Iris (1855/06/29)

Iris (1855)
Official number: 40474 (re-registration after wrecking)
Where built: Not known, but probably New Bedford, USA
Registered: New Bedford, USA
Rig type: 3-masted barque
Hull: Wood
Length: 97.4 ft (29.6 m)
Breadth: 24.4 ft (7.5 m) (Dickson, 1996: 14) or 27.5 ft (8.4 m) (McKenna, 1959; Henderson, 1988; Dickson, 1996: 16)
Depth 12.5 ft (3.8 m) (Dickson, 1996: 14) or 16.5 ft (5 m) (McKenna, 1959; Dickson, 1996: 16)
Tonnage: 311 (Gibbs, 1990; Henderson, 1988: 26) or 271.59 (McKenna, 1959; Henderson, 1988: 28; Dickson, 1996)
Port from: New Bedford on a whaling voyage
Date wrecked: 10 July 1855
Location: Port Gregory
Chart number: BA 1056 & WA 713
Significance criteria: 1 & 8
THE VESSEL
The Iris was a three-masted barque with two decks, a square stern and scroll head. It had a standing bowsprit. E.C. Jones from New Bedford in the USA owned the vessel, so its place of building was probably that town. Whaling vessels fitted for a long voyage typically carried a number of whale-boats in davits and on deck. They also carried timber for repairing any boats damaged.
The Iris was an old vessel when it came to Western Australia, and is believed to have been whaling in the Pacific Ocean in the 1820s and 1830s. It then fished the Indian Ocean in the 1840s and 1850s (Henderson, 1988: 26). The Iris had left New Bedford in August 1854 on a whaling voyage to the Indian Ocean with C.S. Davak (Henderson, n.d., Research Notes) or E.S. Davoll (Henderson, n.d., Research Notes) or Edward Devoll (Henderson, 1988) or Deval (Gibbs, 1990) or Davok (Totty, 1979) as master, and a crew of 29 men. It is known to have been in King George Sound in March 1855.
After being wrecked and written off at Port Gregory, the Iris was later salvaged and taken to Fremantle, repaired and registered there as the Frances on 7 September 1856. It appears from the differing figures for tonnage, beam and depth that during the refit after the wrecking the Iris not only changed its name but also some of its dimensions. It was a fairly common practice when carrying out major repairs to a vessel to lengthen, shorten or otherwise alter some measurements to better fulfill a particular role.
The first owner of the Frances ex Iris was Richard Alexander Clinch, a merchant of Perth. Two months later Clinch mortgaged the vessel to Bickley & Co. to secure £430 at 10%. A further mortgage for £1?500 (but inclusive of the first mortgage) to the same firm was secured in January 1857. Only eleven days after that agreement another mortgage was taken out, again to Bickley & Co., this time for £337 10s?4d. On 21 January 1859 the vessel, still under the three mortgages, was sold to Charles Joshua Clinch who transferred it, and presumably the mortgages, to Wallace Bickley (one of the partners of Bickley & Co.) the following day.
Wallace Bickley re-registered the Frances at Fremantle on 25 January 1859. The barque was put up for sale at Madras, India, in June 1866 and its ultimate fate is not known.
THE LOSS
The Iris anchored at Port Gregory on 29 June 1855, having sprung a leak. Captain Devoll wished to careen his ship and needed a suitable, sheltered anchorage that he thought he had found at Port Gregory. However on the night of 9 July a north-west gale blew up, and at 3.00 a.m. on the morning of 10 July the Iris was blown ashore, fetching up on the sand spit opposite Gold Digger Passage. According to William Burges, the Resident Magistrate, in a letter to the Colonial Secretary dated 13 July 1855:
It was during a heavy gale from NW and strange to say the current carried her out against the wind, and the anchors seemed to drift faster than the vessel as if the whole bottom of the anchorage bodily gave way. She had an anchor out astern and it, all the time she was dragging, kept a strain on the cable. She went out stern foremost and had three anchors out, one of which came foul of the mooring chains of the large buoy, and all went away together.
The captain and his crew have pitched tents on the shore and are unloading the vessel with the hope of getting her off, which I think not at all possible. I have placed Constable Adams there to see that no robbing shall be committed and that no goods liable to duty shall be landed without my knowledge.
It is a curious fact that the vessel is now lying with her three anchors and the mooring buoy astern of her.
The crew was unsuccessful in their attempts to refloat the barque, and the Iris was condemned as a wreck in August 1855. The crew appealed to William Burges for assistance:
Port Gregory
10th August 1855
To Wm Burges Esq
Sir we the undersigned officers and crew of the ship Iris wrecked this port on the 10th July 1855 being now left destitute without means of proceeding elsewhere do throw ourselves in your hands as the Representative of the British Government here, praying that you will forward us to our respective consuls.
