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  1. #1
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default Wreck of the Convict Ship Waterloo 1842

    The South African Commercial Advertiser for 31 August 1842 and for 3, 7 and 10 September 1842 carried reports of the wreck of the convict ship Waterloo. If anyone has found reference to an ancestor being transported in 1842, but has found no reference to them in Australia, they may be on this list. You can use CTRL F to search for a particular name. Posts 2 and 3 contain some interesting editorials even if you have no ancestors involved.

    List of the Prisoners lost by the Wreck of the Waterloo, August 28th 1842:

    James THELWALL
    James SKERRATT
    Abraham MILLS
    John TAYLOR
    James JACKSON
    Edmund HARDMAN
    John GODDARD
    Richard HOWARD
    John NORTH
    Richard MARSH
    John STONE
    Edward NEWTON
    Daniel RIGDEN
    Henry MEPSTED
    George THORN
    Richard ADCOCK
    Henry PROCTOR
    Thomas CLARK
    James WILLIAMS
    Edward ALEXANDER
    Sydney ALDRIDGE
    Abraham SCATCHARD
    William WOODWARD
    Frederick WIGHTWICK
    John ATTWOOD
    William SAINT
    James DAVIS
    George CUNNINGHAM
    George LLOYD
    Robert WELLS
    James BARNES
    William THISELTON
    William NASH
    Richard HILL
    William STAMPS
    William LOW
    George GARNER
    George BRADBURY
    Alexander JOHNSON
    Thomas JOHNSON
    Charles GREEN
    Henry DAWES
    Richard EDMONDS
    John JONES
    Robert ESSON
    James ELLIOTT
    Robert FAIRFAX
    Richard HEWITT
    Richard TAYLOR
    Joseph FLINT
    William JONES
    Richard HOLYLAND
    John SHORT
    George HARRIS
    John BROWN
    John BULMORE
    Richard PARKER
    Jennis JACKS
    William HAMLET
    William MOORE
    ___ BROOKES
    James ARMITAGE
    Charles BLYTH
    Isaac HANCOCK
    Points HOWELL
    Daniel STEWART
    Henry HICKS
    George BAALAM
    John ROBINSON
    Edward BIRCH
    James BAMBER
    James WILKES
    James CARSON
    Charles WORKMAN
    Thomas PARSONS
    Benjamin CURRAY
    Thomas COWLEY
    John CRAIG
    Peter WINSTANLEY
    William GOULDING
    Henry MARRIOTT
    John PEACOCK
    Felix CURRAY
    George HETHERINGTON
    George WYLES
    Edward GREGORY
    Thomas WILLSON
    John JONES
    Francis BARNES
    Angus McKINNON
    John LEDINGHAM
    Thomas SMEDLY
    John REYNOLDS
    John HAWKINS
    James BIRCH
    John ELLIS
    James DUNCAN
    Joseph BARKER
    Thomas PEARMAN
    Bertrand EDMONDS
    Henry BARNSLEY
    James CLARK
    Thomas HILL
    John WILDING
    James GREENHAM
    Hugh CAMPBELL
    James KNOTT
    Robert NEWTON
    James JOBLIN
    John THOMPSON
    John BROOMFIELD
    Thomas VOSE
    Robert PARKINSON
    John SMALLY
    George GILES
    Thomas POWNALL
    Henry MORGAN
    William WRIGHT
    John LOVATT
    William BIGGS
    Thomas BOSWELL
    Thomas KIRWIN
    Daniel MURPHY
    John NOWLAN
    William GYOURY
    Nathaniel JENKINS
    Robert WALTHAM
    James HEWITT
    James KING
    George WILLIAMS
    John BROOKES
    Frederick PURSER
    William WHITE
    John ROSSER
    William ROSSER
    James ROSSER
    Thomas HEWITT
    Elijah MARTIN
    Emanuel OSBORN
    Thomas BARLOW
    George JONES
    Jonathan PACKER
    Richard CRANE

    The above is a correct Return of Prisoners drowned at the Wreck of the Convict Ship Waterloo.
    (Signed) Henry KELSALL MD, Surgeon RN.

