s.v. 'Western Monarch' - A photograph of the 'Western Monarch' under sail plus a colourised version. [519] [State Library of South Australia reference : PRG 1373/7/33]
ARRIVAL OF THE WESTERN MONARCH : 'On the 24th March a full-rigged ship was sighted at the Heads standing in from the northward. She proved to be the Western Monarch, with passengers and cargo from London, and was towed up to the anchorage at 5 p.m. by the p s. Koputai, having made the passage from Berry Head to Port Chalmers in 81 days, and from the Scilly Islands in 79 days.
The Western Monarch is a handsome iron clipper ship of 1315 tons register, built at Barrow-in-Furness, and launched in November, 1875, by the Barrow Shipbuilding Company for the Royal Exchange Shipping Company. She is commanded by Captain Watson, a gentleman well known in the Colony, having previously commanded the Ocean Mail which ship he left to take command of the Western Monarch, and we must say a finer vessel never graced the Port.
She is fitted with all the latest improvements, including double screw patent steering gear Her lower masts are of iron, and her topmasts of steel, the yards up to the upper topsail yard being of the same metal, she has splendid accommodation for passengers, her saloon being fitted up with great neatness as well as comfort. Captain Watson informs us the ship has been employed solely in the trade between London and the Colonies, her first voyage being to Brisbane with 600 passengers. She brings 2000 tons of cargo, principally dead weight, the greater part of which is cement, and is under charter to Shaw, Savill, ana Co., of London, her agents here being Dalgety, Nichols, and Co.
The voyage out, with one exception, has been most successful, and the casualty which cast a gloom over the ship was the loss by drowning of a youth named Alfred Hammerbom, who fell overboard from aloft at 1 am, on the 25th of February, and was lost without being seen. The ship was running before the first of a heavy N.W. gale, and was going at least 11 knots an hour. Sail was being taken off her, and the boy, who was an apprentice, is supposed to have lost his hold while aloft.
She left Gravesend on the 28th of December and beat down the Channel against strong westerly winds. Landed the pilot off Berry Head at noon on January Ist, and took her final departure from St. Agnes, Scilly Islands, at 8 p.m. on the 3rd, with fresh S.S.W. winds till getting off the Island of Madeira ; thence she encountered strong S.W. gales, followed by light variable winds till reaching latitude 18 N, when she took the first of the north-east Trades, and carried them to latitude 4 N. ; had a day's light variables, and picked up the S.E. Trades in latitude 3 N., and crossed the Equator in longitude 27 west at midnight on January 28th ; experienced steady Trades, and lost them in latitude 25 S.; thence she encountered light and baffling winds for ten days, and took the first of the steady westerlies in latitude 40 S. ; passed Gough Island on the 19th of February, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope on February 25th ; had steady passage winds across the Southern Ocean from N.W. to S.W.; passed the meridian of St. Paul's on the 8th of March, and made her first landfall off the Snares at 3 pm. on the 22nd, 78 days from land to land ; had fresh S.W. winds up the coast, and made the Heads at 8 p.m. on the 23rd. Captain Watson reports speaking the ship Pomona, Captain Tanuock, on February 12th, in latitude 30 S., longitude 32 W., from Astoria to Queenstown, 85 days out ; and on the same day sighted the ship Wild Deer, from Glasgow for Otago.' - The Otago Witness [806] [807] 30th March 1878
