28 Jan 2010
Alfred Withers' diary covers his voyage with Margaret his bride, on the James Baines from Liverpool to Melbourne, Australia in 1857.
Withers had originally gone to Australia at the time of the first Gold Rush in 1851 and, having accumulated enough money, he returned to England to ask Margaret Buck (who he refers to as Madge in the diary) to marry him. This voyage to Australia was effectively their honeymoon.
Upon arrival in Melbourne, they ran the Great Iron Store on Cecil Street in the Municipal District of Emerald Hill (later South Melbourne). Emerald Hill had been established as a municipality by Act of Parliament on 26 May 1855 and by coincidence its first elections were held at the Great Iron Store a month later. Alfred and Margaret ran the store for nearly 30 years before selling up and returning to England to live in retirement.
The diary begins with the Withers leaving London on 2 January 1857, arriving at Liverpool at 21.00 and checking into the Angel Hotel. The page from the diary above (p. 3) is from the entry for the following day, when they collected their luggage from the station and took it to the pier.
The James Baines was anchored a mile up the river and boats took passengers and their luggage to it. Alfred describes the confusion and crowding on the wharf with the emigrants anxious to get to the vessel and secure their berths:
'pyramids of boxes, cases and chests, the indescribable quantity of beds and bedding … the squeezing, crowding, pushing and confusion is fearful'.
They missed the first boat and had to wait for four hours in cold wind and rain as one illustration shows. You can see Madge 'perched on the luggage, enveloped in rugs, shawls and umbrellas'. Meanwhile Alfred was in the town looking for food, under instruction 'from Madge to get nothing rich which might possibly make us bilious. I very judiciously selected pork pies, a thing above all others which I afterwards learned would cause sickness.' (You can see this written under the illustration).
The Withers finally got on board the James Baines and settled into their cabin, 'our floating home for three months' and set sail on 5 January 1857.
The James Baines was one of the few clippers fitted out as an emigrant ship. Launched in 1854 this was her fourth voyage. Some of the fastest voyages between Liverpool and Melbourne and Liverpool and Boston were run by her and her sister ships Lightening and Champion of the Seas. The National Gallery of Victoria has a painting showing the 'James Baines' in Hobson's Bay.
The final illustration is from the entry for 26 February (p. 72). It shows the funeral of a young boy who died after hitting his head whilst on deck. It was the first funeral of the voyage, and was conducted by the captain of the ship. The coffin was draped with a Union flag, after the body had been wrapped in canvas and weighted down. Deaths at sea were not uncommon – the mortality rate was far higher than that on land, often due to disease spreading in a crowded environment. In 1865, one German vessel lost one fifth of her passengers, 59 out of the 284 who had embarked on the voyage.
The final entry in the diary is dated Monday March 23, 'the day of excitement', when they sighted land and the lighthouse at 05.00 and 'got up to sniff at the Land'. He finishes with:
'[there is] nothing to prevent us reaching Hobsons Bay this afternoon.'
Hannah, Archive and Manuscripts Manager