the homeward-bound convoy at Jamaica, she sprang a leak. She drifted onshore, where, despite the best efforts of the crew, she was wrecked. Some of the men packed into the jolly boat and got away, but seven of her small crew were apparently lost. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 8 Sirius (1781 to 1790) HMS Sirius began her life as the Berwick, an ‘east country ship’, but was purchased by the Navy Board ‘off the stocks’, sheathed with copper and fitted out as a ship of war. She was sent to North America in the final stages of the War of Independence before being paid off. On being selected for the Botany Bay expedition, she was overhauled and renamed the Sirius, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, the commodore of the fleet and Governor elect of the new colony. She was sent to the Cape of Good Hope in October 1788 when the settlement was short on supplies: this involved a voyage around the world, part of the way through fogs and icebergs, with men who were suffering badly from scurvy. On her return, Phillip planned on sending her to China for more provisions, but on the 19th of March 1790, she was driven onto a coral reef off Norfolk Island and wrecked. The crew made their way ashore without loss of life. The remains of the Sirius have been closely studied by archaeologists, the site was heritage-listed by the Australian government in 2011, and in 2013, the HMS Sirius Museum was established on shore, 100 metres from the wreck. Supply (1759 to post-1806) An armed tender of 175 tons burthen, the Supply was the smallest of the First Fleet ships. She was built for the Navy in 1759 and over the first 27 years of her life, she was employed in shifting naval stores between the southern ports. The Supply was taken up for Botany Bay in October 1786, after the Navy Board rejected several other vessels as unfit for the expedition. The loss of the Sirius in March 1790 meant that the colony was wholly reliant on this small ship for provisions: she was immediately dispatched to Batavia for much-needed provisions, although it was necessary to charter a Dutch vessel to bring back the bulk of the supplies. She was sent to England in November 1791 and auctioned off in July of the following year. Her new owner named her the Thomas and Nancy, and she spent the next seven or eight years as a collier working between Newcastle and London. She was last surveyed in 1799 and disappears from the official record shortly thereafter. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 9 Summary Six of these ships were of northern origin, four were River-built, and one of them was launched at Sidmouth on the south-west coast. The Supply was 27 years old, but the merchantmen were all new, with an average age of around two and a half, if the Prince of Wales is regarded as a new-build. None of the merchant ships specialised in any one trade, and the Supply, built in the King’s Yard at Deptford, was sold to the private sector and used as a collier when she was no longer fit for naval service. Other than her voyage to and from Botany Bay, the Borrowdale was only ever employed in the coal trade, but that is because she was wrecked so soon after her return. Three other merchantmen were engaged at one time as colliers, but they were also used for a variety of other cargoes. The naval transportation service was a reliable source of revenue in time of war, yet only five of the nine merchantmen were used in that way at some stage throughout their lives (outside of the First Fleet, of course). Only one of them, the Scarborough, signed up for a second voyage to New South Wales. Given the attention now being paid to Britain’s long involvement in the slave trade, and the controversy surrounding Camden, Calvert & King, the contractors for Second Fleet, it is striking that the Prince of Wales was the only one of these ships that was ever employed in the Africa trade. At the time the First Fleet was being commissioned, the merchants involved in the Southern Whale Fishery had only just turned their attention to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which were still protected by the East India Company’s monopoly. It is seems likely, then, that the Mather family was using the Prince of Wales to explore the possibilities. Seven of the merchantmen undertook voyages to and from the West Indies at some point in their career, several of them as constant traders. This has been generally understood, but historians have not previously recognised the strong links to the Baltic trade – of the eight First Fleet merchantmen that had previously been to sea, half of them had undertaken a voyage into the Baltic immediately prior to being taken up for New South Wales. This probably tells us something about how William Richards sourced his ships, a subject that requires closer study. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 10 Even more enlightening is how these ships ended their careers. The Sirius and the Friendship never made it home. The Borrowdale and the Fishburn were wrecked in storms off the east coast of England six months after their return. The Alexander and the Scarborough were destroyed at sea in 1805-06; the Charlotte ran aground in the St Lawrence River in 1816, and was sold to local interests. Three of them were taken by privateers. The Lady Penrhyn was destroyed by her captors in 1811; the Golden Grove was retaken and sold in North America; the Prince of Wales was acquired by British investors and her maritime career was to last for another three and a half decades. Only the Supply, auctioned off following her return to Britain in 1792 and dedicated to the quotidian trade of an east coast collier, enjoyed a quiet existence. 1 John C. Dann (ed.), The Nagle Journal: A Diary of the Life of Jacob Nagle, Sailor, from the Year 1775 to 1841, New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988, p.71; David Blackburn to Margaret Blackburn, 15 April 1787, State Library of NSW (SLNSW), Safe/MLMSS 6937; Philip Gidley King. Official journal being a narrative of the preparation and equipment of the First Fleet and voyage to New South Wales’, SLNSW Safe C115, p.5; Arthur Bowes Smyth, ‘A Journal of a Voyage from Portsmouth to New South Wales and China in the Lady Penrhyn, Merchantman’, SLNSW, Safe 1/15, p.60; Nance Irvine (ed.), The Sirius Letters: The Complete Letters of Newton Fowell. . ., Sydney: The Fairfax Library, 1988, p.44; Ralph Clark, ’Journal kept on the Friendship during a voyage to Botany Bay. . .’, SLNSW, Safe 1/27a, pp.99, 112. 2 Gary L. Sturgess, ‘Success to the Borrowdale’, The Great Circle, (2019) Vo.41, No.1, pp.1-14. A periodic newsletter publishing new research into early Australian convict transportation Gary L. Sturgess, Sydney, Australia. +61 (0)419 734180. [email protected] 11