Abstract
The Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Company altered the dynamics of sea transport between China and Australia in the late nineteenth century. From 1873 to 1880, this shipping company initiated a new, regular, and permanent route between China and Australia that assisted in the development of stronger trade relationships. The company fulfilled this on the back of a mail contract with the Queensland government. What transpired during the mail contract, its impacts, and its legacies have left an indelible, though unrecognised, positive mark on Australia’s trade relationships with China. As such, Eastern and Australian were one of the pioneers in brokering regular international trade routes for colonial Australian merchants and governments. They also became an integral element in the eventual transition from sail to steam, not only along the China-Australia route but also for all Australian international shipping.
The Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Company (E&A) altered the dynamics of travel and trade between China and Australia in the late nineteenth century. From sail to steam, E&A converted the thinking and thus the choice for merchants in China and Australia in relation to how mail and goods could be transported between the two countries. From the time of its establishment in 1873 through to 1880, E&A fulfilled a mail contract between the ports of colonial Queensland and Singapore. This connected Queensland to the existing mail service from Singapore to Britain for the first time. Through the use of the mail contract, E&A provided a service that was faster, regular, and more convenient than either the sailing route or the existing mail contracts that catered primarily for the southern colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. This meant that mail from Queensland to Britain and east Asia now travelled via the Torres Strait instead of Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia. Further, from its earliest days, the route of E&A vessels was extended to ports in China as well as to Sydney and Melbourne. These extensions meant that for merchants, governments, and other institutions of the eastern colonies of Australia, and for China, the new E&A service opened up alternative and more productive avenues of communication and trade. In doing so, E&A instigated the transition from sail to steam between China and Australia.
Recent discussions in this journal have centred on the connection between maritime history and global history. Through a forum of discussants on the ‘blue hole’ of history, Malcolm Tull and Fei Sheng lamented the lack of understanding of their respective research interests in Australian and Chinese maritime histories. 1 The connection between these two is yet another element of mystery to the historian and it is here where this article is situated. Within the maritime history of Asia, Australia tends to be omitted. Han Qing believed that trade with Australia was negligible, yet Australia has long had a place within east Asian trade networks. 2 From the earliest days of European settlement, vessels travelled to Australian ports with the primary intention of continuing to an Asian port to obtain a return cargo for Europe. 3 A number of historians have therefore identified Australia as a transient country for the movement of goods between Europe and Asia in this earlier period. Most recently, Ben Mountford dissected the trade links between Australia and China for the first half of the nineteenth century, emphasising the importance of the triangular route. 4
In 1850, however, there was a major change. The discovery of gold in south eastern Australia from the early 1850s saw not only an influx of Chinese to the mines but also a vigorous trade in goods for these same miners. Australia was also, at the time, a leading consumer of tea, a good that originated in China. 5 At that time, sailing vessels were the sole means of transport between China and Australia. Yet, by the early 1870s, Australia was releasing itself from the shackles imposed by the reliance on sail. Advances in marine technology and the dreams of both governments and entrepreneurs allowed maritime firms to concentrate on servicing Australia’s international trade needs, and for E&A that meant China. This article places E&A at the forefront of creating a transnational maritime link, one specifically related to Australia and China and one that did not rely on maritime links to Britain.
Such an important episode in the relationship between China and Australia has, strangely, been afforded little recognition. A.W. Laxon, William Olsen and G.A. Hardwick have written about the shipping company’s history. 6 Laxon delivers a treatise on the early years specifically, placing more emphasis on the description of the vessels than on how the company functioned and how it affected trade and the mail service. Olsen and Hardwick both devote text to the development of the company, yet choose not to enter into any analysis of the period with respect to the effects of the mail contract. The focus of their works, and those of others, has been driven by the assumed lack of success of the mail contract. Hardwick emphasises this point when he states that the contract ‘was to prove a burden’. 7 Frank Broeze adds to that argument by stating that the Queensland government was ‘disappointed’ with the service provided to Singapore by E&A. 8 This article examines the mail contract in a new light to provide alternative conclusions to those drawn by earlier historians. It places the E&A service within the context of the colonial development of Australia during the 1870s and beyond, and argues that the contract brought Australia closer to the markets of Asia and provided the first significant steps towards the elimination of sail on Australia’s international routes.
The reason for the interest in establishing a stronger connection with east Asia was the momentous increase in trade between China and Australia during the 1860s. 9 From the 1850s, the population of Australia had increased owing to the gold finds in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria. That led to a corresponding increase in demand for tea, a product almost exclusively obtained from China. It also led to a migration of Chinese miners who had their own requirements for specialist goods that had to be imported from China. By the 1860s, the establishment of new coal mines in both the Hunter and Illawarra districts, north and south of Sydney, the colonial capital of NSW, gave merchants a product to trade to China. 10 The opening of more Treaty Ports in Chinese waters, including those along the Yangtze River, increased the requirement for coal to feed the coastal and river steamers. 11 The transport of goods, in combination with the movement of Chinese miners, created a thriving trade relationship between China and the eastern Australian colonies by the late 1860s. The initiators of E&A noted this, and when the news of the need for a mail contract by Queensland was proposed in 1872 they stepped forward with a plan to combine the delivery of mail with that of goods and people.
The primary question this article ventures to answer is why was the 1873–1880 Queensland mail contract with E&A important and to whom or what? It is divided into sections that focus upon: the reasoning behind the mail contract and why a route through the Torres Strait was deemed important; the efforts of the Queensland colonial government in the 1860s to broach a shorter route for trade and communications with Britain; the development and delivery of the 1873–1880 mail contract; and the impact of the contract during this period, and its legacies for Australian trade and shipping. A broad picture of the mail contract emerges to add weight to the argument that the mail contract between the Queensland colonial government and E&A was not only very important in the development of the colony of Queensland, but also that of Australia and that of shipping in Australian waters.
Early steam communications with Australia
Geoffrey Blainey, in his discussion of Australia’s isolation, considered Australia to be located far from the markets of Britain and Europe as well as at the ‘end of Asia’s tail’. 12 The tyranny of distance, as Blainey put it, placed Australia in a poor position to take advantage of the marine technological advances emerging in Britain and America. From the earliest days of maritime transport, sail dominated the seas for Australians. Some domestic trade and travel eventually took advantage of local steam company routes, while sail was almost exclusively used for international trade and travel. 13 Not until the 1850s, when the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) commenced its regular mail service through the Indian Ocean to Melbourne, was there a consistent and reliable steam service to assist the international movement of mail, people, and, in some cases, precious metals. 14 Other international steam services were sporadic, with the exception of trade and travel to New Zealand. Thus, Australia was, at least until the 1870s, isolated from the remainder of the world’s ports.
Such isolation meant that prior to 1873 the flow of shipping between China and Australia was as much defined by the trade winds and the ocean currents as it was by freight costs. Sail was therefore preferred to steam, largely because it was cheaper. The case against deploying steamers was the requirement to pause at coaling stations to reload the bunkers and, owing to the size of the boilers, a loss of significant cargo space. 15 Steamers were more expensive to build and required larger crews than sail vessels. 16 Building larger ships created larger cargo holds, but at the expense of having to carry more coal to power the vessels. Thus, as Douglass North asserted, sail dominated the long trans-oceanic routes where minimal freight rates, and thus costs, were prominent and speed of despatch was not of primary consideration. 17 Geographically, Australia is closer to China than its primary trading partners of Europe, yet for Australia prior to 1873 trade and international shipping with China, as elsewhere, remained sail dominated owing to its isolation. 18
P&O had almost exclusive ownership of international steam communications with Australia from the 1850s. It held the Royal Mail contract and thus within Australia’s international maritime sphere acted as the primary conduit for the transportation of mail and similar articles between Britain and Australia. 19 The opening of the Treaty Ports of China allowed P&O to extend its services to China via Singapore. With Galle as the eventual transit port, the lines to Australia and China were extensions of the existing Britain-India regular trade route. Figure 1 shows the route taken by mail from the Australian ports to China via Galle. Thus, Australian merchants and government bodies wishing to communicate with China had no choice but to rely on the slow (sail) boat to China, or the indirect steam route.
