Clipper Ships
The
middle years of the 19th century saw the ultimate development of
wind-powered commercial shipping with the appearance of the clipper. It is difficult to give an exclusive
definition of this class of vessel though, generally speaking, it would be
accepted that clippers were characterised by having long, narrow hulls, three
masts and the ability to carry a large area of sail which, in turn, required
large crews. They were built for speed,
rather than bulk load-carrying capacity and thus were ideal for the transport
of high value cargos or for being employed on routes where journey time was of
the essence. These ships came to
prominence in the carriage of tea, opium, spices, gold-rush emigrants
(California from 1848 and Victoria from 1851) and gold dust, though
subsequently they were employed more as general purpose freighters and some had
their complement of sails changed from full ship rig to barque rig, to lower
crew costs but also reduced speed. In
later years, clippers found uses as varied as carrying general manufactures,
guano, grain, metal ores, coal and wool, as well as passengers.
The name
“clipper” is thought to derive from verb “to clip” meaning to move quickly and the
noun “clip”, a fast speed and was first used, at least in Britain, from the
mid-1830s. Most clippers were built in
US, Canadian and British yards and progressively increased in size. By the mid-1850s vessels in excess of 2500
tons register were being produced and these large ships were capable of 18
knots or more under favourable conditions.
However, the inexorable rise of steam propulsion led to a decline in the
building of clippers. After 1869, when
the opening of the Suez Canal led to the removal of the last impediment to the
use of screw steam ships on the longest journeys from Europe to China and
Australia, the construction of new clippers essentially ceased. However, these vessels continued to sail the
oceans of the world in significant numbers for the following two decades.
William Henry Duguid Origins
William
Henry Duguid’s sailing career, which lasted for 50 years, from about 1838 to
1888, thus covered the age of the clipper and many of the vessels in which he
was master would be classed as clipper ships.
He appears to have been a steady and reliable character, not given to
risk-taking in pursuit of a fast passage.
At the end of his career he had become one of the most experienced and successful
of clipper captains but, perhaps because he never skippered the largest and therefore
fastest ships, his achievements receive less recognition than those of his more
flamboyant contemporaries. I hope this
biographical sketch will address that deficiency and contribute to the
recognition of his maritime achievements.
William
and his brother James Alexander Duguid were born into a naval family living
near to the large naval base of Plymouth in south Devon, James being born in
1816 at Torpoint and William on 21st August, 1824 at Devonport. Their father was in the Royal Navy and, on
William’s marriage registration was described as an officer and on James’
marriage registration as a “mariner”.
Both boys received their early nautical training at the naval college in
Greenwich. James first pursued a career
in the Royal Navy before moving to the British mercantile marine. It is not clear if William followed in his
brother’s footsteps, though possibly he did not, since the details of his
sailing career are compatible with him only having served in a civilian
capacity. It is likely that William Henry Duguid first went to sea about 1838
at the age of 14 and served a 5 year apprenticeship, though no details are
currently known concerning this phase of his life. The family name “Duguid” has an Old English
derivation, probably originating as a nickname (“do-good”). Its 19th century distribution was
very localised, essentially being an Aberdeenshire name. However, it is not known if either Alexander
or Ann Duguid, the parents of James and William, was born in Scotland.
Liverpool’s Marine History and
the Duguid Brothers
The
sailing careers of both Duguid sons became intimately linked with Liverpool.
This famous port city played a prominent and expanding role in the growth of
the British mercantile marine from the mid-18th century, when it
became a hub for the delivery of raw materials and the export of manufactures
for a vast area in the northern half of England. Liverpool was connected by a network of
canals and navigable rivers to the coal and textile industries of Lancashire,
woollens production in Yorkshire, salt production in Cheshire ,
ceramics in the Potteries and metal manufactures in the Midlands . Further, the development of extensive docks
along the waterfront protected shipping from the big tidal range and rapid
currents of the Mersey estuary. Liverpool
merchants were not slow to exploit this advantageous position. The growth of
the port continued at a rapid pace during the 19th century,
achieving for Liverpool the position of the
second most important seaport in the land.
In 1823 1.01 million tons of shipping entered the port and paid dues but
by 1880 that figure had risen to 6.76 million tons. Many individuals and companies were attracted
by the commercial opportunities in Liverpool.
Liverpool and the Timber Trade
Pollock,
Gilmour & Co was a Glasgow timber importer
and was established in 1804 by Allan Gilmour sen. and brothers John and Arthur
Pollock, all native to Mearns in Renfrewshire, ~8 miles SW of Glasgow. During the Napoleonic Wars, timber imports
from the Baltic to Britain Miramichi , New Brunswick Miramichi River
runs into the Gulf of St Lawrence and is easily accessible to ships crossing
from Europe .
Pollock, Gilmour & Co rapidly became the leading British firm in the
Canadian lumber trade.
Robert
Rankin, the brother of Alexander, joined Pollock, Gilmour & Co in 1815 and
three years later he was transferred to Miramichi. Robert rose rapidly in the company and, in
1822, he set up a new branch of the firm, Robert Rankin & Co, in St John,
New Brunswick, about120 miles south of the Miramichi. Within 10 years Robert Rankin & Co was
the most successful of the Pollock, Gilmour & Co companies. By 1838 it was operating 130 ships in the
timber trade and employed 15,000 men.
Robert Rankin also added a shipbuilding operation at St John
In 1837
a crisis developed in the parent company in Glasgow, when a bitter and
unresolved dispute arose between the founders of the company. They turned to Robert Rankin to resolve the
matter and in 1838 he returned to Scotland.
He bought out Allan Gilmour for £150K and restructured the company. Robert, his brother Alexander and Allan
Gilmour jun. became the controlling partners and the head office was moved from
Glasgow to Liverpool ,
to take advantage of the greater commercial opportunities there. A new subsidiary company, Rankin, Gilmour
& Co was established. In Liverpool the firm diversified into cotton importing to
employ their large fleet of ships more fully in the winter, when it was
impossible to sail into many Canadian ports due to ice. The move to Liverpool brought even more
success and wealth and Robert Rankin enjoyed high prestige in the Liverpool business community.
Miller, Mackay and Shipbuilding
At about the same time, others were
being attracted to Liverpool by its business environment. William Cowley Miller had worked as a
shipwright in the Plymouth Naval Dockyard and in 1836 he moved to Liverpool to take up an
appointment as foreman in the yard of Joseph Steel. Another aspiring shipbuilder, Thomas Miller
Mackay, was born in Glasgow in 1813, the son of a soldier. He first appeared in Liverpool
in 1835 when he was described as a corn merchant. In 1843 Thomas Miller Mackay was listed as a
shipbuilder and a partner in the firm of Jackson & Co and by 1845 he had
his own shipbuilding company. Thomas
Miller Mackay was joined by William Cowley Miller in 1846 and the shipbuilding
and repairing firm now became known as Mackay and Miller. Mackay
and Miller did not just cooperate in shipbuilding and repairing. They were also the sole owners of three
ships, for which they acted as ship’s husbands and ship’s brokers. Besides this they were joint owners with
James Baines of nine other ships. Also,
they were joint owners, together with James Baines and Thomas Harrison, of
three further ships. These 12 ships were
all Black Ball packets on the run to Australia
The
Mackay and Miller partnership lasted until 1859 when it was dissolved. The partners agreed that Miller would retire
and Mackay would wind up the concern.
However, examination of the Black Ball books led to a dispute over
distribution of fees, which was eventually settled in the Courts, the final
judgement coming in 1865. The judgement
went against Miller who was the plaintive.
Miller then continued in shipbuilding in partnership with his two sons,
eventually building a new yard at Garston, up river. William Cowley Miller died in 1869.
John Towson and Liverpool
In addition to William
Cowley Miller, another link between ships, Devonport, Liverpool and perhaps the
Duguid family, was John Towson. Towson Towson Liverpool , a position
he held until his retirement in 1873. In
this role Towson initialled the master’s certificates of the Duguid
brothers. Towson
became a proponent of great circle sailing (the shortest distance between two
points on the surface of the earth is a great circle), which technique was
taken up by famous Black Ball masters, such as James Nicol Forbes, on their
journeys to Australia
The Black Ball Line
The Black Ball Line of
clipper ships dominated the trade to Australia from its formation in 1852 until
its demise in 1871. Its main partners
were James Baines and Thomas Miller Mackay (who was also involved in shipbuilding
and repairing with William Cowley Miller – see above). James Baines was born in Liverpool
in 1823. At the time of James’s birth
his father was a schoolmaster, though he later became a sugar refiner and his
mother was a confectioner. His father
died young and James’s first significant job was as an apprentice shipping
clerk with his uncle, Richard Baines. By
this means he learned his trade as a shipbroker and appears to have shone early
in this role, because he went into partnership in 1845 at the early age of
22. By 1846 he had teamed up with Joseph
Carter to form Carter & Baines who chartered ships but also owned the
General Sale (405 tons), which they bought in 1845. They achieved this by buying cheaply (the
ship was damaged), taking on an equity partner in the ship and borrowing the
balance to pay for their shares, against deferred repayment of the loan, thus
buying time to make some money. Baines
established his own business, James Baines & Co, in 1849 and continued to
grow, with deft manoeuvring around the pitfalls of capital shortage. The Black Ball name was lifted from an
existing and well-established line of American packets which sailed between America and Liverpool . Today we would call this practice “passing
off”. “Black Ball” was not a company but
a brand, with the ships used being in various ownerships. However, the usual owners were James Baines
& Co and TM Mackay & Co, though other equity partners came in from time
to time. Also, some ships were
leased. In 1852 there were 14 Black Ball
sailings to Australia and
this figure increased to 63 in 1863, though it subsequently declined as demand
for passages to Australia London
William Duguid’s Early Career
It is not known what induced
the Duguid brothers to move to Liverpool . They may simply have sailed there during
their early careers and been aware of the opportunities for ambitious young
mariners in that port. WIlliam Duguid is known to have sailed on a
Liverpool-registered ship, the Gertrude in 1843 and 1844 but he could have
sailed from that port at an earlier date during his apprenticeship. It is
also possible that the Duguid brothers had some prior contact with either
William Cowley Miller or James Towson in Devonport and that this influenced
their choice. James Alexander Duguid,
brother of William Henry, married Margaret Elizabeth Miller, daughter of
William Cowley Miller in 1851, suggesting that a family connection between the
Miller and Duguid families is likely to have preceded the year of the
nuptials. There was another Duguid
family of South Americal traders who were prominent in Liverpool
commercial life. Although they were
neighbours of William Cowley Miller and attended his funeral, they appear not
to have been related to the sailing family of Duguids.
James’s first command was of
the brig Princess Royal, a Rankin and Gilmour ship, when he was 30. He continued as master of the Princess Royal
from 1846 to 1850. She was engaged on the
transatlantic run to Canada
for timber and New Orleans Quebec
The Gertrude
William Duguid’s first
appointment after serving his apprenticeship was as a seaman on the Liverpool-registered
ship, Gertrude (703 tons register) belonging to the Crozier Brothers, between 1st
April 1843 and 29th July 1843.
This vessel, in the command of Captain Duggan, left Liverpool on 9th
April and arrived at Quebec on 13th June, where she picked up a
cargo of timber and returned to Liverpool, arriving in her home port on 20th
July 1843. The Gertrude’s cargo was a
typical timber ship cargo. consisting of 284
pcs (13821ft) Red pine timber, 206pcs (18525ft) Yellow pine timber, 12pcs
(893ft) Oak, 10pcs (464ft) Ash, 2466pcs Pine planks, 1200pcs standard pipe
staves, 13,206pcs WO Puncheon staves and was quickly offered for sale on 2nd
August .
The
Gertrude then sailed on 8th August for St John, New Brunswick for a
further load of timber but without William Duguid on board. His next engagement
was, however, again on the Gertrude but, being late in 1843, this voyage
followed the pattern typical of Liverpool timber ships in diverting to the
cotton ports of the Southern United States.
The vessel left about 30th November for New Orleans, though
the date of arrival has not been discovered.
It is possible that the ship also called at Mobile, which lies about 100
miles east of New Orleans before returning to Liverpool which she reached on
June 5th 1844. Her cargo, as
expected was predominantly cotton. Two
cases silks and buttons for C Duggan (he was the captain of the Gertrude and
appeared to be importing materials for his own, domestic purposes), 47bls cotton
for A Dennistoun and Co, 695bls Melly, Prevost and Co, 103bls Heath Furze and
Co, 64bls Baring Brothers and Co, 687bls Rathbone Bros and Co, 288bls Ewart
Myers and Co, 239 bls order were unloaded at Brunswick Dock.
The Science
On 30th November
1844 the 153 ton brig, Science left Liverpool for Antigua under Captain
Dobson. William Duguid was second mate
on this voyage, his first trip in an officer capacity. The vessel reached Antigua on January 9th
1845 but her return to Britain has not been detected, though Duguid was paid
off on 5th June 1845.
The Christina
William Duguid next served,
as second mate, on the Aberdeen-registered vessel, Christina. This ship, under Captain Craig, sailed for
Valparaiso in Chile from Liverpool, leaving on August 13th 1845 and
returning to Liverpool on 12th or 13th June 1846. Although, according to William Duguid’s
record of service, he was discharged after this voyage on 10th June,
the coincidence of sailing and recruitment and discharge dates is so close that
there can be little doubt that the recorded discharge date is marginally in
error. Nothing is presently known of the
Christina’s cargos to and from Chile.
