Media: paperback, 192 pages
Author: B. Arnold
Year: 2025
ISBN: 9781922935168
Other: index, appendix
Publisher: Unlock the Past

A collection of contemporary and later reports and documents.

From the Introduction

In the appointment of Sir Henry Edward Fox Young on 2/8/1848 as Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia, that province acquired a man keen to open up the inland river system to settlement and trade. He championed the cause of commercial steam navigation of the Murray, resulting in the offer by the South Australian Government in August 1850 of the substantial sum of £2,000 each to anyone placing the first two steamers of specified minimum criteria on the river and navigating to at least Swan Hill. Governor Young per-sonally explored the length of the Murray in September-October 1850 from the junction of the Darling to Goolwa, in a small boat rowed by six aborigines from Wellington.

The only person who responded to the Government's generous offer in a practical way was fortune seeker Captain Francis Cadell who indicated in 1852 that he was arranging a steamer to qualify for the premium. Cadell himself reconnoitred the river in August-September 1852 in a skiff sailed and rowed by two miners, from Tyntyndyer Station be-low Swan Hill to Goolwa.

Meanwhile William Richard Randell, a flour miller at Gumeracha in the Adelaide Hills, saw the River Murray as a means to market his flour at good prices on the Victorian gold-fields with a more direct route for transport than via Port Adelaide and Melbourne. His limited financial means and cautious approach did not permit him to have a boat built to the required specifications to qualify for Government assistance. In true pioneering spirit he arranged construction of a boat using local resources, and the paddle steamer Mary Ann was the result.

Construction of the Mary Ann was begun in July 1852 on the northern bank of Reedy Creek probably with imported sawn timber. Her first trial excursion appears to have taken place at the end of December 1852, some eight-and-a-half months before Captain Cadell's Lady Augusta appeared on the river.

A number of histories have been written about the beginnings of steam navigation on the River Murray and these necessarily give latter day views of what occurred1. Nothing gives the flavour better than the original contemporary reports and documents which are assembled in this paper for the serious reader.

The beginning of steam navigation on the River Murray and its tributaries was recorded in some detail in the principal South Australian newspapers of the day, the Adelaide Times and The Register. The "Special Correspondent" of the Adelaide Register was Edward William Andrews, whilst "Our Commissioner on board" who wrote for the Times was James Allen, jun., son of the publisher. It was he who produced several sketches of the event as mentioned by Andrews. Both accounts were subsequently published in pamphlet form.

Contents

Introduction
Preliminaries
Andrews' reports in The Register
Allen's reports in The Times
The Randell experience
After the event
Postscript
Chronology
Index
Appendix: The Steam Engine of the Mary Ann