Sacred to the memory of Helen McRae the beloved wife of Malcolm McRae who departed this life January 3 1853 aged 41 years Her daughter Janet died November 1852 aged 11 years. Her son Malcolm died 6 November 1852 aged 2 years Her son Farquhar died 22 November 1852 aged 6 years Her son John died 22 January 1858 aged 16 years.
Charles McKay, the sexton and schoolmaster, survived; however, the effects of the voyage on his health were such that he declined to take up his position as headmaster of the prestigious Scotch College. Instead, he settled himself in Kilmore, about 40 kilometres north of Melbourne, running a tiny school for the local children, many of whom were of Highland descent. It was an area, say his family, that reminded him of his home in Sutherland. McKay died just fifteen years later, at the comparatively young age of 61.
Captain Thomas Boyle was praised effusively for his steadfast and humane command during the crisis, particularly by Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe who, ‘in appreciation of his conduct throughout the voyage and its termination’,2 granted him a double gratuity of nearly £130 instead of the agreed £64. There were, however, a number of caveats and hidden clauses, which in the end caused Boyle to lose money on the saga.
After the last of his passengers had left the ship, he found he was still carrying the large amount of luggage from the deceased that had been so poignantly observed by the passengers as it was loaded back at Point Nepean. Now Boyle found he would be charged £60 for it to be transferred up to the Immigration Barracks. With the custom being to regard a ship’s passengers as under the care of their captain until reaching port, Boyle was also forwarded the bill for the extra food supplied to them while in quarantine at Point Nepean, as it was regarded that, while they remained there, the contracted journey had not been completed. To add to the insult, he then discovered that, for this same reason, the second half of the payment per head of the passengers who had died, and which he had expected to be paid by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission, would not be forthcoming. To perhaps soften the blow somewhat, Grimes agreed to sell off their belongings and give the proceeds to Boyle as compensation, but it is not known whether this ever transpired.
As a final blow, Boyle found that the small amount of cargo he had brought over from Britain with the intention to sell it would have to stay in the holds, as the Hobson’s Bay stevedores refused to touch it, nor have anything whatever to do with the plague ship. Bitter and broke, Boyle set sail in his empty ship from Port Phillip on 15 January 1853. On his way out of the Heads, he passed for the final time the quarantine station on the little beach. He could see that the tents he had sold on the spot to Harbour Master Ferguson were still up, but the beach otherwise looked deserted. Somewhere behind them, on a patch of buffalo grass in the sun, lay the grave of his younger brother and third mate, William, who had, like nearly 170 others, fallen to illness on board the ship. He thought of the little memorial he had arranged to be placed there in his memory, and was pleased he was resting in such a pretty spot, but knew that he was unlikely ever to visit it again.
Passing out through the Heads, the Ticonderoga set course for Akyab in Burma, her next port of call, where Boyle felt he could pick up a decent cargo. Having left Australia, never to return, from this point on, Thomas Boyle’s story is a mystery. Beyond his leaving Port Phillip for Akyab, no further record of his life and career can be found.
The Ticonderoga, however, sailed on. In July 1863, she was recorded as having been ‘sold to foreigners’, and the following year was registered in Calcutta,3 from where she continued to ply the routes of the Empire’s ‘far east’, being sold twice more, until eventually being wrecked off the southern coast of India in October, 1879. Even then, in the waning years of the Clipper age, she drew attention as one of the most beautiful ships to sail the seas.