Steam routes for the transport of mail and high-value goods between the Australian colonies and China prior to 1873.
The movement of bulk goods from Australia, in contrast to the specie, bullion, and other low-bulk, high-value goods, was completed by sail. This was especially the case for the China-Australia trade, which was dominated by non-perishable goods such as tea, coal, sandalwood and beche-de-mer. That was all to change by the 1870s.
Opening the Torres Strait for Queensland
The introduction of the 1873 mail contract, the opening of the Torres Strait route and the eventual transformation from sail to steam between China and Australia was not immediate, but a two-stage process. First, it was necessary for prospective operators to accept that the route through the Torres Strait was safe for regular maritime steam communication. The second stage entailed the development of the mail contract. While these were eventually interconnected, they require separate analysis to understand why E&A was established and succeeded.
Numerous attempts had been made to create a regular steam service through the Torres Strait, though the initial intention had been to establish a shorter route to India and thus to Britain. The increase in trade between China and Australia, in both directions, obliged the merchants and governments involved to develop shorter and more efficient methods of communications and goods transport. From the 1840s, steam communication through the Torres Strait to Batavia and Singapore was being considered. 20 Maritime firms were also founded with the intention of providing such a service. Yet, in each case, they floundered before the service could be put into full use. 21
The key proponent of the Torres Strait steam route was the Queensland colonial government. Formed in 1859, one of the government’s first objectives was to decouple the colony from the pre-existing mail contracts that favoured the southern colonies. Those contracts meant that trade and communications between Queensland and Britain was rare, with perhaps two or three cycles per year. 22 Queensland viewed the opening of the Torres Strait as the major step towards independence from the southern mail contracts and an increase in trade and communications with Britain. Although China was a strong trade partner with the southern colonies, initially Queensland lacked interest in any interaction with that nation. That would remain the case until the early years of the 1873 mail contract.
One attempt to open the Torres Strait for regular steam communication and trade took place in 1866. The Queensland government initially contracted a vessel it had leased to travel from Batavia to Brisbane on a regular two-month basis. 23 That decision was financially disastrous. 24 By mid-1866, the Queensland government had sold the rights to the route to a private firm, Bright Brothers and Co., who, themselves, lost a significant amount on the venture. 25 The fact that Queensland had been severely affected by Overend-Gurney financial crash in Britain, meant that the government chose not to continue the service at the end of 1866. 26 Although the prospects for a regular service were good, the Queensland government realised that a private firm was needed to run the service. That would have to wait until the early 1870s.
The 1873–80 mail contract and the Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Company
The development of a permanent steam communication route through the Torres Strait came into being during 1872. The reasoning of the Queensland government had not altered; it wanted to reduce the time it took for mail to be sent to, and received from, England and Europe. In the early 1870s, a number of triggers created the renewed interest for the Queensland government. Both Victoria and NSW had, at the time, shown disinterest in the existing P&O contract. 27 There had been significant improvements in the development of marine steam transport, especially with the compound engine, while the charting of the Torres Strait had improved, thus removing the angst among mariners of its dangers to shipping. 28 The other colonies, however, were not interested in funding the Torres Strait venture, with NSW favouring a service via San Francisco. 29 That left Queensland to go it alone with the Torres Strait route, as it had done in 1866. 30
The Queensland government agreed in April 1872 a contract with the Netherlands India Steam Navigation Company (NISN) on similar terms to those pertaining in the 1866 venture. 31 The NISN eventually stated that they could not satisfy the agreement and the contract was terminated in October 1872. 32 At the same time, a London firm, Mactaggart, Tidman & Co. (MT&Co), showed interest. MT&Co informed the Agent-General of Queensland, Richard Daintree, that its object was ‘to connect and develop the trade between India, China, and Australia, as well as ensure a quick and regular postal communication between Brisbane and this country’, this country being Britain. 33
The process was formalised in January 1873 when a tender was announced. Only NISN and MT&Co offered worthwhile submissions, with the latter being awarded the contract. 34 Thus, on 21 February 1873, Daintree informed MT&Co that it had been successful and that a solicitor would draw up the agreement for all to sign. 35 The initial contract was signed on 18 April 1873 between the Agent-General for Queensland and a group of merchants connected with MT&Co. 36 Following four months of discussion, the Postmaster General was instructed by the British government, on 16 August 1873, to sign the ‘Articles of Agreement’, thus formalising the contract. To the chagrin of the Queensland government, the contract dictated that the steamers would also travel to Sydney. 37
A new international maritime company was formed by MT&Co and other merchants to satisfy the contract. MT&Co partners, William Mactaggart and Paul Frederick Tidman, the latter also connected to Tidman, Balfour and Co. of Batavia, were joined by James Guthrie, partner of Guthrie and Co. of Singapore and James Henderson, partner in Scott, Henderson and Co. of Sydney, Australia. The group had also co-opted the services of Bright Brothers and Co. in Brisbane to act as agents there.
38
Thus was formed the Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Company. E&A was registered in London, with a capital of £150,000, on 3 May 1873, with its objects being:
to convey passengers, goods, merchandise, mails, troops, and treasure, by sea or river, to and from Singapore, Java, Queensland and Sydney, and to and from such other places as the Company may from time to time determine upon, and to transact all business usually transacted by Ship Owners; to acquire or enter into contracts with the Governments of Queensland and New South Wales for the carriage of mails, or any other Colony, State or Country; to build, purchase, or hire ships or vessels, coal hulks, receiving ships, lighters, warehouses, houses, land, cattle or live stock, merchandise or treasure, and to charter or hire, sell or let, or otherwise employ or dispose of such ships or vessels, warehouses, houses, land, cattle, live stock and merchandise, and generally to transact all such business, and do all such things as are incidental or conductive to the attainment of the above objects.
39
E&A firmly stated from the outset that its raison d’etre was the carriage of goods and people. The delivery of mail, as per the agreement with the Queensland government, was secondary. Nevertheless, the mail contract was both vital and advantageous to the company’s stated objectives. To E&A, the delivery of mail had to co-exist with the transport of merchandise and goods, and vice-versa.