The Coromandel
Lloyds’ record of service
for masters and mates identifies William Duguid’s next post as being second
mate on the ship Coromandel of Liverpool.
Confusingly, there were at least four vessels by that name sailing to
and from Britain at the time, some of them to the same destination. Even the local newspapers were occasionally
confused when matching master to vessel!
However, the dates of joining and leaving ship unambiguously identify
Duguid’s vessel as being that skippered by Captain Broadfoot. This ship, of 1025 tons burthen, sailed for
Quebec sometime after 11th July 1846 but her dates of arrival in
Canada and return to Liverpool are confounded by another Coromandel also
sailing between the same ports. However,
since Duguid was discharged on 19th November it is likely that the
vessel arrived in Liverpool on the previous day. Coromandel’s next voyage, also under the
command of Captain Broadfoot and with William Duguid as second mate, was to
Mobile and the vessel left on 18th December. While Mobile was definitely a destination,
the ship may also have called at Antigua, 1400 miles SE of Mobile, since the
Liverpool Mercury of 16th March 1847 reported “Coromandel hence for Antigua off
Mobile 29th January”. On the
journey back to Liverpool the vessel suffered damage, losing her rudder and put
in to New York, probably on 20th May, presumably to effect repairs
before the journey across the Atlantic.
She finally arrived in her home port on 26th June 1847 and
William Duguid was paid off.
The Charles Saunders
William
Henry Duguid’s final posting as second mate was to the Charles Saunders of
Liverpool, under Captain Simpson, between 12th August 1847 and 10th
December of the same year. He was now
aged 23 and had served as second mate for 3years. The Charles Saunders left Liverpool for
Miramichi on 13th August 1847 where she arrived on 30th
August after a fast passage. She was
cleared for her return journey across the Atlantic for Hull with her cargo of
timber on 25th October.
However, on leaving the port the Charles Saunders grounded on the bar
and was stranded for several days until she was floated off on 12th
November. She then proceeded for Hull,
apparently undamaged, where she arrived on 10th December 1847.
The China
At the
age of 23 William Duguid was promoted to the role of 1st officer on
the ship China and he served in this capacity for 3 years from January 1848 to
January 1851. This has proved, along
with his apprenticeship, to be the most opaque period of his career. Not only was there a number of vessels called
“China” in service at the time but also the China on which Duguid served was
registered in Quebec. None of the
sailing and return dates published in British newspapers corresponds closely
with the dates in William Duguid’s record of service. As a result it is currently not known under
which commander he served, or what journeys he undertook. However, the registration of the vessel in
Quebec suggests an involvement with the export of timber from Canada and the
possible transport of immigrants on the return journey.
The Actaeon – William Duguid’s
First Command
After 3
years as second mate and 3 years as first mate, William Henry Duguid was ready
for promotion to ship’s master. However,
in 1851 it became necessary for a ship’s master to possess a certificate of
competence and that involved undergoing an examination, which he passed on 20th
January 1851. William’s first engagement
as master was to the Rankin and Gilmour ship Acteon (Acteon was a figure in
Greek mythology), which is not surprising, given his previous involvement in
the timber trade. He was master of the Acteon
between August 1851 and March 1852 during which period he made 3 return
journeys between Liverpool and New Orleans, presumably for cotton.
The Fleetwood
After
this stint on the Acteon William moved to another Rankin and Gilmour vessel,
the Fleetwood. This barque, 567 tons
register, had been built by Rankin and Gilmour at their ship building operation
at Miramichi in October 1851 and then sailed to Liverpool with a cargo of
timber. William Duguid’s first voyage in
her left Liverpool for New York on 13th April 1852, presumably
carrying emigrants and then travelling on to St John, New Brunswick, likely to
collect a cargo of timber for the return journey to Liverpool. This British port was reached on 5th
August 1852. The Fleetwood was then put
up for sale in the following terms. “She is
thoroughly copper-fastened and iron-kneed according to the requirements of Lloyds
and is very faithfully built mainly in heckmatic (hackmatack or tamarack – North American Larch). If not sold during her discharge she will be
sent to sea. Apply on board in Brunswick
Dock or to Rankin Gilmour and Co.” It is
clear that the building of the Fleetwood had an element of speculation about it. In fact the vessel was not sold immediately
and proceeded to sail for New Orleans under Captain Duguid, leaving on 22nd
October. She arrived in the southern
port on 27th December and it is presumed that she loaded with
cotton. Her journey back to Liverpool
was incident-packed. She sailed on 18th
February but encountered heavy gales on 1st and 4th
March, losing some sails and bulwarks and shipping large quantities of
water. She arrived back in Liverpool on
28th March 1853.
The Lady
Falkland
William Duguid was discharged from the
Fleetwood and moved on to command the Lady Falkland, another Rankin and Gilmour
vessel. The ship had been built at
Parrsborough, Nova Scotia in 1842 for Pollock, Gilmour and Co and was of 672
tons register. She had just returned to
the Clyde from Miramichi with a cargo of timber and Captain Duguid took her on
to Belfast, presumably to load immigrants, before sailing for Quebec, where she
arrived on 6th September. On
her return to Liverpool on 31st October, 1853, the Lady Falkland was
immediately offered for sale. Unlike the
Fleetwood which was nearly new, this softwood ship, at 11 years old, was
probably approaching the end of her useful life. However, like the Fleetwood, she was not sold
and returned to sea still under Rankin and Gilmour ownership. The Lady Falkland was reported to be loading
for Apalachicola on 2nd December 1853, still under the command of
William Duguid but when she actually sailed on 12th December, Duguid
had been replaced by Captain Pearson.
The reason for the change of captaincy was that Duguid had left the
service of Rankin and Gilmour and joined the burgeoning ranks of Black Ball
clipper captains being employed by James Baines and Co.
The Move to
the Black Ball Line
Why did Baines recruit William Duguid at
this time? One possibility is that
Baines was looking for a master for the 2,600 ton Schomberg, the largest
clipper yet ordered from a British yard.
When passages in the Schomberg were first advertised in June 1854,
Duguid was named as the master. It was
the practice of James Baines to have his skippers supervise the construction of
his new vessels, which could explain the need for the Schomberg’s master to be
recruited so far in advance. The full
story of the Schomberg can be found in my article “Captain James Nicol Forbes
(1821 – 1874) and the loss of the Clipper Ship “Schomberg”. However, William Henry Duguid never took
command of the Schomberg, due to events then about to unfold in the Irish Sea.
Clipper
Conway and the Outbreak of Cholera
Another Black Ball clipper, the Conway
sailed from the Mersey for Geelong, the nearest port to the gold workings at
Ballarat in Victoria, on Thursday 19th January 1854. Her master was Captain James Liston and she
carried 382 passengers and a crew of about 50.
She was under contract to the Emigration Commission. Liston set a course for the southern entrance
to the Irish Sea, as was normal for Liverpool ships heading down the Atlantic
but he quickly ran into a south-westerly gale and could not make progress. As a result he changed course and ran with
the wind hoping to make his exit to the Atlantic via the North Channel. The gale continued and the passengers, many
of whom had never before been to sea, suffered terribly in the rough
conditions. Before the Conway could
reach the Atlantic she was blocked by the gale veering to the north-west. She also suffered some damage and Captain
Liston was forced to run for the sheltered waters of the Clyde to make repairs
and await better conditions. Conway made
Gourock Bay on 24th January. Her
passengers were now in a terrible condition due to 5 days of continuous
gales. Many of them were suffering from
sea sickness and diarrhoea and that often fatal scourge of the poor, cholera,
had also broken out. Inexplicably,
Captain Liston did not immediately inform the authorities about the outbreak of
cholera on his arrival off Gourock. He
rode out the storm until Friday 27th January, when two dead
passengers were rowed ashore for burial.
When James Baines became aware of the situation, he dismissed Liston
from his post as Conway’s master. Conway
was towed to Greenock, against the wishes of the town fathers and the passengers
disembarked. The full story of the
outbreak of cholera on the Conway can be found in my article “A Biography of
the Clipper Ship “Conway” (1851 – 1875)”
William
Duguid and Crew Dissent on the Conway
James Baines now turned to William Duguid
to sort out the crisis in Greenock and to take the Conway on to Geelong as soon
as possible. The exact date on which
William Henry Duguid took command of the Conway is not known but he was
certainly in post and on board by 15th February, 1854. On that day there had been an incident of
disobedience by some of the crew, which had been triggered by a suspected
return of the dreaded disease as the passengers were being re-embarked. The crew returned to normal duty later the
same day. It is not clear if it was a
full-blown mutiny or how many of the crew were involved but the newly-arrived
Captain Duguid clearly felt that he had to crush any dissent if he was to take
control of a difficult situation and he unwisely chose to do this by resorting
to the law. On Wednesday 21st
February in the Greenock Sheriff Court he preferred a charge against the third
mate, carpenter, sailmaker and 8 seamen to the effect that these men had
combined amongst themselves and with others of the crew to disobey and had
actually disobeyed his commands, contrary to Section 78 of the Mercantile
Marine Act, 1830. However, Captain
Duguid’s case unravelled very quickly on entirely technical grounds. The crew had signed on in Liverpool to sail
to Geelong under Captain Liston. But
Liston had been dismissed and Duguid had simply crossed out Liston’s name on
the ship’s articles and substituted his own, making the agreement with the crew
invalid, since they were not a party to the change. The case was dismissed. It is not clear if all, or even any, of the
crew then left the ship and were replaced in 3 days, as claimed by Michael
Stammers in “The Passage Makers”, since no
relevant primary source of evidence for this scenario has so far been uncovered.
Conway
finally leaves for Geelong
By 8th March the disease had
been defeated, the passengers and crew re-embarked and the ship was ready to
sail. The original Emigration
Commission-appointed surgeon-superintendent had been dismissed for drunkenness,
his replacement had then also been dismissed for failing to follow advice in
getting the disease outbreak under control and a second replacement finally
joined Conway on the morning of 12th March. Captain Duguid immediately got the ship
underweigh but she made poor progress down the Clyde due to headwinds, only
reaching Gourock Bay on the first day.
The journey to Geelong was relatively uneventful, though there were 9
deaths (in addition to about 14 due to cholera) and 4 births on the passage. When Conway arrived off Point Henry on 17th
June 1854 she was put into precautionary quarantine but quickly released. The emigrants were then free to go ashore to
seek employment or to try their luck at the diggings. The gold rush brought additional problems for
the masters of ships, since crew members were prone to jump ship in the hope of
becoming rich in the workings around Ballarat.
Conway seems to have lost about 18 members of her crew and these had to
be replaced before she could begin her return journey. An advertisement for their replacement
appeared at the Victoria Labour Market and Shipping Office.
Conway’s complement of emigrants
had included a substantial number of single females. Although the quarters of such women were
segregated from those of the male passengers, the officers had to be constantly
on guard to protect the females from the unwanted attentions of male passengers
subjected to 3 months’ enforced celibacy.
Captain Duguid and his officers seem to have performed their duties
admirably for, on arrival, the single women placed the following letter in the
Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer. “To Captain Duguid. Of the Black Ball Line Clipper Ship
Conway. Sir We (the single females on
board the ship Conway) by which happily (indecipherable)
voyage have great pleasure in returning you thanks for your exertions and
perseverance in bringing us safely to our destined port and for the extreme and
special manner in which you have treated us since we left England and though
now we have come to the land of prosperity we shall ever remember with
gratitude the happy days we spent on board the good ship Conway. We now conclude with our best wishes for your
welfare and trust that you may have a safe and speedy voyage home and remain yours
respectfully (signed) Jane McLelland on behalf of 120 fellow single Female
Passengers. Geelong June 20th 1854”.
Clipper
captains returning from Australia to Britain generally followed one of two
different strategies. If the vessel was
a fast sailer, had returning first class passengers and was carrying a valuable
cargo, such as gold dust, it is likely she would continue in an easterly
direction at high southerly lattitudes, circumnavigating the globe and arriving
back in Britain in the shortest possible time.
The main alternative routing was to return via India and to seek
opportunities for carrying cargo there.
At that time the East India Company accounted for more than 50% of world
trade in such commodities as cotton, salt petre, tea and opium. Captain Duguid took the latter alternative on
his first return journey from Australia, leaving Geelong on 21st
July 1854 and reaching Calcutta on 20th October, having called at
Galle on the SW tip of the island of Ceylon on the way. Conway initially left Calcutta for London on
17th November but suffered a minor collision with another vessel, in
which she lost her anchors, on her passage down the Hooghli River to the Bay of
Bengal. This caused some delay and her
voyage was resumed on 5th December.
She arrived at the London Custom House on 31st March
1855. The fact that she returned to
London, rather than Liverpool suggests she was carrying London-bound goods,
such as gold for the Bank of England, or wool for sale at the London Wool
Market.
Conway travels to Hobart
Although
Conway’s last voyage had ended in London, Black Ball did not at that time have
an emigrant service departing from the capitol.
