| Description |
viii, 294 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits, plans, facsimiles ; 25 cm |
| Summary |
"On 12 April 1835 the convict transport George III, with a cargo of over 200 prisoners, entered D'Entrecasteaux Channel in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) after a four-month voyage from England. That night it struck a submerged rock and became a total wreck. The death toll was 133, all but six of whom were convicts. Almost half the convicts who died were in hospital suffering scurvy, and had little chance of escape from the rapid flooding of the ship's lower reaches. The circumstances of most of the other deaths never became clear, but one certain fact was that the ship's military guard restrained the surviving convicts from coming onto deck, and that two men were shot dead in this exercise. The repercussions of this shipwreck were felt both in the colony and the mother country - it was indeed an imperial disaster. Official voices at the time tended to present the tragedy as an 'unavoidable accident'. Michael Roe argues that the wreck was not a matter of bad fortune, but a consequence of policies of both the imperial and Vandiemonian governments. The former had engaged in cost-cutting that made more likely the outbreak of scurvy that beset George III - and prompted its master to attempt the D'Entrecasteaux Channel by night - and Governor George Arthur, in charge at Hobart since 1824, could justly be charged with having given a low priority to marine safety. This study is divided into four sections. The first provides the 'basics': all of the available data concerning the ship and its passengers, the contemporary accounts of the wreck, and the official reports of enquiry. The second offers 'reasons' for the disaster, both imperial and local. The short-term 'impacts' of the wreck in both colony and metropolis are examined in the third section, and the concluding part reflects on the longer-term 'echoes' in Tasmania - its impact on maritime affairs, the subsequent lives of the survivors, and the various acts of remembrance." --book jacket |
| Notes |
"An Imperial diaster" has been produced in an editon of 750 copies case-bound with a pictorial dustwrapper, plus 25 numbered copies signed by the author and bound in half leather by Wolfgang Schaefer of Bookart, Gembrook, Victoria |
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Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography: pages 277-285 |
| Subject |
Arthur, George, Sir, 1784-1854.
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George the Third (Ship)
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Shipwrecks -- Australia -- Tasmania -- D'Entrecasteaux Channel -- History -- 1803-1900
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| SUBJECT |
Tasmania -- History -- 1803-1900. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh88004483
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| ISBN |
0908528329 (hbk.) |
|
9780908528325 (hbk.) |
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