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  • Queensland’s Ten Worst Maritime Disasters

    The wreck of the Steamer Gothenburg. Source: Australasian Sketcher, 20 Mar 1875, p. 13.

    TEN: SOVEREIGN, 1847.

    The Sovereign. Image courtesy Stradbroke Island Heritage Museum.

    The paddle steamer Sovereign, with 54 persons on board, sailed from Moreton Bay via the southern channel on 11 March 1847.   As she ploughed through the large swells funnelled into the passage between Moreton and Stradbroke Islands, her engines failed at a critical moment.      The force of the breaking waves quickly drove her onto a sand spit projecting from the southern point of Moreton Island, where she broke up.    Forty-four people lost their lives.   The owners of the vessel would later claim the engines had been working fine and blamed the captain for the loss.     

    NINE: MERSEY, 1804.

    On 24 May 1804, the 350-ton merchant ship Mersey sailed from Sydney bound for Bengal, India, via Torres Strait.     In mid-June she was wrecked while trying to negotiate the dangerous waters of Torres Strait.   Neither the location or the circumstances of the tragedy are known, other than the captain and either 12 or 17 of the crew took to the longboat and made it safely to Timor Island to report the loss.   She reportedly sailed with 73 hands which means 56 or 61 people lost their lives.

    EIGHT: PERI, 1871.

    HMS Basilisk and the Peri. Image Courtesy the British National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

    In early February 1871 HMS Basilisk discovered a schooner, later identified as the Peri, adrift and seemingly abandoned a short distance off the Queensland near Cardwell.   When a boat was sent across to investigate, they discovered 14 emaciated Solomon Islanders, three corpses, no food or fresh water and five feet of putrid seawater in the hold. The Peri had last been seen about six weeks earlier in Fiji carrying around 80 or 90 blackbirded Islanders bound for Fijian cotton plantations.   It seems that the Islanders had overpowered their kidnappers and taken control of the schooner.   They then sailed or drifted west across almost 3,000 km of open ocean, withstood at least one severe tropical storm, and passed through a gap in the Great Barrier Reef before being found.      As many as 75 people likely died during the ordeal.

    Map showing 10 worst maritime disasters off Queensland. Courtesy Google Maps

    SEVEN: SYBIL, 1902.

    The labour schooner Sybil disappeared sometime after leaving the Solomon Islands on 19 April 1902 bound for Townsville with a fresh batch of South Seas labourers.    By August, grave fears were held for the Sybil, for the voyage should not have taken more than two or three weeks.    Searches were made of the islands along the outer Great Barrier Reef and in the Coral Sea but no trace of the vessel or any of those on board were found.   She had a crew of 12 and on the previous two voyages, she had carried 90 and 98 labour recruits, so it is thought no less than 100 lives were lost.

    SIX: GOTHENBURG, 1875

    Gothenburg. Photo Courtesy SLQ

    The steamer Gothenburg sailed from Darwin on 17 February 1875 bound for Adelaide via Australia’s east coast.   On 24 February the Gothenburg was steaming down the coast in the vicinity of Cape Bowling Green.   Bad weather meant they could not see the regular landmarks to aid their navigation. The captain was unaware strong currents were pushing the ship towards the Great Barrier Reef until it was too late. The Gothenburg ran aground on Old Reef.   The ship and all aboard her would likely have been saved but for a powerful cyclone bearing down on them.   As the storm worsened, the captain ordered the evacuation of the passengers, but as the women and children were being loaded into the lifeboats a succession of huge waves swept over the ship.    Only 22 people survived.  As many as 112 passengers and crew lost their lives.  

    FIVE: YONGALA, 1911

    S.S. Yongala. Photo Courtesy SLQ.

    The Yongala sank during a tropical cyclone near Cape Bowling Green on 11 March 1911 with the loss of all 122 people on board.    When the ship failed to arrive in Townsville as scheduled, concerns were raised.   Then, wreckage began washing ashore along the coast as far away as Hinchinbrook Island.   However, there was no sign of the ship or any hint as to where she might have sunk.   Nearly half a century would pass before the final resting place of the Yongala was conclusively located. 

