Last week's exposé on the wreck of the Walter Hood shone the spotlight on its spilt cargo, including the mysterious ceramic tiles which, even 153 years after it ran aground in Wreck Bay, still wash up near where Nerrindillah Creek flows into the bay.
But what about the human cargo? The plight of those onboard the sinking ship?
While some managed to brave the treacherous waters and successfully swim ashore, others were left stranded on the ship, anxiously awaiting help.
It took three long days for the passing steamer Illalong to be alerted to the unfolding drama and to be diverted to the scene where 13 shipwrecked sailors were recovered in a terrible state. "They had been on the exposed stern had been without food for three days and nights," reveals Walter Hood aficionado Allen Mawer as we wade through the entrance to Nerrindillah Creek and up a sand dune to where those that didn't survive the ordeal were hastily buried.
The Town and Country Journal reported that by 1883, the site - complete with wooden graves - had become an attraction for curious passers-by. "They were originally in an enclosure behind two blackbutt timber headstones, [with the] captain and passengers behind one and common seamen behind the other - segregation, even in death."
However, today there's no sign of it.
"Time was not kind to the lonely graves," says Mawer, who is vice-president of the Canberra and District Historical Society. "In the 1920s the wooden slabs inscribed with the names of the victims had become dilapidated and charred due to passing bushfires and beach erosion threatened to expose the burials."
A group of locals formed a committee and arranged for the exhumation of the remains to be moved to a bigger, more permanent memorial on higher ground about 40 metres away.
The construction and unveiling of the memorial was a big deal for the local community. One of the committee members, Richard Cambage, who grew up in nearby Milton and had a vivid childhood memory of the wreck, tracked down a number of survivors.
One of these was Robert Williams, the first man ashore in 1870, who answered the public appeal for funds for the memorial by contributing ten shillings.
"Williams had married three times and after settling in Tasmania moved to the South Maitland district where he made his living as a hawker and gained a reputation for eloquence as a Methodist lay preacher," explains Mawer as he leads me along a bush track to the new granite and marble memorial.
"The old mesh fence was destroyed by the 2019-2020 Black Summer fires," explains Mawer, pointing to the 2.5-metre-high metal fence that keeps even the most persistent of vandals out.
Surrounded by blackened tree trunks and with storm clouds gathering on the horizon, it's a reflective, if not eerie, sight.
However, according to Mawer it's nowhere near as unnerving as the shock experienced by those who had gathered at this very spot for the dedication ceremony for the new memorial on March 9, 1927.
Asked to speak about his ordeal 57 year earlier, Williams stunned the audience with an extraordinary confession.
"He explained that the crew had left Andrew Latto, the clipper's captain, to die," reveals Mawer. "They had a chance to pull him aboard to safety but instead let him go."
I look incredulously at Mawer. Surely he's pulling my leg. However, he's not.
"We saw him struggling in the water crying to us to save him. The mate turned his back on him. So did the bos'un; and I did the same. We let him drown," confessed Williams.
The shellshocked journalist reporting for the Ulladulla and Milton Times (March 15, 1927) was aghast, describing the "shudder of horror" that ran through the audience.
"... a divine teacher of the love of God, stood at the tomb of his captain ... relating without a pang of tremor in his voice this awful deed, the dead bones of his former captain resting beneath his very feet." Heck.
Williams did show remorse, especially after "he found God" seven years after the wreck, later revealing: "I am sorry ever since that the power of Godliness was not in operation in my being at that time, so that I could have done all that was possible in me to rescue that unfortunate man."
While still trying to stomach the nature and timing of Williams' remarkable revelation, Mawer adds another tragic twist to the terrible tale.
"In 1976 while diving near the wreck, two divers found the bones of an index finger and an arm in sand," reveals Mawer. "Alongside the finger was a ring with the initial APL of AJL."
The police suspected the grisly discovery as a recent crime or accident. However, although Mawer can't confirm it was Andrew Latto's ring (he doesn't appear to have had a middle name), he believes it may well be.