Sir, we remain
Your obdt and humble
Servants
Signed by 30 men including officers
The American Consul, Thomas Pope, was obviously very reluctant to come to the aid of the crew, particularly the Portuguese members, despite the Advocate General pointing out to him that the Consul was responsible for American distressed seamen as well as ‘regularly hired seamen on board an American vessel’ (Advocate General to Colonial Secretary in Henderson, 1988: 27). While engaged in attempting to salvage the Iris, the Resident Magistrate had to resort to ordering the master to feed the crew from supplies salvaged from the wreck.
Captain C.S. Davok
Late of the US whaler Iris of New Bedford
Board of survey condemns Iris as a wreck.
Mr Thomas Pope the US Consular in Fremantle has not made any arrangements for maintenance and removal of the officers and crew although informed by me about loss of vessel.
We now call on you to furnish rations from the stores saved from the ship to the maintenance of 27 men including officers who are now proceeding to Fremantle in schooner PERSEVERANCE to claim protection of the US Consul.
Rations will include 337 lbs salt pork, 236 lbs bread, 60 lbs sugar and 9 lbs tea also sufficient wood for the cooking of these rations.
W. Burges
After their failure to refloat the Iris, 27 of the crew were taken to Fremantle on the schooner Perseverence (the maximum number it could carry) to seek help directly from the American Consul. The other three were taken by the Rapid to Singapore.
INQUIRY
There was no inquiry held in Western Australia, as these were only held for foreign owned ships if requested by the diplomatic representative of that country after he received a Captain’s report on the event.
INITIAL SALVAGE
Captain Devroll salvaged and shipped 4?600 gallons (21?000 litres) of sperm oil to London. The crew of the Iris had also removed many items, and in October these were auctioned. Items included some sails, spars and rigging, together with a considerable amount of good whaling gear, and some food and clothing. As there was a great demand within the colony for whaling equipment, it seems very likely that gear from the Iris ended up being used in some bay whaling enterprise along the Western Australian coast, possibly at Port Gregory itself.
The Iris was purchased, along with spars and rigging, by Captain Bennett, previously master of the Eglinton that had been wrecked in 1852. Iris was refloated in January 1856. Temporary repairs were carried out and the barque set sail for Fremantle under jury rig. The makeshift rig was inadequate, so the vessel had to return to Port Gregory in order for further improvements to be carried out. It eventually arrived in Fremantle on 24 April 1856 and was taken to Careening Bay for careening so that proper repairs to the hull could be effected.
After repairs to hull and rigging, the Iris was re-registered as a British vessel (official number 40474) and renamed the Frances. Its first voyage under this registration was to Adelaide on 12 October 1856, carrying 150 passengers. Many of these people were artisans made redundant by convict labour that had become available in Western Australia after 1850.
STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
HISTORIC (1)
A previously foreign registered vessel that had been condemned as a wreck could not have been registered in Western Australia prior to 1850. At that time the law was altered, but even so re-registration of such a vessel must have been very uncommon.
REPRESENTATIVE (8)
The Iris was representative of the many American whaling ships that fished in Western Australian waters during the early part of the 19th century.
REFERENCES
Dickson, R., 1996, Ships registered in Western Australia from 1856 to 1969: their details, their owners and their fate. Report—Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, No. 80.
Grey, G. 1983 (1839)i, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in Northwest and Western Australia, During the Years 1837, 38 and 39, Volume 1. Fascimile edition 1983. Hesperian Press, Victoria Park.
Grey, G. 1983 (1841)ii, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in Northwest and Western Australia, During the Years 1837, 38 and 39, Volume 2. Fascimile edition 1983. Hesperian Press, Victoria Park.
Dow, G.F., 1985, Whale Ships and Whaling: a Pictorial History. Dover Publications Ltd., New York.
Gibbs, M., 1990, A preliminary database of whaling and sealing vessels in Western Australian waters 1792–1885. Department of Archaeology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands. Unpublished manuscript.
Henderson, G., n.d., Unfinished voyages, Volume 2: Research Notes. Held at Western Australian Museum.
Henderson, G. and K., 1988, Unfinished voyages: Western Australian shipwrecks 1851–1880. University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
McKenna, R., 1959, Vessels registered with the British Register of Ships at the Port of Fremantle, WA. Book one. Unpublished manuscript.
Totty, D., 1979, Wrecks of WA’s central mainland coast (Jurien Bay to Port Gregory). Unpublished manuscript.
Inquirer, 8 January and 31 October 1851
CSR 339, fol. 57 Battye Library