E&A immediately started to purchase and lease steamers upon the formalising of the contract. Their first vessel, Sunfoo, was purchased for £38,000, 40 and departed London on 27 September 1873 bound for Singapore and Brisbane. During the following month, the Jeddah, Tom Morton and Flintshire were each chartered, 41 with the Flintshire being the second vessel placed in service. 42 During the period of the contract, the Somerset, Normanby, Brisbane, Singapore, Bowen, Queensland, and Menmuir were built for the company at shipyards in Glasgow, Newcastle, and Sunderland. 43
The service commenced on 19 November 1873 when the Sunfoo departed Singapore with the English mails and other items bound for Queensland and Sydney. 44 Her first journey was outside the guidelines of the contract, instead landing only at Batavia where an additional 100 tons of cargo was collected. 45 The Sunfoo arrived in Moreton Bay, Brisbane, in the early hours of Saturday 13 December 1873 carrying five passengers for the through journey to Sydney and 150 tons of goods for Brisbane made up predominantly of sugar, rice and tea from Batavia, and tapioca, sago and pepper from Singapore. 46 The Sunfoo then departed Brisbane on 15 December 1873, arriving in Sydney within two days. There she unloaded more cargo, similar in both size and type to that discharged in Brisbane, together with some items to be transhipped to Melbourne. 47 The Sunfoo also brought mail from Singapore to Sydney. She departed Sydney on 1 January 1874 with the outgoing mail, after having been cleaned and re-painted. 48 When the Sunfoo arrived in Singapore, she was directed to Hong Kong, thereby extending the route to that port, a decision that was ratified at the Extraordinary General Meeting of the shareholders, held in London on 6 January 1874. 49
The maiden voyage of the Sunfoo would be its last, a portent to the disasters that were to befall the company’s vessels over the following five years. On its passage to Singapore from Sydney, the Sunfoo ran aground near Bowen. When it arrived in Singapore the vessel was deemed unsuitable for further service until repaired. 50 The Benton was leased for a once only return voyage, steaming from Batavia to Sydney with mail from Singapore and then returning to Singapore with mail for Britain and China. 51 Following repairs in Singapore, the Sunfoo continued her journey north to open up the new market of Hong Kong. Unfortunately, she struck a rock near Reef Island, a short distance from Hong Kong, on 10 March 1874, and became a total wreck. The passengers, the mail and some luggage were saved. 52 For E&A, the Sunfoo would be the first of a number of accidents that E&A’s fleet suffered during the mail contract. Other vessels to incur damage or sink were the Flintshire, Jeddah, Bowen, Singapore, Normanby, and the Queensland, all in Australian waters. 53
The Sunfoo’s difficulties did not deter E&A as the company continued to use Hong Kong as a terminus and then, first with the Jeddah and then the Flintshire, it also moved its southern terminus to Melbourne. 54 This not only allowed E&A to obtain more freight for the return trip to China, but also placed the firm in direct competition with P&O for mail and freight to East Asia from all the ports that directed their mail through Melbourne. Throughout the period of the contract, E&A serviced all the required Queensland ports as well as Singapore and Hong Kong, with the occasional journey to Foochow to collect tea. 55
The contract with E&A did not exclude the addition of ports to the service, as the extensions to Hong Kong and Melbourne demonstrated. Various ports along the northern coastal region of Australia were also included. Two were synonymous with gold and the China trade. In northern Queensland, the discovery of productive goldfields on the Palmer River, near Cooktown, created a ‘rush’ of prospectors, including many from China. Port Darwin, the most northerly port of the Northern Territory of South Australia, became an entry point for Chinese immigrants in December 1877. Henceforth, E&A serviced Port Darwin as well as Cooktown along its normal route, with other maritime service providers attracted to these two bases.
Cooktown lies at the mouth of the Endeavour River in far north Queensland and was the first port of call after rounding the Torres Strait and entering the Inner Passage of the Queensland coast. 56 It was a substantial contributor to the China trade in terms of both passengers and cargo for E&A during the period of the contract. Thus, new commercial advantages redefined the route with Cooktown as a major stopover for E&A and other shipping companies in the mid-to-late 1870s. The success of the goldfields drew vessels replete with Chinese immigrants to Cooktown. From early 1875 until the end of 1877, over 20,000 Chinese arrived by boat direct from Hong Kong into Cooktown. 57 While E&A was not solely responsible for this influx, it was a regular and significant contributor. Cooktown offered E&A additional cargo and Chinese miners for the journeys between Cooktown and Hong Kong. The port’s merchants imported Chinese goods, including rice, opium and joss sticks. 58 The main return cargo was an unknown quantity of gold. 59 E&A offered the Chinese a regular return service between Cooktown and China, one that other shipping companies struggled to provide without a supplementary cargo to assist in paying for the journey. The ability to use Cooktown helped E&A pay its costs and stimulated activity in the port itself. To a degree, a symbiotic relationship existed between Cooktown and E&A, with Chinese migrant workers at its crux. 60
Port Darwin was located in an isolated part of South Australia. But at the same time as the Palmer River goldfields were opened, gold was discovered inland of Darwin at Pine Creek. 61 Initially only Europeans mined the gold, arriving from the south by ship. In 1874, 187 Chinese were brought by the South Australian government to Darwin from Singapore as indentured labourers, most remaining after their two years of service were concluded. 62 However, the population of Darwin dwindled after the mid-1870s as more people departed than arrived. The South Australian government debated whether Chinese immigration to Port Darwin could counter this problem. 63 Eventually, in late 1877, the first Chinese people arrived in Darwin from Hong Kong aboard the s.s Charlton. 64 As with Cooktown, Darwin was incorporated into the China trade served by E&A and others. 65
The success of E&A in extending its route to Hong Kong encouraged three other companies to become involved in the China-Australia trade prior to 1880. 66 Each noted how E&A turned a profit through the transport of Chinese miners and goods between China and the Australian ports. Two originated from Hong Kong. They were Hop Kee and Co. and Kwong Hing Cheung and Co. The third was the Australasian Steam Navigation Company (ASN). Figure 2 shows the routes taken by the steamers of E&A and the two Hong Kong firms, with ASN preferring to mirror E&A’s route.
The routes used by Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Navigation Company, and by Hop Kee and Co. and Kwong Hing Cheung and Co.
The Chinese firms became major competitors for E&A on the China-Australia route. Hop Kee and Co. leased a number of fast steamers to perform a shuttle service between Hong Kong and Cooktown, with occasional voyages to Newcastle to collect cargoes of coal for the return journey. 67 Hop Kee and Co. provided the transport for the first people from China to arrive in Cooktown. 68 The Adria, a P&O steamer, was leased by Hop Kee and Co. for four months for the sole purpose of taking Chinese to Cooktown and then loading with coal from Newcastle for the return journey to Hong Kong. 69 The Adria arrived at Cooktown on 20 March 1875, which was also marked by the arrival, only 90 minutes later, of the E&A steamer Brisbane. Together, the two vessels brought with them 754 transient Chinese gold miners to that part of north Queensland. 70 Soon, a second Hong Kong-based company, Kwong Hing Cheung and Co., which was managed by Mr. Leung Ah Yon, commenced a service between Hong Kong and Cooktown. 71 The two companies continued to be involved in the Hong Kong-Cooktown route throughout the late 1870s, and both extended their routes to include Port Darwin from 1878 onwards when that port finally allowed Chinese immigration.
The ASN venture was less successful. Even so, many historians see it as a significant turning point in Australian history. ASN entered into competition with E&A and the two Chinese firms in late 1877, choosing, primarily, to lease steamers. 72 ASN wanted to capitalise on the lucrative Asian markets by taking advantage of the transport of Chinese between China and Cooktown. 73 However, to challenge E&A’s established, subsidised line and the two low-cost Chinese companies that employed Chinese crews, ASN was obliged to minimise its costs. 74 ASN therefore decided to replace Australian seamen with lower-paid Chinese. That led to a revolt by Australian seamen against ASN and eventually a strike, initiated by the Seamens’ Union, at the end of 1878. In response, the Queensland government, backed by the unions, chose to halt the use of Chinese labour on ‘Australian run ships’, 75 and eventually imposed new immigration restriction Acts that were to be repeated throughout the Australian colonies. These became the catalyst for development of the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act and the adoption of the ‘White Australia’ policy. 76
Consequences of E&A’s trade with China
The route and contract taken up by E&A had many advantages over others. Firstly, when the mail contract started, no competition existed to provide a service between the ports of east Asia and Australia’s eastern colonies. That is, the fact that no regular service went through the Torres Strait was a fundamental reason for the development of the new service by E&A. Secondly, prior to the contract, almost all travel by sea between China and the Australian colonies was undertaken by square-rigged vessels, thus giving a new steam service a clear advantage. 77 Thirdly, Clause XXV of the mail contract waived all port costs in Queensland waters. 78 The elimination of port costs placed E&A at an advantage over their rivals, each of whom suffered ‘frustrating burdens’ at the various levies imposed, many inspired through colonial rivalries. 79 These advantages created for the merchants of colonial Australia a more enticing option to transport their goods faster and more regularly than if they had to charter steamers themselves.
