TAM O'SHANTER 1836

PIONEERS AND SETTLERS BOUND FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Fully-rigged ship, 383 tons. Lbd 104-3 x 28-8 x 5-9 ft. Barque built at North Hylton, Sunderland, 1829;
reg. London. Captain Phillip Mitchell.
Privately chartered by Osmond Gilles, the Colonial Treasurer and other parties, from T. Dobson

On July 20th 1836 she departed London via Plymouth, under the command of Captain Whiteman Freeman,
sailing thence in company with the BUFFALO.

View Passenger List contained within "A Folder of Newspaper Clippings",
available at the State Library of South Australia - SLSA Source 58

With seventy-four immigrants from England, she arrived at Kingscote, Kangaroo Island on November 20th, 1836. She then proceeded to Holdfast Bay [Port Adelaide] and tried to enter the Port River, only to run aground on a sandbar. Four days later she was refloated and moved up to her landing place on December 18th 1836 in such bad shape that she required several months of repair. Some of the emigrants, before leaving England, had made arrangements for a few small houses, ready made, to be shipped. They were to come by the TAM O' SHANTER. Unfortunately, as the vessel was sailing from Kangaroo Island to what is known as Port Adelaide, she struck on a sand bar, and had to remain there some time. Says one of the pioneers: "The sailors had to attend to the ship, and we had to do as best we could. Some cut down a few light saplings, and, putting them together as well as they were able, went down into the bed of the river, and cut some grass with which to make a kind of wurley hut, into which we had to go, and there spend the winter, improving the place a little as the days went by." We were "frequently obliged to fix up umbrellas, etc., to keep off the drenching rain, no other means being available at the time." These privations were not without their advantages. They developed thrift, determination, self-reliance.

TAM O'SHANTER brought timber for Government House, iron bedsteads, building materials, provisions, huts for the emigrants and the land battery of guns for the BUFFALO. The Ship's doctor was Dr. Lewis Jones, There were 74 Passengers on board - including 16 women and 17 children.

Read a letter from Stephen BLUNDEN to his father

It seems likely that George MOSELEY [c1770-1863], William [c1815-1849] and Henry JACKSON 18 [born 1819 Marylebone LND ENG, died 1894], bricklayer were related, as they all arrived S.Aust on this voyage.

"The old hands told of many a wild night at sea and many a jolly evening's vigil in the Pier Hotel kept by the genial HENRY MOSELEY, one of the old pioneers and a veteran of 1836. There were no special Custom officials and press representatives present in the early days and, consequently, the whole party put up at the Pier or watched on the jetty." www.slsa.sa.gov.au/manning/sa/communic/gpo.htm

John WHITE, building contractor, chartered more than half the cargo space for his building materials and other provisions and had brought out as employees nine men, some with their families. Settling at Reed Beds, Fulham, at the mouth of the Torrens River, he prospered as a builder, farmer and station-owner. His wife and sons Samuel and William arrived in the TAGLIONI on October 13th 1842.

REPORTS IN THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN REGISTER - Voyage to South Australia in 1836.

Among the pioneering emigrants of 1836 was a 25-year old man named Charles Catchlove, who sailed in the TAM O'SHANTER on July 20th 1836, arriving at Port Adelaide on November 26, after which he ventured into the building trade. He is remembered as the founder of the village of Kensington.

The TAM O'SHANTER left Nepean Bay on December 14th for Holdfast Bay. She was stranded at the entrance to Port Adelaide and not refloated until December 22nd, 1836. She then grounded on the mud while proceeding to the southern reach, but got off at midnight and reached the anchorage on December 23rd, 1836.

The most valuable parcel came out on the TAM O'SHANTER in the form of a creditable library comprising 117 books. It seems that these were in a large weighty iron box which had fallen off a ship's boat from the TAM O'SHANTER. This box was hauled up from the bottom of the Port River in December 1836 by the crew of a ship’s boat. In it was South Australia’s first library. Its slightly watermarked contents are in the Gouger collection of the State Library of South Australia.

FATE of the TAM 'O' SHANTER

"The barque TAM O'SHANTER stranded on the entrance to Port Adelaide while inward bound from England on December 18th 1836. She was strained rather badly and required several months of repair work before being considered fit for sea again.

This vessel, we are happy to say, by the exertions of her commander, Captain Mitchell and Mr Simpson, the Ship Builder, at the port, is once more afloat, after having undergone as complete a repair as circumstances would permit. The damage done to the vessell was much more trifling than at first expected, and she proceeds to Sydney in the course of ten days, in every respect fit for a much longer and more dangerous voyage.

On August 20th, 1837 the now repaired TAM O'SHANTER sailed from Port Adelaide for Sydney under the command of Captain Phillip Mitchell. A day out of port she was found to be leaking slightly, but this caused no concern until she encountered a gale at the entrance to Bass Strait, which eventually weakened her hull and the leaks increased alarmingly. Finally, when off Wilson's Promontory on the 25th, the captain decided to run with favourable winds to the Tamar to pump her out. With the crew continuously at the pumps, TAM O'SHANTER made the Tamar Heads where she was beached.

After sighting the heads on the 27th the now waterlogged ship was driven eastwards until, with her crew exhausted from their efforts at the pump, anchor was dropped in the bay that now bears her name eighteen miles from the Heads. Unfortunately the winds continued to increase, along with the leaks, until the master was forced to order cables to be slipped and the vessel run ashore near Tamar Heads, Tasmania, August 27th 1837 to save life and property.

All hands landed safely. Mitchell later reported that the leak was due to undetected damage to the aft scarf timbers from the original stranding but that all the work done at Port Adelaide had held up well. The wreck was sold at auction on September 14th, 1837 to Henty Brothers of Portland and much of her cargo and fittings were recovered."

The wrecking of the TAM O'SHANTER in Bass Strait is recounted in the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register on October 14th 1837, page 4b.
To read the "Wreck of the Tam O'Shanter" - Click here.

References: C. Chronicle, 2 September, and 28 October 1837; Parsons, Shipwrecks in South Australia, page 1-2.