More time on things maritime

This week I continued down a bit of a rabbit hole looking into William Ward's shipping activities. I am amazed at how much information can be teased from the resources available online, particularly the newspaper archives available from the National Library of Australia through their 'Trove' website (trove.nla.gov.au).

Most of the information that I have found is from the 1840s and 1850s. The 1840's newspapers in particular give quite detailed information about the arrivals and departures of coastal trading vessels. They would usually list the name of the vessel, its cargo capacity (tons), the type of vessel, the surname of the Master, the port of origin and the cargo. By 1852 the number of arrivals and departures has grown to a level where from February 1852 the newspapers stop giving this level of detail and just report the name of the vessels that arrived on a given day.

 

The clipping right is from the Sydney Morning Herald on 11 March 1846 (pg 2) and shows vessels arriving in Sydney the previous day. William Ward's cutter Traveller's Bride arrived from the Patterson carrying grain and wool. The Master was David Brown. I gleaned his first name from advertisements that were placed for each sailing.

Traveller's Bride did a regular run to the Paterson River between 1843 and mid-1846 when she switched to carrying coal from Newcastle. There is a book about the sailing vessels that served Patterson, and Traveller's Bride is covered, so I have ordered a copy!

Traveller's Bride was described as a cutter. This means she was rigged with a single mast mounted roughly in the middle of the vessel. She had a rated capacity of 30 tons, meaning she had about 3,000 square feet of cargo space. After she switched to coal, she routinely carried 40 tons and I found one voyage where she carried 45 tons.

Some of William's other vessels were ketches. A ketch has two masts, with the rear mast (mizzen mast) smaller that the main mast and placed midway between the main mast and the rudder post. A schooner has the smaller mast in front, or masts of the same size and a yawl has a smaller rear mast placed towards the back of the vessel.

Whether it was good luck or good management I do not know, but William seemed to have a good safety record with his vessels. The shipping columns regularly report the loss of coastal traders. I saw a report of one of William's ships being sighted well out to sea after a big storm. The other ship had to give her the correct course for Sydney. This probably indicates that the Masters of these small coastal traders were not highly skilled navigators!

The danger of the trade is well illustrated by the fate of one of William's vessels some 5 years after he sold her. Her master, James Tyrrell, told the story in the Empire (Sydney newspaper) on 15 September 1857 (page 5):

Sir-With reference to a paragraph which appears in your issue or this morning, relative to the wreck of the Midshipman, ketch, I beg to acquaint you that the above vessel, accompanied by the Uncle Tom, ketch, passed the outward portion of the Bar of Brisbane Water on Tuesday last, about half-past 2 p.m., the Uncle Tom being ahead ; and when nearly past all danger a sea struck the Midshipman on the port quarter, and carried her on to a sand spit before she could answer her helm - - in which position she remained until about half-past ten at night, when she began to break up. Were it not for the Intrepidity and great exertions of Mr. Twigley, the master of the Uncle Tom, the whole of the crew and passengers, consisting of ten persons, must have perished.

They remained about ten hours on board before Mr. Twigley's boat could reach the vessel, which he succeeded at last in doing, and rescuing them from a watery grave. The Midshipman had a cargo about the value of £120. I have had the charge of several vessels trading on the coast for the last thirteen years past with-out meeting with any accident before the present. It has been the first, and I hope it will be the last. 

I am, Sir,Your obedient servant., James Tyrrell

There are limits to what you can find on Trove. I have found it best to search for combinations of words, or phrases, but it becomes difficult with common words. Searching for 'Ward' is a nightmare, because there are so many words that contain 'ward'. It is also difficult when there are several vessels with the same name, which was the case with William's cutter Matilda. There was also a schooner with that name built at Brisbane Water and also a British Brig arriving from time to time.

If anyone is interested, I found most of the information using Trove's advanced search:

• For voyages of Travellers Bride, I entered 'Coasters Inwards' in the 'All of these words' box and 'Travellers Bride"  in the 'Phrase' box.
• I entered 'Coasters Inwards' in the 'All of these words' box as above, but entered 'Matilda, 16, Ward' in the 'Phrase' box to find voyages of the Matilda where William was the Master. Note that later shipping reports omit the size of the vessel, so you have to modify the phrase to 'Matilda, Ward' to see the later voyages.
• For general information about the Midshipman, I entered 'Ketch Midshipman' in the 'Phrase' box You can then filter the results advertising or articles using the check boxes in the right column. Note including the word 'ketch' largely excludes the mentions of people who are midshipmen por the midshipman rank generally.

You can use similar tricks for the other vessels and types of entries, but it can be a frustrating process! The secret is to search broadly, then modify the terms once you start to find some relevant information.

I am writing up my findings about William's vessels as a detailed research document, which I can then summarise in the final story about William and Catherine. I will publish these research notes on my website when complete.