Accordingly, the development of the permanent Torres Strait service to Singapore and China favoured all the eastern Australian colonies. This was especially apparent in Queensland. The E&A service provided a quicker, more convenient and regular service between Hong Kong and the eastern colonial ports of Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. Most importantly, the new service shortened the turnover time for mail between the merchants in these ports with their fellow merchants in China. Further, the service created an alternative route for secondary mail. 80
The significance of trade with China for the Queensland mercantile community and government was clearly evident. With E&A opening up new markets for the Queensland merchants, by the end of the 1870s a vibrant trade relationship with China had been established. The percentage shares for the trade with China, as a proportion of all trade for Queensland, grew significantly over the period between 1873 and 1880. In 1873, only three per cent of all international inwards shipping and one per cent of international imports came from China. There were no direct exports to China in 1873. By 1880, 29 per cent of international inwards shipping, 26 per cent of international outwards shipping, 12.5 per cent of all international imports and 13 per cent of all international exports for Queensland related to direct trade with China. In a short time, trade with China had blossomed and the principal instigator was the regular shuttling of E&A steamers between China and Australia. Similarly, as the advantages gained from developing the mail contract were exploited by the colony’s merchants, the value of trade for Queensland with China rose from almost nothing in 1873 to over £350,000 in 1877, settling at approximately £250,000 in 1880. 81 The influx of goods into Cooktown was also a boon for the Queensland government. For example, Cooktown provided the second highest customs revenue, behind only Brisbane, for the six months of 1 July 1876 to 31 December 1876. Almost all of that revenue was generated from taxing goods imported from China. 82
Vessels travelling from China to Australia’s eastern ports increasingly steamed for NSW, rather than Victoria. The statistical records of the two colonies show that the tonnage of vessels arriving with cargo was higher for Victoria over NSW only for the period up to 1875. The effect of the established use of the Torres Strait route had altered the preference to NSW after 1875. Figure 3 shows this change.
Tonnage of vessels laden with goods that arrived from China in the ports of New South Wales and Victoria, 1860–1880.
The transition faciltated by the Torres Strait route was exploited by merchants in China as well as the Australian colonies. For example, the Hong Kong firm Jardine Matheson & Co., which had previously used sailing vessels, began using the steam service for tea deliveries from the mid-1870s, and many other merchants followed. 83 E&A vessels, like many of the steamers operated by Hop Kee and Kwong Hing Cheung, collected coal from Sydney and Newcastle for delivery to China. Prior to that time, all coal was carried aboard sailing vessels.
The introduction of steam also altered the dynamics of shipping in general from China and Australia. With more merchants choosing the new transport option, shipping companies and those merchants involved in organising charters were encouraged to engage steamers on the route instead of sail. Thus, as can be seen in Table 1, sailing vessels were rarely employed on the route by the early 1880s. This was more evident on the Sydney than the Melbourne route. The fact that steamers were now prominent on the China to Australia route, with most taking the Torres Strait route, corroborates the contention that vessels from China chose Sydney as their destination rather than Melbourne.
Ships arriving in Melbourne and Sydney from ports in China and Hong Kong, 1876–1885.
Sources: Statistical Records of Victoria 1876-1885; Statistical Records of New South Wales 1876–1885. The statistical records for years prior to 1876 did not delineate between sail and steam.
Legacies of the mail contract
The mail contract between E&A and the Queensland government was not renewed in 1880. The demise of the contract was a byproduct of E&A’s need to continue the service to Sydney to take advantage of the markets there and the new determination of the Queensland colonial government to populate their colony through immigration from the UK. When E&A submitted its tender for a new contract, the stipulation to continue to Sydney was a point that the Queensland government no longer accepted. 84 The discussions between Queensland and NSW as regards a contribution to the new mail contract via the Torres Strait was not yet agreed, and the Queensland government thus terminated discussions with E&A. The government, however, stated that it had been pleased with the performance of the E&A contract in that the company carried out its duties ‘to the full satisfaction of the Postmaster-General’. 85 Within a short time, the British India Steam Navigation Company (BISN) put forward an option to deliver migrants, as well as the mail, from London to Brisbane. That contract was signed on 6 May 1880. 86
The Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Company held a special meeting on 22 July 1880 with the intention of winding up the company voluntarily as it was no longer involved in the mail contract. 87 That resolution was passed, and on 10 August 1880 the new company, Eastern and Australian Steamship Company Limited, was formed. 88 The new E&A continued to service the route from Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane to parts of Asia that included China, Philippines and Japan. More new steamers were purchased for these routes. 89 The BISN service, however, was altered so that its vessels steamed from Aden to Brisbane without stopping at Singapore, the mail being collected at Aden. 90 Thus, contact with the East was removed from the mail contract, and it was left to companies like E&A to maintain the connection.
The demise of the mail contract did not mean that E&A terminated its interests in the lucrative Asian markets. The first intention of E&A was to upgrade its fleet to incorporate the latest and fastest steamers to service the routes between Asia and Australia. 91 Such was the strength of Asian trade that, as one reporter noted in 1884, ‘the trade has been expanding at a rate that taxed the efforts of the company to keep pace with it; and therefore new boats were necessary’. 92 Shortly after 1880, four new vessels were delivered to E&A, the Tannadice, Catherthun, Guthrie, and Airlie. 93 They joined the Menmuir, which was retained while the remaining vessels were sold. 94
The fact that E&A was servicing the Asian markets also allowed the company to take on new mail contracts. In September 1881, E&A, through the British firm Gibb, Bright & Co., signed a five-year contract, worth £2,500 per annum, with the South Australian government to provide a Northern Territory mail service. 95 Port Darwin remained a port where trade with China was important and the mail contract provided E&A with a financial bonus for continuing a route they were intending to continue anyway. Port Darwin was thus placed in the middle of the route between the east Asian ports and Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. In 1892, E&A supplemented the Port Darwin mail contract with a secondary contract that provided a parcel delivery service between Brisbane and Port Darwin for the Queensland Royal Mail. 96
The increase of trade between Australian ports and China attracted the interest of Butterfield, Swire & Co., a leading firm in Hong Kong. Through John Samuel Swire, this firm had been interested in Victoria’s gold exports since the 1850s. 97 They were connected, by the 1870s, to Lorimer, Marwood, Rome and Co in Sydney and Melbourne. At that time they attempted to attain a foothold within the China-Australia trade by extending the services of the China Steam Navigation Company to include Australia. 98 The Tamsui arrived in Melbourne in late 1882 and then the following year the company commenced more regular services with newer and larger vessels than the company already ran in the coastal Chinese waters. 99 The Whampao arrived in Port Darwin in July 1883 and continued to the eastern Australian ports. In Sydney, the newly renamed merchant firm, Lorimer, Rome & Co. took over as agents for the China Navigation Company. 100
The success of the trade with eastern Asia also led E&A to view other ventures for their steamers. In 1889, E&A offered a full-length sight-seeing trip to south east and east Asia. The cruise package was completed on the Menmuir, which had been refitted with the latest in electric lights and refrigeration. The passengers travelled from Sydney along the Queensland coast and via Port Darwin, ports in the Netherlands Indies, Singapore, and on to Hong Kong. There, excursions were provided to Canton and Macao. The tour continued to Japan for a week-long excursion to various cities, including Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kyoto. On the return journey, the Menmuir visited the various seas near the Philippines and the eastern side of Netherlands Indies prior to returning to Sydney. The new venture was the first tourist-specific trip to east Asia and proved very successful for E&A. 101
Concluding comments
E&A were the pioneers of a regular and strong trade relationship between China and Australia. Prior to the steam postal contract, all shipping between China and Australia was conducted by sail and of a haphazard nature. The time taken for journeys to be completed on the route was inconsequential to all involved, whether for trade or communications, as Australia continued to suffer from the tyranny of distance, even for Chinese ports. Australian and British merchants, as well as successive southern colonial governments, did not consider the Torres Strait route important and thus no investment was provided. The decision by MT&Co. to invest in a maritime venture that became E&A and bid for the 1873 postal contract was the breakthrough that put trade between China and Australia on the same footing as other major trade routes. It created for colonial Australia a stronger relationship with its then emerging trade partner, China.