It is likely that she was towed back to Liverpool by a steam tug. She
entered dock to load for Hobart on 15th June 1855. Emigrant families converged on Liverpool from
many parts of the country, including a large group from Paisley which had been
granted emigration bounty tickets by the Executive Council of Van Dieman’s
Land, as Tasmania was then known. The
vessel set sail on 12th June with 453 passengers and a varied cargo
of manufactured goods and food and drink items.
There was an outbreak of measles on board, which affected 50 children,
killing two and there were 13 deaths in total and one birth during the voyage. Conway arrived at Hobart on 14th
October 1855 and was towed to the New Quay by the steamer Venus.
During a
3 month voyage with many passengers living in crowded conditions it is not
surprising that tensions in personal relationships sometimes ended in
violence. On 16th October,
shortly before Conway arrived at Hobart, Mrs Ellen Sullivan was severely
scalded by having boiling liquid thrown over her by another passenger, Julia
Hart, who was incensed by the opinions being voiced about her son Jemmy by the
daughter of Mrs Sullivan. Not all human
interactions were of a violent nature.
Two couples who had met on the voyage were married just a few days after
arrival in Hobart. One of the marriages
was between George Smith, one of the Conway’s officers and Alice Smith of
London.
Even in
Hobart, a long way from the goldfields, crew desertion proved to be a problem
for Captain Duguid. There were at least
6 deserters. One pair, Jeffrey Walsh and
Thomas Harrison, complained in court that while the Captain had behaved
decently towards them, the boatswain swore at them, using terms such as “Sons
of bs” and “Sons of ws”. The local
newspaper was too coy to give a full transcription! However, the reason for the boatswain’s
antipathy to the pair became clear when Duguid revealed in court that Walsh had
allowed a heavy block to fall from the masthead, narrowly missing his fellow
officer. Duguid offered to take the men
back on board, perhaps anticipating that replacing them in Hobart would be
difficult. However, they preferred the
punishment meted out by the court of a month in gaol. Perhaps the two deserters anticipated that
they would be made to endure more than the rough edge of the boatswain’s tongue
if they had returned to the vessel.
Captain
Duguid did not subscribe to the philosophy, widely accepted in the mercantile
marine at the time that the crew had to be subjected to extreme violence if
they were to be kept in line. Similarly
he seemed to have a good relationship with his passengers of all classes and
did not treat them with rudeness and disdain.
After arrival in Hobart, the bounty passengers arranged for an address
to be published in the local press praising Captain Duguid, Mr Hill, the First
Mate, Mr Mickle, the Second Mate and Mr Hay the Purser. They even praised the provisions and the
medical care! This was in marked
contrast to the views of passengers on another famous Black Ball captain, James
Nicol Forbes. (See my article “Captain
James Nicol Forbes (1821 – 1874) and the loss of the Clipper Ship “Schomberg””) Conway returned to Britain by way of Bombay,
leaving Hobart on 19th November 1855 and arriving in Liverpool on 10th
July 1856.
Conway travels to Sydney
After
Conway’s return to Britain, James Baines and Co was successful with a bid to
the Emigration Commissioners to transport emigrants to Sydney. She sailed from Liverpool on 21st
September 1856 carrying 443 emigrants and arrived at Sydney on 30th
December, docking at Circular Wharf in the centre of the city. There were 16 deaths and 4 births during the
voyage. Crew problems, as usual, emerged
once the vessel had tied up, including desertion, disobedience, drunkenness and
disorderly conduct. Duguid, as he had
done in Hobart the previous year, took a light touch approach to crew
misdemeanours, even paying the fine on behalf of one drunk, in order to retain
as many crew as possible for the journey back to Britain. The return journey was again made via India. Conway secured the contract to carry mails for
Bombay. Passages for that port were also
advertised but there were no takers. The
vessel left Sydney on 5th February 1857 and arrived at the Indian
city on 17th April. Before
returning to Britain, Conway made a return journey to Bushier, the chief sea
port of Persia, though her cargo is not currently known. Once back in Bombay she was loaded with dyestuffs,
cottons, cocoa nuts, gingelly wood and bales of cotton. She arrived back in Liverpool on 1st
April 1858.
Conway
travels to Melbourne
There was little opportunity for William Duguid to rest
and recuperate after the last long voyage.
Within days of the return of Conway to Liverpool, James Baines and Co
were again successful if securing a contract from the Emigration Commissioners,
to be fulfilled by the Conway, to transport emigrants from the Birkenhead
Emigration Depot to Melbourne. She left
the Mersey on 10th June 1858 with 425 emigrants, including an unusually
high number of single women, 233. There
was only one live birth on the journey, a boy who was christened “Conway” and
no deaths.
Diarists on board ship are extremely valuable for
recording incidents, big and small, independently and in giving an insight into
the conduct of the ship’s master and his officers. There were two diarists on Conway’s 1858
passage to Melbourne, Fanny Davis and Annie Gratton and they recorded some
significant observations giving an insight into the character of William Henry
Duguid and his surgeon-superintendent, John Carroll. Annie Gratton
noted that the “Doctor and Captain soon signalled
out the most respectable and show them many favours. Advice to emigrants: you cannot keep too respectable”. Duguid and Carroll also showed concern for
the female passengers who were panicked by stormy conditions. On one occasion Carroll berated the cook for
the poor quality of his food and on another occasion he brought down 6 seamen
to the women’s quarters to mop up after waves penetrated the ‘tween decks and
left the floor swimming in water. Duguid
also sought to impress the women when they were in the Southern Ocean by
catching two Cape Hens with baited hooks, tying up their beaks and presenting
them to the women so that they could see the unfortunate birds at close
quarters.
In spite of these apparently
superficial incidents, there is no doubt that William Duguid was a highly
responsible vigilant and respectable ship’s master but also one who was humane,
as has already been shown by his treatment of miscreants amongst the crew. Annie Gratton commented that she had found
far fewer restrictions on board the Conway than she had been led to believe
would be the case. No evidence has been
found of Duguid abusing alcohol or hobnobbing excessively with saloon
passengers, unlike some clipper captains.
Annie Gratton also recorded that on 21st July 1858 when
Conway was close to the Brazilian coast during the night, the captain stayed on
watch and turned the ship 4 times to ensure that they did not go ashore. When Conway arrived at her destination, the
Melbourne Argus commented on the state of the vessel, “The ship is remarkably
clean and, taking all in all, reflects great credit on the captain, doctor and
officers of the ship”. Conway took on
her pilot off Port Philip Heads on 15th September 1858, before
moving on to Hobson’s Bay, where the ship was visited by Government inspectors
and the Medical officer. On 18th
September steamers came along side to take off the passengers. The married couples left first followed by
the single girls. Captain Duguid, ever
the gentleman, handed the passengers down and the First Mate received them on
the deck of the steamer.
Conway again made her way back to
Britain via India, as on her previous 3 journeys under Captain Duguid to
Australia. On the journey out from
Britain Conway’s non-human cargo had been a typical mix of manufactured goods,
foodstuffs and drink. However, she now
embarked a large number of horses under contract to the Honourable East India
Company. This was in the aftermath of
the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Conway also
carried a fairly modest quantity of gold, 2,768 oz, for Calcutta. She left Hobson’s Bay on 18th
November 1858 and arrived in Calcutta before the end of January 1859. She then picked up a contract to collect a
cargo consisting of sacks of sugar from Mauritius for delivery to Bombay,
before returning to Calcutta. She
arrived off Kedgeree on the Hooghli River 65 miles south of Calcutta on 14th
August 1859.
A
Diversion from Calcutta to Trinidad
In 1833, slavery was abolished
throughout the British Empire, as a result of which a labour shortage developed
in several British colonies in the West Indies, such as Trinidad and
Guyana. The problem was eased by the
recruitment of “Coolie” labour from countries such as India and China, through
the agency of the Emigration Commissioners.
The Conway was contracted to carry indentured labourers from Calcutta to
Trinidad in the last quarter of 1859.
She arrived at Trinidad on 29th January 1860 and then
returned to London, arriving at Gravesend on 26th May and entering
inwards at the London Custom house 2 days later. Captain Duguid had been away from Britain for
a period of 717 days. This was his last
engagement as skipper on the Conway.
A
New Command – the Solway
There had been a financial crisis in Britain in 1857 and the following years were
difficult for shipping lines, especially those like Black Ball which specialised
in sailing to Australia Australia Sunderland in 1857. Sunderland-built ships had a reputation for
being “cheap and cheerful”, though Thompson’s yard had a good reputation. William Henry Duguid took over as master when
the Solway, 946 tons register, passed into Black Ball colours.
Another response by the Black Ball Line to the shipping
depression had been to create a base in London, in addition to Liverpool, with
some of their vessels sailing out of the capitol. T M Mackay & Co established itself at 1
Leadenhall Street to oversee the London end of the Black Ball operation. The Stornoway was scheduled to be the first
Black Ball vessel to sail from London on 10th May 1860, followed by
the Cairngorm on 10th June and the Solway on 10th
July. A dejeuner was held on the Solway
in London Docks on 21st May to celebrate the inauguration of this
new service. As was usual for these
events, 200 commercially influential guests attended and were entertained by
the band of the 2nd Life Guards, together with many speeches and
toasts. However, Captain Duguid was not
one of them, since he was at that time sailing for the English Channel in the
Conway. The Solway was chartered by the
Emigration Commissioners to carry emigrants from London to Sydney but did not
depart from Gravesend, where she embarked her passengers, until 12th
or 13th July.
Solway
travels to Sydney
The Solway had a relatively slow passage to Sydney of 105
days. She took 40 days to reach the
equator due to adverse winds and a further 25 days to the Cape of Good Hope. The journey from the Cape to the Bass
Straights, the fastest part of the passage, was achieved in 30 days but then
took a further 10 days to travel up the coast to her destination, due to light
winds. Shortly after the journey began,
the First Officer, John Linsley, no doubt establishing his authority with the
crew in the traditional way, assaulted two of their number, including kicking
one of them in the mouth. This led to
Linsley being arraigned in the Water Police Court in Sydney, on arrival in
Australia and fined 30/- for his excesses.
The two seamen involved, John Jacobs and Frank Fisher then deserted from
the ship, probably fearing the treatment that would be meted out to them on the
return journey. They were brought to
court and given 3 weeks’ hard labour.
There were also 3 other known deserters from the Solway. Not all bad behaviour was due to the crew of
the vessel. Catharine Brown of the
Paragon Hotel placed the following notice in the Sydney Morning Herald. “If Mr Edmund Leitch,
passenger per ship Solway does not pay me for his board lodgings washing etc
his effects which I now hold in my possession will be sold to defray the same.”
The details of the Solway’s cargo are known and were typical of emigrant
vessels of the time. . Plain cottons,
printed cottons, worsted and stuffs, linen, foreign silks, millinery, hosiery,
haberdashery, cotton and linen shirts, apparel, carpets , blankets and rugs,
bedcovers and counterpanes, straw hats, felt hats and slope, wrought leather,
saddlery, books, paper, stationery, foreign stationery, paper-hangings,
upholstery, plate and papier mache goods, pianos, foreign musical instruments,
corks, cutlery, spades, fire arms, general hardware, bar and rod iron, pig
iron, copper, tinplates, nails, wire, paints, pitch and tar, flint glass,
earthenware, bottles, marble, woolpacks, canvass, agricultural implements and
machinery, slates, tobacco, brandy, rum, Genever, British spirits in glass,
perfumed spirits, red wine, white wine,
beer in bulk and in glass, cheese, malt, hops, bacon and hams, assorted
oilmens’ stores, sardines, vinegar, mustard, starch, blue, oatmeal, white salt,
rock salt, soda, candles, perfumery, raisins, confectionery, apothecary ware,
cement. This diversity reflects the
limited capacity of the local economy to produce the variety and quantity of
goods available in the mother country and thus the need for such imports. The total declared value of cargo was
£26,664. Also on board were some
important breeding stock, consisting of 3 Shorthorn bulls, 3 heifers, a bull
calf, a cart mare, some “very choice” pigs and 8 Grey Dorking fowls. Sadly, one of the heifers, which had cost 900
gns, died during the voyage. One
importer, Mr Marcel Massie reported that a case of silks and ribbons that was
being conveyed for him on the Solway had been opened and silks to the value of
£150 removed.
As with the
Conway, Captain Duguid planned to return to Britain via the Indian
sub-continent. First and second class
passages to Point de Galle in Ceylon were advertised and the vessel took on
1145 tons of coal, which would have served as ballast. Solway finally departed from Sydney on 20th
December 1860. The date of arrival at
Galle has not been uncovered but the vessel, which discharged its cargo of coal
in the port, then sailed on to Akyab (now called Sittwe) in the then British
possession of Burma. Akyab became
important for the export of rice and this may have been the reason for Solway
calling there. From Akyab, Solway
departed for Falmouth, reaching that Devon port on 3 September 1861, perhaps to
disembark passengers or mail and then sailed on to Amsterdam before arriving at
Gravesend on 11th October.