    FOUR: QUETTA, 1890

    RMS Quetta. Photo courtesy SLQ

    While the Mail Steamer Quetta was steaming through Torres Strait on the night of 28 February 1890, it struck an uncharted rock pinnacle as it passed Adolphus Island.   The Quetta had departed from Brisbane bound for London carrying nearly 300 people comprising the passengers and crew when disaster struck.   The collision tore a gaping hole in the hull from bow to amidship, and the ship sank in just three minutes.    One hundred people made it safely to Little Adolphus Island where they were later rescued.   Dozens more were pulled from the water the following day.    133 people lost their lives in the tragedy.

    THREE: AHS CENTAUR, 1943

    AHS Centaur. Photo Courtesy State Library of Queensland

    At 4 am on 14 May 1943, the Australian Hospital Ship (AHS) Centaur was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine.    The Centaur was about 35km off Moreton Island having departed Sydney with medical staff from the Army’s 2/12 Field Ambulance bound for Port Moresby.   In all, there were 332 people on board.   268 lost their lives.   64 survived by clinging to debris and two damaged lifeboats until they were rescued 36 hours later.

    TWO: CYCLONE MAHINA, 1899

    Cyclone tracks for Cyclone Mahina.

    On the night of 4/5 March 1899, a powerful cyclone crossed the coast at Bathurst Bay on Cape York Peninsula. Lying directly in its path was the North Queensland pearling fleet which had sought shelter there.     Nearly 60 vessels – from large schooners to pearling luggers – were sunk or driven ashore with horrendous loss of life.    Between 300-400 people died in what is no doubt Queensland’s worst natural disaster.    The loss was most keenly felt on Thursday Island where the pearling fleet was based.

    ONE: GRIMENEZA, 1854

    Artists impression of the Grimeneza . Image Courtesy SLQ

    The worst shipwreck off the Queensland coast occurred on 3 July 1854.   The Peruvian ship Grimeneza was sailing from China with some 600 Chinese labourers bound for the Callao guano mines in Peru.   When they struck a reef at Bampton Shoals in the Coral Sea, the captain and six others immediately abandoned the ship leaving the rest of the crew and the passengers to their fate.  The rest of the crew tried to back the ship off, but when that failed, they too took to the lifeboats and were picked up 12 days later.   Miraculously, the Grimeneza floated off with the next high tide.   The labourers sailed the damaged ship west towards the Queensland coast with the pumps being worked around the clock.   But after three days of exhausting work, she foundered.   Six men were found clinging to a piece of wreckage 300 km off the coast a few days later.   The rest had all drowned or been taken by sharks.

    © Copyright, C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

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  • William Swallow and the 1829 Cyprus mutiny

    Detail reputedly showing the brig Cyprus (centre) from a panorama of Hobart 1828 – watercolour drawings by Augustus Earle, Courtesy State Library of NSW.

       In August 1829, the brig Cyprus sailed from Hobart bound for Macquarie Harbour with provisions and 31 convicts sentenced to serve hard labour at that infamous penal settlement. However, while windbound at Recherche Bay in Tasmania’s south, the prisoners rose up, overpowered their guards and seized control of the ship. Thus began one of the most extraordinary escapes of Australia’s convict era.

       Their leader was a 37-year-old convict named William Swallow. He was likely the only man among the prisoners who had any seagoing experience, so in true pirate tradition, the men voted for him to be their captain. Swallow had once earned a living as a seaman on colliers plying England’s coastal waters. That was until he tired of the seagoing life and found it was more lucrative to break into portside houses or ships moored in harbour. He finally came undone when the police suspected him of being involved in several recent burglaries and raided his house. A large haul of stolen property was found in the house, and Swallow was whisked off to gaol. This took place in 1821 when Swallow was going by the name William Walker. He was found guilty of housebreaking and sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) for seven years.