The opening of the Torres Strait to regular steam traffic became the major stepping stone in the development of trade between the colonies of eastern Australia and China. The mail contract between the Queensland colonial government and E&A was specifically related to improving the mail service between Queensland and Britain, yet it also created new avenues for developing trade and the delivery of mail with east Asia. E&A’s true motives were driven by the emerging connections between Asian markets and eastern Australia during the mid-nineteenth century, and this they exploited. E&A forced the Queensland government to accept their terms so that they could extend the route to include Hong Kong, Sydney, and Melbourne. While the extension was condemned by the Queensland government, it did not affect the original reason for the contract, the regular delivery of mail. The extension to China, however, was to the advantage of Queenslanders, improving their economy through a new trade relationship. That alteration in trade was extended to merchant firms in Sydney and Melbourne. Following the termination of the mail contract, E&A continued the cargo-carrying service.
Altered trading, through E&A, went further than the improvement of relationships. It led to the eventual demise of the sailing vessel as a method of transport from China to the ports of eastern Australia. By the early 1880s, almost all trade from China to eastern Australia was completed on steam vessels. E&A provided a significant portion of that trade, with other firms, such as the China Navigation Company, venturing to enter the route to Australia. The introduction of steam, however, did not altogether remove sail from Australian waters as wind-powered vessels were generally deployed carrying coal to China, and to other ports around the Pacific and Indian oceans. Nevertheless, the permanent steam route through the Torres Strait showed that regular international steam travel was possible and thus commenced the transition from sail to steam for all Australian international travel and trade.
There was also some good fortune for E&A, and for Australia. The initial desire of E&A was to open a shorter, more efficient trade route between China and the ports of Sydney and Melbourne. Yet the impact of the gold rushes of Palmer River and, to a lesser extent, Pine Creek cannot be denied. The fact that Cooktown and Port Darwin respectively provided a significant portion of the trade with China created advantages for E&A, for the merchants of the ports, for the Chinese and for the respective colonial governments. While trade between the southern Australian ports and China would have sufficed, the inclusion of Cooktown and Port Darwin was more than a bonus for E&A. They were possibly a necessity for survival. The attempt by ASN to mirror E&A’s success demonstrates the importance of trade with China during the 1870s and 1880s.
Footnotes
1.
Malcolm Tull, ‘The Interdisciplinarity of Maritime History from an Australian Perspective’, International Journal of Maritime History, 29, No. 2 (2017), 340–2; Fei Sheng, ‘A Chinese Perspective on Filling the Big “Blue Hole”’, International Journal of Maritime History, 29, No. 2 (2017), 335.
2.
Han Qing, ‘Western Steamship Companies and Chinese Seaborne Trade During the Late Qing Dynasty, 1840–1911’, International Journal of Maritime History, 27, No. 3 (2015), 537–59.
3.
Three of the vessels that arrived with the new settlers and convicts in 1788 (Lady Penrhyn, Charlotte, and Scarborough) were directed to Canton to collect tea for the homebound journey. A. K. Cavanagh, ‘The Return of the First Fleet Ships’, The Great Circle, 11, No. 2 (1989), 1. The connection to Canton for tea was achieved under the instruction of the BEIC. Alan Frost, ‘The East India Company and the Choice of Botany Bay’, Australian Historical Studies, 16, No. 65 (1975), 607–08.
4.
Benjamin Mountford, Britain, China and Colonial Australia (Oxford, 2016), 7–45.
5.
From the time of the gold rushes, Australia was one of the top four countries in the world in respect of tea importation and also the highest in tea consumption per capita. Geoffrey Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped the World (Melbourne, 1966), 202; Peter Griggs, ‘Black Poison or Beneficial Beverage? Tea Consumption in Colonial Australia’, Journal of Australian Colonial History, 17 (2015), 23.
6.
W. A. Laxon, ‘The Eastern Mails: Story of the Eastern and Australian Steamship Co. Ltd.’, Sea Breezes, 36, No. 214 (October, 1963), 271–93; William Olsen, Lion of the China Sea: A History of the Eastern and Australian Steamship Company Limited (Sydney, 1976); and G. A. Hardwick, ‘A Century of Service: The Eastern & Australian Steam Ship Company Limited’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 66, No. 2 (1980), 119–31.
7.
Hardwick, ‘A Century of Service’, 121.
8.
Frank Broeze, ‘Distance Tamed: Steam Navigation to Australia and New Zealand from its Beginnings to the Outbreak of the Great War’, Journal of Transport History, 10, No. 1 (1989), 10.
9.
Noel Butlin, Investment in Australian Economic Development 1861–1900 (Cambridge UK, 1964), 8–15.
10.
For a discussion on the coal trade of New South Wales, see K. H. Burley, ‘The Overseas Trade in New South Wales Coal and the British Shipping Industry, 1860–1914’, The Economic Record, 36, No. 75 (1960), 393–413. Viewing the statistics for the international trade in coal from New South Wales after 1860 shows that China, including Hong Kong, was the second most popular destination after New Zealand.
11.
Howard W. Dick and S. A. Kentwell, Beancaker to Boxboat: Steamship Companies in Chinese Waters (Canberra, 1988), 3–5.
12.
Blainey, Tyranny of Distance, 316.
13.
They included the Hunter River Steam Navigation Company in 1840 that altered its name to the Australasian Steam Navigation Company in 1851, the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company (1845), the Launceston Steam Navigation Company (1852), the Sydney and Melbourne Steam Packet Company (1853) and the Howard Smith and Sons line (1854). George E. Arundel, ‘A Brief Historical Sketch of Australasian Steam Navigation’, paper read before the Parramatta Historical Society, 12 September 1951, MLMSS 6400, Mitchell Library, Sydney; Peter Plowman, Ferry to Tasmania: A Short History (Dural, NSW, 2004), 14–15; Peter Plowman, Coast to Coast: The Great Australian Coastal Liners (Dural, NSW, 2007), 14; John Bach, A Maritime History of Australia (Melbourne, 1976), 118.
14.
For a discussion of P&O, see Freda Harcourt, Flagships of Imperialism: The P&O Company and the Politics of Empire from its Origins to 1867 (Manchester, 2006); Freda Harcourt, ‘British Oceanic Mail Contracts in the Age of Steam, 1838–1914’, The Journal of Transport History, 9, No. 1 (1988), 1–18. For a discussion of the movement of specie by P&O, see Andrew Pope, ‘The P&O and the Asian Specie Network, 1850–1920’, Modern Asian Studies, 30, No. 1 (1996), 145–72.
