Duke of Roxburgh (ship)

The Duke of Roxburgh was a timber hulled merchant barque of 498 tons (also cited as 417 tons) registered in London and sailing between Great Britain and the Australasian Colonies.[1] It was an Indiaman built by Smith and Sons at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1828 for Green and Wigram.[2]

The ship had a crew of 24 hands.[3] The Duke of Roxburgh was one of the earliest immigrant ships to Port Phillip, South Australia and New Zealand.[4] In the supplement section of the 1840 and 1841 Lloyd's Register the ship was noted as being sheathed in yellow metal in 1839. Its owners were J Somes and Collard.

Voyages included London (12 April 1838) to South Australia (28 July 1838) and Plymouth (5 October 1839) to Wellington (7 February 1840) under James Thomson, Master, being the third migrant ship to Wellington. On board were 80 males and 87 female migrants, including George Hunter, Samuel Duncan Parnell and William Lyon.

On 1 August 1841, she again left London, landing at Cork on 1 September and then arriving at Sydney on 10 January 1842. On board were 105 male and 142 female passengers, predominantly migrants.

On 7 May 1843, the Duke, as she was affectionately known by crew and passengers, sailed under Captain Collard from England with Francis Russell Nixon, the first Bishop of Tasmania, his wife and family, and Archdeacon Fitzherbert Marriott, together with six other cabin passenger including John Helder Wedge and the future squatter Henry Godfrey. Sailing via Trinidad, Ascension Island, Cape Colony, the Duke reached Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, on 21 July 1843.

She left Hobart Town the following January and arrived at Gravesend on 5 June 1844.

The Duke of Roxburgh sailed again from Gravesend on 31 October 1846 and arrived at Port Phillip on 7 March 1847.

She arrived at Moreton Bay, Capt E. Kirsopp, 8 November 1851 from Amoy 16 August 1851 having touched at the Island of Ascension. Passengers were 227 Chinese labourers.[5] She departed again on 26 November 1851 for Sydney with passengers Mrs Swift, Miss Douglass, Mrs Gray, Mr Coxen, Mr Issac, Mr McDonald and Mr R. Moore.[6]

The fate of the ship is unknown.

References

  1. ↑ http://mariners.records.nsw.gov.au/1849/08/282duk.htm
  2. ↑ 116, The Blackwall Frigates, Bsdil Lubbock, Charles E Lauriat Co, Boston, 1922
  3. ↑ Salvage Awards #53; A digest of the law and practice of the High Court of Admiralty of England: with notes from text writers and the Scotch, Irish, and American reports - Volume 2; William Tarn Pritchard, Robert Albion Pritchard, and Algernon Jones; High Court of Admiralty - Great Britain; Edition 2; Stevens; 1865; page 817
  4. ↑ Duke of Roxburgh, White Wings (volume II), Henry Brett, The Brett Printing Company Limited, Auckland, 1928
  5. ↑ The Moreton Bay Courier, 15 November 1851
  6. ↑ The Moreton Bay Courier, 29 November 1851