Palmer List of Merchant Vessels


 

HYDASPES (1846)

The British bark HYDASPES was built at New Brunswick in 1846. 504/595 tons (old/new measurement). Measurements (1863): 126.6 x 29.5 x 19.6 ft, length x beam x depth of hold. The annual volumes of Lloyd's Register of Shipping for 1846/47-1864/65 give the following additional information on the HYDASPES:

Master:
     1846/47-1851/52 - Grebow
     1851/52-1853/54 - Steward
     1854/55-1856/57 - W. Reid
     1857/58-1861/62 - D. Tod
     1861/62         - G. Irvin
     1861/62-1864/65 - Irwin

Owner:
     1846/47-1853/54 - Younghusband
     1854/55-1864/65 - Jones & Co.

Port of Registry:  Liverpool

Port of Survey:
     1846/47-1851/52 - Liverpool
     1851/52-1852/53 - London
     1853/54         - [not given]
     1854/55-1856/57 - Bristol
     1857/58         - Shields
     1858/59         - London
     1859/60         - Liverpool
     1860/61-1861/62 - London
     1861/62-1864/65 - Liverpool

Destined Voyage:
     1846/47-1851/52 - Calcutta
     1851/52-1852/53 - Adelaide
     1853/54         - [not given]
     1854/55-1857/58 - South America
     1858/59         - Africa
     1859/60         - India
     1860/61         - [not given]
     1861/62-1864/65 - India

The entry in Lloyd's Register for 1864/65 is posted "wrecked".

[27 May 1999]


 

HYDASPES (1852)

Oil painting of the HYDASPES as a ship, after 1868. Ian Hawkins Nicholson, Log of logs; a catalogue of logs, journals, shipboard diaries, letters, and all forms of voyage narratives, 1788 to 1988, for Australia and New Zealand and surrounding oceans, vol. 2, Roebuck Society Publication No. 47 (Yaroomba, Qld: The Author jointly with the Australian Association for Maritime History, 1993), p. 224, courtesy of Graeme Broxham, Canberra. To request a larger copy of this scan, click on the picture.

The steamship HYDASPES (Official No. 25,134) was built for by C. L. Mare & Co, Blackwall, London, in 1852, and was first registered at London on 17 January 1853 to the General Screw Steam Shipping Co, which ran a monthly mail service from Plymouth to Calcutta via St. Vincent, Ascension, St. Helena, Cape Town, Mauritius, Ceylon, and Madras. 1,361/1,871 tons (exclusive of engine room/gross); 246.5 x 37.3 feet x 25.3 (length x breadth x depth of hold); screw propulsion.

Owner:
     1853-1857 - General Screw Steam Navigating Co
     1857-1859 - R. W. Crawford & others
     1859-1860 - T. Howard
     1860-1861 - W. M. Holmes & another
     1861-1865 - East India & London Shipping Co
     1865-1867 - Capt. R. W. Pelly, RN, & another
     1867-1868 - Capt. R. W. Pelly

In 1856, the HYDASPES was readmeasured at 1,726/2,249 tons; 300 hp. When the HYDASPES was registered to the East India & London Shipping Co in 1861, her measurements were given as: 1,655/2,095 tons; 263 x 38.7 x 26.1 feet; 300 hp.

In 1868, the HYDASPES was purchased by Park, Bros., who removed her engines and converted her into a sailing ship. The annual volumes of Lloyd's Register of Shipping for 1868/69-1880/81 give the following information:

Tonnage:  2,093/2,093/1,501 (net/gross/under deck)

Measurements:  263 x 38.7 x 25 feet (length x beam x depth of hold),
               "spar decked" (2 decks and spar deck), 4 bulkheads

Master:  E[dwin] S. Babot

Owner:  Park, Bros.

Port of registry:  London

Port of survey:  London

Destined Voyage (through 1873/74):
     1868/69-1870/71 - New Zealand
     1871/72-1872/73 - [not given]
     1873/74         - New Zealand

The HYDASPES spent her career as a sailing vessel in the Australia/New Zealand trade, often chartered to Shaw, Savill, although on her final voyage she was chartered to Holder Bros. Sir Henry Brett, White Wings, Vol. 1: Fifty years of sail in the New Zealand trade, 1850 to 1900 (Auckland: Brett, 1924), pp. 64-65, prints a precis of 6 voyages from England to New Zealand ports, 1868-1878. A cursory search of the internet provides the following Australia/New Zealand arrival dates for the HYDASPES:

30 Sep 1869 - Lyttelton, from London 04 Jul 1869. Copies of a diary of this voyage by Emma Hodder are held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, MS Pps 1192; Canterbury Public Library, Canterbury, New Zealand, ZMS 81; and (including extracts from the captain's log) Hocken Library, University of Otago, Misc MS 0565. Another diary of this voyage, by the Rev. Robert Taylor, is held by the Canterbury Museum Archives.
Aug 1870 - Melbourne
19 Oct 1873 - Auckland, from London 27 Jul 1873.
06 Nov 1874 - Auckland, from Gravesend 11 Aug 1874.
01 Sep 1876 - Adelaide. Papers concerning this voyage are held by the State Records of South Australia, GRG 35/48/1876.
09 Nov 1878 - Lyttelton, from Plymouth, 10 Aug 1878.

On 17 July 1880, the HYDASPES, Capt. Babot, bound from London for Melbourne with 40 passengers (plus 3 stowaways) and a crew of 47, in tow of the tug NAPOLEON, Capt. William Houghton, sank off Dungeness, after colliding in a fog with the steamship CENTURION, Capt. George Mitchell, from Almira, Spain, for London with a cargo of ivory and esparto grass, and a crew of 27; all the passengers and crew were saved by the tug and the CENTURION.

Sources: Return of Registered Steam Vessels of U.K., Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, 1854 (141) lx.224; 1854-55 (473) xlvi.303; 1857 Session 2 (87) xxxix.67; 1857-58 (488), lii.88; 1860 (449) lx.449; 1861 (371) lviii.279; 1862 (319) liv.796; 1866 (381) lxv.427; 1867-68 (429) lxiii.30; Lloyd's Register of Shipping, 1868/69-1880/81; Times (London), 19 July 1880, p. 14a; 20 July 1880, p. 10d; 7 August 1880, p. 4e; 12 August 1880, p. 4c; 13 August 1880, p. 4e; 14 August 1880, p. 4c. The Illustrated London News, vol. 66 (1875), p. 552, prints an engraving of the HYDASPES, and Brett, op. cit., p. 95, prints a picture of the ship under sail.

[29 May 1999]