Charles Eaton (1833 ship)

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

History
United Kingdom
NameCharles Eaton
NamesakeCharles Eaton, former Port Master of
Coringa
BuilderWilliam Smoult Temple,
Madras, India[citation needed
]
Launched1833
FateWrecked 1834
General characteristics
Tons burthen350, or 400 (bm)
Sail planFull sail

Charles Eaton was a

Mer Island. A cabin boy and small child survived and lived with the islanders until being rescued by Captain Lewis and crew on Isabella in June 1836, who also found skulls of some of the murdered people on a nearby island and took them back to Sydney
for burial.

Career

Reputedly a fine-looking wooden barque, she was built in a shipbuilding yard at

chunam and felt.[citation needed
]

She was named after a Captain Charles Eaton, a former ship's captain, trader and owner of several ships, who gave up the sea to settle ashore as the Port Master of Coringa, a town to the north of Madras. He died there in 1827. One of his daughters, Sophia, married William Gibson, at one time the manager of a shipbuilding yard in the region. Eaton's son, Captain Charles W. Eaton, took over his father's role as Coringa's Port Master from 1828 to 1838, and was the part-owner of at least three merchant ships.[1]

Charles Eaton, under the command of Captain Fowle, arrived in London with 1000 chests of

Bombay, and wrecked on reefs off Coringa in 1832, has been reshipped per Charles Eaton".[1]

Gledstanes & Co. had recently purchased the ship, for use as a sailing ship usable for general purposes and passengers.[1]

Her first trading voyage from

Thames River on 20 December 1833, and set sail the next day with favourable winds. After a stopover at The Downs to collect more passengers from the village of Deal, she collided with another vessel.[1][2] She left Falmouth, England for good on 5 February 1834 with sundry cargo, including calicoes and lead.[3][1]

The wreck

Charles Eaton was en route from

Bengal Artillery, his wife Charlotte, his two sons George and William, and their Indian ayah (nurse). The barque left Sydney on 29 July 1834 and was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef near the Sir Charles Hardy Islands on 15 August 1834.[1][4][5]

Five of the crew took one of the quarter boats and set out for

Tanimbar group of islands.[5][4]

Image from John Ireland’s book The shipwrecked orphans: A true narrative of shipwreck and sufferings of John Ireland and William Doyly (Teller's amusing, instructive and entertaining tales).

Those remaining at the wreck made two rafts, the first of which set sail with all the passengers, Captain Moore, surgeon Grant, steward Montgomery and two strong sailors to man the oars. They reached a small sandy cay now called Boydang, inhabited at the time by visiting Torres Strait islanders, who killed all the adults and kept their skulls for their daily ceremonial rituals.[5] Only William and George D'Oyly were spared.[4]

The second raft left Charles Eaton's wreck with the rest of the crew and they, too, were murdered and beheaded by the visiting party of islanders.[4]

Of the 26[4] or 27 people and the ship's dog, Portland, remaining with the wreck, only four boys initially survived.[6] The rest were killed by Torres Strait Islanders. They were the two young ship's boys, John Ireland and John Sexton, and the two D'Oyly children, George, aged seven, and William, aged three. Sexton and George D'Oyly died soon afterwards.[4][6]

John Ireland and William D'Oyly lived with their captors for some months, and were eventually exchanged to a couple from Murray Island (local name Mer) in the Torres Strait, for a bunch of bananas.[4][6]

The two boys were treated with kindness by the Murray Islanders, being renamed Wak and Uass, and lived with them from about September/October 1834 until June 1836.[4][6]

Rescue

The rescue of William D'Oyly, 1841

On 3 June 1836 the 126-ton colonial schooner Isabella, commanded by Captain Charles Morgan Lewis, was dispatched from Sydney Cove to make a search for reported survivors of the Charles Eaton being held captive at Murray Island. The Isabella arrived at Murray Island on 19 June[6] and the two survivors were handed over to Captain Lewis, after which Lewis and his crew took masks from Mer while interacting with the local people.[7]

After being told by a group of locals on the island of Massid (

Kulka. Lewis and his men took the skulls and mask, and set fire to everything on the island, including plantations of tobacco. Lewis dubbed the island "Skull Island", although this name was not taken up.[7]

Aftermath

Apart from the surviving youths, Isabella also carried back artefacts collected by Lewis as well as the skulls that were found on the island of

Bunnerong Cemetery at Botany Bay in Sydney.[4][9]

Memorial to Thomas Prockter Ching in St Mary Magdalene's Church, Launceston, Cornwall.

Captain Lewis took William D'Oyly to relatives in London, departing Sydney on

harbour master at Port Phillip in 1840, but later suffered from insanity and became destitute.[4]

In literature

The fate of the passengers inspired the book Drums of Mer (1933) by Ion Idriess,[10][11] which he later reworked into a children's book, Headhunters of the Coral Sea.[12]

The story has also been told in other works of historical fiction and non-fiction (see Further Reading below).

The Lewis Collection

A collection of

Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen some time before the fire, including a large mask which, it has been suggested, may be the mask from Aureed.[13][14][15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Part One: outward bound". Charles Eaton Shipwreck. 17 June 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  2. ^ "Charles Eaton (ship) at Cowes for repairs". The Caledonian Mercury. newspapers.com. 11 January 1834. p. 4. Retrieved 23 February 2019. Shipping Intelligence. Cowes, Jan. 5. The Charles Eaton, Moore, from London to. New, South. Wales, and the Active, Holman, from Portsmouth to Bristol, have put back, the. former with bowsprit sprung and cutwater damaged, and the latter with the hull cut down to the water's edge, having been in contact. Jan. 6. The Charles Eaton, in being towed into the harbour, grounded, and remains.
  3. ^ Pyke, Roger; McInnes, Allan. "Thomas Prockter Ching". launcestonthen. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k McInnes, Allan, 1927- (1981). "The wreck of the "Charles Eaton"". Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland. 11 (4). Royal Historical Society of Queensland: 21–50. Retrieved 4 August 2021 – via University of Queensland. Read to a Meeting of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland on 24 February 1983.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) (Also here.)
  5. ^ a b c Peek, Veronica (16 June 2012). "Part Two: the long wait for news". Charles Eaton: wake for the melancholy shipwreck. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  6. ^ a b c d e Peek, Veronica (16 June 2012). "Part Three: their fate is so horrible". Charles Eaton: wake for the melancholy shipwreck. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  7. ^ a b c Peek, Veronica (16 June 2012). "Part Four: a tale of two boys". Charles Eaton: wake for the melancholy shipwreck. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  8. ^ Peek, Veronica (16 June 2012). "Part Five: sad epitaphs and savage retribution". Charles Eaton: wake for the melancholy shipwreck. Retrieved 5 August 2021. (includes Waterloo Creek and Myall Creek massacres)
  9. ^ McInnes, Allan (1983). The Wreck Of The Charles Eaton. Windsor: Diamond Press. p. 45.
  10. ^ Interview with Ion Idriess", ABC
  11. The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser
    . Vol. XXXIV, no. 2839. New South Wales, Australia. 19 July 1836. p. 3. Retrieved 28 March 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. ^ "Books of the Week". The News. Vol. XXXV, no. 5, 408. South Australia. 23 November 1940. p. 2. Retrieved 8 May 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  13. ^ "Our Global Neighbours: Mask with Human Skulls". The Australian Museum. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  14. S2CID 162068152
    .
  15. S2CID 162068152. Retrieved 5 August 2021 – via JSTOR
    .

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles Eaton (ship, 1833).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Eaton_(1833_ship)&oldid=1196891834"