Lady Denison (ship)

The Lady Denison was a ship that went missing between Port Adelaide and Hobart, Tasmania in 1850. At the time there were strong allegations that convicts being carried on board murdered the other passengers and crew and headed for San Francisco, although all contemporary evidence proves conclusively that ship sank off the far north-western tip of Tasmania.

The Lady Denison

The Lady Denison was a barque of 158 tons, built at Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1847 and was owned in Hobart by Nathan, Moses & Company. The ship had been built by convict labour as a speculation by the Colonial Government, and had traded extensively around south-eastern Australia and the Pacific before being placed in a regular run between Port Adelaide and Hobart.

Freighting Convicts

Although South Australia prided itself as a colony not founded by convict transportation, locally convicted felons were sent to Van Diemens Land secured below decks on commercial sailing vessels. The Lady Denison was engaged in this trade when she sailed from Port Adelaide for Hobart on 17 April 1850 under Captain Hammond with a crew of 12, 16 paying passengers, 11 convicts, and three prison guards. She failed to arrive and dark rumours of her fate spread rapidly. Several months later a large quantity of wreckage positively identified as coming from the vessel was found on the Tasmanian coast south of Cape Grim. The anti-transportation press asserted that the convicts had thrown the articles overboard to hide their crime. During the Australian gold rush there were rumours that James Coyle, one of the convicts by the ship had been seen in Victoria, Australia and another had sent letters to Australia from California.

Analysis

The alleged mutiny and massacre of the Lady Denison was part of the Australasian Anti-Transportation League's campaign against the transportation of convicts to Van Diemens Land, which was largely carried out by means of public rallies and press reports in papers owned by its supporters, all aiming at vilifying the convict population. Similar baseless allegations were made four years later after the ship Madagascar went missing between Melbourne and London.

Weather conditions at the time the Lady Denison approached the Tasmanian coastline were extreme, two other vessels being lost in Bass Strait around the time. There is circumstantial evidence that wreckage including bodies were found by sealers in the vicinity of Arthur River, Tasmania, the bodies plundered of valuables and disposed of, and the circumstances not reported so their actions were hidden. In addition, one or more convicts may have managed to struggle ashore alive. James Coyle, in particular, had himself been a convict escapee from Van Diemens Land, had worked in the Circular Head area, and probably still had friends willing to help him.

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