       William Swallow, however, had no intention of going quietly, leaving his wife and three children to fend for themselves. His first attempt to escape took place even before he had left England. He and a fellow prisoner jumped from the ship carrying them to the prison hulks to await the next Australia-bound convict transport.  His mate drowned in the attempt, but Swallow survived and returned to his hometown. However, he was quickly recaptured and charged with returning from transportation. This time, he was loaded on a ship and sent to Van Diemen’s Land.  

    Swallow made a second attempt to escape eight months after arriving in Hobart. He and three other convicts seized a small schooner, crossed Bass Strait and made it to within 80 kilometres of Sydney before they ran aground and were taken back into custody. Swallow received 150 lashes and was sentenced to serve hard labour at Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement. But he escaped again before ever setting foot in that much-feared hellhole. This time, he escaped from gaol and stowed away on a merchant ship bound for England. There, he lived free until being discovered in 1828. This time, he was sent to Van Diemen’s Land for life. But Swallow was still not ready to give up and accept his fate. Shortly after arriving back in Hobart, he stowed away on the very ship that had so recently brought him from England. By now, guards were masters at finding stowaways, and Swallow was taken off before it left port. He was flogged again and was on his way to Macquarie Harbour on the Cyprus when, in 1829, he and the other convicts seized the ship.

    A tranquil Recherche Bay in southern Tasmania in 2019. Photo CJ Ison.

       On 13 August, while the Cyprus was windbound in Recherche Bay, the convicts pounced, catching their guards by surprise and wresting control of the ship. They put the soldiers, captain and crew ashore and the following morning, hauled up the anchor, unfurled the sails and gave three hearty cheers as they got underway. The castaways would remain stranded in that remote and inhospitable corner of Tasmania for two weeks before they were discovered. That gave Swallow and his men ample time to get far away from Van Diemen’s Land before the alarm was raised.

       It was supposed by the authorities that the runaways would try to make their way across the Pacific, where they would scuttle the Cyprus and pass themselves off as shipwrecked sailors at some unsuspecting South American port. But Swallow and the others had another idea in mind as Van Diemen’s Land disappeared over the horizon behind them.

       The Cyprus was well stocked with food, for it carried sufficient supplies to see the Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement through the coming winter months when it was all but cut off from the outside world. Swallow set a course to take them to New Zealand, where the men painted the vessel’s hull black and renamed her the Friends of Boston. Passing themselves off as an American-flagged ship, they then sailed north towards the Friendly Islands, known today as Tonga.

       However, this leg of their voyage was far from smooth sailing. One man was lost overboard during a powerful storm, and the common purpose that had seen the convicts unite to capture the brig had begun to dissipate. After they reached the island of Tongatapu, present-day Nukualofa, seven men chose to remain there when the Cyprus set sail. Swallow continued north across the equator and eventually reached southern Japan after an impressive voyage of nearly 12,500 km. They pulled into a sheltered bay on the island of Shikoku in January 1830, hoping to resupply with firewood and fresh water. However, at the time, Japan was unwelcoming of foreigners. Despite the language barriers, the Japanese made it clear that the Cyprus had to be gone by sunset; otherwise, it would be fired upon.

    A watercolour of what is beieved to be the Cyprus by low-ranking Samurai artist Makita Hamaguchi in documents from the Tokushima prefectural archive. CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59397258

       Swallow heeded the warning, hoping to resupply somewhere more friendly, but as the sun dipped towards the horizon, the wind dropped and the ship was becalmed. The Japanese coastal battery opened fire as they warned they would, and one of the cannonballs struck the vessel on the waterline. But before any more damage could be inflicted, a breeze sprang up, and Swallow wasted no time getting the ship underway. They followed the Ryukyu Island chain south before crossing the East China Sea, all the time taking on water.   

    In February 1830, the Cyprus was off the coast of China, near the estuary of the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang River). By now, the leak had worsened, and the pumps had to be manned constantly to keep the ship afloat. Several of the runaways had had enough and wanted to abandon the ship. However, Swallow wasn’t ready to give up on the Cyprus just yet, despite the risk of being discovered by British naval vessels in the area. He hoped they might repair the ship and soon be on their way. However, those wishing to go ashore went below and punched a hole in the hull. They then boarded a lifeboat and left the Cyprus to sink. Swallow and his few remaining loyalists could not stem the steady inflow of water and were forced to abandon the ship a few hours later in the remaining lifeboat and make their way to Canton (Guangzhou).

