Reporting of immigrant ships arrivals and events on board

The arrival of immigration Ships was reported in the local newspapers of the day.

Various pieces of information were recorded but not necessarily the information you want about your ancestor.

My journey for information was halted because of the misspelling of his name. A clue from a presenter at a library allowed me to find his land order and therefore find his ship. Finding the block of land that he purchased has been a challenge that is ongoing.

The story of the ship was not recorded by Thomas Wood Hawson, but was by 2 people on that voyage. I was able to discover them via a resource called Trove which listed the 2 stories that were held by librarians in Australia. Unbeknown to me, there was a resource even in my local library that could have led me to this had I known the ship’s name. This series is called  “The Log of Logs” It is  3 volumes of records of logs by people who have been on those ships.

Even then, getting the resource and reading it can be daunting. One of my logs (Midgley’s) was written in good, relatively easy to read handwriting. The other was in closely handwritten 4 pages per A4 page on pdf that was difficult to read, and impossible to manipulate in any software packages. Contacting the library again was helpful, as the item was able to be scanned as a tiff image which is much clearer to read. Later, this record, as well as Midgley’s log will be transcribed for a more complete record of the journey.

Reading Midgley’s manuscript and the amazing story of the attack on Captain Holden, would make you believe that this would automatically be reported in the papers. Instead, we have the story of the complaint of lack of facilities for the non-Anglican people on board and not a mention of the attack. A trip to the Qld State Archives allowed me to find a record of a court appearance on 20 Jan 1870 about James Sinclair (was he the Yankee Boy) attacking the Captain on 25 December 1869. James was an able bodied seam. He pleaded not guilty and the case was dismissed. On the same day 5 other sailors pleaded guilty to disobedience on the Storm King the previous day and were convicted and sentenced to 4 weeks in goal with hard labour. However, a few days later, he was sentenced to one months hard labour for disobedience on board the Storm King on 22 January.

Where’s the justice and where is the reporting?

Without Midgely’s log we would never have known of the occurrence of the Yankee Boy attack. His real name was never used in the journal, but the State Archives police records records the event, but no mention of a gun.

Vagaries in sentencing are nothing new, but 20 days for disobedience but nothing for a gun held on the Captain.

Was this an example of early fake news or even no news?