"Perhaps Williams and those men did more than push off their desperate captain, just perhaps as he was trying to hang on, they swung the axe," states Mawer. "There was likely an axe on board for after the ship ran aground, the mizzen mast ... was chopped down."
Oh dear, it doesn't bear thinking, does it?
If Mawer's speculation is correct, poor Latto's skeleton lies at our feet beneath the memorial, with ribs intact but with a hand or an arm missing.
I crouch down and touch the dirt in deep contemplation. From this angle looking up, the silhouettes of the tree trunks behind the memorial reach up to the sky like dozens of arms waving for help.
It's now my time to shudder.
Five bodies discovered among debris
Rescuer shock: Along with Robert Williams who dropped the bombshell at the dedication of the memorial in 1927 that crew members had in effect "murdered" their captain, was John Harrison. He, along with fellow traveller Samuel Bailey, were among the first to arrive at the beach following the wreck, and among the debris along the shore found "five dead bodies". Harrison swam out to the wreck and tied a rope to his waist as a lifeline for shipwrecked sailors still onboard but unfortunately the seas were too big for a successful rescue. One can only imagination the horror with which he must have reacted to Williams' confession.
Crazy Costumes: Salvage efforts continued at the wreck for many months. Apart from copious quantities of alcohol which were hastily collected (and drunk) by scavengers along the shore, a trunk of theatrical costumes that the ship was transporting from London to Sydney was also pilfered. According to Allen Mawer in Fast Company: The Lively Times and Untimely End of the Clipper Ship Walter Hood, in 1872-73 South Sea Islanders who were diving on the wreck from a raft were apparently spotted wearing the colourful outfits. Over half a century later, in Walter Hood Disaster (Ulladulla 1926) Richard Cambage reports on the extent that the apparent pilfering of the theatrical costumes entered local folklore. "For many years it was not possible to appear in a new outfit without it being asked: "Is that a wrecker?"
If you go: You can access the Walter Hood memorial by walking about one kilometre north along the beach from North Bendalong. The memorial is located behind sand dunes about 100 metres north of the Nerrindillah Creek outlet. Alternatively, you can drive to Monument Beach Picnic Area and walk about 150 metres south. Bendalong is located on the Shoalhaven Coast mid-way between Lake Conjola and Sussex Inlet.
WHERE IN CANBERRA?
Rating: Medium
Clue: Closer to the city than you think
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday November 4 wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.
Last week: Congratulations to Roger Shelton of Spence who was the first reader to identify last week's photo as the former fire tower at Bulls Head in the Brindabellas. The tower was built in 1948 by Col Betts and Tony Franklin and demolished in 1966 by Jim Drysdale - Tony's brother-in-law - following the decommissioning of the Bulls Head forestry settlement. According to Matthew Higgins in Rugged Beyond Imagination: Stories from an Australian mountain region (National Museum of Australia Press, 2009), there were several other fire towers built in the Brindabellas mid-last century, including "one at Brindabella Mountain that was built into the top of an ancient snowgum". I've heard old timers talk of this tree-top tower, but never seen a photo of it. Has anyone got one?
SPOTTED
"Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to raise the English flag in a pine tree adjacent to the westbound lanes of William Hovell Drive just past the Cork Oak Plantation," says David Vincent of Weetangera.
David, who spotted the out-of-place St George's Cross a few weeks ago, is so mystified as to its purpose that he recently stopped to take this photo of it.
Earlier this week, after receiving David's photo, your akubra-clad columnist dodged peak-hour traffic for a closer look. While there are no obvious signs of a daredevil having climbed the tree to raise the flag, I can report the base of the tree is surrounded by long grass, kangaroo bones, many ant nests and at least two brown snakes. I won't be heading back in a hurry.
Surely someone knows why the flag has been hoisted atop this pine tree.
CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, GPO Box 606, Civic, ACT, 2601
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