THE VOYAGE TO AUSTRALIA
Above: It took the D’Arcy family 105
days to get from Portsmouth, England,
to Brisbane, Australia, in 1866. They
voyaged upon the Southern Ocean.
ON BOARD THE SOUTHERN OCEAN
On 29th January 1866, William Francis D’Arcy embarked upon the 'Southern Ocean' at Portsmouth. With him were his wife and family - Maria, Mary, Bertha (the future Mrs. JR Benson), Lucy, Anastasia ('Annie'), Knox (the oil magnate to be) and Frances. Also on board were the Goldsmith and Higgens families. Edward Goldsmith, who subsequently married Annie D'Arcy, wrote a detailed diary of the ensuing 105-day journey to Australia.
The voyage proved horrendous from the outset. The weather was so bad they could not even leave Portsmouth for 18 days. Before the ship set sail, one of the crew, sentenced to be thrashed for bad mouthing the first mate, escaped into the night causing much panic amid the ladies. Some days later, while the Captain was back on the mainland attending to last minute affairs, the ship was caught in a powerful storm that 'blew all day, shrieking through the masts, yards and rigging of the vessels'. Three ships nearby broke their cables and were swept away. One was lost with all its crew, a second was lost but the crew was saved and the third was saved in Portsmouth harbour. Edward recorded, 'It was an awful sight to see other ships drifting away without any hope for them'. Passengers and crew of the 'Southern Ocean' feared that at any moment their ship, with neither pilot nor captain on board, would break loose and carry them to their deaths.
Above: An Englishman called Edward Goldsmith kept an
account of the Southern ocean’s
voyage to Australia. He
subsequently married Bertha D’Arcy’s younger sister
Annie.
MISS. D'ARCY'S RATHER NICE
'Don't think much of our fellow passengers at present', Edward complained to his diary in the early days of the voyage. 'One of the Miss D 'Arcys rather nice looking'. Before long, he and Annie were walking the deck. When an aunt berated him for spending too much time with the girl, Edward scoffed: 'Think it awful humbug - thought I would not take any notice of her so I walked with Annie D 'Arcy on the poop for a long time this evening'.
Above: Lucy D'Arcy in later life.
Edward Goldsmith recalled
a man being
bitten by a dog while
dancing with Lucy
on board the
Southern
Ocean.
THE ALBATROSS
The ship finally set sail on Sunday 18th February. By the following Friday, they were off Gibraltar making 240 miles in 24 hours, a good average of 10 knots. On Sunday 25th they were off Madeira and making 13 knots, and on Wednesday 28th they entered the Tropics. In daylight hours passengers walked or played games on the decks, fished or sat about and read; in the evenings they played games, watched home-made plays, readings, concerts or danced. Later in the trip, they came across a number of luckless albatrosses, which they shot. Edward found the journey claustrophobic and is regularly to be found cursing the other passengers, particularly the Germans and Murphy, the purser, who sat next to him at dinner time 'and smells so beastly hot I can hardly eat my dinner'. He came to blows with a chap called Harlin when the latter's dog attacked him as he danced with Lucy D'Arcy. The arduous conditions continued to take their toll, particularly on the destitute passengers below deck. Shortly after they passed the Cape Verde Islands (where they saw 'a lot of whales, one shark, a turtle and a great many jelly fish'), a woman gave birth to a little girl but both mother and child died the following day. The next day, Edward watched them 'sew her up with her baby and pitch her overboard and directly after that saw a large shark going just in the direction of the body'. The weather became increasingly humid as they voyaged across the Equator and many of the men were given to jumping overboard to bathe until someone saw a shark. 'They all came out like a shot', wrote Edward, 'and although they talked very bravely, none got in again'.
Above: When the D’Arcy’s arrived in
Australia, one of
the most influential
men
was Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821-1899),
the Governor
of Queensland. Born in
Taughboyne, County Donegal, Ireland, Bowen
did much to
promote exploration of the new
colony. Amongst those he championed was
the Arctic
explorer Sir John Richardson,
father-in-law to Bertha D’Arcy’s sister Lucy.
ARRIVAL IN QUEENSLAND
On Saturday 2nd June 1866 - three months and twelve days after their departure from Portsmouth - the 'Southern Ocean' and the D'Arcy family anchored in Moreton Bay, near Brisbane, Queensland. It was a good time to arrive in the colony as, due to recent bank failures, land prices were low. Edward Goldsmith and his brother William began running cattle and sheep while William D'Arcy recommenced his practice as a solicitor in Rockhampton. On Christmas Eve 1866, his daughter, Bertha D'Arcy was married to the Canadian born doctor and aspiring politician, John Robinson Benson. Another daughter, Lucy married the surveyor and geographer Archibald Richardson, adopted son of Arctic explorer Sir John Richardson, who had accompanied the Jardine brothers on their pioneering exploration of northern Queensland in 1864. Meanwhile, young Knox joined his father's practice. However, when William Francis D'Arcy died in 1871, his widow and most of her daughters soon tired of the hard life in Australia and returned to England. William’s only son, William Knox D’Arcy, now 23, opted to stay put and run the legal practice.