    View of the Canton factories by William Daniell, circa early 1800s. Courtesy British National Maritime Museum via Wikipedia.

       The unexpected arrival of British subjects in the trading enclave raised the interest of the local East India Company officials. William Swallow was asked to visit their offices, where he was questioned at length.

       As news of the seizure of Cyprus had yet to reach that port, Swallow passed himself off as Captain William Waldon and late master of the 200-ton English brig Edward. His story was a mixture of fact and fiction. He said that they had left London on 14 December 1828, bound for Rio de Janeiro and had then rounded Cape Horn and crossed the Pacific to Japan, where they were fired upon. The Edward, he said, had steadily taken on water as he tried to make for Manila, but his ship had finally foundered near Formosa (Taiwan).

       He told the East India Company officials that he and his crew had boarded two lifeboats and headed for the Chinese mainland, but on the way, he lost contact with the second boat. On the strength that Swallow, AKA Waldon, had a sextant engraved with the ship’s name in his possession, and he had arrived in a longboat bearing the name “Edward of London,” his story was accepted. The East India Company officials gave Swallow and his men free passage to London on a merchant ship about to depart from Canton. The escaped convicts might just have got away with the subterfuge but for a stroke of bad luck.

       A second boat arrived at the docks just days after they left. The men on that boat also claimed to be survivors from the Edward. But their version of the story was at odds with the one provided by Swallow. One of the new arrivals was immediately detained, but the rest fled Canton on an outbound ship one step ahead of the law. Then, two more men from the Cyprus turned up in Canton. They had been found on one of the Ryukyu islands and taken to Canton for questioning. When news of the seizure of the Cyprus finally reached the British enclave, the men in custody were questioned more closely, and they eventually confessed to who they were.

    A watercolour by samurai Makita Hamaguchi showing one of the mutineers. CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59845977

       A letter was dispatched to London on the next ship to leave, warning the police to be on the lookout for Swallow and the others. That ship arrived in London before Swallow, and the police were waiting. However, by pure luck, he had disembarked at Margate rather than travel up the River Thames to London.   The rest of Swallow’s travelling companions were arrested at the dock, and a couple of weeks later, Swallow was tracked down to a Lambeth boarding house, living under an assumed name.

       In October 1830, Swallow and four others stood trial for piracy. The jury found the others guilty as charged, but acquitted William Swallow after he convincingly pleaded that he had been forced to take part in the mutiny against his will. Although Swallow escaped punishment for piracy, there was still the matter of his returning to England illegally. He was once again sent to Van Diemen’s Land, where he died at Port Arthur Penal Settlement on 12 May 1834.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

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  • A Textbook Escape – The Badger 1833.

    Example of an English Cutter of early 1800s. Source: All About Ships, Dorling, 1912.

       In July 1833, the colonial cutter Badger left Hobart with its hold filled with supplies intended for Port Arthur. Only this time, as she set off down the Derwent River instead of rounding Cape Raoul and delivering her stores, she kept heading east, past Tasman Island, past Cape Pillar and out to sea. The captain and crew, all convicts still under sentence, had likely been planning their escape for some time. Now they were putting it into action.

       The Badger had a crew of four under the command of Captain William Philp.   All the men had been mariners before they had run afoul of the law and been banished to Van Diemen’s Land. All but one were serving life sentences, meaning there was no likelihood they would ever return home. Their captain was a former master mariner who had been found guilty of “Wilfully and maliciously destroying the sloop Jane”. Philp had been a part-owner of the vessel as well as its captain. Late one night, he loaded it with gunpowder and blew it up in Penzance Harbour after a falling out with his business partners.

