A maritime disaster of epic proportions, a book of poems washed up on shore and a sea-faring ghost story – no, it's not a remake of the Titanic, but the Dunbar is considered by many as Australia's equivalent. Wrecked off Sydney Heads in 1857, it also remains the single most dramatic civilian tragedy in Queanbeyan's past.
August 20th, more than 160 years ago, was a dark and stormy night - really, one of the worst on record for Sydney at the time. In the all-encompassing gloom, as the luxury passenger ship entered the Harbour, an apparent nautical miscalculation combined with a fearsome gale drove it against the cliffs near The Gap, that sheer rock-face as well known for the many who have tragically hurled themselves from it into the water some 50 metres below.
The Dunbar, one of the largest - and finest - vessels of its era, was approaching the end of an otherwise uneventful 81 day journey from England, the manifest declaring 63 passengers and 59 crew, though figures vary, up to a total of 136.
Every man, woman and child on board perished that night, save one; Able Seaman James Johnson somehow clung to the rocks when flung upon them by the fierce seas.
In the light of the next morning, shocked Sydney-siders were greeted with detritus from the wreck - and corpses too, some mutilated by sharks: “… the trunk of a female … the legs of a male … [a] bleached arm and extended hand”, even a woman tightly clutching a baby. All detailed in the accounts which proliferated shortly after the catastrophe, so intense was the level of public interest.
One of the beached items was a book of poetry published in England by the Methodist missionary John Gale. He had himself arrived in Australia three years earlier and would earn repute as founder of The Queanbeyan Age and the “Father of Canberra” for lobbying to see the capital sited next to what became his hometown of Queanbeyan (NSW). It's believed this tome of his verses actually made its way back to Gale's personal library.
Far less poetic though was that while the loss of life for the still fledgling colony was generally staggering (the Maritime Heritage Research Centre of NSW gives a modern comparison of “six fully laden Jumbo jets crashing into Botany Bay”), for the Queanbeyan district it was proportionally even more personal.
Two passengers were prominent locals: Hyacinth Macquoid, owner of Tuggeranong Homestead and son of the third Sheriff of the Supreme Court of NSW, Thomas Macquoid, and grazier William Severn.
For a town with a population of only around 500, as Queanbeyan had at that point, this would have been distressing enough, but the knock of death was even louder.
Abraham Meyers was a Queanbeyan businessman returning home on board the Dunbar after a visit to the mother country. With Abraham was his wife, Julia, their six children and two servants - their deaths marking one of the largest singular losses of the entire disaster.
Abraham's was one of the few bodies ever recovered and he, along with other “remains”' as the official inscription declares, was interred in the Dunbar Tomb at the Camperdown Cemetery.
And the associated ghost story? Well, it's not the one based around the quaint cottage in Queanbeyan named for the Dunbar (located in Macquoid St, no less) but rather, concerns another passenger who's body was recovered and buried in a separate grave.
As the yarn goes, a ghostly grey figure is alleged to visit the final resting place of Captain John Steane of the Royal Navy. The suggestion - and as with all the best legends, the historical evidence is hazy to say the least - is that it's Mrs Hannah Watson, wife of the former Harbour Master of Port Jackson in which the ill-fated Dunbar was attempting to find respite from the storm that night. Mrs Watson is buried just across the way from Captain Steane and died only a matter of days before him. It's purported she was linked to him in life, and now according to some, death as well.
Perhaps it's this story that best encapsulates this tragic tale of a doomed ship that still haunt us.
For more on the unsolved, unexplained and unknown in the orbit of the Australian Capital, also see my capitalcrimefiles.com.au website which has features my new podcast.
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