THE WRECK OF THE TYNE 1861

John Shepherd*

The John Woolfe collection of ‘Maritime Wreck Covers of the World’ was auctioned by Spink on 6 December 2006. The collection

contained a substantial number of Australian covers including a Tasmanian wreck cover which does not appear to have been previously

recorded.

Illustrated is a November 1861 entire from Invercargill, New Zealand to Mr. McNaughton of Launceston. The markings on the cover are:

‘Dunedin/Otago’ cds (15.11.61) at left; ‘6’(d) rate mark at upper right; crowned circle ‘Paid/at/Otago’ in black partly overstruck by the

rectangular ‘Ship Letter Inwards Free’ of Hobart in red (06.12.61); and on the reverse, the diamond ‘Ship Letter Inwards Free’ datestamp of

Launceston (07.12.61). The ‘Paid at Otago’ marking is said to be one of only three known.

This cover was carried on the Tyne which was wrecked at Cape Pillar and is thought to be the only example of mail recorded surviving

from this wreck.

1861 entire from New Zealand to Launceston from the wreck of the Tyne

The Tyne, a private schooner of 91 tons, left Port Chalmers on 15 November 1861. She then sailed from Otago on 18 November destined

for Hobart with 41 passengers (returning miners) and a crew of 7 under the command of Captain James Riddle. She spent 2 December

struggling against heavy gales. On Monday 2 December she became becalmed ‘between the Hippolyte Rocks and Fortesque Bay and the

current drew her gradually towards the perpendicular rocks near the entrances to the latter’. The destruction of the ship appeared to

Captain Riddle to be inevitable. At 2.30am on 3 December ‘she struck with her keel and drove broadside onto the rocks about three miles

north of Cape Pillar and commenced breaking up’ (The Mercury 6 Dec 1861). Within ninety minutes the ship started to break up and she

was a total wreck. Four men tried to swim to safety only to be dashed against the rocks and killed. The Cornwall Chronicle (7 December

1861) carried a somewhat gruesome headline - ‘THREE MEN DROWNED, and ONE CUT IN TWO’ - and reported:

‘…four passengers jumped overboard in the hope of reaching some cranny on the rock to save them from the

devouring waves that lashed against it. They all perished, one of them John Wilson, well known as a bricklayer in this

town was literally cut in two - it is supposed – between the schooner and a ledge of rock. The severed body was seen

before it sank, striking terror into the hearts of the survivors, who knew not but that such would be their own fate in

another instant’.

The passengers and crew scrambled across the narrow bridge created by the yardarm escaping ‘certain death’. In darkness the survivors

were ‘miraculously placed’ on a ledge of rock. One of the passengers, said to be a Charles Glover, ‘nerved by the danger of falling down

the precipice’ but seeing no alternative, climbed the rock face – which O’May describes as ‘almost perpendicular rock’ - some 200 or 300

feet above the top of the wreck. Glover carried a line which was fixed into position. At daylight the survivors could see Glover up the cliff

and were able to reach him using the line to scale the cliff by a more circuitous and less precipitous route. The Mercury reported that ‘so

great was the difficulty of getting all hands up the cliff that it was 3pm before they were safe’. On of the passengers to reach land, a Mr.

Smith, set off to find assistance and became lost but was later rescued. The remaining survivors set off by foot in the direction of Port

Arthur and spent Tuesday night (3rd December) ‘wandering about’ until arriving in an exhausted state opposite Port Arthur. The

Commandant of Port Arthur was alerted to fires lit by the survivors on Wednesday afternoon and sent two boats over the bay whereupon

the survivors were taken to Port Arthur.

The survivors were then conveyed to Hobart by steamer Culloden, departing 5 December and arriving on 6 December. Many of the

survivors were from northern Tasmania and according to The Mercury of Friday Morning December 6 1861, ‘fourteeen of the sufferers

were enabled to return to their homes in the North by last night’s coaches’. The Chronicle reported that ‘about ten of them arrived here by

the mail yesterday morning [Friday 6 December], and several others by Page’s night coach’.

It is remarkable that the ship’s mail survived from the total wreck. The Cornwall Chronicle of 7 December 1861 provides a clue concerning

the fate of the mail: ‘Nothing was saved except a chronometer, the ship’s papers, and a box of charts’ (emphasis added).

The dates of arrival of the survivors in Hobart (6 December) from Port Arthur marries exactly with the date of the ‘Ship Letter Inwards Free’

marking applied at Hobart. The ships mails would have been put into the post at the Hobart GPO. It was the practice to take the ships

mails to the GPO as soon as practicable after the arrival of a ship – usually that day or the next morning. Indeed, it was the obligation of

the master or person in control of a vessel carrying mails to deliver up the mails to the Postmaster-General (Postal Act 1853 s.33). In turn,

the Launceston arrival marking of 7 December matches exactly with the next available mail coach to Launceston, which coincidentally,

carried a number of the survivors. The mails appear to have arrived in good condition and were not marked by the GPO in any way as

emanating from the wreck of the Tyne.

Of note, only a month earlier on 16 October 1861 the Don Pedro was wrecked on the cliffs north of Cape Pillar after leaving Otago again

bound for Hobart. All hands were safely put into life boats which landed at Fortesque Bay. No covers are known from this wreck. The

accounts provided by the Cornwall Chronicle of Launceston and The Mercury of Hobart are significant and are reproduced in full.

References: Broxam, G and Nash, M. Tasmanian Shipwrecks. Vol.1. pp.128-129; O’May, H. Wrecks in Tasmanian Waters. pp.63-64;

Cornwall Chronicle Saturday Morning 7 Dec 1861, The Mercury 6 & 11 December 1861.

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*John Shepherd is the Editor of ‘The Courier’, the research journal of the Tasmanian Philatelic Society. Contact: johnshepherdlawyer@hotmail.com. This article first appeared in The Courier issue#44 December 2007. For subscription details write to: The Tasmanian Philatelic Society, GPO Box 594, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.