Stirling Castle (1829 brig)

Stirling Castle was launched in 1829. She wrecked in 1836 on Eliza Reef on passage from Sydney for Singapore and Manila.

For other ships with the same name, see Stirling Castle (ship).

United Kingdom
Name: Stirling Castle
Namesake: Stirling Castle
Owner: Abrams & Co.[1]
Builder: Miramichi, New Brunswick[1]
Launched: 1829
Fate: Wrecked 21 or 25 May 1836
General characteristics
Tons burthen: 350[1] (bm)
Artist's impression of the shipwreck

Career

Stirling Castle enters Lloyd's Register in 1830 with Fraser, Master, and Abrams & Co., owners, and trade Greenock–Quebec.[2]

Before her fateful voyage, Stirling Castle had sailed from Greenock, Scotland, to the colony of Sydney in 1831 with John Dunmore Lang's "mechanics" with the intention to build the Australian College and the founding members of the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts. One family that was on board this trip was the Petrie family that became a prominent Queensland family after arriving in Moreton Bay penal settlement in 1837.

Loss

In 1836 Stirling Castle was under the command of Captain James Fraser.[3][Note 1] She ran aground on 25 May 1836 on the Swain Reefs (near present-day Rockhampton, Queensland) while travelling from Sydney to Singapore.[4] The surviving members of the crew, including Fraser and his wife Eliza, managed to journey to the nearby K'gari Island, where they camped for several days before being taken into the camps of the local Butchulla people, the local group of Aboriginal people.[4] James Fraser died while in their captivity (accounts differ as to whether he died due to starvation, or as a result of being speared), but some members of his crew survived and were later rescued by a Lt. Charles Otter.[5] Lloyd's List reported on 14 March 1837 that Stirling Castle, Fraser (late), master, had been totally lost on Eliza Reef.

Eliza Fraser later returned to England where her services as a storyteller proved to be very much in demand. In memory of Fraser, K'gari Island was renamed Fraser Island after this incident,[6] though it is still known as K'gari by the Butchulla.[7]

Post-script

In late December 2015, YouTube personality Stuart Ashen reviewed a bottle of olives that had allegedly been salvaged from the shipwreck.[8] While the video refers to them as being 130 years old, he has recently pointed out that they are in fact 180 years old, which coincides with the date that the ship went down.

Notes, citations, and references

Notes

  1. On 6 May 1829 Fraser was captain of Comet when she was wrecked in Torres Strait.

Citations

  1. Hackman (2001), p. 314.
  2. Lloyd's List (1839), Supple. pages, Seq.№S76.
  3. Jettens, Jan. "Stirling Castle (+1836)". Wrecksites.eu. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  4. Larissa, Behrendt (2016). Finding Eliza : power and colonial storytelling. St Lucia, Qld. ISBN 9780702253904. OCLC 921988410.
  5. Williams, Fred (2002). Princess K'Gari's Fraser Island: a history of Fraser Island. pp. 31–35. ISBN 0-9581034-0-2.
  6. Schaffer, Kay (1995). In the wake of first contact: the Eliza Fraser stories. CUP Archive. pp. 4. ISBN 0-521-49577-6.
  7. "K'gari | SBS interactive documentary". SBS. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
  8. Ashen, Stuart. "130 Year Old Olives". YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved 1 January 2016.

References

  • Hackman, Rowan (2001). Ships of the East India Company. Gravesend, Kent: World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-96-7.
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