‘Brisbane’, 1832

Thomas Kendall (the grandfather of Australian author and bush poet Henry Kendall) was a missionary who obtained a land grant and settled near Ulladulla in 1827. He became a cedar cutter. He owned a small 16-ton cutter that transported timber and other goods from Ulladulla to Sydney. It disappeared in August 1832.

This is how the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ (16.8.1832) recorded the incident:

LOSS OF THE ‘BRISBANE’ CUTTER, AND PROBABLE
DEMISE OF THE REV. MR. KENDALL.

It is with feelings of much painful emotion, we have to record the above melancholy event, which has plunged several respectable families into the deepest sorrow.

We allude to the loss of the ‘Brisbane’ cutter, having on board the Rev. Mr. Kendall, formerly a useful and indefatigable Missionary in New Zealand, his son-in-law, Mr. Florence*, and several other persons.

It would appear, that about a month ago, the cutter ‘Brisbane’ left Nulla Dolla (Ulladulla), near the Five Islands, with a cargo of cedar for Sydney. The vessel belonged to Mr. Kendall, and he had frequently made the same voyage; but in two, if not in three instances, he had nearly met a watery grave by the upsetting of the vessel, but was providentially preserved.

As the weather had been exceedingly boisterous for some time after the party had sailed, and as no information had been obtained of their fate, it was supposed they had run into some of the numerous bays or creeks on the coast. Unwilling to believe what a protracted absence, too surely forboded, their arrival was expected with the most intense anxiety...These hopes, however, have, in a great measure, been dissipated.

Information was received last evening that a party of blacks, having scoured the beach (Callala Beach) at Jervis' Bay, had found the vessel in which the party had set sail, nearly buried in the sand. There might still have been some hopes that the party had attempted to reach the nearest settlements by land, as none of the bodies had been found.

But the shoes of Mr. Kendall, and a small trunk which was recognized as his property, having been picked up near the wreck, leaves little doubt regarding the untimely fate of the whole party.

*In 1827-1828, Thomas Florence had surveyed the coastline and some of the estuaries between Jervis Bay and Moruya, and he is responsible for many of the currently-used place names in the area. He later moved to New Zealand where he died in 1867 at the age of 84. He could not have been aboard the ‘Brisbane’, as was reported, when it foundered.