‘Dunkeld’, 1870

A ship disappears. But where?

Some sources claim the ‘Dunkeld’ was lost at sea off Twofold Bay, others off Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. About the only thing they agree on is that it was in a severe storm on 27th June 1870 and that at least two lives were lost.

The ‘Dunkeld’ was a 40-foot long, 390-ton wooden barquentine that had been built in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1852 (or 1863, depending on the source). It left Newcastle on 20th June 1870 (or 6th June, depending on the source) bound for Melbourne with a load of coal (sound familiar? – see ‘Julie Heyn’, ‘Ellen Simpson’, ‘Lanercost’, ‘Taramung’, for example) when it ‘disappeared without trace’.

It was supposedly sighted by ‘the schooner ‘Ceres’ about 40 miles to the eastward of Wilson's Promontory early on the afternoon of the 27th. Captain Bell states that he kept company with her until about midnight, when the wind hauled to the N. W. and blew a strong gale. The last he saw of the barque was that she was running back to the north-eastward, apparently with sails split or lost. This was about midnight, or early on the morning of the 28th.’ The same report then continued: ‘It has been suggested, and a rumour is current to the effect, that the Dunkeld has been driven across, and is now under Stewart's Island, New Zealand, but the report has not been traced to any authentic source.’

Another ship, the 1,112-ton clipper ‘Harlech Castle’, which departed Melbourne for Newcastle on 20th June 1870 also disappeared around the same time and possibly in the same gale, reportedly around 60 miles south of Cape Howe (the border of NSW and Victoria).