    Names of Men of the Guard and the Soldier’s Wife who were saved on the 28th August from the wreck of the Waterloo.
    Lieut. HEXT, 4th “The King’s Own” Regt, commanding the Guard.
    99th Regt:
    Ensign C. LEIGH
    Corporal CULLUM
    Corporal ARMSTRONG
    Private BAWN
    Private BROADHEAD
    Private BROADBENT
    Private BAUNAN
    Private BERNE
    Private MONAGHAN
    Private PEARCE
    Private RUTHERFOORD
    Private TAYLOR
    Private WARD
    Private YARDLEY
    Private MOORE
    Drummer ARMSTRONG
    Mrs. MULVANEY.

    Names of those who were lost on the 28th August:
    Serjeant SMITH, Mrs. SMITH and three children.
    Corporal MULVANEY and one child.
    Corporal MADDEN
    Private NESTOR, Mrs. NESTOR and one child.
    Private GREENLESS, Mrs. GREENLESS and three children.
    Private AHERN
    Private MUIR
    Private ASKEY
    Private BARNACLE
    Private BYRNE
    Private BEAUMONT
    Private REYNOLDS
    Private VINCENT
    Private WARBURTON
    Private WHITMORE
    Also Mrs. ARMSTRONG and five children.
    All the lost belonging to the 99th Regt.

    Total Saved: 1 Lieutenant, 1 Ensign, 2 Corporals, 1 Drummer, 12 Privates and 1 Woman.
    Total Lost: 1 Serjeant, 2 Corporals, 12 Privates, 4 Women and 13 Children.
    Capt. AGER, the Master of the Waterloo, was saved; also Mr. JACKSON, Chief Mate; Mr. GUNNER, 2nd do; Mr. GILL, 3rd do; and fifteen of the crew.
    The boatswain, Mr. CHIVERTON, was lost; also the sailmaker, the carpenter and 11 of the crew.
    Charles Stanisforth HEXT, Lt.
    4th “The King’s Own” Regt.

    List of the Convicts received in Cape Town Prison from the wreck of the Waterloo, 2nd September 1842.
    1. Stephen PARKER
    2. Joseph HERNSHAW
    3. David JONES
    4. John JONES
    5. William JOHNSON
    6. William DODSWELL
    7. John MARTIN
    8. Robert STEWART
    9. William WILLIAMS
    10. James BROWN
    11. William HENRY
    12. Leslie CLARK
    13. Henry HUNT
    14. Richard BAKER
    15. Edward MOORE
    16. Joseph SLAWSON
    17. Edward CAPSTACK
    18. William SMITH
    19. Joseph DARBISHIRE
    20. Charles CARTWRIGHT
    21. William CARTER
    22. William SIMPSON
    23. Frederick HUDSON
    24. Frederick CHESHIRE
    25. William HESKETH
    26. Charles DAVIS
    27. James HARVEY
    28. Thomas William WEETMAN
    29. William BREKHAM
    30. John HARRIS
    31. Edward ALEXANDER
    32. William JONES
    33. Thomas ASHWORTH
    34. Thomas SQUIRES
    35. Iven HARDWICKE
    36. William GARDNER
    37. John WINTERBURN
    38. William CLARKE
    39. William SINDEN
    40. William KINGGATE
    41. Thomas RODGERS
    42. James MARFILE
    43. John DAVIS
    44. John COLLENS
    45. Joseph DARWEN
    46. William WATKINS
    47. Thomas TAYLOR
    48. John GARNER
    49. John CLARKE
    50. Thomas STANDING
    51. James WATKISON
    52. John SMITH
    53. John BEAUMONT
    54. Henry SUTTON
    55. James GREEN
    56. John JOHNSTONE
    57. John WILLIAMS
    58. William FRENCH
    59. Daniel BURNS
    60. William MOOBAY
    61. Thomas HILL
    62. Thomas MILES
    63. Robert NIXON
    64. John WILLIAMS
    65. John CLIFFORD
    66. Alexander SMITH
    67. John GILBERT
    68. William ROBERTSHAW
    69. Mathew COWLEY
    70. William TIPPIN
    71. John ROBERTS
    72. John THOMAS
    73. William COLLINS
    74. James WILKES
    75. John ASTBURY
    76. Wm. RICHARDS
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  2. #2
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default Editorial 31 August 1842