       He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to transportation for life. Aged 51, Philp was sent out to Van Diemen’s Land on the convict transport Argyle in 1831. During the passage, he was suspected of conspiring with others to seize the ship and make their escape. The evidence was circumstantial and most likely supplied by a convict informant, but that was enough for Philp and eight or so others to be clapped in chains and separated from the rest of the prisoners. On the Argyle’s arrival in Hobart, the conspirators, including Philp, were tried, found guilty and sentenced to serve hard labour at Macquarie Harbour. 

       On his eventual return to Hobart, Philp finally got a break. He was put in charge of the 25-ton schooner Badger, ferrying stores from Hobart to Port Arthur about 70 kilometres sailing down the Derwent River. Port Arthur had recently been established to replace Macquarie Harbour, which was about to be shut down the following year.

    The Colonist, 6 Aug 1833, p. 3.

       By 1833, the Badger’s entire crew were experienced seamen. It was not uncommon for the authorities to assign sailors to work on government vessels, for they already had the necessary skills. However, there was always the obvious risk that the colonial administrators were giving them the means of effecting their own escape. Such was the case with the Badger. Governor Arthur was mercilessly criticised for allowing such a situation to eventuate.

       On Tuesday, 23 July 1833, William Philp took the Badger out of Sullivan Cove and headed down the Derwent River much as he had done many times before. As well as carrying plenty of provisions, on this trip the Badger was also well equipped with nautical charts, navigation instruments and several muskets recently procured by Philp and his men. What’s more, as many as a dozen convicts had also been smuggled aboard and hidden in the hold.

       The Badger left the wharf unchallenged and did not raise any suspicion as she sailed under the guns of Battery Point. To everyone but those on board, she was on her regular passage to Port Arthur. But before she had gone more than five kilometres down the Derwent, she briefly pulled into shore and picked up a final passenger, one George Harding Darby.

       Darby, like all the rest of the men on the Badger, was a convict still under sentence. But he enjoyed many privileges not accorded to ordinary convicts sent out to the colonies. A gentleman by birth, he was a member of the same class as the military officers and administrators governing Van Diemen’s Land. At the time, he was employed as a signalman at Mount Nelson Signal Station, which relayed messages from Port Arthur to Hobart. He had also worked at the Water Bailiff’s office and was likely the person who got Philp his job as the Badger’s master and ensured he had a crew of loyal and competent sailors.

    Courtesy Google Maps

       Darby and Philp, both nautical men, had become friends while held in a prison hulk awaiting transportation. Darby had come out to Van Diemen’s Land on the William Glen Anderson the same year as Philp had come out on the Argyle. George Darby had served in the Royal Navy and, during Greece’s war of independence from the Ottoman Empire, had commanded a naval vessel under Lord Cochrane. He was also reputed to have served with distinction during the battle of Navarino in 1827 further enhancing his reputation among Hobart’s administrators. However, by 1830, he had left the navy and had found employment as a clerk. By 30 March 1830, he was standing in the docks answering charges of stealing £90 from a fellow gentleman. He was found guilty and sentenced to be transported for life.

       Several days passed before anyone realised the Badger had not delivered her stores to Port Arthur. Boats were sent out to track her down. It was thought that Philp might have sought refuge in the Bay of Islands in New Zealand.   So, the brig Isabella was even sent to investigate with a party of soldiers on board. However, she returned to Hobart in late September, having found no trace of the missing Badger. Philp, Darby, and the others had somewhere much further afield in mind when they sailed away from Hobart. They had made their way north, first through the Tasman and from there into the Coral Sea. In September, they pulled into Lifuka in the Friendly Islands (present-day Tonga) before resuming their journey north across the equator and on towards the Philippines.

       Philp, Darby and the rest of the runaways eventually arrived in Manila in a longboat, claiming their ship had sunk not far from that port. It is certainly possible that they ran into trouble close to their destination, as they claimed. But it is more likely they had deliberately scuttled the ship rather than risk it being identified as the missing Badger. Philp and Darby would have known that Governor Arthur would have sent a description of the Badger and its runaways far and wide in his effort to track them down.