15.
Frank W. Geels, ‘Technological Transitions as Evolutionary Reconfiguration Processes: A Multi-Level Perspective and a Case-Study’, Research Policy, 31, No. 8–9 (2002), 1265–6; Charles K. Harley, ‘British Shipbuilding and Merchant Shipping, 1850–1890’, The Journal of Economic History, 30, No. 1 (1970), 263–4.
16.
Harley, ‘British Shipbuilding’, 264. Harley states that a steamship of the same size as a sailing ship costs 50 per cent more to build and required 50 per cent more crew.
17.
Douglass North, ‘Ocean Freight Rates and Economic Development 1750–1913’, The Journal of Economic History, 18, No. 4 (1958), 537–55.
18.
Many services retained sail until at least the end of the nineteenth century. The wool clippers, which included the Cutty Sark, are just one example. R. V. Jackson, ‘The Decline of the Wool Clippers’, The Great Circle, 2, No. 2 (1980), 87–98.
19.
P&O, together with the Australian Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company, provided mail steam services from late 1852 until the outbreak of the Crimea War. The P&O route to Australia was a branch line from Singapore. From the beginning of 1859, a new P&O service, as a branch from Galle, commenced and ran on a monthly basis. For the Galle to China service, P&O were in competition with the French-owned Messangeres Maritimes. Frank Broeze, ‘Distance Tamed’, 6; Wm. Fred Mayers, N. B. Dennys, and Chas King, The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (London, 1867), Appendix A: iv, xxiv. For dates and times of P&O services relating to Australia, see R. Kirk, Australian Mail Via Suez (Beckenham, UK, 1989), 147–232.
20.
John C. Foley, Reef Pilots: The History of the Queensland Coast and Torres Strait Pilot Service (Sydney, 1982), 16. The steamer Victoria made a successful trip from Sydney to Singapore in 1843.
21.
Paul Battersby, To the Islands: White Australians and the Malay Archipelago since 1788 (Plymouth UK, 2007), 23. For example, the India and Australia Steam Packet Company was created in 1847, but without a vessel taking the trip.
22.
Denver Beanland, ‘First Herbert Government 1860–1863’, Queensland History Journal, 21, No. 4 (2011), 244; ‘The Governor of Queensland to the Governor General’, 14 March 1860, No. 27, Steam Postal Service Further Correspondence, New South Wales Votes & Proceedings (NSWVP) 1860, 1075–76; ‘The Governor of Queensland to the Governor General’, 24 July 1860, No. 28, Steam Postal Service Further Correspondence, NSWVP 1860, 1076.
23.
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 9 January 1866. Batavia is now part of Jakarta. ‘Steam Postal Service’ (Correspondence, &c., Respecting Torres Straits Route.) NSWVP 1865, 859–70, and ‘Steam Postal Service’, NSWVP 1866, v.4, 95–108. The British and Eastern Steam Company also proposed to run a route from London to Hong Kong with a branch from Singapore, via the Torres Strait, to Brisbane. However, the vessel Souchays was chartered by the Queensland colonial government from the Melbourne company, Woodville, Jarret and Co, at a cost of £5,280. ‘Charter Party, Papers and Correspondence Connected with the Chartering of the “Souchays” – Steam Postal Communication through Torres’ Straits, &c.’ 6 January 1866, Queensland Votes & Proceedings (QVP) 1866, 1345, 1348–9. The Souchays was a three–masted converted schooner.
24.
‘Temporary Service’, Queensland Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 21 June 1866, 315–23. By mid-1866, the cost for running the Souchays had been £7,422 8s 8d, that being under the assumption that the Netherlands India government would contribute £3,750.
25.
‘Tenders for Mail Service via Torres’ Straits’, QVP 1866, 1363–7. Bright Brothers & Co. estimated, midway through the contract, that they were due an overall loss of £3,400.
26.
The Brisbane Courier, 4 August 1866, 16 February 1867.
27.
The Queenslander, 10 February 1872; ‘Eighteenth Annual Report of the Postmaster General, on the Departments under his Ministerial Control being that for the year 1872’, NSWVP 1873, 32–3.
28.
Primary breakthroughs in marine technology took place initially in 1864 with Randolph and Elder’s compound reciprocating marine engine, and, a few years later in 1869, when a treatise on modern screw propulsion was published by N. P. Burgh. Harold G. Bowen, ‘Steam in Relation to Marine Engineering’, Journal of the Franklin Institute, 222, No. 6 (1936), 728; N. P. Burgh, ‘On Modern Screw Propellers Practically Considered’, Journal of the Society of Arts, 17, No. 851 (1869), 274–85.
29.
The Argus, 17 April 1872. NSW and Victoria had also entered into a provisional agreement for mail to be sent via the Panama isthmus. ‘Steam Postal Communication via San Francisco' (Correspondence, &c.) NSWVP LA 1872–73 Vol. 2, 17–20; ‘Circular Despatch from the Earl of Kimberley’, 14 August 1872 (No. 1) Papers and Correspondence relating to Proposals for a New Postal Service with the Australasian Colonies on the Termination of the Present Contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company at the End of the Year 1873, QVP 1873, 1219. Queensland was unhappy with the speed of the steamers NSW proposed to use. Foley, Reef Pilots, 27.
30.
‘Telegram from the Colonial Secretary, Queensland, to the Colonial Secretary, New South Wales’, 19 June 1873 (No. 42). Papers relating to Ocean Mail Communication, NSWVP LA 1873, 981, ‘Circular Despatch from the Earl of Kimberley’ 14 August 1872 (No. 1) Papers and Correspondence relating to Proposals for a New Postal Service with the Australasian Colonies on the Termination of the Present Contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company at the End of the Year 1873, QVP 1873, 1219.
31.
‘Heads of Agreement to form basis of Contract to be entered into between the Government of Queensland on the one part, and Alexander Fraser on the other part, for Establishing and Maintaining a regular Four Weekly Steam Service between Batavia and Sydney, via Torres Straits and the principal Ports of Queensland’, 14 October 1871, (No. 5 of No. 1) Papers Respecting a proposed Steam Mail Service between Sydney and Batavia, via Queensland and Torres Straits, Intercolonial Conference, 1873, QVP 1873, 270.
32.
‘The Under Colonial Secretary to Messrs. Eldred and Spence 30 October 1872 (No. 3 of No. 2) Copy of Telegrams received and despatched re Fraser’s Postal Service, Intercolonial Conference, 1873 QVP 1873, 271; Foley River Pilots, 27.
33.
‘Messrs. Mactaggart, Tidman, and Co., to Agent–General’, 31 July 1872 (No. 3 of No. 5) Papers and Correspondence relating to a proposed steam mail service between Sydney and Singapore, via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1873, 1237.
34.
‘Agent-General to the Colonial Secretary’, 21 February 1873 (No. 10) Papers and Correspondence relating to a proposed steam mail service between Sydney and Singapore, via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1873, 1241. An additional tender was made by Monsieur Meiner, but the Agent-General considered it insufficiently mature to forward it as an option. ‘Alexander Fraser, Esquire, to R. Daintree, Esquire’, 27 January 1873 (No. 1 of No. 10), ‘Memorandum regarding Contract for Mail Service between Singapore, Queensland, and New South Wales’, 25 January 1873 (No. 3 of No. 10), and ‘Copy of Telegram from Agent-General for Queensland to the Honorable the Colonial Secretary’, 8 February 1873 (No. 8 of No. 10). Papers and Correspondence relating to a proposed steam mail service between Sydney and Singapore, via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1873, 1241–3.