    Cape Town, August 31 1842
    On the forenoon of Sunday last two large vessels, the Abercrombie Robinson and the Waterloo went on shore on the South Eastern beach at the bottom of Table Bay.
    Both vessels were engaged as Transports by the British Government. The Abercrombie Robinson had on board, besides her crew and several passengers, 501 soldiers with their officers. She was a large Ship of nearly 1500 tons burden. After grounding near the shore she stood upright, and no lives have been lost. She will probably, or rather certainly, be a total wreck.
    The Waterloo, a Ship of 414 tons, bound to Van Diemen’s Land, had on board, besides her crew, two hundred and nineteen male convicts, Dr. HELSELL in charge, Lt. HEXT, Ensign LEIGH, thirty men of HM 99th Regiment, five women and thirteen children. She took the ground between eleven and twelve o’clock in the forenoon and in fifteen or twenty minutes became a mass of rubbish, And now ensued a most piteous massacre. In about two hours and a half, amidst the crumbling heaps of their perfidious prison – of men, women and children, one hundred and ninety four were crushed, disabled and drowned.
    There was no preparation for saving life made on board or on shore. No life buoys, no coils of ropes lashed to casks, nor any apparatus for establishing a communication with the shore from the Ship.
    On the shore there was no Life Boat, no apparatus for throwing ropes over stranded vessels, nor any thing, in short, to show that the Government or people here had ever before heard of such a thing as a shipwreck. We stood amongst thousands on the beach within a hundred and fifty yards of the dissolving fabric, looking on the agonised faces of our fellow creatures, as they sunk in dozens, battered and bruised and suffocated – useless as children, or idiots, or wild Caffers. As corpse after corpse floated to our feet, and was raised from the brine, there seemed a curse in every dead man’s eye on the improvidence, the imbecility, the brutish indifference to human suffering and human life, to which, combined with fiendish avarice, so many miserable souls had been sacrificed.
    For this ship, it appears, was built twenty seven years ago at Bristol, of light materials for the timber trade. No longer fit to carry logs, she is patched up like other whited sepulchres, stuffed with a living cargo by a contractor, and dispatched to the ends of the earth – a voyage of more than twenty thousand miles.
    No doubt a “survey of professional men” will “find” that there was no fault anywhere; that the Waterloo was a sound ship, thoroughly repaired, and perfectly seaworthy; that she had on board all the equipments requisite for such a voyage and such a consignment; that the officers of the ship did all that human strength, directed by skill and animated by humanity, could do; and that the accident must be ascribed entirely to a hurricane, a mountainous sea, and a remarkably hard beach.
    Now as to the hurricane and the mountainous sea, it is enough to observe that there were twenty other vessels at anchor in the Bay, besides the Waterloo and the Abercrombie Robinson, and none of them parted from their anchors, or dragged them to any perceptible extent. The wind was blowing a gale, but by no means a violent one, and it was partly off shore. The sea was not running unusually high. Without ropes in their hands or any precaution, men walked into the water up to their shoulders to drag out the bodies of the dead and dying, without the slightest risk. This could not have been done had the surf been such as a gale causes on an open beach. These are facts to which thousands can bear witness.
    With respect to the bottom or ground where the ship struck, some say it is rock, others that it is sand, like the rest of the beach. As soon as the weather is fine it will be examined, and the most convenient spaces marked for this method of disembarking Her Majesty’s troops or convicts.
    For some years back such “accidents” have been ascribed to the insufficiency of Lighthouses at the entrance of the Bay. That fault has just been fully remedied. The old Lighthouse is now properly attended, and the new one is so well placed, and so brilliant, that no man dare pretend to miss it, or to mistake it for anything else. These and some further improvements in this department, still in progress, were forced on the Government by the remonstrances of the Public, and particularly of the mercantile body.
    When the Helen was lost at the entrance of the Bay, four or five months ago, the Commercial Committee very properly inquired into the cause, and found on the testimony of numerous witnesses that the Lights on that particular night were defective, and had thus misled the master of the vessel. This they represented to Government, and a remedy was instantly found.
    We recommend the same course in the present case. The committee cannot compel witnesses to attend or give evidence, but they can invite them; and if interested parties disregard such invitations, that fact will not be without meaning.
    These two wrecks will be much talked of at home. We think we can insure their being mentioned in Parliament. Let us show that we here are neither indifferent to human life nor to the character of our bay, which the villainy and the incapacity of strangers have too often brought into undeserved disrepute.
    In the midst of this unhesitating condemnation on some points, and charges of guilt on others, we have to mention that two unofficial spectators, Mr. MOLTENE and Mr. STILL, procured the assistance of a common boat belonging to a Malay, which reached the Waterloo after she was falling to pieces, and brought off two men, and on a second trip fastened a rope to the wreck. After this a larger boat, belonging to Messrs. SINCLAIR was brought from the Abercrombie Robinson, and moving backwards and forwards along the rope, saved a good many lives. This shows what might have been done by a Life Boat used in time.
    We purposely avoid going further into details at present, satisfied with thus openly charging all the parties concerned, before the world, with the offence of culpable negligence, or criminal intention. The world, let them be well assured, expects an answer, and will treat them according to the case they may make out in defence.
    It is not strange, by the way, that we should hear such lamentations from what is called the Shipping Interest, as if no employment could be had for their new-built, fine-moulded, copper-fastened A.I. Vessels, while for the most important of all services, the transport namely of troops, and of persons under Judicial Sentences, such vessels as the Waterloo find ready acceptance in the twenty seventh year of their fragility and rottenness? We shall endeavour to force our way through this moral confusion, convinced that either the Shipping Interest are a pack of liars or the Contractors a pack of knaves. The official gentry who grant the contracts and their cousins the Surveyors will naturally fall into their proper places in the course of the Inquiry.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  3. #3
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default Editorial 3 September 1842

