Lady Penrhyn (ship)
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The Lady Penrhyn was a First Fleet transport ship of 338 tons, built on the River Thames in 1786. Her master, William Cropton Sever, was part-owner. John Turnpenny Altree was surgeon to the convicts, and Arthur Bowes Smyth was surgeon to the ship. She left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787, carrying 101 female convicts, and arrived at Port Jackson, Sydney, Australia, on 26 January 1788. She had been chartered by the British East India Company, and left Port Jackson on 5 May 1788 to sail to China for a cargo of tea. She arrived back in England in mid August 1789.
The Lady Penrhyn was part-owned by London alderman and sea-biscuit manufacturer William Curtis.[1]
Curtis was a London Lord Mayor of the 1790s, who sent a regular tea ship to China. Curtis was affectionally known as 'Billy Biscuit' because of his family links to sea biscuit manufacture. Curtis' speech about reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic', belied his literacy level which didn't have a lot to do with his success in life.
[edit] References
- ^ Byrnes, D. 0ngoing, The Blackheath Connection: The Phantom First Fleet to Australia, Available [online] http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/blackheath/phantom.htm
[edit] Further reading
- Gillen, Mollie, The Founders of Australia: a biographical dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1989.
- Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships, 1787–1868, Sydney, 1974.
- Arthur Bowes Smythe's journal aboard the Lady Penrhyn - State Library of NSW