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The aftermath
Back in England, the relatives of those who had perished on the ship waited in vain for news of their safe arrival. Yet, despite several entreaties from increasingly worried families, the Board remained silent. Eventually, an unsigned letter appeared in the London Times, in April 1853:
Sir,
I beg to call your attention to the case of the Ticonderoga, the unfortunate emigrant vessel that sailed from Birkenhead last year with from 800 to 900 Government emigrants to Australia, and of whom no fewer than about 180 died on the passage and in quarantine. Nearly three months have now elapsed since advice was received in this country of the arrival of the vessel, and of the state of the passengers, and of course great anxiety must have been felt to learn the particulars; but your readers will scarcely credit the statement, that till the arrival of the Great Britain, a few days ago, no official advices had been received by the Board of Emigrant Commissioners of the arrival of the vessel, and that up to this hour no list of the passengers who died has yet been received. Thus, though about a fourth part of the number of passengers have been cut off by death, the thousands of anxious relatives are still kept in suspense as to the fate of their friends. I am at all times desirous to exercise leniency in judging of the operations of Government establishments and officials, but I can scarcely conceive a more harrowing case of painful solicitude than must be felt by the sorrowing relatives of this large body of emigrants; neither can we suppose other than great remissness of duty somewhere in connexion with this lamentable case. I may add that the agents of the vessel having had no charge of the shipment of the passengers, and the owners being resident in America, there is no other source open for the desired information than the Board of Emigrant Commissioners.1
Their sole consolation was that after the Ticonderoga, no more vessels of such large burden would be hired by the Board to transport assisted passengers.
A Commission of Inquiry was undertaken in the new year, which resulted in a large amount of opinions and paper being sent around the offices of the Victorian Colonial government, and back and forth to London; yet, no one from the actual ship seems to have been consulted.
One alarming revelation from the inquiry was the practice of ship owners to quietly circumvent the government’s withholding—in the case of death—of the second half of the passenger payment by taking out insurance on their human cargo. This way, whether delivered alive at their destination or not, the owners would still receive their money in full. An appalled parliament quickly outlawed the practice.
Health Officer Dr Hunt’s lengthy report, delivered well into the next year, left nothing to the imagination in its lurid descriptions of the state of the vessel:
The ship, especially the lower part was in a most filthy state, and did not appear to have been cleaned for weeks, the stench was overpowering, the lockers so thoughtlessly provided for the Immigrants use were full of dirt, mouldy bread, and suet full of maggots, beneath the bottom boards of nearly every berth upon the lower deck were discovered soup and bouille cans and other receptacles full of putrid ordure, and porter bottles etc, filled with stale urine, while maggots were seen crawling underneath the berths … The great mortality seems to have been occasioned by the crowded state of her decks and want of proper ventilation, particularly through the lower deck; this caused debility and sickness among her passengers to such an extent that a sufficient number could not be found to keep them clean; dirt and filth of the most loathsome description accumulated, tainting the atmosphere and affecting everyone who came within its influence, as with a poison.
Governor La Trobe was also kept busy expending a good deal of ink over the matter in the first few months of 1853, but eventually chose, like any good politician, to deflect much of the blame onto the victims themselves, concluding in a dispatch to his boss, Sir John Pakington, that:
Looking to its general structure, and capacity, no vessel (i.e. Ticonderoga) could have been better suited to the purpose and there can be no doubt that under circumstances securing the unbroken maintenance of order, cleanliness, and general discipline, a yet larger number of persons might have been conveyed in safety to the Colony. In the case of troops ther
e would have been no difficulty whatever, but with an unorganised body of emigrants of the classes selected for the Ticonderoga, little surprise can be felt that nor ordinary exertion and abilities could suffice to introduce at one system and order and overcome that repugnance to cleanliness and fresh air which distinguishes certain classes of the labouring populations of Europe; and dirt and disease having once taken hold of the vessel, no efforts of the officers in charge would be effective in stemming its progress.2
* * * *
Dr James William Henry Veitch, my great-great-grandfather, never stepped foot on a ship again—and certainly never returned to the sea. Following the example of his superior, Dr Sanger, he too applied for an increase in his remuneration for the extra duties he had undertaken when Sanger became ill, as well as the extra time he had spent working at the quarantine station, both at the camp and on board the Lysander. His efforts were unsuccessful. It was pointed out that, according to the letter of his contract, his payment would be due only upon completion of the voyage, and while the ship was still in quarantine, it was deemed that the voyage had yet to be completed. The matter went all the way to La Trobe, who—as usual—deferred the decision to another official, who refused it a second time, and there the matter rested. He was, however, offered a certificate enabling him to claim his passage money back to England. He never used it.