35.
‘Richard Daintree, Esquire, to W. Mactaggart, Esquire’, 21 February 1873 (No. 11 of No. 10) Papers and Correspondence relating to a proposed steam mail service between Sydney and Singapore, via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1873, 1244.
36.
‘Contract for the Conveyance of Mails’, 18 April 1873 (No. 2 of No. 2) Further Papers and Correspondence relating to a Proposed Steam Mail Service between Sydney and Singapore via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1874, 374–7.
37.
‘Telegram from the Agent-General to the Colonial Secretary’ 28 August 1873 (No. 23) Further Papers and Correspondence relating to a Proposed Steam Mail Service between Sydney and Singapore via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1874, 381–2. There was no financial support from either the government or private enterprise in NSW.
38.
Olsen, Lion of the China Sea, 5. Bright Brothers, with offices in Sydney and Melbourne, eventually took over from Henderson. Gibb, Livingston & Co. were the agents for E&A in Hong Kong.
39.
The National Archives, London (TNA), BT 31/1851/7270, ‘Memorandum of Association’, Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Company.
40.
‘The Agent-General to the Colonial Secretary’ 10 May 1873 (No. 25) Further Papers and Correspondence relating to a Proposed Steam Mail Service between Sydney and Singapore via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1874, 383; Empire (Sydney), 27 October 1873, 2. This article has a description of the meeting of E&A on 2 September 1873. The meeting was informed that the subsidy would be £23,000.
41.
‘Messrs. Mactaggart, Tidman, and Co. to the Agent-General’, 7 October 1873 (No. 1 of No. 38), 27 October 1873 (No. 2 of No. 38), and 28 October 1873 (No. 3 of No. 38) Further Papers and Correspondence relating to a Proposed Steam Mail Service between Sydney and Singapore via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1874, 402.
42.
The Queenslander (Ipswich), 31 January 1874.
43.
Olsen, Lion of the China Sea, 17. The Somerset and Normanby were built at Renfrew, while Brisbane, Singapore, and Bowen were built at Glasgow, and the Queensland and Menmuir were built at Newcastle, England.
44.
Straits Times Overland Journal (Singapore), 19 November 1873.
45.
The Brisbane Courier, 27 November 1873.
46.
The Telegraph (Brisbane), 13 December 1873; The Queenslander (Ipswich), 13 December 1873; The Brisbane Courier, 13 December 1873. No reason was provided for this, once only, alteration to the contract and thus it was possibly just accepted by the Queensland Government. The ASN already provided a mail service to all the ports from Sydney to north Queensland. The return journey of the Sunfoo fulfilled the contract requirement for stops.
47.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 1873.
48.
Empire, 2 January 1874.
49.
Hardwick ‘A Century of Service’, 121.
50.
Brisbane Courier, 12 March 1874.
51.
The Telegraph (Brisbane), 1 June 1874. The English mail was delivered to Batavia from Singapore on the HNMMS Minister Fransen van de Putte. The Benton belonged to James Guthrie, having been built in Glasgow and launched in July 1872. Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping From 1st July, 1874, to the 30th June, 1875 (London, 1874).
52.
The Hong Kong Times, Daily Advertiser, and Shipping Gazette, 13 March 1874.
53.
The Brisbane Courier 24 June 1874; The Bega Gazette and Eden District or Southern Coast Advertiser, 3 September 1874; The Brisbane Courier, 9 September 1875; The Argus (Melbourne), 4 August 1876; The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February 1877; The Brisbane Courier, 16 August 1877; The Age (Melbourne), 5 August 1876.
54.
The Queenslander (Ipswich), 2 May 1874.
55.
Baker Library, Harvard University, Boston, Augustine Heard Archives, Prices Current P945 Cartons 31–3, 30 July 1875. The Somerset departed Foochow on 7 July 1875 with 175,789 lbs. of tea for Melbourne, and 301,457 lbs. tea for Sydney, as well as making a journey to Amoy, departing there on 12 July 1875, to collect 10,540 lbs. tea for Brisbane.
56.
The Inner Passage was the route between the Queensland coast and the Great Barrier Reef. For a discussion of Cooktown and the Palmer River goldfields, see Robert Ormston, ‘The Rise and Fall of a Frontier Mining Town: Cooktown 1873–85’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 1996); Kevin Rains, ‘Intersections: The Overseas Chinese Social Landscape of Cooktown, 1873–1935’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 2005); Noreen Kirkman, ‘From Minority to Majority: Chinese on the Palmer River Gold–Field, 1873–1876’, in Henry Reynolds, ed., Race Relations in North Queensland (Townsville, 1993).
57.
The total amount is unknown, though well over 20,000 arrived, an amount calculated using shipping records in the two Cooktown newspapers – The Cooktown Herald and Cooktown Courier. Many also arrived from various ports to the south, including Melbourne, Sydney, and Queensland towns.
58.
The two newspapers contained detailed import and export lists of goods and merchants involved. For example, the Bowen, on 2 March 1876, brought to Cooktown rice, sugar, sausages, rope, wine, cuttle-fish, crackers, sugar candy, olive seed, cakes, string, china ware, ducks, medicine, opium, and paper. Cooktown Courier, 4 March 1876.
59.
Cooktown Courier, 15 December 1875. There was no duty or tax on the export of gold from Queensland. The decision not to declare the amount of gold being exported is not recorded and perhaps relates to that which is declared to the Chinese in Hong Kong when the transport vessel arrived at that port.
60.
In the early years of the service and its connection with Cooktown, E&A was successful. The fourth half-yearly report, dated 29 June 1875, stated that the connection to Hong Kong was one reason for this success. The ability to stop with cargo, both human and goods, at Cooktown was a bonus. Brisbane Courier, 3 September 1875.
61.
David Carment, ‘Writing the Mining History of Australia's Northern Territory: Past Themes, Current Research and Future Prospects’, Journal of Northern Territory History, 7 (1996), 2; Geoffrey Blainey, The Rush That Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining (Melbourne, 1969), 90–6.
62.
Eric Rolls, Sojourners: Flowers and the Wide Sea (St Lucia, Queensland, 1992), 267–78; Northern Territory Times and Gazette (Darwin), 8 August 1874.
63.
The matter was discussed in the South Australia Parliament from 1876, as it was in the editorials and other items in both Adelaide and Port Darwin newspapers. See, for example, South Australian Register (Adelaide), 14 September 1876, 4 November 1876 and 3 January 1877.
64.
The Australasian Steam Navigation leased s.s. Charlton arrived from Hong Kong on 12 December 1877 with 90 Chinese. It had stopped a few months prior in Port Darwin on a voyage from Hong Kong to Cooktown enquiring about the option of providing Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. Northern Territory Times and Gazette (Darwin), 18 August 1877, 22 December 1877.
65.
The first E&A vessel to arrive was the s.s. Normanby from Hong Kong on 12 March 1878, with 137 Chinese. Northern Territory Times and Gazette (Darwin), 16 March 1878.
66.
A fourth, George R. Stevens & Co, joined the route from May 1880.
67.
Hong Kong Public Records Office (HKPRO), Hong Kong, Carl Smith Collection, Card 279537.
68.
There is an assumption that Chinese people were informed of the new gold rush in northern Queensland by their compatriots in Australia. The time taken to get themselves organised meant that they were unable to take advantage of a vessel travelling past that port until the departure of the Adria and Brisbane.
69.
