The voyage
route
This map shows the approximate route taken by the ship Emigrant on its 1850 voyage.
Pictured are images of Plymouth Sound in the 19th century and in 2017.
The Emigration Depot is the three-storey building on the bottom left of the first 19th-century photo. The building beside it might be the white building still standing today in the two images from 2017.
19th-century images are from the Plymouth and West Devon Records Office.
Plymouth
The Timeline (1850)
19 March: Emigrant at Deptford Naval dockyard, on southern bank of the Thames, being fitted out for the voyage.
14 April: Emigrant received passengers at Plymouth. The list of those granted a passage under the bounty system was checked. 276 passengers were ferried out to the ship.
17 April: Emigrant sailed from Plymouth on 17 April 1850, bound for Moreton Bay, with 276 passengers.
23 April: A child was born – son of Isaac Salisbury & Anne (nee Mudford).
2 May: Baby William Frith died (son of William and Emma) – 8 months old, of diarrhoea (was born 11 Aug 1849).
3 May: Emigrant passed island of Madeira.
8 May: Catherine Maunsell (of Ireland) fell ill with typhus – Kemp attributed sickness to a change in the weather.
? May: 2 more young women and Mary O’Meara fell ill.
12 May: Off Cape de Verde: typhus broke out.
Mid-May: Hannah Hallett must have given birth to a son (he died on 18 June at age 1 month).
24 May: Mrs Hannah Hallett died (b. Somerset) of apoplexy.
25 May: Mary Meara died at sea of typhus – leaving three children to the care of the father. (b. Tipperary, died at 32 yrs at sea).
10 July: Mary Waterson, mother of three infant children, died of typhus (a ‘violent cold caught was the forerunner of the disease’).
15 July: (or 18 July according to Mrs Kemp) James Chapple, father of 3, died (‘violent cold caught was the forerunner of the disease’).
22 July: Ann Gleeson died at sea (mother of 2, b. Newmarket, Clare, 29 years) (‘violent cold caught was the forerunner of the disease’).
24 July: (97 days out) entered Bass Strait – so much sickness they had to enlarge hospital; wind became ‘light and foul’ – wild weather in July.
26 July: Ann Charlton (aged 20) & George Hayward died at sea.
28 July: Sophia Brimble died at sea, age 17.
29 July: (Mary) Ann Connor died at sea – wife of James Connor (Capt Kemp gives her name as Ann).
31 July: James Lancaster died at sea – supernumerary. seaman, fever.
3 Aug: Caroline Loder died (b. Salisbury, died at 16 yrs at sea) (sister of Maria Trowbridge and Martha Loder).
5 Aug: Fanny Bloxam died.
8 Aug: Emigrant arrived in Moreton Bay – after variable winds and deaths ‘almost daily’. Boarded by pilot; Ballow went down on customs boat Aurora to arrange quarantine.
8 Aug: Mrs Euphemia Furphy (widow) died at anchor (b. Armagh, died at 67 yrs at sea).
? Aug: Dr George Mitchell fell ill in the ‘latter part of the voyage’.
10 Aug: Henry Waterson died on board (died at 30 yrs at sea); Dr Ballow visited the Emigrant ‘to enquire into the state of health of the passengers & crew’. He wrote in his report the following day, 11 Aug, that there had been 64 cases of disease and there were at the time 15 under treatment and 12 convalescent.
11 Aug: Captain Wickham wrote to Col Sec regarding arrival of the Emigrant and his decision to put it in quarantine; says he will proceed to the quarantine station tomorrow & try to get the sick off the boat asap; reports inadequacy of accommodation, discusses tents, sailings and awnings etc to be sent over; has appointed George Watson to act as superintendent of quarantine and 4 prisoners from the Bangalore to be guards – to keep ‘natives’ from the station to protect them from spread of illness; as chartered Aurora for communications and supplies; the Emigrant’s mail was sent to Brisbane, with mail fumigated.
12 Aug: Entered Moreton Bay but could not reach quarantine station immediately due to strong ‘contrary winds’.
13 Aug: Emigrant anchored at Dunwich.
13 Aug: Daniel Gorman died on board while the vessel was anchored at the quarantine station.
First- and second-hand accounts
The most useful and reliable first-hand accounts of the voyage were provided by
Captain William Henry Kemp, and his wife,
Frances Sarah Kemp, in a letter in Vol. 1 of the Emigrant's Penny Magazine, , 1851, 2(13), pp.107-109
Passenger Jane T. Cullen wrote a brief letter that appears in the Emigrant's Penny Magazine, 1851, 2(13), pp.109-110
Passenger Joseph Howe wrote a highly inaccurate account of the quarantine many years after the event.
Mary Rhodes, the daughter of passenger Anne Fogarty (who was a child on board the Emigrant) recounted her mother's story in 1916.