The British Empire

'The British Empire (ship), 2679 tons register, 5000 tons burden,' wrote the editor of the ship's newspaper, the British Empire Gazette, 'is the property of John Murthwaite, shipbuilder, and is, we believe, the largest sailing British ship afloat. She was built in 1851, on the Avon, at Bristol.'

This ship was originally designed to be a steamer. She was launched as such and christened the Demarara , but then suffered a most unfortunate and unusual accident. As she was being dropped downstream her bow swung onto a mudbank and stuck. In the confusion her stern became jammed on the opposite mudbank. The tide went out, and the vessel was stranded, so high in the air that small craft could, and did, sail beneath it.

After some time the ship was manoevred away from her odd anchorage, but the damage to her structure was so pronounced that the owners decided to convert her to a sailing ship. Her name was then changed, but ill-luck continued to dog her. Each voyage she had a different commander, and on each voyage some other calamity overtook her. On one trip, while leaving Port Phillip, she missed her stays, got into difficulties, and had to abandon both anchors and a large amount of cable gear.

In 1864 she was in the hands of Captain Callenan, who had her completely overhauled, and her decks rebuilt to eliminate finally the 'hogged' shape that her original misadventure had bequeathed to her. When she arrived at Lyttelton, on September 6th, 1864, with 33 saloon passengers and 366 immigrants, the Lyttelton Times wrote that she was the largest ship which had ever entered the Harbour, and that she had needed all sorts of help from smaller craft to do so.

Among the passengers were Mr Prince and Mr Johnson. In the ship's newspaper for Saturday July 2, a contributor wrote, somewhat coyly, 'A most melancholy accident occurred yesterday, through the carelessness of Thomas Hynes, servant to Mr C. Prince, which led to the unfortunate and untimely end of poor Jack Daw, who was blown overboard, thus meeting with a watery grave ... We are very sorry to relate,' the article went on, 'that this is only one of the very many serious losses that gentleman has suffered, though his efforts and energy to save those members of the feathered race which he has on board have been increasing . . . His stock of English songsters,' commented the reporter sadly, 'was very good and numerous.'

Mr Johnson received his share of publicity in the August 13 edition of the newspaper, when the editor wrote about the mysterious 'square-built framework' on the quarter deck, and explained that it held fish that, everyone hoped, would stock the 'immense and beautiful rivers' of New Zealand. Mr Johnson had brought on board 'no less than 800 young salmon, 600 trout, 200 perch, and 200 carp, with a fine sprinkling of tench, royal rudd, roach, gudgeon, minnow, bleak and gold-fish', in tanks with 'troops of small snails, water-lilies, and weeds of various kinds,... to afford food as well as to keep the water purified.'

The fish did not thrive. 'A lump of white putty,' reported the paper, 'got into one of the principal tanks, and deprived Mr Johnson of his last chance of success. He still retains a few gold-fish, but all the rest have vanished.' An unlucky ship to the end, the British Empire was eventually wrecked, with many other vessels, in a tidal wave at St Thomas, West Indies.

page 144