Charles Eaton (1833 ship)

History
Vereinigtes Königreich
Name	Charles Eaton
Namesake	Charles Eaton, former Port Master of Coringa
Builder	William Smoult Temple, Coringa, near Madras, India [citation needed]
Launched	1833
Fate	Wrecked 1834
General characteristics
Tons burthen	350, or 400(bm)
Sail plan	Full sail

Charles Eaton, was a merchantman launched in 1833. She was wrecked in 1834 and her passengers and crew attacked by Torres Strait Islanders, off the coast of Northern Queensland, near the entrance to the Torres Strait.

Career

Reputedly a fine-looking wood barque, she was built in a shipbuilding yard at Coringa, near Madras in India, where she was launched in January 1833. Registered in London at 313 tons to carry 350 tons burden, She was built of the best Teak, and had two flush decks, forecastle, bust head, and quarter galleries. She was coppered to the wales in chunam and felt.

Named after a Captain Charles Eaton, a former ship’s captain, trader and owner of several ships, who gave up the sea to settle ashore as the Port Master of Coringa, a town to the north of Madras. He died there in 1827. One of his daughters, Sophia, married William Gibson, at one time the manager of a shipbuilding yard in the region. Eaton’s son, Captain Charles W. Eaton, took over his father’s role as Coringa’s Port Master from 1828–1838 and was the part-owner of at least three merchant ships.

The Charles Eaton under the command of Captain Fowle arrived in London with 1000 chests of indigo worth about £45,000. On 14 June 1833 ‘Lloyd’s Shipping List’, had noted that: The cargo saved from the James Sibbald, built in Bombay, and wrecked on reefs off Coringa in 1832, has been reshipped per Charles Eaton.

Advertised for sale in the Guardian and Public Ledger of London as late as 6 September 1833, she was bought by Gledstanes & Co for use as a fast sailing passenger ship capable of use for general purposes.

Her first trading voyage from Saint Katherine's Dock in London was to the Australian penal colonies. Her passengers included an Irish lawyer called George Armstrong and 40 pauper children from the Children's Friend Society. Also on board was a young ship's boy called John Ireland, the only member of the crew who lived to tell the story of what happened to the Charles Eaton. She cleared the Thames on 20 December 1833, and set sail the next day with favourable winds. After a stopover at the Downs to collect more passengers from the village of Deal, she collided with another vessel. she left Falmouth , England for good on 5 February 1834 with sundry cargo, including calicoes and lead.

The Wreck

She was en-route from Sydney to Singapore by way of the Torres Strait leaving Sydney on 29 July 1834, when she was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef near the Sir Charles Hardy Islandson 15 August 1834.

Six of the crew took one of the quarter boats and set out for Timor but were subsequently taken captive at an island then called Timor Laut, but now called Yamdena, part of the Tanimbar group of islands.

Of the 27 persons and the ship's dog Portland remaining with the wreck, only four boys initially survived. The rest were killed by Torres Strait islanders. They were the two young ship's boys, John Ireland and John Sexton, and the two sons of Captain Thomas D'Oyly of the Bengal Artillery and his wife, Charlotte D'Oyly. They were George D'Oyly, aged seven, and William D'Oyly, aged three. Sexton and George D'Oyly died soon after, the latter possibly from natural causes.

Those remaining at the wreck made two rafts, the first of which set sail with all the passengers, Captain Moore, surgeon Grant, steward Montgomery and two strong sailors to man the oars. They reached a small sandy cay now called "Boydang", inhabited at the time by visiting Torres Strait Islanders, who killed all the adults and kept their skulls for their daily ceremonial rituals. Only William and George D'Oyly were spared.

The second raft left the "Charles Eaton" wreck with the rest of the crew and they, too, were murdered and beheaded by the visiting party of islanders.

John Ireland and William D'Oyly lived with their captors for some months, and were eventually exchanged to a couple from Murray Island Mer Torres Strait, for a bunch of bananas.

The two boys were treated kindly by the Murray Islanders and lived with them from about September/October 1834 until June 1836.

Rescue

On 3 June 1836 schooner, the Isabella commanded by Captain Charles Morgan Lewis, was dispatched from Sydney to make a search for reported survivors of the Charles Eaton being held captive at Murray Island. The Isabella arrived at Murray Island on 19 June and the two survivors were handed over to Captain Lewis, who returned with them to Sydney. The ship also carried back skulls believed to be those of the murdered passengers and crew.

The rescue of William D'Oyly, 1841l

The Isabella may have been one of the first European vessels to make contact with natives at Prince of Wales Island near the tip of Cape York.

Captain Lewis took leave of absence to take the young D’Oyly back to England to be placed in care of relatives.

References

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