    The Pria Granda, Macao, by Thomas Allom, from a sketch by Lieut. White, Royal Marines. (1843)

       The bolters did not linger in Manila for very long. They boarded a Spanish ship bound for the Portuguese colony of Macau. But in Macau, their luck nearly ran out. William Philp was spotted by the master of the British merchant ship Mermaid, which happened to be in port. Before taking command of the Mermaid, Captain Stavers had served as the mate on the convict transport Argyle. He immediately recognised Philp as one of the convicts who was suspected of plotting to seize his ship.

       Stavers tried to have the Portuguese colonial authorities detain the Philp and his mates. He showed the officials an old copy of the Sydney Herald newspaper, which included a report on the seizure of the Badger as evidence. Philp and Darby were picked up and questioned by a Portuguese official, but they claimed to have never heard of the Badger.

       As Philp and the others had kept their noses clean while in Macau, the Governor was not inclined to lock them up on the say-so of a foreigner brandishing an old newspaper in a language he did not understand. Philp and Darby were released to go about their business unmolested, but now that their true identities were known, they thought it was time to move on in. Apparently, most of the runaways had already found berths on an American-flagged ship about to leave port. Philp was last seen in Macau after kindly declining an invitation to join a ship bound for Sydney, telling the British captain, “[he] did not wish to go so far southward.”

    Philp, Darby and the rest of the men who fled from Van Diemen’s Land on the Badger are among a very select group of convicts. Of the many hundreds who escaped in stolen or seized vessels, very few are known to have made it to a friendly port. None of the Badger’s men were ever heard of again after leaving Macau.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

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  • BOLTERS: An Unruly Bunch of Malcontents

    Convict crewed boats crossing the bar to unload ships at Norfolk Island. Courtesy National Library of Australia.

    More than 160,000 of Britain’s most unwanted souls were banished to Australia between 1788 and 1868.   These convicts ranged from petty thieves to hardened criminals.   Fraudsters, burglars and pickpockets rubbed shoulders with highway robbers, rapists and murderers in the fetid prison cells of transport ships bound for Australia.    Political prisoners, social reformers and ordinary men and women struggling to feed their families also found themselves trapped in a brutal judicial system determined to rid Britain of its undesirables.  

    The vast majority of these men and women made the best of the hand fate had dealt them.   They earned their freedom and took up land and farmed it, started businesses, married, raised children, and helped found the country we know today.   But this book is not about them.   Library shelves are lined with volumes praising the accomplishments of those worthy and not-so-worthy folk.   Rather, Bolters tells the stories of those unruly malcontents who stepped ashore and thought, “This place is not for me,” and began plotting their escape.  

    Those who tried to abscond and failed, or flout any of the many other rules and regulations governing their lives were often sent to places of “secondary transportation.”   These isolated penal settlements established at Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Moreton Bay and Macquarie Harbour were intentionally harsh.   They were places where floggings were frequent, work was backbreaking, living conditions were wretched and life expectancy was short.     Norfolk Island would later surpass them all for its brutality.  

    Hobart Town convict chain gang. Photo courtesy State Library of Victoria.

    Australia’s penal settlements were gaols without bars.   There was often very little to prevent anyone from taking their leave and hiding out in the bush.    But what could they do then?   The countryside was wildly unfamiliar, and the already dispossessed Aboriginal peoples were often hostile towards anyone encroaching further onto their land.   Despite this, there were several bolters who lived for many years in Aboriginal communities.   Alternatively, runaways could hole up on the outskirts of settlements, preying on whoever presented themselves as easy targets.   These “bushrangers” were the scourge of early administrators in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land.   The authorities went to great lengths to hunt them down and bring them to justice, often at the end of a rope.   Eking out an existence on society’s fringes was not a viable long-term proposition.   Those truly serious about escaping had to look not towards the country’s interior, but out to sea.    Where townsfolk, farmhands, labourers and the like viewed the expansive ocean with justifiable trepidation, it was seen in a very different light by the many seamen and mariners in the convict ranks.

    A flogging as Illustrated in The Fell Tyrant published in 1836. Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW

    Ships had brought them out to the colonies.   They could whisk them away.    Stowing away was the most frequent method of absconding, especially for those without seafaring skills.   A cat-and-mouse game soon developed, with stowaways finding ever more inventive places to hide while the authorities devised new ways of flushing them out.   Rarely did a ship leave Australia during the convict era without someone trying to stow away.

