George III (ship)

The "George III" was a British penal transportation convict ship that was shipwrecked with heavy loss of life during its last voyage from England to the Australian Colonies with convicts.

The "George III" was a full rigged ship of 394 tons on measurements of 114 feet length, 28 feet 3 inches beam, built at Deptford in 1810. The ship was acquired by J. Heathorn and J. Poore in the mid 1830s. She was registered at the Port of London.

Last voyage

The "George III" sailed from Woolwich on 14 December 1834 for Hobart, Van Diemens Land under the command of Captain William Hall-Moxey with a total of 308 persons on board, being 220 male convicts, guards, their families and crew. On 27 January 1835 a fire broke out on board while the ship was nearing the Equator. It was only extinguished with great difficulty and all on board were put on reduced rations as part of the ships stores were destroyed. An unbalanced diet caused an outbreak of scurvy and fourteen convicts died before the ship reached the coast of Van Diemens Land on the morning of 12 March 1835.

In order to avoid being blown offshore and thus delaying arriving in Hobart, the master decided to enter the torturous D'Entrecasteaux Channel between Bruny Island and the Tasmanian mainland, but at about 9.15 p.m. that evening she hit a rock and over a period of several hours broke up in the heavy swell. The convicts were kept below to allow the women and children to be safely evacuated by the ship's boats, and in order to quell rising panic guns were fired by the guards, as a result of which between one and three of the convicts were believed to have been shot and killed. Many others drowned below decks, including many of the sick in their beds. In all 133 lives were lost in the disaster, of whom 128 were convicts.

Enquiry

An enquiry refused to ascribe blame for the disaster. It did, however, result in renewed efforts to accurately prepare nautical charts of the Tasmanian coast so that mariners were warned of its many hazards to shipping, and the tightening up of regulations concerning provisions for the transport of convicts.

References

*Michael Roe, "An Imperial Disaster, The Wreck of the George the Third", Blubber Head Press, Hobart, 2006