Thomas Crawford's Diary, 1825
The Route
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The Ship
The Triton was built in 1815, and bought by the Australian Company in 1823. It was a three-masted ship weighing 405 tons.
The Passengers and Crew
In total, there were 16 crew and 30 passengers on board the Triton during its 1825 voyage. Some of those mentioned by Thomas Crawford are below.
Captain James Crear, R. N., was born in 1787. He left Scotland for the last time with his wife Johanna in 1829, settling in Tasmania, where he lived there until his death in 1859. We know a little about Crear’s later life in Australia:
- In 1831, he was presented with an ‘elegant tea service’ and medallion for saving the life of a Captain Gilbertson, who nearly drowned in Leith harbour in 1829;
- Along with many wealthy landowners of the time, he was assigned convict servants, including 25-year-old William Wareham, sentenced to 7 years’ transportation for machine breaking;
- In 1850, he took a political stand against transportation and returned his convict servants to the crown.
The Ryrie family were also emigrating to Australia. Stewart Ryrie (1776-1852) was accompanied by several children from his first marriage, Elizabeth (1804-1826), James (1806-1840), Donald (1810-1888), Stewart (1812-1882) and Jane (1815-1852), and his second wife Isabella (1802-1855). They settled in Braidwood in New South Wales, where the family played a significant part in the story of the area for several generations. You can read more about the Ryrie family here.
Ellis Scott, aged 26, from Musselburgh near Edinburgh, was travelling to Australia to work as an agent for the Australian Company, owners of the Triton. Read more about him here.
Charles McLachlan, from Greenock, was also an agent for the Australian Company, travelling to Hobart.
William and Anne Lyttleton and their family. William and Anne were Australian, although they had spent the past few years in Britain and many years before that in Ceylon. In 1824, William sold his commission and retired from the army; he would later become a police magistrate in Tasmania. He was an accomplished artist. Read more about him and his family here.
Five children of Major Donald MacLeod, and the children’s governess, Miss Harvie. Major Donald MacLeod and his wife Catherine had previously sailed to Australia from Leith in 1820 with their three youngest children (another, Donald, was born on that voyage). The children on board the Triton were probably Magnus (1807-1883), Alexander (1808-1886), Catharine (1811-1899), Johana (1812-1994) and another son whose name has not been recorded.
Mr Dudgeon, who Thomas Crawford describes as being terribly seasick throughout the voyage, is listed by one Tasmanian paper as “a Gentleman who has come out expressly to carry on an extensive Brewery in this Colony.”
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