Solway travels to Melbourne
Solway had
originally been advertised to fill the July 10th 1861 Black Ball
sailing slot from London to Sydney but her late return meant that she had to be
rescheduled and eventually sailed from Gravesend for Melbourne on 5th
December. The vessel called at
Portsmouth on 14th December on her way along the English Channel for
some unknown reason and then again at St Helena in the South Atlantic before
finally arriving at Hobson’s Bay near Melbourne on 6th March
1862. She was carrying 306 passengers in
intermediate and steerage accommodation and an unknown number in the
saloon. Amongst the emigrants was a group
of 49 from Norfolk, all bounty immigrants who travelled on to Launceton in Tasmania. They had been promoted by the Launceton
Immigration Aid Society and were all quickly engaged. Solway was reported in various Australian
newspapers as sailing for Guam on 6th April, still carrying part of
her London cargo. She had also been
advertised as sailing for Liverpool and offering passage or freight of wool and
bark. In fact her immediate port of call
was Adelaide where she took on cargo including 40,000 bushels of wheat (about
1,060 imperial tons) and 300 tons of flour (elsewhere reported as 171
tons). The vessel was towed out to the
lightship where she completed loading on 30th April but there was a
substantial delay before she finally departed between 15th and 20th
May 1862, due to Captain Duguid having difficulty recruiting sufficient crew to
man the ship. At least one sailor from
the Solway was gaoled for 14 days with hard labour for desertion and another
was improperly shipped on another vessel.
When Solway sailed she was also reported to be carrying 108 bales of
wool, 107 tons of copper, 8 bales of leather, 10 tons of bark and an
unquantified amount of mail. She appears
to have been fully loaded. The wool in
Solway’s cargo must have been transported to London by rail as it was
subsequently offered at the London Wool Sales.
There is no evidence that Solway in fact sailed for Guam, rather she
travelled directly to Liverpool. She was
picked up off Holyhead and towed in to Liverpool by the tug United Kingdom,
where she arrived on 2nd September 1862, after a journey of 109
days.
Solway to Melbourne - Again
In 1862 the
Black Ball and Eagle Lines coordinated their sailings to Australia and Solway
was advertised in this way to sail to Melbourne leaving Liverpool on 15th
October but that date was put back. On
25th October, before Solway had sailed, she was involved in a minor
collision in the Mersey. The ship Goldfinder, while being
towed from Messers Clayton’s graving dock Birkenhead in rough conditions,
drifted foul of the James Foster Jun and the Solway. The James Foster Jun had her bowsprit carried
away, while the Solway lost her figurehead, and had her bowsprit damaged. She returned to dock for repairs before
sailing for Melbourne on the 3rd or 4th, November, still
under the command of William Henry Duguid.
She had a passage lasting 85 days, arriving on 29th January
1863. Solway encountered some rough
weather on her passage and lost her top foremast and main top-gallant in a
heavy squall just north of the equator. The
vessel was only carrying a small complement of passengers, one in first class
and 45 in second class and steerage. Her
non-human cargo was the usual mixture of manufactures, food, drink and
clothing.
“(I) saw the gold shining like the stars in
Orion on a dark frosty night”
There
was a major gold strike at Gabriel’s Gully, near Otago in New Zealand on 20th
May 1861, by an experienced Australian miner, Gabriel Read. He wrote, “At a place where a kind of road
crossed on a shallow bar I shovelled away about two and a half feet of gravel,
arriving at a beautiful soft slate and saw the gold shining like the stars in
Orion on a dark frosty night”. Within a
month a gold rush had started with many of the miners being seasoned hands from
the Californian and Australian gold rushes.
By the end of that year 14,000 prospectors had descended on the
site. In November 1862, a further
discovery at Arthur’s Point led to the largest influx of gold prospectors, but
by the end of 1863 it was all over, though the maximum number of miners
involved, 18,000, was not reached until February 1864. When Captain Duguid arrived in Melbourne at
the end of January 1863 he must have learned about the Otago gold find, seen
the demand for passages and realised that here was an opportunity for Solway to
make some quick money. The ship was
advertised as sailing for Otago on 17th February, though that date
was repeatedly postponed, partly to garner more passengers and partly due to
bad weather, until she finally sailed on March 1st. She had about 400 passengers on board and
arrived at Otago between 9th and 13th March, quickly
disembarked her passengers and sailed for Melbourne on 18th March,
reaching that city on 8th April. Mormon, a champion Australian race
horse owned by Mr Keighran, had been sent over to New Zealand to compete in the
Otago Jockey Club Handicap but had unfortunately run second. He returned to Australia on board the Solway,
along with other race horse, Daniel Webster, Young Alma and Shillelagh.
There
was the usual procession of passengers and crew through the courts. One passenger, John Lynch, was prosecuted in
the Sandridge Police Court by Edgar Curtis, steward on the Solway, for wilfully
cutting and wounding. Lynch had gone
into the cabin with a knife and helped himself from a joint of meat, though he
was not entitled to eat there. This
annoyed Edgar Curtis who grappled with Lynch and was wounded in the melee. However, the court found that the charge had
not been substantiated, presumably due to the lack of proven intent on the part
of Lynch. Two prostitutes, Susan Mortimer and Julia
Pearson were charged by Thomas Clark, a seaman on the Solway, at the City
Police Court with robbing him of 25 sovereigns and 5 one pound notes. On
Thursday 9th April, Clark stopped all night at the house occupied by
the two women. The following afternoon,
accompanied by Susan Mortimer, he went to the shipping office for pay due to
him. Later he went drinking with Mortimer
and paid to release a dress pawned by her.
More drink was consumed and later Clark fell asleep in the house. He woke at 9 o’clock to find the house locked
and empty and all the furniture gone. His
trouser pocket was undone and the money he had in there had disappeared. The two women were remanded until the
following Monday. James Oversen, an
elderly seaman from the Solway was brought before the Police Magistrate in
Newcastle, NSW on 30th April, charged with wilful disobedience of
the lawful commands of his officer. “The
manner in which the prisoner conducted himself before the bench conveyed to the
minds of all present an unmistakable opinion that he belonged to that
cantankerous class of mortals which are known by the name “sea lawyers”. His inexhaustible powers of speech and
aptitude for wandering from the charge at issue severely taxed the patience and
equanimity of the bench who, as the case proceeded had occasion several times
to admonish him severely to keep to the strict line of his defence.” Oversen had misbehaved on the journeys to and
from Otago and had been put in irons as a consequence by the first
officer. This behaviour was repeated on
the Solway’s next leg from Melbourne to Newcastle, Captain Duguid this time
clapping him in irons. At the first
court hearing in Newcastle the case was adjourned for Oversen to subpoena
witnesses to his claimed ill-treatment by Captain Duguid and his first officer,
but no crew member would speak in his support.
He was sentenced to forfeit pay and to serve 3 months in Maitland gaol
with hard labour. Duguid must have been
delighted to be free of this old codger.
Return via Shanghai
Solway
left Melbourne in ballast on 20th April and arrived at Newcastle a
week later to take on a cargo of 900 tons of coal for Shanghai, where she
arrived on July 15th 1863.
She also had 4 horses on board.
In China, Solway loaded with 7173 piculs or bales of cotton, probably
weighing over 400 imperial tons (the definition of a picul varied across the
Far East). This was the time of the
American Civil War and the Southern, cotton-exporting ports were being
blockaded by the North, leading to the so-called Cotton Famine in the
Lancashire cotton industry. This caused
traders to look to other sources of raw cotton, such as India and China. The Solway finally arrived back at her home
port of Liverpool on 10th April 1864. On 7th April as Solway was off
Holyhead on her approach to Liverpool she may have been in contact with the
Rajahgopaul, which was on passage from Liverpool for Quebec. The Rajahgopaul lost a mast and had to put
back to port. It is not known for sure
that Solway was the other vessel or what damage, if any, she suffered.
Solway to Calcutta – and Disaster
Captain
Duguid’s next and, fatefully, last voyage in Solway began in June 1864. It is possible that she was sailing to India
to collect a cargo of cotton, though other vessels loading at Calcutta were
carrying grain to Bombay.. Solway
cleared in Liverpool for Calcutta on 7th and sailed about 9th
of the month, being towed out by the steam tug Fury and left on 11th
off the Skerries (headland 20 miles north of Dublin). She reached the Indian city about the
beginning of October and was
moored in the Hooghly River when a hurricane hit the port on 5 October
1864. One hundred and eighty ships were
blown from their moorings and stranded or wrecked, including the Solway, which
was ashore on the Goosary Sands with severe damage. The Glasgow Herald rather callously reported
“No serious loss of European lives.
Little valuable cargo jettisoned, but great loss in river craft.” In
fact the cyclone killed about 60,000 native people and 172 out of 195 ships at
the port were either damaged or destroyed.
A vivid account of the resulting chaos was provided by a report in the
Calcutta Hurkaru of 5 October (reprinted in the Liverpool Mercury of 9
November). “We have just returned
from the river side, where the view that meets the eye is absolutely
appalling. The tide is rushing up with
fearful violence and velocity; the ghauts are covered with the wrecks of the
dinghees and other native craft usually to be found at them; a steamer with her
funnel broken, her masts gone, and evidently beyond all management, was
drifting violently upwards, right in amongst a tier of ships which lay a little
beyond; another with her funnel over her side , and all her ropes hanging in
terrible disorder, is heeling over to the blast, every attempt to right her
evidently hopeless; there is not a ship that has not lost her spars; whole
tiers of vessels have their yards and masts interlaced in apparently
inextricable confusion, and the river is strewn with the fragments of damaged
craft of all sizes.” It was estimated that the value of English
ships lying at Calcutta at the time was £2M.
Solway was condemned and her hull was sold for 22,606 rupees,
though she was subsequently repaired and sailed again, before being terminally
wrecked in 1872. It is not known how or
when William Duguid returned to Britain
from India ,
but it must have been very shortly after the loss of the Solway, because he
undertook his next appointment as master in December 1864.
Command of
the Sydney Dacres
About 1863-64, James Baines & Co began ordering iron ships for the Black
Ball Line. These ships included the
Sydney Dacres which was built by Richardson, Duck & Co of Captain Duguid had the usual legacy of crew misdemeanours to deal with on landing. Four seamen were, rather leniently, only reprimanded in the Water Police Court for wilfully disobeying lawful commands and sent back on board. In a separate case 3 seaman, including James Plummer, who had been charged in the first instance too, were brought up on the same charge. Plummer received 4 weeks imprisonment with hard labour, while the other 2 received 2 weeks each. Another seaman, John Meares was absent from duty without leave and received one month’s imprisonment.
The vessel only carried a small complement of passengers, 2 in first class and 22 in steerage but she was heavily loaded with 3,000 tons of freight. The vessel was carrying the ironwork for the last span of the Prince Alfred Bridge at Gundagai as part of her cargo. This bridge still exists and is protected as an important historical structure. The Sydney Dacres was also carrying two steam railway engines weighing 15 tons each. Thomas Chester, the stevedore charged with unloading the engines, was miffed to find that one local newspaper, the Empire, reported that the Sydney Dacres’ masts had been damaged by the process. He wrote to the newspaper and gave the following account of the operation. “…The masts of the ship in question, the Sydney Dacres were of iron, a material that could not yield from an over strain without either breaking or showing most unmistakably the injury sustained; but as a precaution I caused the main and foremasts to be shered apart by means of a heavy spar lashed between the mastheads. The engines were taken out without the slightest difficulty in 3 days without a rope being stranded or a spar injured…” It took 146 working hours to clear the whole cargo.
The planned route for the return of the Sydney Dacres to Britain was again via the Indian sub-continent. She sailed from Sydney for Point de Galle on either 2nd or 3rd May 1865 and then sailed onwards to Calcutta, arriving there by 22nd August. On this date she had a minor collision with the Robert Mackenzie, when both vessels lost chain and anchors and also suffered other damage In Calcutta she loaded with “203 tons saltpetre, 126,472 lbs tea, 989pcs silk goods, 69 maunds silk chassam, 2,584 bales jute, 16 Bmds Button ditto. 37 tons Linseed, 600 tons rapeseed, 300 tons other oilseeds” and cleared for the journey to London on 23rd August. Her arrival back at Gravesend was on 2nd February 1866.
It was not long before William Duguid was again setting forth in the Sydney Dacres. On 3rd April 1866 she left London for Calcutta. It is not known what cargo or passengers she was carrying, though one army officer, Captain ET Webb of the 27th Regiment was under orders to embark at Gravesend on the vessel for Bombay to join the service companies in that Presidency. She arrived at Calcutta on 22nd July. Her cargo for the return journey to London bore similarities in its composition to that on her previous voyage to India, namely 34,074 lbs tea, 3,492 bales jute, 33cwt shellac, 4cwt lac dye, 32,862 cow and buffalo skins, 18 tons linseed, 800 tons rapeseed and 125 tons other oilseeds. Sydney Dacres sailed on 23rd September and encountered very heavy storms, which caused significant damage. She put in to St Helena on 28th November and remained at that island for about a month, while repairs were carried out. She resumed her journey at the end of December 1866 and finally arrived at London on 14th January 1867. This was William Duguid’s last voyage as master of the Sydney Dacres. Barned’s Bank, the main backer of the Black Ball Line had failed in 1866 and Black Ball operations were further affected by the falling off in demand for passages to Australia. Presumably James Baines failed to keep up the repayments on the mortgage on the Sydney Dacres and the mortgagor, John Bonus, sold the vessel in May 1867 to Edward Bates of Liverpool. The ship continued to sail for another 19 years but was wrecked on the Billy Rock at the entrance to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands on 28 September 1886, when going to sea after calling at Stanley on a voyage from Liverpool to San Francisco.
