INTRODUCTION

Since 1976, my initial interest had been for the terrestrial historic sites of Campbell Island.  One wreck only was recorded on Campbell Island; that of the sealing brig Perseverance in 1828.  Two the crew of were drowned [i].   But over time I increasingly wondered about the bulwarks, parts of ship’s boats, planks and spars, old and new that had been seen in North West Bay in the mid to late 1800s [ii]. I wondered also at the mass of small flotsam I’d seen washing to and fro in North West Bay’s Middle Bay in 1975/76, some very sea-weathered and of varying colours and grains; all had disappeared by the 1990s.  Did the wreckage of the 1800s come from wrecks in the Bay or had it been carried great distances from offshore wreck sites by West Wind Drift and prevailing winds?  Several researchers suggested that all of the Campbell Island wreck relics I’d investigated arrived as flotsam from ships wrecked or damaged offshore – on another island or an iceberg.   Consider though that  Campbell Island is only two degrees south of the Auckland Islands and so must have been within the Great Circle Route corridor of the 1800s - imagine then a square-rigged ship running before a westerly gale at night or fog-bound in a heavy swell just west of anywhere along Campbell Island’s western coastline.

The Auckland Islands has shipwreck histories because people survived to tell these.  The wreckage seen on Campbell Island’s shores has had the testimony of none.  Lonely deaths without hope against Campbell Island’s offshore stacks or its high cliffs in 5-7oC seas have been a backdrop to researching shipwreck at Campbell Island.  The following aerial photo of Campbell Island’s south-western coastline kind of says it all.

Having thus far mentioned wreckage in North West Bay only, this series of blogs about shipwreck on Campbell Island will be mostly about wreck relics seen in one of the Island’s southern bays, Monument Harbour.  It is my theory that these relics were not delivered to the shore by West Wind Drift and the last two blogs will discuss the possibility that these were debris from a single vessel wrecked in or near Monument Harbour, and will suggest a name for the vessel.

REFERENCES

[i] Sydney Gazette, 24 September 1829
[ii] 1. FILHOL, H. 1885: “Mission de L’Isle Campbell Recueil de Memoires...Venus sur le soleil” du 9 December 1874, Paris.” Translation page 73.  2. New Zealand Gazette, Province of Southland. 1 April 1868 (Vol. 6, p.51 to 56). The “Cruise of the brig Amherst”, an official report by the Hon. H. Armstrong, to the Superintendent Southland, Invercargill, 31 March, 1868.  3. The Leisure Hour 1889, “In Search of Lost Sailors” Part II. p.463 to 467.  An article written by H. Armstrong from recollections of his 1868 voyage in the Amherst. p. 465.  4. Nature December 17, 1874. Page 123.  5. Otago Daily Times, 28 June 1.

BLOG 1 ENDS

OPINIONS AND ADVICE WELCOME

I will be very appreciative of all and any advice about the way I’ve structured these blogs.  Are they non-declarative?  Do they invite alternative views? 

I’d like to know.

You’ll be right in thinking that some of my theories are ‘long-bow’ or hanging by thin threads of evidence, because that’s about all that subAntarctic Campbell Island offers historic site research these days.  Site evidence comes and goes with peat erosion and accretion, and the now rapid return of Dracophyllum scrub on Campbell Island makes site investigation even harder.  Two other things make historic site research problematic: remoteness – you can’t just hop on a bus and go and check out a site and the paucity of information – if the locations of sites created by the earliest visitors were recorded those records are unavailable to us today.  What joy if those earliest visitors had been required to complete ‘as-built’ historic site records!

And so all new evidence is welcome, including that which argues the case against my interpretations, and which I will willingly add to this site.

[Norm Judd]