    Cape Town, September 3 1842
    In speaking of the wreck of the Waterloo transport in Wednesday’s paper it was mentioned that she was built for the timber trade. This, we have been told, is not ascertained, and is probably incorrect. We have nothing else to correct in the statement now before the public.
    The Committee of the Commercial body have instituted an Inquiry into the circumstances attending this horrible event, as well as to the loss of the Abercrombie Robinson, on the same occasion. The attention of Government, and of the Admiral, has also been fixed on these two accidents, the public and the parties concerned may therefore expect that all the facts will be properly ascertained and made known.
    The loss of life by the ruin of the Waterloo is, we learn, as follows:
    Convicts 143
    Soldiers 15
    Sailors 14
    Women 4
    Children 14
    So great a loss of life has not happened in Table Bay since the year 1799. On the 5th November of that year His Majesty’s Ship Sceptre, Captain EDWARDS, was driven on shore and, like the Waterloo, immediately went to pieces, being an accursed old hulk on her way home to be broken up. A few hours after she struck not a vestige of her was to be seen, but the fragments of the wreck scattered on the strand, in myriads of pieces, not a single plank remaining whole, nor two attached together, Captain EDWARDS, his son, ten other officers, and near 300 seamen and marines perished.
    On the same day several other vessels went on shore, among the rest a Danish man-of-war 6½ guns. But their crew were all saved, as in the case of the Abercrombie Robinson on the present occasion.
    Taking advantage of the excitement caused by this melancholy event, funds have been raised, and measures are taken for constructing a Life Boat, and for having a Rocket Apparatus always in readiness in this Bay, for rendering assistance to vessels in distress, or for saving life.
    But something more is required. A Coroner’s Court must be established, through which a competent Magistrate, with a Jury, may at once ascertain the manner in which any man came by his death, whose dead body has been washed ashore from a wreck. The propriety of adding such a Court to our Judicial Establishment has been suggested to Government, and we feel confident that the suggestion will be attended to without unnecessary delay.
    In the absence of such a court we feel constrained, by a regard to truth and plain dealing, to send home along with the account of these two shipwrecks, our Protest on behalf of Table Bay. The weather, the water and the bottom are blameless.
    The Abercrombie Robinson came into the Bay on the evening of the 25th, when it was dark, proceeded too far up the Bay, and came to anchor in a position unsafe for her should it come on to blow. The wind did blow a gale with squalls, and she wisely went on shore with an anchor at her bows, thereby saving some seven hundred souls, most of whom must have perished had she foundered where she rode at anchor. Had she been in a proper position she would have rode out the weather like the other vessels.
    Of the Waterloo it is impossible to speak with moderation. Deadly blame rests somewhere, and justice will, we have no doubt, find out the parties that deserve it.
    And now it would be proper to ask a few questions respecting the precautions taken on board of all transports into which involuntary passengers, such as soldiers and convicts, are thrust by Government.
    1. Is it a rule to take the lowest tender, without respect to the Class of the vessel?
    2. Or does Government, as it ought, limit tenders to the first class vessels?
    3. Who are the surveyors? How are they paid? Do they receive money in any shape, and how much from the owners of the ships they survey for this service?
    4. Is it true that they are “hard-worked men, with small salaries and large families” and that a friendly help of fifteen or twenty guineas is sometimes added to the regular charge by the benevolent ship owner?
    5. When four, five or seven hundred souls are put on board a transport, is care taken to have at the same time the means of making signals in the dark and in foggy weather, in case of danger; or is all left to the chance of somebody seeing the flash of small arms, when the report of the same cannot be heard?
    6. Is extra apparatus carefully placed on board for saving life in case of wreck, such as Life Buoys, instruments for throwing lines, and the other well-known means of communicating with a lee shore?
    These are some of the questions that will be put, and that must be answered at home by the authorities, whoever they may be, to whose departments this branch of the service belongs. We have not leisure to pursue the subject farther today. Every reader can do it for himself.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  4. #4
    Jan1954
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    Well! I have found this fascinating - and none of my Ag Labs were involved!