Marriage Intervenes
In 1867 William Henry Duguid was 43 years old (though his marriage registration said he was 41). He had been sailing the oceans of the world almost continuously since he was a youth, probably from the age of 14, about29 years and he was still a bachelor. On 2 March 1867 William, whose address was given as
Command of the Southern Empire
William
Henry Duguid’s next charge was the Southern Empire. This vessel of 1535 tons register was quite
old, having been built in New York in 1849, with the original name Jacob A
Westervelt. She was bought for the Black
Ball Line in 1862 and renamed the Southern Empire, but underwent a forced sale
in 1866 when the Black Ball Line ran into financial trouble. She had been leased back to Black Ball at the
time that William Duguid became her master in early June 1867. The Southern Empire had only recently been
released from arrest due to a legal action.
On 31st March 1865 the vessel had been in collision with the
Dutch barque Capella in the Atlantic Ocean.
Neither vessel was carrying lights and they met stem-on. The collision damaged the Capella so badly
that she had to be abandoned and her crew taken on board by the Black Baller. Cross-actions between the parties were
instituted in the Admiralty Court and in the action against the owners of the
Southern Empire (James Baines and Co and others) bail was given by the owners
in the sum of £15,000. The Southern
Empire then departed on another voyage.
When she returned a warrant for her arrest was instituted by the owners
of the Capella and was granted on the evidence in an affidavit that one of the
owners of the Southern Empire had suspended bail payment. The owners of the Southern Empire then sought
the release of their vessel from arrest.
The grounds employed were that since the incident the vessel had been
sold and the new owners had no interest in her at the time of the
collision. The Court ordered the release
of the vessel and that the costs occasioned by her arrest should be borne by
the owners of the Capella. That was not
the end of the legal ramifications arising from the collision. A salvage claim was made, presumably by the
Southern Empire against goods saved from the Capella. The claim was dismissed since the judge held
that both vessels had been at fault in causing the collision and to uphold the
claim would offend against a principle in law that no man should benefit from
his own wrongdoing. The court ordered
both parties to share damages and costs, which were in excess of £20,000. A further action followed in the Admiralty
Court in 1868. £7,500 had been paid into
Court on behalf of the Southern Empire, being the value of the vessel at the
time. The application before the Court
was for the Southern Empire to pay the balance of costs and damages due but
this was dismissed with costs. This had
proved to be an expensive episode, especially for the owners of the Capella.
Southern
Empire sailed for Moreton Bay from Liverpool on 20th June 1867. She was carrying the usual mixture of
manufactured goods, food and drink, specifically railway material including
iron rails, slates, beer in barrels and in bottles, brandy, boots and shoes,
whisky, ham and bacon, galvanised iron, clothing, walking sticks, agricultural
machinery, salt, 1 block tin, a piano, pipes, fire bricks, gas tubing, ironwork,
bones and wine. It is also probable that
her cargo included the remaining cylinders necessary for the completion of a
bridge in Brisbane. The journey was
rather slow, 42 days to the equator, a further 28 days to the meridian of the
Cape of Good Hope, 15 days from the Cape to Cape Leuwin and then a tedious
battle up the east coast of Australia against the winds and currents, finally
rounding Cape Moreton on 25th October, where she anchored for the
night. On the last part of her journey
she fell in with the barque Melrose from Foochoo Foo. The Melrose was in a dire position , having
almost entirely run out of food. For the
previous 5 days the crew had been subsisting on one biscuit a day, though
another report said 7 days on one biscuit a day and 3 days entirely without
food. The Melrose was resupplied by the
Southern Empire. There were 42
passengers in Southern Empire’s saloon, including the newly-married Mrs Maria
Duguid.
A
claim for general average was made against the ship and cargo and Mr Bryant
appointed as the Average Stater.
“General Average” is a process for apportioning loss, due to jettisoning
part of the cargo or vessel, amongst those whose property was preserved by the
action, though it is not clear what part of the cargo was thrown overboard or
for what reason. It may have related to
the loss of an anchor and a substantial amount of chain, since replacement
anchor and 45 fathoms of chain were trans-shipped to the Southern Empire from
the Florence Irvine in Moreton Bay in a protracted operation. A major component of the cargo taken on by
the Southern Empire in Moreton Bay was wool.
Because of the lack of port facilities at Brisbane this had to be
transported down the Bay by steamers, including the Settler and the Diamond. The wool loaded eventually amounted to 4200
bales. A quantity of hides was also
taken on board. The Queensland Times
reported that Southern Empire’s cargo was one of the largest ever shipped from
the port and that it had been loaded in the short period of 6 weeks. Passages for a limited number of saloon
passengers were also advertised for the return journey to London. The ‘tween decks, normally filled with
steerage passengers on the outward leg, was now occupied by bales of wool. Eleven seamen from the Southern Empire
appeared at the Central Police Court in Brisbane charged with disobedience of
orders. They all pleaded guilty and were
returned to the ship on agreeing to return to duty, which must have been a
relief to Captain Duguid, who thus avoided having to recruit replacements.
The
Southern Empire cleared for London on 22nd February 1868. Among her saloon passengers were Mrs Maria
Duguid and Miss Bell, presumably one of her cousins. The vessel did not leave immediately but was
held at anchor off the pilot station by contrary winds. As a result she became part of the welcome
organised for the visit to Brisbane of Prince Albert, Duke of Edinburgh, Queen
Victoria’s second son and a naval man, who was the first member of the British
Royal family to visit Australia. On 26th
February at about 7am, the steamer Kate carrying the Acting Governor of
Queensland and some of his ministers passed down river to where HMSS Challenger
was anchored in Brisbane Roads, to bring the Duke to town. Ships at anchor in the Bay were decked out
with colourful bunting and those nearest the Challenger, including the Southern
Empire, fired guns as the Kate passed.
This part of Prince Albert’s visit passed off without untoward incident
but that was not true of much of the remainder of his Australian sojourn. In Melbourne, a tableau of William of Orange
smiting the Catholic armies caused a riot amongst Irish immigrants in which a
boy was killed. Another event in the
same city at which free food was provided attracted a vast crowd, which caused
Albert to withdraw out of fear of being trampled and the crowd then rioted
causing mayhem. In Geelong another enormous
crowd generated another riot and in Bendigo a large model of Alfred’s ship, the
Galatea, caught fire and three boys, who had been climbing on it, were burned
to death. In further incidents a sailor
had his hand blown off, while loading a cannon and the Prince was shot, but not
seriously injured, by a man in the crowd.
In spite of these major incidents, the visit was considered to have been
a success!
Captain
Duguid’s vessel also became involved in another Brisbane incident before her
departure. A Mr Thomas Crinnian had been
a partner in a drapery business but the partnership owning the business had
been dissolved and it had been taken into Crinnian’s sole possession. He re-stocked the shop and then sold off the
shop contents, valued at £1100, as fast as he could, realising only £200,
before absconding. A rumour got about
that he had departed on the Southern Empire.
The steamer Emms was sent out to search the Southern Empire but was
forced to retreat by the stormy conditions.
There was an anti-climax when the vessel was eventually searched, as
Crinnian was not on board. Southern
Empire finally sailed on 9th March 1868 for London, arriving on 23rd
July after a protracted journey of 134 days.
Black Ball Line Runs into Trouble
The business of the Black Ball Line was largely founded on demand for
emigrant passages to William Duguid and the Juliet
One
vessel leased to the Black Ball line in its final years of operation was the
Juliet. She was an iron clipper,
including iron lower masts, bowsprit and yards, of 1250 tons register and was
built by Harland and Wolff at Queen’s Island, Belfast for the Liverpool ship
owner and insurance broker, CT Bowring.
She was launched on 1st January 1869 and was advertised under
the Black Ball programme leaving Liverpool for Melbourne under the command of
Captain Duguid “who is well known in the Australian
passenger trade” on 10th February 1869. An 1879 photograph of Juliet in an unidentied
Australian port can be found at http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/17076070. In the Melbourne Argus, Captain Duguid was
described as “one
of the most successful commanders in the Black Ball line. He is, moreover, favourably known in this
port to which he has voyaged in the Solway, Conway and other ships.” Juliet arrived in Liverpool from Belfast on 4th
February but was not towed out of dock until 2nd March. The previous day the steamer Ajax had arrived
in the river from Singapore but lost two anchors and chains, presumably due to
strong winds, before managing to hold the ground securely in the Sloyne, an
anchorage which lies off Birkenhead.
When the Juliet was towed out the following day she too anchored in the
Sloyne with the pilot on board. The
Juliet then dragged her anchors, failed to answer the helm and ran into the
Ajax. William Duguid reported “My jibboom and bowsprit struck his
port bow, carried away my jibboom and damaged bowsprit, knocking away the
starboard cathead and whiskers, making a hole in the starboard bow, losing
figurehead, forebraces and block attached.
The vessel after striking swung alongside. The tug came and towed us clear and took us
further up the Sloyne to a clear berth.”
Juliet’s First Visit to Melbourne
In
spite of the damage the Juliet left for Melbourne on 6th March, under tow by
the tug Knight Templar, which left her about 7pm on 8th March near
the Tuskar Rock. In the first class
cabin were Mrs Duguid and infant, Miss Bell and Mr Coote. There were 20 passengers in second class and
steerage. The infant was Lilian, the
Duguid’s first daughter who was born about the beginning of February and
baptised on 7th February in Toxteth.
She must have been conceived on the Southern Empire about 2 months after
the departure of the vessel from Brisbane.
The Juliet enjoyed a fast passage of 82 days, reaching the equator at
lon 28W in 20 days and passing the
meridian of the Cape of Good Hope in lat 44S.
She then ran down her easting in 46S but easterly gales delayed her
arrival at Cape Leuwin. From Cape Leuwin
to Port Phillip Heads the weather was more favourable and the journey time was
8 days. She arrived at Melbourne on 28th
May 1869. The full inventory of her
cargo displays just how dependent the colonies still were on the Mother
Country. Shaping
machines, boiler plate, salt, carbonate of soda, sulphate of copper, hinges,
brads, brushware, grubbing-hoes, brace-chains, picks, cutlery, files, sickles,
mason’s tools, thermometers, kitchen fenders, spades, fluid magnesia,
galvanised iron, slates, machinery, boiler, barrels, woodware, paper, whisky, ,
books, saddlery, ingots tin, hardware, smoking pipes, cutlery, bars, bundles of
iron, jewellery, metal bedsteds, wine, deals, sugar, beer, tools, trunk boots, hoop iron, cotton wick, bottled
stout, galvanised tubes, fittings, nails, sausage skins, nails and rivets, iron
pans, tin plates, caustic soda, iron wire, earthenware, glassware, iron safes,
hardware, bundles steel, mouldings, photographs, woolpacks, galvanised iron
sheet, pipes, gutters, beads and angles, clips, hands, rum, bolts, twine, coke,
casks, kegs, portable agricultural steam engine, malt liquor, porter, floor
boards, brooms, bars copper, sheet copper, brass, spelter solder, hops, iron
girder. Cargo was unloaded at Hobson’s Bay and transported to Melbourne by the
Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay United Railway Company.
In
January 1870 a prospectus was published in the Ballarat Star soliciting
investment in a new company, the Australian Salvage Company (Limited)
(Macfarlane’s Patent). The Prospectus
demonstrated a need for an effective method of raising sunken vessels and then
outlined the method invented by Mr Macfarlane, which had been tested by raising
the brig Welcome from the mouth of the River Tyne. William Henry Duguid was a co-signatory with
other captains of a letter of support saying they thought the method very
good. “Dear Sir, We the undersigned had
much satisfaction in viewing the success of your working model of the Pneumatic
principle for raising sunken vessels and feel no hesitation in expressing our
opinion that with a fair trial it could not fail to be successful in larger
operations for without doubt it is the best method of making fast to the
submerged vessel we have yet seen or heard of
and not liable to the casualties attendant on other methods which have
hitherto been used. The whole apparatus
and the simplicity of working it recommends it to any one at once as most
feasible. We are etc (signed) E
Shrewsbury captain of ship Punjab, Wm H Duguid Captain of ship Juliet, JE
Husband Captain of the ship Lightning (iron), Philip Bennett captain of the
ship Eurydice, WD Lyon captain of the ss Tasmania. Melbourne, 14th June 1869. It is not clear if the fundraising was
successful or if the new method was put into general use.
Juliet
left from Melbourne on 24th June in ballast for Newcastle, NSW where
she loaded with 1,810 tons of coal and left for San Francisco on 26th
August. She unloaded her cargo of coal
and then continued for Liverpool. On
23 January 1870 the ship was spoken to in latitude 33S, off the coast of
Chile. By this time Maria Duguid was in
an advanced stage of pregnancy with the Duguid’s second child, which had been
conceived on the outward leg. The infant,
a son, was born after rounding Cape Horn, when the ship was near to the Falkland
Islands. Unsurprisingly, the boy was
named “Falkland”. The Juliet arrived back at her home
port on 12th May 1870.
