End of the Ships Which Opened Up The North Coast
Written by Diana Mercer for the Farmer and Settler 1954 Source
The ships have gone from the Northern Rivers, after nearly a century of vital service. Without ships, the North Coast could not have been opened up, because they served as a lifeline when there were not even tracks through the almost impenetrable forest.
The last link in this transport, system has gone with the liquidation of the North Coast Steam Navigation Co. The early ships served as bridges, homes, transport and as a link with civilisation at a time when the early settlers may well have felt they had lost all that civilisation meant. This service was not easily carried out in the early days either. Of all the hundreds of schooners trading from the cities to the North Coast, hardly any escaped the fate of being washed ashore or broken to pieces by the savage bars that guard the river mouths.
Many Losses
In one easterly gale in the late 1860’s twenty-four ships were washed ashore in one night, with only four survivors. Another time five ships left the Richmond simultaneously after being bar bound for weeks, only to meet a cyclone as they cleared the heads. They were all wrecked in a matter of hours with the loss of 17 lives and all their cargoes.
William Yabsley, one of the foremost pioneers in shipping on the Richmond, built many boats and played a very important part in training and educating the children of the settlers. One of his most successful boats was the Schoolboy, so named because she was built, under his supervision, entirely by his ‘schoolboys’ as he called his apprentices in the ship building yard. Mr. Yabsley captained the Schoolboy himself and made some notable voyages in her. On one occasion he made a record trip from Melbourne to the Richmond in four days, never touching a rope after the sails were set, until he reached the river. However, he then had to wait three weeks outside the heads before he could cross the bar.
This question of crossing the bar must have been one of the main problems of life in the early days. Often ships fully laden with maize and tallow had to wait weeks before they could sail over the bar — waiting while the maize sprouted in the holds and the tallow went rancid in the casks. On another occasion, when the Schoolboy was waiting to cross the bar she was joined by a new schooner, the Annie Dee. A huge wave caught the little vessel and she turned over and sank, never a trace of her or her crew being found.
Chief, and longest surviving of the various shipping companies that served the North Coast was the North Coast Steam Navigation Company which began operations in 1857 and has, this year, nearly a hundred years later, been forced by lack of trade to cease operations.
‘Old Billy’
First steamer of the company was the William IV, affectionately known to settlers of the rivers as ‘Old Billy.’ She traded mainly to the Clarence and was the property of a forerunner of the present Company, the Grafton Steam Navigation Company, which was formed by Grafton businessmen in 1857 with the capital of £13,500. The list of directors of this company reads like the dossier of early pioneers: Clark Irving (the first Parliamentary member for the Clarence); David Jones, founder of the great Sydney store; James Grant Tindall, of Ramornie, founder of the Ramornie Meat Works.
Later, the company became associated with Sir John See, head of a rival firm with which the N.C.S.N. Co. amalgamated, Sir John becoming the managing director. After the William IV came the Phoenix, a paddle wheeler of very definite personality, and after her the Grafton.
Sydney-Grafton, £7
The Grafton carried 30 passengers and 100 tons of cargo and was considered the latest thing in modern comfort. The fare to Sydney from Grafton was £7. With the opening up of the Richmond, largely through the services of the tiny privately-owned schooners, the company was able to extend its service to that river and began the service with a screw steamer the Waimea. No doubt there was much rivalry between the sailing ships and the steamers at this time and it is with almost malicious satisfaction that a note is made in William Yabsley’s memoirs that on one occasion he set sail in the Schoolboy for Sydney at the same time as the Waimea. They met a severe easterly gale which blew the steamer off her course and she reached Sydney three days behind the Schoolboy.
The heyday of the N.C.S.N. Company was at the turn of the century when it ran a fleet of about 24 vessels, serving 11 rivers from the Clarence to the Tweed, and trading between Brisbane and Sydney. What an amazing boon this well-conducted service of fast, comfortable ships must have been to people accustomed to the vagaries and uncertainties of sailing ships!
Punctual Service
The fares were low, the service punctual within the limits of the weather. The ships steamed up the rivers, giving a service to the main towns as good as anything we have to-day. Two of the finest ships of this time were the City of Grafton, successor to the old Grafton, which was sold eventually to a New Zealand company and met her end on Tasmanian shores, and the Electra which was the first vessel on the coast fitted with refrigerated space and electric light. This vessel tied in well with the opening of the North Coast Co-operative Butter Factory at Byron Bay and the starting of the railway.
Huge contracts for the carrying of railway building materials gave the company a boost financially and the introduction of dairy farming kept the ships running full both ways. Butter was taken from the factory to the overseas ships in Sydney Harbor and loaded direct, thus streamlining what had been a laborious process. Butter was taken from Byron Bay to the overseas vessels in under 24 hours.
Many regret the passing of this service to which the district owes so much, and it almost seems as if the river had feelings about it, too. On the eve of the announcement that the ships would run no more, the country was devastated by the worst flood in living memory and the offices, wharf and gear of the N.C.S.N. Co. was smashed and dissipated with complete finality. Was it sorrow or triumph on the part of the river?