    For men of a more ruthless and violent temperament, seizing control of a ship and sailing to some far-flung port proved an irresistible temptation.    Ships transporting prisoners between settlements were always on alert for trouble, but that did not stop some desperate characters from trying their luck.  Captains of vessels, complacent of port regulations, risked their ships being taken by convicts ever vigilant for lapses in security.   A few enterprising convicts even built their own craft to make their escape.   Few of these endeavours ended well, for the distances to be traversed were vast and the ocean unforgiving to frail and unseaworthy watercraft.  

    Detail from an 1828 watercolour of Hobart by Augustus Earle showing the brig Cyprus (centre), which was seized by convicts en route to Macquarie Harbour. Courtesy State Library of NSW.

    Bolters tells the stories of many of those convicts who chanced their luck to regain their liberty.   The narratives draw heavily on the personal accounts left behind by those determined to escape and official reports written by the men whose job it was to stop them.    In 1791 William and Mary Bryant and a band of runaways made off with Governor Phillip’s cutter and sailed it to Timor in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia).   To this day it is still recognised as an outstanding feat of seamanship and survival.    It was unfortunate for them that their luck ran out shortly after.   However, Mary and a handful of others reached England and were later pardoned. They proved escape was possible, inspiring many others to follow their lead.    In 1803, William Buckley fled from a short-lived settlement on the shores of Port Phillip Bay.   He was taken in by the local Aboriginal people and remained with them for the next 32 years.   Macquarie Harbour saw many inmates try to escape that god-forsaken place.   No story is more chilling than that of the infamous cannibal Alexander Pearce and the men who fled into the wilderness with him.  

    Sketches of Alexander Pearce made shortly after he was hanged. Artist: Thomas Bock. Courtesy State Library of NSW.

    When a group of determined prisoners captured the Cyprus in 1829, few could have imagined that they would sail the vessel to Japan before scuttling it off the coast of China.  Several men made it back to England before being arrested. Then, five years later, the prisoners entrusted with completing the Frederick at Macquarie Harbour took off for South America rather than deliver her to Port Arthur as supposed.    The book ends with the liberation of six Irish rebels from Fremantle Prison by the American whaler Catalpa in 1876.   This was arguably the most carefully planned and executed escape during the convict era.   Along the way, the book delves into many lesser-known but no less desperate and dramatic attempts to flee Australian shores.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

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  • The search for the Sydney Cove – 1797

    On the night of 2 October 1797, fourteen convicts stole a boat and made their way down the Paramatta River across Sydney harbour and out through the Heads.  When the men were discovered missing, the authorities sent boats in pursuit, but they returned a few days later, having never caught sight of the runaways.    As a storm had swept the area shortly after they had escaped, it was thought the bolters had died at sea.   However, that was no more than wishful thinking.    Their story is one of desperation, betrayal, and ultimately defeat.

    The runaways’ leaders were John Boroughbridge and Michael Gibson.   They had been labouring away in the back blocks of Paramatta when they convinced 12 other desperate men to join them in an audacious escape.    Their plan was to find the remains of the 250-ton Sydney Cove, a ship that had recently been wrecked somewhere far to the south of Sydney.   Boroughbridge and Gibson were sure they could build a new vessel from the timbers and fittings and make for some distant port far from the clutches of British law.   That the Sydney Cove had been carrying a massive cargo of rum and other alcoholic spirits added to its allure.

    Painting of Sydney, Port Jackson. circa 1804.

    Boroughbridge was serving 14 years for some unspecified crime and had landed in New South Wales only four months earlier and was keen to leave at the first opportunity.  Gibson had already spent five long years there, but with nine more to serve, he was no less eager to put the place behind him.     It seems they had little difficulty finding 12 others willing to join them.