Juliet’s Second Visit to Melbourne
By the
end of May 1870 Black Ball advertisements had started to appear identifying
Juliet, with Captain Duguid as master, as the regular packet for June. Juliet’s skipper was described as follows, “Captain
Duguid is well known as one of the most favourite and skilful commanders in the
service.” In fact Juliet did not leave
Liverpool for Melbourne until 5th July. She was towed out by the tug Royal Arch and
cast off at 7am on 7th July, 5 miles SSW of the Tuskar Rock. Mrs Maria Duguid, her two infants and a
servant were passengers in the 1st class cabin with one other
person. There were 39 passengers in
steerage. The passage was rather slow,
due to light winds until they reached the equator and “changeable tempestuous”
weather after passing the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope. Port Phillip Heads was reached on 2nd
October 1870. About 5th
November 1870, Juliet sailed in ballast from Hobson’s Bay to Geelong, which
lies about 30 miles SW of Melbourne, but still within Port Phillip Bay. There she took on s substantial cargo of
agricultural produce, consisting of 5962 bales of wool, 136 bales of leather,
25 kegs of butter, 43 casks of tallow, 4 casks of colonial wine and 1 box of
papers. While Juliet was docked at
Geelong Captain Duguid was invited to attend the Mayor’s Dinner, which celebrated
the opening of his mayoral year. Crew
trouble appears to have been minimal, with only a single crew member being
charged with disobeying Duguid’s orders.
The sailor was sentenced to 4 days imprisonment and forfeiture of 2
weeks’ wages. Juliet was towed out of
Geelong Harbour by a steam tug on 18th December, for her journey
back to London, where she arrived on 18th March 1871. After his return Captain Duguid appears to
have donated a collection of flower seeds to the Geelong Botanical Garden and
these were delivered to the curator, Mr Bunce, by Captain Clark of the Western Empire. They consisted of dwarf rose and peony asters
and a fine variety of seeds of hearts-ease and fancy geraniums “from choice
sorts”. The
return to London, rather than Liverpool, was likely to have been because the
ship was carrying a cargo of wool and London had a wool market. The Duguid’s third child, Percy, was
conceived in Q3 1870 and most of Q3 of that year was spent on the outward
journey to Melbourne. Percy was born in
Q2 1871, after the return to London and his
birth was registered in Bloomsbury . This location suggests that the Duguids may
have moved from Liverpool to London
The 1871 Census
For the first time in his sailing career, William
was on land in Britain
at the time of the Census. In 1871 the
reference time was the night of 2/3 April.
William Duguid was probably at sea when the 1841 – 1861 Census data were
collected. On this occasion he appeared
not to have been at home but to have been a houseguest at the home of Charles
Corbett, a landowner and architect who lived at Ember Court , Thames Ditton, Surrey. There were other houseguests, who appeared to
be comfortably off, Emily Byrne (status unknown), Kate Dawson (annuitant),
Marianne Taylor (landowner), Charles Newman (solicitor) and George Armstrong
(merchant). The residents and guests at Ember Court were tended by 7 servants and
a groom. Interestingly, William Duguid
did not describe himself as a master mariner but as a ship owner. It is likely that this status related to a
shareholding in one or more ships, rather than to outright ownership. He referred to owning ship shares in his will
and he is known to have held a shareholding in the Ascalon at a later date.
Coal to
Calcutta, Emigrants to New York?
William Duguid did not get much of a break before
he was off to sea again but this time in a purely freighting role, perhaps
consequential upon the demise of the Black Ball operation. About 12th April 1871 Juliet
entered out at London for Shields to take on a cargo of coal for delivery to
Calcutta. The vessel passed Deal on 5th
May bound for India, arriving at Calcutta on 6th August. She returned to Liverpool on 28th
December. According to Lloyd’s records,
William Duguid was not paid off but prepared for the next voyage of Juliet to
New York. The precise date of sailing
has not been discovered but it must have been in early January 1872 because the
vessel subsequently left New York to return to Liverpool on 1st
February. She reached Liverpool on 21st
February and Captain Duguid was then paid off.
Juliet’s
Third Visit to Melbourne
Juliet was advertised as sailing
to Melbourne on March 30th from as early as 17th February and the
effort seems to have been particularly targeted on Ireland. The advertisements named Thomas Marwood
& Co as agents for the ship in Liverpool and Taylor, Betholi and Roberts as
agents in London. Both John Taylor and
Thomas Marwood had been involved in financing and running the Black Ball Line,
so in spite of that line’s demise, its spirit lived on. The Liverpool Line, operating from Liverpool , had been a competitor of the Black Ball Line
and William Duguid found employment with them after the demise of his former
employer. Early in 1872 the Liverpool
Line appears to have leased the Juliet.
William Duguid was engaged on 15th April and continued as
master. Juliet sailed for Melbourne on
18th April 1872 and passed the Tuskar Rock on 24th
April. The equator was crossed on 12th
May in 26W and the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope was passed on 13th
June in 44S, running down her easting in 45S.
She encountered very light SE trades but afterwards very boisterous
weather to Cape Otway which was passed on 13th July. She arrived in Hobson’s Bay on 14th
July and was taken alongside the Sandridge Railway Pier on 15th
July. Her cargo consisted of rails, galvanised iron, bars, bundles and
plates of iron, pig iron, hoop iron, slates, varnish, Carlisle Ale, washers,
lines, diving dresses, a piano, hinges,
nuts, bundles of steel, calcium chloride, wire rope, iron girders, stoneware,
coke, soda ash, paper hangings, cotton, electroplated ware, cutlery, gilt
goods, cigarettes, wine, sheets copper, copper bars, sheet brass, sewing
machines, candle cotton, brimstone, hemp rope, glassware, machinery, deals,
nails, saddlery, woollens, apparel, books, whisky, salt, fine salt, stout,
beer, stationery, paper, earthenware, wire, oils and paints, soft goods,
hardware. The Juliet was carrying 2
first class and 21 second class and steerage passengers, though Mrs Maria Duguid
appears not to have been on board on this occasion.
Three notices appeared in the Melbourne
Argus, for the benefit of residents dealing with the ship. The first asked consignees to collect their
goods, the second asked for accounts and claims against the ship to be settled
and the third warned residents that the vessel would not be responsible for
debts incurred by the crew while in port, without the specific written
authority of the master. These notices
became regular communications each time one of Duguid’s vessels was in port in
Australia. Juliet left Melbourne in
ballast for Sydney on 7th August 1872 and reached her New South
Wales destination on 13th of that month. The vessel then moved up the coast to
Newcastle to load coal. She left for San Francisco on 22nd September
carrying 1,755 tons and 69 bales of wool.
Before he left Sydney, Captain Duguid had put the word around that he
was prepared to carry ore specimens produced in New South Wales to the
Merchants’ Exchange in San Francisco, presumably for evaluation. This looks like Duguid trying to establish
future revenue streams for journeys back to Britain from Australia. It is not known if anyone took up his offer. The Juliet arrived in San Francisco on 22nd
November unloaded her cargo of coal and then travelled on down the Pacific
coast of the Americas, round Cape Horn and arrived back in Liverpool on 21st
May 1873. Duguid was discharged the
following day.
Juliet’s
Fourth Visit to Melbourne
Even before William Henry Duguid arrived
back in his home port, the next voyage of the Juliet was being advertised by
the “Liverpool” Line of Packets. The
advertisement in the Times of 14th June 1873 described the vessel as
follows. “Juliet for Melbourne to sail from
Liverpool 25th June – This favourite clipper is of the highest
class, and is noted for the speed and regularity of her passages. She is still commanded by Capt Duguid, who is
well known in the trade and her accommodation for passengers is of the best
description, the saloon being completely furnished, and having bathroom and
every convenience. For passage apply to
Thomas Marwood and Co, 15, Water Street, Liverpool”. William Duguid was engaged again on 28th
June and the vessel departed for Melbourne on 3rd July. She was carrying 5 passengers in the cabin
and 20 in second class and steerage and reached Melbourne on 2nd
October.
Under the heading of “Eagle Line of Packets”,
passages back to London in the Juliet from the Sandridge Railway Pier were
advertised in the Melbourne Argus. A
notice also appeared in the same paper informing shippers that Juliet was also
ready to receive wool cargo and that the vessel intended to reach London in time for the February wool
sales. She cleared out of Melbourne on
22nd November 1873 carrying 6511 bales wool, 8 casks black
sand, 46 casks antimony, 27 casks fusc (what is “fusc”?), 2 cases effects, 14
bales of leather and 1 bale glue pieces.
On the passage from Melbourne to Cape Horn Juliet encountered a large quantity of icebergs and small
ice and experienced thick foggy weather from Dec 18 in lat 36S long 166W to Dec
26 in lat 39S 117W. The vessel arrived
in London on 27th February 1874 and her master was discharged the
same day.
1870 – The Revolt of the Field
The
1870s saw the start of a prolonged recession in the agricultural sector in
Britain. This had been brought on by the
increasing availability of cheap imports, especially wheat, following the
repeal of the Corn Laws and the increasing availability of shipping to import
cheap foreign grains, particularly from North America. The situation for agricultural workers became
dire as progressive mechanisation made their employment prospects even
worse. Total agricultural employment
fell, wages were reduced and casual employment increased. These circumstances spawned the formation of
the National Agricultural Labourers’ Association, a trades union for
agricultural labourers. This union
organised local strikes and pressed for higher wages and a shorter working
week. In 1874 strike action led to a
lock-out by the employers, with the union providing strike pay. Union action was particularly prevalent in
East Anglia. This situation became known
as the Revolt of the Field. However, the
cost of the strike to the union was such that it had to call off the action and
recommend that its members return to work.
Rural dissatisfaction in Britain created an opportunity for New Zealand
to recruit farm labourers and servants as immigrants and in 1873 there were
about 180 New Zealand Government recruitment agents operating in Britain and
Ireland. Inducements were offered. From 1873 the passage fare of £5 per adult
was abolished and New Zealand residents were allowed to nominate friends and
relatives to join them. Free passages
were also offered to Australia.
Juliet’s Visit to Brisbane
Captain
Duguid was re-engaged as master of the Juliet on 24th April, 1874,
barely 2 months after his return from Melbourne. For her next passage to Australia, Juliet was
to take a substantial number of emigrants, many being displaced or locked-out
agricultural workers. The Essex Newsman
newspaper carried an advertisement by Mr C Jay of Braintree (presumably a
recruiting agent for the Queensland Authorities), under the heading “Queensland”
by Jay’s special ship” and went on to say “The St James about April 11th
1874. Free passage from Essex to
Queensland by the Juliet to Farmers, Gardeners, Labourers either single or
married with their wives and children and domestic servants. A special train will take the emigrants from
Essex to meet Jay’s special ship free from cost. Mr W Jay will travel in the St James.” Some of the emigrants were victims of the
lock-out and some came from the neighbouring county of Suffolk. The Juliet, now sailing under the banner of
the “London Line”, which had chartered her for this voyage and she left the
London Docks on 1st May. She
was due to embark more than 400 emigrants at Gravesend, the following day,
Saturday 2nd May but had her departure delayed until Sunday 3rd
May. While Juliet was getting
underweigh, James Mahoney, a 20 year old Irishman attempted to commit suicide
by throwing himself overboard. He was
picked up by Mr Heath, a waterman and taken to the King of Prussia Inn where he
was provided with dry clothing by the landlord and returned to London. Mahoney gave a quite bizarre reason for his
attempt to drown himself. He claimed
there were some “Irish Greeks” on board Juliet with whom he was afraid to
travel!
Juliet
had eventually sailed with 489 (424 English and 65 Irish) souls on board, made
up of 4 saloon, 17 second class, 9 steerage, 76 assisted, 347 free and 36 remittance
passengers. They comprised 70 married males, 71 married females, 161 single
men, 63 single women, 47 male and 53 female children, 12 male and 12 female
infants. Broken down by occupation,
there were 41 female domestic servants, 169 farm labourers, 3 bakers, 3
painters, 2 butchers, 2 harness-makers, 2 grocers, 1 bricklayer, 2 carpenters
and 5 others. The predominance of
English, free passage, farm labourers is obvious. On this voyage the ship’s
Surgeon-superintendent was Dr R Spence and the Matron, to care for the single
women, was Miss Nicoll. Juliet had fine
weather to the equator which was crossed on 28th May in 27W and she passed the
meridian of the Cape of Good Hope on 22nd June and ran down her
easting in 44S, benefitting from strong westerly winds to the meridian of Cape
Leuwin which was reached on 9th June. The ship finally arrived at Cape Moreton and
the entrance for the bay on which Brisbane stands on 31st July. The total journey time of 88 days was quite
fast for the passage to Queensland. One passenger, Charles Hunt a Cornishman,
did not complete the journey. He drowned
when he fell overboard en route. Juliet
was towed the last few miles to Brisbane on 5th August and moored
near the bridge to discharge her cargo and passengers. The cargo consisted of cement, soap, twine,
curriers’ ink, tweeds, long cloth, paints, moleskins, corsets, calico, ticking,
clothing, shirts, hats, linen, collars, hosiery, Kersey, serge, trunks,
haberdashery, cottons, ink, stationery, towels, drapery, linens, calico,
muslins, umbrellas, toilet covers, hardware, buckets, harness, hair and rock
salt.