Having hailed from a long line of respected marine and naval surgeons, James Veitch halted the tradition there and then, choosing instead to head inland from Queen’s Wharf to join the countless others trying their luck on the goldfields around Eaglehawk near Bendigo. In this, not surprisingly, he was wholly unsuccessful. The family believes he then alternated between practising as a country doctor, then a farmer and a storekeeper, before in 1874 successfully applying for the position of District Health Officer for the Shire of Strathfieldsaye in Central Victoria. His letter putting himself forward for the position is the only known example of his handwriting. In it, he briefly states his qualifications from the London Society of Apothecaries as well as his membership of the Victorian Medical Board. No mention is made of either the Ticonderoga or his time on her at sea or in quarantine.
Eventually, James William Henry Veitch became a long-standing member of his local council, where among his achievements was the establishment of a number of schools in his local area, including one near his own modest property near the tiny settlement of Mandurang. After nearly two decades of service, he offered his resignation, which according to the newspaper article reporting the news, was only most reluctantly accepted by his fellow councillors, who gave him a rousing send-off with many speeches and deposited in his hand a purse full of gold sovereigns. Again, despite a handsome summary of his life and career, the article fails to mention the Ticonderoga, or the part he played in her story.
In his 1892 obituary in the Bendigo Evening News, Veitch’s ‘portly form and kindly face’ are remembered, as is his early life in England and his work for many steadfast years in the local shire. Once more, although he is described as a surgeon, no mention is made of the Ticonderoga or the disaster of 40 years earlier.
* * * *
James did not leave for central Victoria alone. After departing the ship for the last time, he had a particularly important matter to attend to: marrying the woman with the dark eyes and the soft Highland accent who had travelled all the way from far-away Tobermory on the Isle of Mull in Scotland’s Western Isles. Annie Morrison, having supported the desperate doctor in the darkest hours of the Ticonderoga’s journey, answering the call to assist the sick when few others were prepared to do so, now became Anne Veitch.
They were married at the Presbyterian church of St Peter’s Eastern Hill in January 1853, the marriage certificate witnessed by a John and Alexandrina McLean of Merri Creek. They lived as respected members of their local community until Anne passed away in 1892 at the age of 64. Just eight months later, James William Henry himself followed her to the grave.
James and Anne bore no less than eight children. Their youngest, Henry, lived to the age of 92 and died the year I was born, 1962, having met—albeit briefly—my own father, John. Knowing this somehow seems to shrink the years, making the story of the Hell Ship and her voyage seem not that very long ago at all.
Dr James William Henry Veitch and his wife, Anne, in the late 1880s. These two unlikely heroes of the Ticonderoga saga met on board ship and the experience of the voyage bonded them for life. Author’s collection
No image of the Ticonderoga herself exists, but the 1087-ton Alnwick Castle was said to be a near replica. This photograph was taken around 1869. State Library of South Australia (SLSA)
One of the giants of the clipper era, the Marco Polo—under James ‘Bully’ Forbes—stunned the world with a record passage to Melbourne of just 68 days. National Library of Australia (NLA)
The Birkenhead Emigration depot, from where Ticonderoga’s passengers embarked, as reported by the Illustrated London News in July 1852. NLA
The claustrophobic interior of an emigrant vessel, as depicted in the Illustrated London News, August 1850. For women in particular, mobility was a virtual impossibility. NLA
Sketches drawn on board an emigrant ship, 1875. State Library of Victoria (SLV)
Further sketches of life on board an emigrant ship, published in the Illustrated London News, January 1849. Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM)
Melbourne’s first quarantine station at Red Bluff, Elwood. The gold rush city began to expand so quickly that a new one had to be established at Point Nepean. Ticonderoga was its first customer. SLV
The author at the now abandoned Point Nepean quarantine station. It was onto this lonely beach that the Ticonderoga unloaded her sick and dying passengers. Author’s collection
Though still young, Melbourne was already a sprawling town when Ticonderoga’s passengers finally disembarked in December 1852. (This image was drawn in 1855 from official surveys and sketches taken in 1854.) SLV
An early image of Melbourne, from Emerald Hill, 1855. SLV
Henry Veitch, the youngest child of James William Henry and Anne, who lived until 1962.
