'Lady of St Kilda'

By John M MacAulay

The topsail schooner 'Lady of St Kilda' was built in 1834 for the wealthy Devon landowner Sir Thomas Dyke Acland.  She was to become a key part in the development of the City of Melbourne at a time when untold prosperity was accelerating the growth of the City.

Designed as a 'fruit schooner'

• Language: English
• Publisher: John M MacAulay
• Release date: Oct 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9780992918019

Book preview

Preface

Little did I know that in the wake of my wanderings to faraway places I would discover that they had, long before my time, featured in the fascinating history of the topsail schooner ‘Lady of St Kilda’. Even less did I think that subsequently I would be writing about them.

I had been to Naples and various other ports in the Mediterranean; to Ponta Delgada on the Isle of Sao Miguel in the Azores; Sydney and Melbourne in Australia; Auckland on North Island New Zealand; Hong Kong and Kowloon in China; the Pacific isle of Tahiti which is one of the Society Islands; and of course the Atlantic archipelago of St Kilda.

All of those places are hugely interesting to the traveller for various reasons, but what is really surprising is the fact that collectively they all have had a significant part to play in the extraordinary life of one remarkable topsail schooner. It now seems that I was conscientiously following a predetermined course which had been plotted far in advance of me going to these places.

John M MacAulay

Introduction

Long ago, when all ships were still wholly dependent upon the power of the wind alone to drive them to distant shores, and intrepid sailors were continually exploring new routes and destinations, there were countless gripping yarns to be told of extreme hardship, many accounts of selfless endurance and intriguing records of outstanding achievement. This is the true story of one of those gallant ships, the ‘Lady of St Kilda’, and the interlinked chain of events which combine to give us a glance into the process of settlement and the development of newly discovered lands. A remarkable series of historic events have combined to create this fascinating portrait of nineteenth century navigation, trade, and adventure, spread over half the surface of the world’s oceans.

Topsail schooner by W J Huggins (1781-1845)

The topsail schooner ‘Lady of St Kilda’ was a relatively small ship, but one of quite outstanding pedigree. She proudly carried that same island name that was to be implanted in what was - at the time - a small and quite insignificant settlement on the outskirts of the embryo Melbourne.

To capture this unique moment in maritime history I have taken a number of seemingly unrelated topics which are individually examined and then woven together to create a greater picture.

Beginning with the time of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland’s first visit to the island St Kilda in 1812 and returning once more in 1834, following with the known details throughout his ownership of the ‘Lady of St Kilda’, and later when she was part-owned and managed by J B Were & Co of Melbourne.

We shall take an overview of the Azores fruit trade, and the specialised nature of the vessels required for transporting this perishable cargo as quickly as possible to market, and then examine the general design and some basic details in the construction of the topsail schooners (or ‘fruiters’ as they were commonly known).

It is important to look at the origin of the Hebridean island place-names Hiort and St Kilda; including as it appears in the 1698 report of Martin Martin’s visit to St Kilda, and ultimately the events which led to the name of a popular topsail schooner being adopted for a new village on the shores of Port Phillip Bay. The epic voyage to Canton by the ‘Lady of St Kilda’ which, reading from the actual ships Log Book, gives a dramatic insight into the innate navigational skills and supreme seamanship required for the successful management of a small sailing ship. A lasting legacy of which is the outstanding achievement of the modest enterprise set up by Jonathan Binns Were. From selling his tents and making a good profit, to developing the firm into the largest wealth management business in Australia and New Zealand. JBWere Pty Ltd surely owes its early success, at least in part, to the ‘Lady of St Kilda’.

A close look at all these individual events and the various associated details is necessary so that the reader may, regardless of which side of the world they are on, get an understanding of the people, places, and developments as they evolved. The obvious unifying force lies in the amazing historic record of the topsail schooner ‘Lady of St Kilda’. She is the exciting brilliant weft which has been woven into a unique colourful tapestry, framed on remarkable individual strands now gathered together from various sources. There are significant themes of diverse tastes and perspectives which will stimulate the interest of a wide readership of seafarers, maritime historians, St Kilda citizens, and those who have always been held spellbound and completely in awe of that small group of remote islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

What inspired me to bring all of this together is, yet again, another of those strange occurrences when you set out to achieve something specific and end up being distracted and have to set out on a new course. It all began with a decision to research the history of the west of Scotland coastal sailing schooners and ketches from the early eighteenth century up to the time when steam and oil took over from sail. Throughout my life, having been born and brought up on a Hebridean island, and always conscious of the ocean which surrounded us, I have been enthralled by those small ships and the men who sailed them, I was interested in how they were constructed, and how their sailing rig had developed from a simple square sail, to become a highly efficient fore and aft rig that has not since been surpassed. My own career has been in shipbuilding, traditional boat building, and sailing, both professionally and for leisure. My historic maritime research has ranged from the study of traditional Inuit kayaks, Viking longships, Arab dhows, Polynesian catamarans, and the elusive Hebridean ‘birlinn’; and now includes the era of the topsail schooners. These small sailing ships can be defined as being: a vessel with two masts, with sails on both masts of the fore-and-aft type, carrying a square topsail and top-gallant sail (with sometimes a royal) on the fore-mast. A large square sail could be carried on the fore-mast when running before the wind. The ‘Lady of St Kilda’ was of this class: a topsail schooner.

Like all else the particular trades of shipbuilding and seamanship have their own specific vocabulary which is often mostly incomprehensible to others. For this reason a glossary has been compiled and included at the end, which covers the terms used in this book, and which should hopefully be of help not only to the uninitiated but also serve as a reminder to us all.

This is the story of one particular vessel - the ‘Lady of St Kilda’ - and the extraordinary combination of illustrious people and historic events which surrounded the brief but enduring memory of her exploits. In the course of my research every effort has been made to ensure the best degree of accuracy in drawing upon diverse sources; and for those who wish to pursue specific events in more detail I have also included a short list of relevant publications at the end which may be useful. Where I have quoted from earlier publications, I have not ‘corrected’ spelling or punctuation, so the reader will have to get accustomed to read as it was written.

It may appear petty, but I am of the old school which firmly believes that traditional boats should be measured in nothing else but feet and inches, and that is the way all dimensions are shown here. However, for those who may feel more at home in the metric department, a conversion formula is appended.

Whatever the future may hold for a return to wind powered trading ships, I doubt if any will ever achieve the prominent position in world history as is attributed to the ‘Lady of St Kilda’. She has surely earned her place among the classic voyagers of old, and like so many of those, she deserves to be recognized in some way so as to be a permanent reminder of past times for all of us to marvel at. Her untimely end at Tahiti is a poignant loss: the ‘Lady of St Kilda’ had she survived would have been especially worthy of preservation for today, and for future generations.

John M MacAulay, Isle of Harris. 2016

CHAPTER ONE

Sir Thomas Dyke Acland and the

‘LADY of St KILDA’

There are many people living in Scotland, in the Outer Hebrides, and beyond, who have assumed that the