After
the arrival of Juliet in Brisbane in 1874, carrying a substantial number of
Agricultural workers, a curious fantasy tale was published in the Warwick Argus
and Tenterfield Chronicle, a local Queensland newspaper. It was based on the Juliet’s passage and was
published as the Juliet arrived. It follows emigrant families from the excitement of waking up
on the day of departure, through the train journey, the trip down the Thames
estuary and across the ocean. Everything
is sweetness and light and the tale looks as though it has been written to
encourage waverers to take the decision to emigrate but has some quite bizarre
elements. A white widowed father is told
by his son not to remarry to a white woman because he wants a black woman as a
mother. Wealthy people, land owners and
tenant farmers give generously to the emigrant family, buying their emigration
kit for them at a cost of £9. Single girls
are looked after by Matron, the implication being that they are safe from curious
eyes and hands. The emigrants are
without regrets and jolly on board.
People have fun playing cards and receiving Neptune’s attentions as the
ship crosses the line. The ship “bounds
over the waves” at 330 miles a day. On
first seeing the land of Australia, stereotypes crowd round for attention. Are the natives black or white, clothed or
unclothed? Are Kangaroos to be seen
everywhere? No, the people are white and
clothed, have horses and live in neat little houses. How could anyone not be enthusiastic about
such a move to a land of milk and honey?
There are also the regular advertising puffs, the comfort and sailing
qualities of the Juliet, the headroom ‘tween decks, filled with air and light,
the modern sanitary facilities and abundance of fresh water, the gentleman
captain and the caring surgeon and matron, the harmonious relationships between
shipmates. But why is this fable in an
Australian newspaper?
The
return journey to Britain was again via San Francisco. Juliet sailed from Brisbane in ballast
(probably coal) on 3rd September, 1874, though presently the
composition of any cargo is not known.
The vessel finally arrived back at Liverpool on 14th April
1875. Sadly, as she approached the port
a young member of crew, Charles Smith, fell overboard and was drowned. Captain Duguid was discharged on 17th
April.
Juliet’s Fifth Visit to Melbourne
Juliet
had fallen into a regular pattern of a single return journey to Australia each
year and 1875 was no different. In April
1875 the Liverpool Line of Packets, which had again chartered the Juliet,
advertised the ship as the packet for May to sail to Melbourne, under Captain
Duguid. He was described as “so well
known in the Australian trade”. Duguid
was re-engaged on 2nd June and the ship departed on 5th
June and sailed for Melbourne and Geelong.
Throughout the journey the ship experienced mixed wind and weather
conditions. She crossed the equator on
July 6th in 28W and the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope on August
8th in 44S, running down her easting between 43S and 44S. The journey was uneventful and the vessel
arrived, after an 88 day passage, on 2nd September 1875. There was only a small passenger complement,
compared with the last voyage, 10 in 1st class and 20 in 2nd
class and steerage.
Juliet
cleared out of Hobson’s Bay on 27th September, 1875, in ballast and
sailed the same day for Geelong, where she docked at Yarra-street Wharf, principally
to load wool for the London Wool Sales in February 1876. In all, she loaded 6,733 bales and was hauled
from the wharf into the stream on 10th November. However, sailing was held up for lack of crew
members and suitable sailing conditions.
Juliet managed to leave on the 12th and Captain Duguid
signalled “5.30pm Thursday – Juliet outside the Rip. All well”, when he had successfully left the
bay. Juliet then sailed directly for
London, arriving at Gravesend on 18th February 1876. Captain Duguid was discharged on 21st
of that month.
Juliet’s Visit to Sydney
On
1st March 1876 the London Line of Taylor Bethell and Roberts
advertised the Juliet as sailing to Sydney on March 30th at fares
from 14gns. Captain Duguid “a great
favourite with passengers” was still the nominated commander. In mid-March the vessel was loading in the
East India Docks and Captain Duguid was re-engaged from 30th
March. The ship sailed from Gravesend
with her passengers on 7th April 1877 and arrived at Sydney early in
July of that year. She loaded with 1,700
tons of coal before departing for San Francisco about 12th August
and arriving at that city about 13th October. She returned to Liverpool round Cape Horn,
reaching that city on 13th April 1877.
Juliet’s Sixth Visit to Melbourne
A
further voyage by Juliet to Australia began in late May 1877, under the banner
of the “Liverpool Line”. William Duguid
was engaged as captain again on 26th May and the vessel sailed on 31st
of that month, passing the Tuskar Rock on 2nd June. She was carrying 2 passengers in first class
and 17 in second class and steerage. The
vessel arrived in Melbourne on 3rd September and docked at the
Williamstown Railway Pier, though she was moved to the Graving Dock Pier on 21st
September. She sailed down to Geelong in
ballast about 24th September, presumably to load a cargo of
wool. Her date of departure from Port
Phillip has not currently been uncovered but she arrived back in Gravesend on
21st February 1878. Captain
Duguid was discharged the same day.
Lloyd’s records state that Captain Duguid was also discharged on 14th
April, but with no intervening record of engagement. At present there is no explanation for this
anomaly.
A Fateful Voyage for San Francisco –
the Loss of the Juliet
The pattern of annual return journeys to
Australia by Duguid in command of the Juliet was then broken. She was contracted to Anderson,
Anderson & Company’s line of steam and sailing ships, a forerunner of
P&O. The West Coast of America was
one of the destinations regularly served by Anderson, Anderson and Co. In “The Times” of 12 March 1878 Andersons
advertised the Juliet, under the command of J Duguid, as sailing from London’s South West India Docks for San Francisco. William Duguid’s brother James Alexander was
also a captain in the mercantile marine but the Times advertisement proved to
be incorrect, the Duguid in command of the Juliet when she sailed was indeed
William Henry. WH Duguid was re-engaged on 17th May 1878 and Juliet
sailed for San Francisco on 22nd May with a general cargo. For the first 2 months of the voyage, the
ship experienced moderate weather but on 20th July heavy gales were encountered
and visibility became poor. The strong
winds continued for about 2 weeks by which time the Juliet was approaching Captain Duguid realised that they had to get away from the wreck of the Juliet and ordered the launching of a boat but, with the sea still running heavily, this was smashed against the vessel’s side. Two further boats were lost and in the process an apprentice by the name of Stephens was washed overboard, but caught a rope in the process and hung on. However, before anyone could come to his assistance a second wave broke his grip and he was lost from view. The Juliet now had only one remaining boat and great care was taken in launching it. This time the boat with the remaining 25 crew members got away safely. After about 3 hours they fell in with the German vessel which had passed them earlier, which proved to be the barque Thetis. She had also been carried towards shore and had only narrowly avoided the same fate as the Juliet. Thetis had to take a complex route to escape the sea conditions, which accounted for her, fortuitously, still being in the same general area. The Thetis landed the Juliet’s 25 surviving crew at Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands, from where they were taken on to Monte Video in Uruguay and then 21 of them went on to Liverpool on the Pacific Steam Navigation Company’s steamer, Liguria. Captain Von Picken of the Thetis subsequently received a gallantry award, a piece of plate, from the Board of Trade for his skill and courage in rescuing the crew of the Juliet. The loss of the Juliet proved to be expensive for the insurers, as the vessel and her cargo were covered to a value of £50,000. Curiously, the wreck of Juliet and her contents were subsequently sold for £4 17s 1d, the low price presumably reflecting the small probability that anything of value could be salvaged from this remote and inhospitable location. One consequence of the Juliet’s precipitous wrecking was that William Henry Duguid lost all his personal papers, including his Master’s Certificate of Competence. On his return to Britain he made a declaration before the Lord Mayor of London at the Mansion House on 6th November 1878 that his certificate, number 4189, had been lost or destroyed on Staten Island when the Juliet was driven ashore. A new certificate, number 05806, was issued to him, dated 26th November 1878. At the time his address was given as Limes Grove, Lewisham, Kent.
It is worth reflecting on the dangers inherent in a life at sea in the late 19th century. For the year 1877, 4,181 fatalities of ships’ crew, at sea or abroad, were reported to the Board of Trade. Of these 1,088 were due to disease, 1,481 drowned, 320 died in other fatal accidents, 18 by murder, 36 by suicide and 161 of unknown causes. The risk of death, especially by drowning, was probably greater on sailing ships than on steamers.
William Duguid and the Desdemona
The ship Desdemona was built in 1875 for CT Bowring of Liverpool, at the Mersey shipyard of Thomas Royden. She was an iron clipper and appears to have been commanded by Captain Henry Towill from the time of her accession to Bowring’s fleet. On 9th June 1879 William Henry Duguid was engaged to command the Desdemona in place of Captain Towill, though the reason for this change is obscure. Clearly, Bowrings did not hold William Duguid in any way culpable for the loss of the Juliet, rather her loss was accepted as due to general hazard of the sea. Desdemona sailed on 15th June for Algoa Bay, where Port Elizabeth is situated, in South Africa. This was the first place settled by British settlers, the so-called 1820 Settlers. The cargo being carried to Algoa Bay is not known. From South Africa, Desdemona seems to have travelled to Portland, Oregon in the Pacific North West. Portland was the major seaport of the Pacific North West for most of the 19th century. It is not known if Desdemona travelled east or west from South Africa to reach her objective, though it seems possible that she would have travelled east. While the sea distance in each case was about the same, the prevailing winds were generally from the west. Again, the nature of her cargo, both outwards and inwards, is not known, though in the then recent past Desdemona had carried flour from Oregon to Liverpool. This supposed routing is supported by the entry for Captain Duguid in Lloyd’s records, where his 1879 journeys are accompanied by the symbols “CP”, which are thought to indicate “Cape” and “Pacific”. Desdemona returned to Liverpool on 9th November 1880. This was the only voyage that William Henry Duguid undertook in command of the vessel.
On 5th
August 1880, Captain Henry Towill, who was identified as the captain of the
Desdemona in the newspaper insertions, married Henrietta Elvis of Benington,
Hertfordshire. The couple afterwards
went to live at Woodbridge House, Rock Ferry, Devon. Subsequently, Captain Towill’s wife gave birth
to their first child at Woodbridge House in May 1881, about the time he was
leaving Australia to return to Britain. Towill’s vessel, the Desdemona, had
been advertised, on 19th November 1880, as sailing for the Liverpool
Line to Melbourne (taking goods for Geelong), but under the command of Captain
Duguid. However, a further advertisement
on 10th December 1880 then identified Desdemona’s master as Henry
Towill. Indeed, Henry Towill did take
the Desdemona to Melbourne, arriving there on 20th April 1881. Why did William Duguid apparently substitute
for Henry Towill as master of the Desdemona between June 1879 and November 1880? Firstly, they sailed for the same ship owner,
CT Bowring, and must have known each other.
Duguid, an experienced master, had unexpectedly become available in 1879
as a result of the loss of the Juliet at the beginning of August 1878 and he
may have offered to substitute for Towill to give him time to organise his
marriage. Alternatively, it is possible
that Towill was indisposed for some reason and CT Bowring took the opportunity
to use Duguid as a temporary replacement.
Ascalon – William Duguid’s Last Command
Walter
Hood & Co was an Aberdeen shipbuilder, famous for building the tea clipper
Thermopylae. Many of Hood’s ships were
built for the Aberdeen White Star line and one such ship was the Ascalon, 998
tons register, launched in April 1868. A
photograph of the Ascalon can be found at http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/13667742.
The name Ascalon is derived from the city of Ashkelon in modern-day
Israel though, as a ship name, it is likely to refer to the lance, which was
called Ascalon, used by St George to kill the dragon. The White Star Line used the Ascalon mainly on
the London – Australia London from Shanghai
By 1883
the fire which damaged the Ascalon had been forgotten but in that year there
was a curious development. In July, in Copenhagen London Bridge
After
the fire, the heavily damaged Ascalon was bought by Trinder, Anderson & Co
from
Messrs
George Thompson jun & Co Aberdeen. OJ Trinder and JR Anderson had
previously worked for Anderson, Anderson & Co, the managers of the Orient
Line (a predecessor of P&O).They left to form Trinder, Anderson & Co in
1874 and were ship owners and ship brokers.
They repaired the Ascalon and then leased her to the Elder Line. By early May 1881 advertisements were placed
in newspapers offering passages on the Ascalon from London to Adelaide, leaving
on 25 May. William Henry Duguid was
recruited as the Ascalon’s master. This
was to be his last command, though he skippered the vessel until 1888.
Ascalon
sailed from London for Adelaide on 5th June 1881, arriving in the
South Australian city on 5th September. She sailed for London on 14th
November, presumably with a cargo predominantly composed of bales of wool and
arrived there on 3rd March 1882.
With occasional variations, this became the regular annual pattern for
William Duguid and his vessel, the Ascalon, for the next 6 years. On her next outward journey Ascalon left
London on 18th April 1882 with a cargo of general merchandise, one
first class and 3 steerage passengers.
She arrived at Adelaide on 14th July. She cleared in Adelaide on 23rd
September and left for London via Port Augustus, another South Australian
port. Her cargo was mainly sheep skins
and wool and she arrived at Gravesend on 24th April 1883. She was only in port for a month before
Ascalon began her next journey to Adelaide, leaving on 23rd May 1883
and arriving in Adelaide on 26th July. She carried only one saloon passenger and 16
in steerage. Part of her outgoing cargo
was 6 tons of caustic soda, 20 kegs carbonate soda and 3 tons finest flowers of
sulphur. As on her journey in 1882/1883,
she moved on to Port Augusta where she loaded with 16 tons of copper ore, 16
tons of rails and 4502 bales of greasy wool.
