ABSTRACT
Early on the morning of Saturday June 4, 1870, the clipper Suffolk slipped quietly into Port Philip Bay at the end of a 15,000 mile voyage to Melbourne, capital of the most important British colony on the Australian continent, Victoria. The ship had left its homeport of London barely eleven weeks earlier, so it had completed the journey in excellent time. This was only to be expected. The firm of Money, Wigram & Sons boasted a fine fleet of well-sailed vessels that were renowned for making safe and speedy passages to the colonies. The Suffolk’s trip had been particularly uneventful. No storms had been encountered en route, there had been no births aboard, and the only death was that of a man already suffering from tuberculosis before the voyage began. The greatest danger the passengers had faced was boredom. On such a long journey the novelty of shipboard life soon palled. Books, card games, impromptu entertainments, and even the production of a weekly ships gazette could do little to alleviate the tedium. Apart from a distant glimpse of Trinidad, the Suffolk’s passengers had seen nothing but ocean from the time they left their last English port-of-call, Plymouth, on March 18 until they sighted the Cape Otway lighthouse, which marked the entrance to Bass Strait and the final leg of their journey. The first smells of land, encountered some ninety miles out from the Coast of Victoria, were a welcome tonic to flagging spirits.