    Thank you for posting this, Sue.

  5. #5
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    For those who are interested there is a painting of the wreck of the Waterloo in the Tasmania State Library.

    It seems that the survivors of the wreck who were transferred to Cape Town prison did eventually complete their journey to Van Diemen's Land on board 'Cape Packet'
    (Source: Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships 1787-1868, Brown, Son & Ferguson Ltd 1985, ISBN 0 85174 195 9)
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  6. #6
    rock island
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    My 2 x gt grandfather's brother was James GREENHAM. On 3rd January 1842 at Hertford Quarter Sessions, when he was 17, he was convicted of larceny and sentenced to 7 years transportation.
    He embarked on the Waterloo on 30th May 1842. I found his name on the list of convicts on the ship together with the annotation 'drowned'. I googled Waterloo and found this forum. Many thanks for posting this information Sue - it provides a wonderful insight to those harsh times.

  7. #7
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rock island View Post
    My 2 x gt grandfather's brother was James GREENHAM. On 3rd January 1842 at Hertford Quarter Sessions, when he was 17, he was convicted of larceny and sentenced to 7 years transportation.
    He embarked on the Waterloo on 30th May 1842. I found his name on the list of convicts on the ship together with the annotation 'drowned'. I googled Waterloo and found this forum. Many thanks for posting this information Sue - it provides a wonderful insight to those harsh times.
    So glad. And welcome to the Forum

    I hope now that you have found us you will stick around - there is a wonderful amount of information, and many people anxious to help with genealogical problems.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  8. #8
    spison
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    Sue

    Excellent list! The attached newspaper clippings are from the National Library of Australia's newsapaper database. Some are reproductions of ones you must have used from SA. The rest are from Australia. I don't think there's a list among them. (There are a couple of ring-ins in the search.)

    https://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del...e=full&sortBy=

    Jane
    Last edited by spison; 05-11-2009 at 8:32 PM. Reason: spelling added a bit

  9. #9
    R.Royal
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    God, thats so awful & tragic. All those poor people dying like that .

  10. #10
    spison
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sue Mackay View Post
    Cape Town, September 3 1842
    And now it would be proper to ask a few questions respecting the precautions taken on board of all transports into which involuntary passengers, such as soldiers and convicts, are thrust by Government.
    1. Is it a rule to take the lowest tender, without respect to the Class of the vessel?
    2. Or does Government, as it ought, limit tenders to the first class vessels?
    3. Who are the surveyors? How are they paid? Do they receive money in any shape, and how much from the owners of the ships they survey for this service?
    4. Is it true that they are “hard-worked men, with small salaries and large families” and that a friendly help of fifteen or twenty guineas is sometimes added to the regular charge by the benevolent ship owner?
    5. When four, five or seven hundred souls are put on board a transport, is care taken to have at the same time the means of making signals in the dark and in foggy weather, in case of danger; or is all left to the chance of somebody seeing the flash of small arms, when the report of the same cannot be heard?
    6. Is extra apparatus carefully placed on board for saving life in case of wreck, such as Life Buoys, instruments for throwing lines, and the other well-known means of communicating with a lee shore?
    These are some of the questions that will be put, and that must be answered at home by the authorities, whoever they may be, to whose departments this branch of the service belongs.
    Hi R. Royal,

    Yes it was but the government wasn't learning as 9 years earlier in 1833, the 'Hibernia' caught fire. If you want to read truly horrendous accounts go to the NLA link and search for 'Hibernia' wreck and read about what happened. Basically when fire broke out there were only enough boats to rescue about 80 of those on board - most of whom were crew - 150+ people were left on board the burning ship in the middle of the ocean.

    Ghastly

    Jane

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