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Records, P&O/3/11, Reports from Managing Directors to Board 1874–77, Memorandum for the Board, 8 March 1875; Cooktown Courier, 27 March 1875, and The Hong Kong Times, Daily Advertiser, and Shipping Gazette, 22 February 1875. Noreen Kirkman, ‘From Minority to Majority’, 249, n37, states that the s.s. Victoria was the first vessel to arrive from overseas. The Cooktown Courier, 6 February 1875, clearly states that the vessel left from Sydney as do numerous newspapers from New South Wales. The Victoria did carry Chinese, and they may have arrived into Sydney from overseas, but the Adria was the first vessel to arrive specifically from overseas in the port of Cooktown.
70.
Cooktown Courier, 27 March 1875.
71.
HKPRO, Carl Smith Collection, Card 54635. The company has also been identified as Ah Yon and Co.
72.
Cooktown Herald and Palmer River Advocate, 3 November 1877. Only the Ocean was owned by ASN. The leased steamers were the Thales, Charlton, Mecca, Zamboango, Athol, and Crusader.
73.
The ASN had access to the statistics of the Queensland government that showed that trade with China was increasing each year. Ronald Parsons, A Pioneer Australian Steamship Company: A History of the Hunter's River Steam Navigation Company and the Australian Steam Navigation Company, Including a Fleet List (Lobethal, S. A., 1970), 47–8. The ASN chose in March 1878 to extend their route to Port Darwin. Cooktown was also the farthest most port along the Queensland coast that the ASN had previously serviced. S. E. Stephens, ‘The Endeavour River and Cooktown’, Queensland Heritage, 2, No. 2 (1970), 23.
74.
It is of note that the ‘official history’ of ASN neglects to include the venture to China, even though it was marked by such a significant incident in both the history of the company and of Australia. See F. H. Trouton, Handbook and History of the Australasian Steam Navigation Co (Sydney, 1884).
75.
The strike did not affect the vessels of either E&A or the two Chinese companies, each of which employed Chinese seaman, Thus, only those vessels leased or owned by an Australian firm (ASN in this case) were involved in the strike.
76.
For a discussion of the 1878–79 Seamen’s Strike, see Ann Curthoys, ‘Conflict and Consensus’, in Ann Curthoys and Andrew Markus, eds., White Are Our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class in Australia (Sydney, 1978), 48–65; Phil Griffiths, ‘The Heroic Shameful Role of Labour: Mythology in the Making of White Australia’, Legacies 09 Conference (Toowoomba, Queensland, 2009); Pauline Kneipp, ‘The Seamen's Strike 1878–1879: Its Relation to the White Australia Policy’, ANU Historical Journal, 1, No. 2 (1965–66), 14–8.
77.
There were few, if any, ocean-going steamers in Australian waters available for charter as most belonged to international maritime firms.
78.
‘Contract for the Conveyance of Mails’, 18 April 1873 (No. 2 of No. 2) Further Papers and Correspondence relating to a Proposed Steam Mail Service between Sydney and Singapore via Queensland and Torres Straits, QVP 1874, 374–7: Clause XXV.
79.
John Bach, The Australian Station: A History of the Royal Navy in the South West Pacific, 1821–1913 (Sydney, 1986), 138–9.
80.
All mail sent by sea included a secondary copy in case the first copy was lost or destroyed en route to its destination. The secondary copies have been termed the ‘Press Copy’. Prior to the E&A route, these Press Copies were sent on following steamers that travelled to Galle. The E&A route meant that the Galle mail would now be the Press Copy, with the Torres Strait route taking the first copy.
81.
Note that the export figure does not include any undeclared gold exported by the Chinese from Cooktown. The value of gold undeclared would have been a sizeable amount. Gold exports were not subject to duty.
82.
Cooktown Courier, 3 February 1877. Cooktown provided 12 per cent of all Queensland customs revenue in the period.
83.
Jardine Matheson & Co. commenced using steam-powered vessels to transport tea to Australia from the beginning of 1874 and rarely employed sail vessels. Cambridge University Archives, UK, Jardine Matheson Archives, A6/23–26.
84.
Morning Bulletin (Townsville, Queensland), 14 February 1880; ‘Memorandum Relative to the Establishment and Maintenance of the Torres Straits Mail Service’, 2 September 1880. Copies of Minutes of the Executive Council, and Telegrams between the Government and Contractors, in Reference to the New Mail Service between London and Queensland, QVP 1880, 1030.
85.
‘Memorandum Relative to the Establishment and Maintenance of the Torres Straits Mail Service’, 2 September 1880. Copies of Minutes of the Executive Council, and Telegrams between the Government and Contractors, in Reference to the New Mail Service between London and Queensland, QVP 1880, 1029.
86.
The Queenslander (Ipswich), 9 October 1880; Memorandum Relative to the Establishment and Maintenance of the Torres Straits Mail Service’, 2 September 1880, Copies of Minutes of the Executive Council, and Telegrams between the Government and Contractors, in Reference to the New Mail Service between London and Queensland, QVP 1880, 1029–42.
87.
TNA, BT 31/1851/7270, Eastern and Australian Steamship Company Limited, ‘Special Resolution: That the Company be wound up voluntarily’.
88.
TNA, BT 31/2682/14364, ‘Memorandum of Association’, Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Company.
89.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 October 1880. See Olsen, Lion of the China Sea, for a fuller description of the future of the company after 1880.
90.
Royal Mail Archives, London, POST 29/305B, ‘Letter from H. Buxton Forman (for the Secretary) to General Post Office’ relating to the Queensland Mail Service via Torres Straits, 15 September 1881.
91.
Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), 2 September 1880.
92.
SMH, 24 April 84.
93.
Hardwick, ‘A Century of Service’, 122; Sydney Daily Telegraph, 10 June 1882.
94.
The Brisbane Courier, 8 October 1880.
95.
SMH, 3 September 1881. The article states that ‘Mr. Murray (Messrs. Gibb, Bright, and Co.’s representative) arrived yesterday to sign the contract entered into between the Government and the Eastern and Australian Steamship Company for the Northern Territory mail service. The contract is for five years, either party terminating it by six months’ notice, six trips each way per year, the company reserving the right to call at Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. The subsidy is £2,400 per annum’.
96.
SMH, 20 September 1882; The Queenslander (Ipswich), 24 December 1892. The initial contract was for the East Asian ports via Port Darwin, with extensions to Sydney, Melbourne and, ten years later, Adelaide.
97.
Sheila Marriner and Francis E. Hyde, The Senior John Samuel Swire 1825–98: Management in Far Eastern Shipping Trades (Liverpool, 1967), 13–5.
98.
Marriner and Hyde, Senior John Samuel Swire, 50. School of Oriental and Asian Studies, London, Swire Archives, Letters to Butterfield and Swire (SOAS, B&S), JSS/1/1/4, Letter from John Samuel Swire to Lorimer, Marwood, Rome and Co, 29 October 1875. Butterfield, Swire and Co. were in constant conflict with Bright Brothers, the latter being aligned with E&A; see SOAS, B&S, JSS/1/1/4, Letter from John Samuel Swire to Lorimer, Marwood, Rome and Co, 6 July 1877.
99.
The Age (Melbourne), 9 August 1882, and SMH, 8 August 1883.
100.
Northern Territory Times & Gazette (Darwin), 28 July 1883; Sydney Daily Telegraph, 31 October 1883. Lorimer, Rome and Co were also agents for the Blue Funnel Line in Australia, and were an iteration of Lorimer, Marwood, Rome and Co.
101.
SMH, 8 February 1889, 17 February 1890. The experiment was so successful that the Guthrie departed Sydney on 15 February 1890 to replicate the voyage of the Menmuir.