    With nothing more than a small pocket compass and the knowledge that the wreck lay somewhere far to the south, they headed out through Sydney Heads and turned right.    A day or so later, the weather turned nasty, but Boroughbridge and his mates ploughed on.   Twice, their boat was driven ashore, and both times, they were lucky to avoid serious damage.  

    In time, the weather eased, and they continued following the coast and unknowingly strayed into Bass Strait.   In 1797, no one knew that a body of water separated Van Diemen’s Land from the rest of Australia.    All Boroughbridge and the others would have known was that the Sydney Cove was aground on an island somewhere off the coast.   They likely had no accurate idea how far they had come or how much further they had to go.   They certainly could not have known that they needed to cross 200 km of open water to reach the beached ship.   By now, the compass would have shown that they were heading in a south-westerly rather than southerly direction as they doggedly follow the contours of the coast.

    Finally, they ran out of food and fresh water.   In desperation, they put ashore on one of the small islands in the vicinity of Wilson’s Promontory.   There, they found a ready supply of fresh water, while seabirds and seals made easy prey for the starving men.    But, the trying conditions took their toll.   By now, many of the runaways would have gladly returned to Sydney to face any punishment short of death if it meant an end to their suffering.  

    Any sense of common purpose they may have once possessed had since evaporated.   They could not agree on what they should do next.   Should they stick to their original plan and continue searching for the elusive Sydney Cove?   Or should they abandon the search and head back north?   Then, one night, in a callous act of betrayal, Boroughbridge, Gibson and five others quietly set off in the boat, abandoning the rest of the men as they slept. 

    After leaving their comrades to their fate and giving up the search for the Sydney Cove, they returned north again.   Bypassing the entrance to Sydney Harbour, they continued on to the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, where it emptied into Broken Bay.   It cannot have been lost on the weary men that after three or four months on the run, they were now barely a day’s sailing from where they had started.   

    After months at sea, their boat was in such a derelict state that they did not trust it to carry them any further.    The men agreed they would continue sailing north, but to do so, they would have to find another boat.     They did not have long to wait.

    Boroughbridge and his men seized a passing vessel and set a course north. Their plan now was to make for Timor in the Dutch East Indies as William Bryant, his wife Mary and others had done some six years earlier.   News that Mary and some of the other runaways had reached England and been pardoned had only recently reached Sydney offering hope for anyone contemplating following in their wake.   

    Nothing more was heard of them for another couple of months.  Then, in late March 1798, they returned to Broken Bay and hailed down a passing boat.  Boroughbridge handed a letter to the boatswain asking him to deliver it to the NSW Governor.   The letter, signed by Boroughbridge, Gibson and three remaining runaways, claimed they wished to give themselves up and begged for clemency.   They wrote that they had sailed about 400 nautical miles (750 km) north, which would have put them on either Stradbroke or Moreton Island.   Then, they claimed, disaster struck.    When they tried to run ashore, their boat was caught in the surf and driven hard onto the beach, where it broke apart with the pounding of successive waves.   They were stranded on an inhospitable stretch of coast.   But all was not lost.   They were able to salvage enough timber from the wreckage to build a smaller craft and put back out to sea.   However, by now, they had all had enough of life on the run.  They decided that rather than continue sailing north, they would return to Sydney and beg for mercy. 

    Their plea for mercy fell on deaf ears, for the Governor had learned that Boroughbridge and the rest of the men seeking clemency had callously abandoned half their mates to die on the island in Bass Strait.   In an unlikely turn of events, they had been found by George Bass while he was endeavouring to prove the existence of the body of water which now bears his name.   Unable to carry all seven back to Sydney on his small boat, he ferried five across to the mainland, gave them a compass, a musket and as much food as he could spare and told them to follow the coast north to Sydney.   They were never heard of again.   Two men, too weak to walk, remained with Bass.   He returned to Sydney on 25 February and handed the pair to the authorities and they reported what had befallen them.     

    In April, Boroughbridge and the four remaining runaways were returned to Sydney, where they were tried for piracy and found guilty.   Jonathon Boroughbridge and Michael Gibson were hanged, while their three companions were only given clemency at the last minute as they stood before the gallows contemplating their final moments of life.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

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