Author’s collection
Quarantine Station Cemetery’s memorial plaque to the Ticonderoga and the 170 of her passengers who would never complete the journey from Birkenhead. ReadThePlaque.com, a project of 99% Invisible
Epilogue
In April 1891, Donald McDonald visited the cemetery at the Point Nepean Quarantine Station for the first time since having been there with his family nearly 40 years earlier. Although still sited just back from the pretty foreshore of the cove, now named Ticonderoga Bay, he noted that the graves were in disrepair, many with indecipherable names, others just little mounds with no identifying marks at all. He sat for a long time, until the sun began to set, reflecting on those times and all that had happened in his life subsequently.
In 1917, he wrote of the experience in the venerable Melbourne newspaper The Argus. He recounted that, walking among the few headstones, he noted the sandstone blocks were even back then covered in moss and beginning to crumble back to sand. ‘Half obliterated as the inscriptions were, the words “from the ship Ticonderoga” were readable on many’, he wrote. Lingering until the autumn darkness fell, McDonald says that he became disoriented on his way back, and at one point had to strike a match to find the path leading him away. In the light of the match, amid the thick tea-tree scrub, a single headstone was briefly illuminated and the name became clearly visible. ‘Margaret McDonald,’ it read—it was the grave of his own mother, who he had buried at this very spot all those decades ago.
When, a few years later, McDonald again visited the little graveyard, his mother’s headstone was gone. Looking back at the incident and on the Ticonderoga herself, McDonald reflected:
In such a swelter of humanity, typhus was king, and his sceptre a busy scythe … but with all its suffering and death, there was some soul of goodness in the things evil of those good old ghastly times.
Acknowledgements
I am enormously grateful to my cousin, Pat Hocking, who in stellar fashion has performed the role of unofficial Veitch family historian for many years, and whose impressive archive of letters and documents pertaining to James William Henry Veitch she made available to me. I have never learned so much about my family in such a short time.
Thank you to my brother Simon for sourcing and restoring some of the images used, particularly tracking down the original portrait of our ancestors James and Annie Veitch. Thanks also to my sister Kate for her encouragement and editorial support.
Likewise, thanks to the small but dedicated team at the Point Nepean Historical Society in Sorrento, just a stone’s throw from the old quarantine station itself. Thank you especially to Janet South, who prepared several large folders of wonderful information regarding the Ticonderoga, her passenger list, and an extensive history of the station, where a great deal of the drama of the story took place.
Thanks particularly to Mary Kruithof, whose pioneering interest and research in her 2002 book Fever Beach brought the story of the Ticonderoga to public light for the first time in 150 years.
And finally, and most importantly, profound thanks to my wonderful partner, Brook, who from the very beginning has been, and continues to be, an indispensable source of support and encouragement.
A note on sources
Only one book has ever previously been written telling the story of the Ticonderoga, namely Fever Beach by Mary Kruithof, a fellow Ticonderoga descendant. Mary’s ancestors were the Fanning family who travelled to Melbourne from Londonderry, Ireland, and she tells me she wrote the book as a purely private venture after being encouraged by friends and family to commemorate the 150th anniversary, in 2002, of the Ticonderoga’s arrival. Although privately published, Mary has had to write a second edition, and frequently orders more and more copies as the popularity of Fever Beach continues to outstrip her initial expectations, and deservedly so. It is a wonderful book, brilliantly researched, and provided my main secondary source in writing my own account of the Ticonderoga.
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