She sailed for London on 22nd October, arriving at Gravesend
on 30th January 1884. On 18th
February 1884, Ascalon was slated to sail to Brisbane, with booking through to
other Queensland ports for passengers, under the flag of the London Line and still
with Captain Duguid in command. Fares advertised were first £35, second £20 and
third £14, these rates being significantly lower than in the early 1850s, when
demand for passages to Australia was at its height. In other advertisements the vessel was said
to be sailing for the Elder Line. The
Ascalon left for Brisbane on 1st April 1884 and arrived at Brisbane
on July 9th. She was again
described as carrying a general cargo.
Unloading began at Parbury, Lamb and Raff’s Wharf, Eagle Street on 14th
July. Some consignees were rather tardy
in collecting their goods which, were left on the quayside, uninsured and
exposed to the weather. On 17th
August, Ascalon sailed on to Port Adelaide, arriving on 14th
September. She left for London on 18th
October. While she was still in the
English Channel she was picked up by a steam tug and passed Dungeness on 26th
January, arriving at Gravesend a day later.
After unloading in the London Dock, about 2nd March1885, she
entered dry dock.
Trinder
Anderson and Co started advertising Ascalon’s next journey immediately after
her return to London. Her departure date
was initially given as 25th March.
William Duguid was re-engaged on 31st March and the vessel
sailed on 2nd April for Adelaide.
She arrived in that city on 25th June 1885. Trinder Anderson quickly published a notice
in the Adelaide newspaper, the Express and Telegraph. “Ascalon from London.
Consignees are requested to pass entries at once. Bills of lading must be presented and freights
paid at out port office before delivery.
No claims will be acknowledged unless damage has been pointed out on
landing and ship will not be responsible for abstraction of spirits or other
bonded goods except packages pointed out on the wharf in bad order and
subsequently examined in the presence of the Captain. All goods impeding discharge will be landed
and stored at consignees risk and expense.
Captain Duguid will not be responsible for any debts contracted by the
crew without his written authority. Elder Smith and Co”. They were clearly keen not to be hoodwinked
by opportunist crew or clients. As usual
Ascalon then moved on to Port Augusta to load with wool and planned to get away
in time to make the January wool sales in London. While in port at Port Augusta, Captain Duguid
acted as an expert witness in court, when he was called in to examine another
vessel, the Alfred Hawley. It was stated
that Captain Duguid had 40 years’ experience though, in truth, it was probably
a longer period. Ascalon’s return cargo
consisted of 4788 bales of greasy wool, weighing 1,733,316 lbs, 11 bales of
scoured wool and2 packages of curios.
She departed for London on 14th October 1885 and arrived in
London about 19th January 1886.
She was again dry-docked before loading for her next trip to
Australia. Ascalon sailed on 27th
March 1886, as usual for Adelaide, arriving at that port on 7th
July. A detailed inventory of her
outbound cargo for this trip is available.
Plain, coloured and printed cottons,
woollens and worsteds, flannels, stays , hosiery, sewing thread, haberdashery,
cotton handkerchiefs, cotton and linen shirts, apparel, carpets and rugs, felt
hats and cape, dressed leather, wrought leather, floorcloth, blacking,
agricultural implements, agricultural machinery, rails, books, paper,
stationery, horsehair and seatings, upholstery, iron bedsteads, tinware,
brushes, turnery, plated and papier mache goods, toys, firearms, pianos, corks,
perfumery, jewellery, cartridges and dynamite, , iron tanks, chain and anchors,
hardware, cutlery, bar and rod iron, pig iron, tin plates, iron nails, wire and
rope, steel, linseed oil, varnish, paint colours, pitch, flint glass, foreign
window, china and earthenware, glass bottles, lines and twines, bricks, marble,
cement, brandy, cordials, beer, oilmen’s stores, vinegar, cocoa, blue, raisins,
liquorice juice, refined sugar, confectionery and peel apothecaryware,
coke. Ascalon cleared Adelaide on 29th
October, this time for Port Victor, which lies about 50 miles south of
Adelaide. She had loaded her inbound
cargo and departed for London before 16th November and arrived back
in the city on 24th February 1887.
The cargo included 950 ingots of spelter (crudely smelted zinc) and a
substantial load of wool.
A Last Voyage to Australia
William
Henry Duguid left Gravesend for Adelaide in the Ascalon on 26th
April 1887. She had 5 passengers in the
cabin and a general cargo of merchandise.
She must have had a substantial cargo because she had no steerage
accommodation available. The ship arrived on 22nd July and the Elder
Line immediately advertised freighting opportunities for London. She left for Britain before 23rd
October 1887. While his vessel was in port,
Captain Duguid, along with Mr WE Martinson, MP, was invited by His Worship the
Mayor of Adelaide to join him and Members of the Port Corporation on a visit to
the vineyards and cellars of Mr Thomas Hardy at Bankside. This winery was founded in 1853 and today is
one of the best known Australian wine brands.
A 4-horse coach was engaged to carry the happy group to and from the
winery. During his visit, William Duguid
discovered that Thomas Hardy was producing olive oil as well as wine.
Captain Duguid writes his Will
William
Duguid was suffering from some long-standing, unidentified, medical condition
and his health deteriorated during the voyage to Cape Horn. He must have feared that his condition was
terminal because just as the Ascalon was about to round Cape Horn, he wrote his last will and
testament, which was transcibed and witnessed by his first officer, WH Langford. The second witness was his
Steward, Mr A Reeder. The text follows. "Ship "Ascalon" November 26th 1887 Lat 56.53S Long 72.54W The last will and statement of William Henry
Duguid. I William Henry Duguid being of
sound mind do hereby bequeath to my wife Maria Duguid all my personal estate
consisting of money out at interest, ship shares, stock shares, insurances and all
other monies and properties of every description. And I do hope that she will
bring up her children as respectable members of society and I further hope that
she will not marry again until all the children are of age or otherwise well provided for. To my daughter Lily I hope that she will give the very best
education, so that she may be fitted to take the position of teacher in any
school William Henry Duguid”. Duguid's signature is in a very shaky hand, in marked contrast to the elegant script of Langford the Mate. Clearly William Duguid was exercised by his
imminent mortality and included items in his will which were really his hopes
for the future of his family. His
children were of great concern to him.
At that time, the ages of his offspring were Lilian 19, Falkland 18,
Percy 17 and Edward 14, which would have barred his wife from re-marrying until
1895. However, she never re-married,
dying in 1916. Sadly, Lilian appears
never to have become a teacher. Further,
there is no evidence that she ever had any profession or occupation and appears
never to have married. Falkland became a
Stockbroker’s Clerk and did not marry until he was 42. Percy appears to have become a soldier and
Edward a civil engineer. Mrs Maria Duguid was subsequently granted probate over
her husband’s personal estate, which was valued at £3,190, roughly equivalent
to £290,000 in modern money.
Crisis
in the South Atlantic
By
the time Ascalon had rounded the Cape, Duguid’s condition was so serious that it
was decided, presumably by the First Officer, WH Langford, to seek medical help
in Port Stanley, capitol of the Falkland Islands. The weather conditions were very difficult
and, as a result, the vessel went ashore at the entrance to Port Stanley. She was got off and an inspection by divers
showed that the forefoot had been displaced aft, the false keel had been
knocked off and the copper sheathing was chafed. However, the damage was not so serious that
she could not continue, so Ascalon resumed her journey on 10th
January 1888, still with the very sick Captain Duguid on board. It is not clear what medical help had been
available in Port Stanley. The ship
Andora from Portland, Oregon for Hull then spoke to the Ascalon on the equator. She reported that Ascalon was leaky and that
Captain Duguid was very ill. A week
after leaving the Falklands, on 17th January 1888, William Henry
Duguid died on board Ascalon. He was 64
and had been at sea for about 50 years in sailing ships, 37 of them as master.
There is no evidence for his body having been brought back to London and no
evidence for a burial in Britain, so it seems most likely that he was buried at
sea, somewhere just north of the equator and probably in mid-Atlantic. Ascalon, now under the command of Mr
Langford, arrived at Gravesend on 5th March 1888. Langford was given permanent command of the
vessel and left for Adelaide on 5th May 1888. Life, especially commercial life, carried on.
William Duguid’s Personal Attributes
On
hearing of the death of Captain Duguid, the South Australian Advertiser wrote,
“Captain Duguid was well known in mercantile circles, particularly at the
Port. He was of an exceedingly
good-natured disposition and was highly respected by all who knew him as a
skilful shipmaster, a good man of business and a kind friend”. This seems a very fair assessment of the man. His amiability and civility were well
illustrated by the addresses published by the single women passengers on Conway
in 1854 and by the bounty passengers after the arrival of the same vessel in
Hobart the following year. The crew were
often happier with the behaviour of Duguid than they were with his officers,
such as the boatswain on the Conway in 1855 and the first officer John Linley
on the Solway in 1860. There were also
several instances of him forgiving crew disobedience and even paying a
crewman’s fine for drunkenness. William
Duguid was also vigilant at times of potential danger, such as that recorded by
diarist Annie Gratton off the coast of Brazil in July 1858, when he stayed on
watch to ensure they kept clear of the coast during the night. William Duguid lost two ships during his
career, the Solway to a hurricane at anchor in Calcutta and the Juliet to
storms and onshore currents at Saten Island, off Tierra del Fuego. There was no evidence that his seamanship was
at fault in either case, the cause being held to be ordinary hazard of the sea. On his appointment to be master of the Juliet
the Melbourne Argus described Duguid as “one of the most successful commanders
in the Black Ball line. He is, moreover,
favourably known in this port to which he has voyaged in the Solway, Conway and
other ships.” After returning to London
in the Juliet in March 1871, William Duguid sent out a collection of flower
seeds for the Botanical Garden in Geelong, perhaps repaying a favour he had
received along the way. Captain Duguid
was certainly commercially astute, as can be seen from the variety of routes he
took back to Britain, with diversions along the way when commercial
opportunities arose, two particular examples being his exploitation of the
opportunity offered by the Otago gold rush in February 1863 and his offer to
carry ore specimens from New South Wales to San Francisco for evaluation in
1872.
Captain Duguid and Great Circle
Sailing
Black
Ball captains were amongst the first to exploit the theories of John Towson
concerning the value of great circle sailing in making fast passage by
following the track of shortest distance between two points on the surface of
the earth. In particular James Nicol
Forbes followed Towson’s principles religiously and achieved very fast passages
in the Marco Polo and the Lightning. But
there was a price to pay by the passengers on such a voyage in discomfort from
the style of sailing, the penetration of sea water into the ‘tween decks, the
risk of collision with icebergs and the extreme cold of high southern
latitudes. Forbes would often sail at
latitudes greater than 50S, where it was stormy and cold. William Duguid must have been fully aware of
Towson’s work and the sailing patterns of his fellow masters but he did not
follow them to such high southern latitudes.
Duguid’s sailing reports, appearing in the Australian press after his
voyages in the Juliet, show that he repeatedly stuck to his own favoured
routing. He crossed the equator in
26-28W (approaching the coast of NE Brazil), the meridian of the Cape of Good
Hope in 42-44S, passing about 540 nautical miles south of the Cape and 350
nautical miles north of the Desolation Islands and ran down his easting in
43-46S. Captain Forbes, a noted great
circle sailor actually aimed for the Desolation Islands (and almost got ashore
there). The term “running down his
easting in a fixed latitude” shows that Duguid was not following a great circle
route, which requires a constantly changing compass bearing. Instead he seems to have been avoiding going
beyond 46S to obviate discomfort and danger for his passengers. The consequence was that his passages were
slower than those of the more heroic clipper captains, typically by about 20
days.
A Career in Numbers
During
a sailing career of 50 years, William Henry Duguid undertook 43 known major
voyages. They were made up as follows,
UK – Canada and northern US = 6, UK – West Indies and southern US = 7, UK –
Australia, returning by India, Burma or China = 7, UK – Australia, returning
via San Francisco = 4, UK – Australia = 13, UK – South America = 1, UK – India
= 3, UK – San Francisco = 1, UK – S Africa – Pacific North America = 1. He completed 17 or 18 circumnavigations of
the globe and sailed about 1 million nautical miles in total.
Conclusion
William
Henry Duguid rounded the stormy waters of Cape Horn on 20 occasions and had
particular connections with those seas.
His daughter Lilian had been conceived on the Southern Empire in those
waters and his son Falkland was born on the Juliet west of the Falklands, an
event commemorated in his name. His
former charge, the Sydney Dacres was wrecked in 1886 trying to enter harbour at
Port Stanley and Duguid was himself in command of the Juliet, en route for San
Francisco, when the vessel was driven ashore in adverse weather and sea
conditions on Staten Island in August 1878.
On his final journey around Cape Horn on the Ascalon in late 1887/early
1888, he realised he was terminally ill and wrote his will. When the vessel reached the Falklands his
First Officer sought medical help in Port Stanley but the vessel went ashore in
poor weather. His voyage and his life ended
when he died a week after leaving the Falklands. It would be fitting if he was buried at sea,
as seems likely to have happened. William Duguid never made the transition
from sail to steam but, at the end of his career, he was one of the most
experienced and respected deep sea sailing skippers. Truly, he was a master of his profession.
Don Fox
20120520,
20160104
donaldpfox@gmail.com
donaldpfox@gmail.com
