''Lady Penrhyn'' was built on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

in 1786 as a

slave ship Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast ...

. ''Lady Penrhyn'' was designed as a two-deck ship for use in the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and ...

, with a capacity of 275 slaves. She was part-owned by William Compton Sever, who served as ship's master on her voyage to Australia, and by London alderman and sea-biscuit manufacturer William Curtis. For her first voyage she transported

convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as " prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former conv ...

s to

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

as part of the

First Fleet The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 ships that brought the first European and African settlers to Australia. It was made up of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command o ...

. On her voyage back to Britain she was the first European vessel to pass by the

Kermadec Islands The Kermadec Islands ( mi, Rangitāhua) are a subtropical island arc in the South Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand's North Island, and a similar distance southwest of Tonga. The islands are part of New Zealand. They are in total ar ...

, and the

Penrhyn Penryn is a Cornish word meaning 'headland' that may refer to: *Penryn, Cornwall, United Kingdom, a town of about 7,000 on the Penryn River **Penryn railway station, a station on the Maritime Line between Truro and Falmouth Docks, and serves the t ...

Atoll in the

Cook Islands ) , image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , capital = Avarua , coordinates = , largest_city = Avarua , official_languages = , lan ...

. She also carried a cargo for the British

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

(EIC). The French captured her in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

in 1811 and scuttled her.

Voyage to Australia

''Lady Penrhyn'', William Sever, master, left

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most d ...

on 13 May 1787, and arrived at

Port Jackson Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman S ...

Sydney, Australia Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and List of cities in Oceania by population, Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metro ...

, on 26 January 1788. She carried 101 female convicts, and three officers and 41 other ranks of the New South Wales Marine Corps, as well as her crew. She was part of a convoy of eleven ships, the First Fleet, which brought over 1000 convicts, marines, and seamen to establish European settlement in Australia. John Turnpenny Altree was surgeon to the convicts, and Arthur Bowes Smyth was surgeon to the crew. Bowes Smyth then took charge of the prisoners on the ship when Altree fell ill at Tenerife and in Governor Arthur Phillip's opinion had proved unequal to the task. The list of stores unloaded from ''Lady Penrhyn'' on 25 March at Port Jackson has been widely quoted in books on the First Fleet. In ''Sydney Cove 1788'' by John Cobley the amount of rice unloaded is given as 8 bram. This amount has been repeated in various books on the First Fleet. Bram, however, is not a unit of measurement and the original log entry lists the amount of rice as 8 barrels. ''Lady Penrhyn'' also carried the first horses brought to Australia. These are believed to have consisted of one stallion, one colt, three mares, and two fillies from

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, South Africa.Bain Ike, (chief exec.) ''The Australian Encyclopaedia'', p. 1679, ''Horses'', Australian Geographic Pty. Ltd., 1996

Return voyage

Having discharged her convicts in New South Wales, ''Lady Penrhyn'' then was under contract to George Mackenzie McCaulay, an alderman of the City of London, to go to the "North West Coast of America to Trade for furrs & after that to proceed to China & barter the Furrs &ca for Teas or other such Goods..." Her owners had obtained a license to sail to the northwest coast from the

South Sea Company The South Sea Company (officially The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the South Seas and other parts of America, and for the encouragement of the Fishery) was a British joint-stock company founded in Ja ...

, which still maintained its ancient monopoly rights over British trade to the eastern Pacific. Accordingly, she departed Sydney Cove on 5 May 1788 and sailed north with the intention of purchasing furs in

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and west ...

for resale in China. Her course was chosen to minimise interaction with Russian vessels, as non-Russian trade in Kamchatka furs was considered by Russia to be smuggling. On 31 May, Sever sighted the Kermadec Islands (Māori: Rangitāhua), and named

Macauley Island Macauley Island is a volcanic island in New Zealand's Kermadec Islands, approximately halfway between New Zealand's North Island and Tonga in the southwest Pacific Ocean. It is part of a larger submarine volcano that features a wide underwate ...

after McCaulay and Curtis Island after William Curtis. The poor condition of the ship, and sickness among her crew, compelled ''Lady Penrhyn'' to turn back from this voyage when she had gone only as far as Matavai Bay, Tahiti, where the crew recovered and the ship was repaired. Sever then sailed to and named Penrhyn Island—the atoll of Tongareva in the

Cook Islands ) , image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , capital = Avarua , coordinates = , largest_city = Avarua , official_languages = , lan ...

—on 8 August, arriving at

Macao Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a po ...

on 19 October 1788, and proceeding upriver to Canton (now

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...

) to take on a cargo of tea. Captain Sever left Whampoa on 8 January 1789 and ''Lady Penrhyn'' crossed the Second Bar on 14 January. She reached

St Helena Saint Helena () is a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote volcanic tropical island west of the coast of south-western Africa, and east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constitu ...

on 19 May and arrived at The Downs on 10 August.

Later service

In 1789 ''Lady Penrhyn'' was sold to Wedderburn & Co., London and used in a regular run to Jamaica. In 1795 she was one of a fleet of transports that carried British troops to the Caribbean to serve as reinforcements against the risk of an attack by Revolutionary France.

Fate

On 22 July 1811 the French privateer ''Duc de Dantzig'' captured ''Lady Penrhyn'' while she was sailing from London to Grenada. Her captor set her on fire, scuttling her. ''Lloyd's List'' reported that the privateer ''Duc de Dantzig'', of 14 guns (18-pounder

carronade A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast-iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy. It was first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, and was used from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century. Its main funct ...

s) and 128 men, of Nantes, had captured , Clark, master, on 17 July, and ''Lady Penrhyn'', Burgess, master on 22 July. ''Thames'' had been sailing from London to St Vincent's, and ''Lady Penrhyn'' from London to

Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pet ...

. Both vessels were in ballast, and ''Duc de Danzig'' burnt them after taking off the people on board them. She then captured the schooner ''Ann'', which had set out from Barbados to

Demerara Demerara ( nl, Demerary, ) is a historical region in the Guianas, on the north coast of South America, now part of the country of Guyana. It was a colony of the Dutch West India Company between 1745 and 1792 and a colony of the Dutch state f ...

. ''Duc de Dantzig'' put her prisoners aboard ''Ann'' and let her proceed; ''Ann'' arrived at Barbados on 26 July.''Lloyd's List'', n° 4594.
/ref>

Citations and references

Citations References * * * *
transcript
**''cf.''

External links

Arthur Bowes Smythe's journal aboard the ''Lady Penrhyn'' - State Library of NSW
* *

CC-By-SA A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

] {{1811 shipwrecks Ships of the First Fleet Ships built on the River Thames 1786 ships Ships of the British East India Company Captured ships Maritime incidents in 1811