West Australian Voyage History

Completed May 1859; Official No. 21099; Code Letters NDVM; Code Letters HGDF.
Owners: 1 June 1859 Park Bros, Hartlepool; 1864 John Williamson, Milligan & Co, Liverpool; 1894 Larssen & Kiaer, Drammen, Norway; 1896 Hans Kiaer & Co, Drammen, Norway.
Masters: 1861-63 J Downie; 1864-70 H Luke; 1874-77 Samuel Johns Andrew (b. 1851 Penzance C.N. 26206 Liverpool 1867); 1878-93 James Thomas; 1894-95 D Christiansen; 1895-96 JC Kolderup; 1896 E Olsen.
Voyages: from London 22 March 1864 arrived Wellington, New Zealand 1 July 1864 with 87 passengers; December 1864 sailed from Valparaiso for Liverpool; 12 August 1872 arrived Deal from Cochin.

Daily Telegraph 25 June 1890:

‘The captain of the Barque West Australian which reached Hobson’s Bay on Sunday afternoon from Mauritius, tells of the loss of one of his crew, a tale which has peculiarly sad features. Benjamin Larne, the captain’s nephew, a youth of 17, who had served two years as an ordinary seaman, was the last of the three sons of his widowed mother, who lives in Pembrokeshire. Each of his brothers had been drowned at sea at about his age when completing apprenticeship & he has met with the same fate during West Australian’svoyage from Port Louis. The weather was very stormy & the vessel was rolling a good deal. The lad had been sent aloft to overhaul the maintopgallant buntlines. He had just reached the masthead when he lost his hold, & fell headlong into the troubled sea. The captain instantly threw a lifebuoy towards him, but as he could not swim & was moreover hampered by his oilskins it is scarcely likely that he reached it. The ship was brought to as soon as possible & a boat was got into readiness. Then the captain wore the ship round, & sailed to the west for an hour & a half, with men on the mainroyal yard & mizzenmasthead to keep a lookout but nothing could be seen of the boy. The barque then tacked to the north east, but as darkness was coming on, the search had to be given up as hopeless. Everyone on board felt the loss deeply as the lad was a general favourite.’

May 1891 from Cardiff for Rosario she put into Montevideo having been partially dismasted in a gale; Bound from Hamburg arrived at Sydney on 9 February 1894.

West Australian had loaded 450 tons of copra when she was driven ashore during a hurricane at Hapai, Tonga Islands & abandoned on 3 February 1896. The German barque Woosung suffered the same fate. No lives were lost.

Crew at Sydney, NSW February 1894: