The life of Jimmy Morrill
THERE has been some discussion recently about the shipwrecked sailor Jimmy Morrill and the 17 years he spent among the Aborigines of Cleveland Bay (TB June 13) but there are misconceptions about the fate of the barque Peruvian and the identities of some of the other passengers.
A brief account of James Morrill’s early life is warranted first.
James Morrill was born James Murrells on May 20, 1824 at the village of Heybridge opposite the town of Maldon on the River Blackwater, Essex, England.
Jimmy’s older brother Edward worked in their father David’s small engineering workshop near the wharves where Jimmy was destined to work too after his five years education at Heybridge National School was completed, but the 14-year-old had other ideas. Young Jimmy, a big lad for his age, got a job on the coastal steamers plying their trade up and down the east coast of the British Isles.
He obtained a four-year apprenticeship with The Maldon Shipping Company and after graduating signed on to the troop ship Ramales as a carpenter’s mate on its voyage to take a regiment of infantry to Sydney and Hobart and a detachment of artillery to New Zealand.
Discharged at Sydney, he sailed on the Terror bound for New Zealand, where he saw first-hand the rough treatment meted out to the Maori in the First Maori War.
Once back in Sydney, Jimmy (now known as Morrill) signed on to the 304-ton, four masted, wooden barque
Peruvian, which was due to sail to Hong Kong with a load of cedar logs and then travel on to its home port of Dundee, Scotland.
The master of the Peruvian was George Pitkethly, born 1816 in the small fishing village of Newburgh near Dundee. Known as Geordie, he was the son of the owner of the Peruvian, Alexander Pitkethly and his wife Elizabeth. With him on the voyage was his wife Elizabeth (nee Ruxton), known as Betsy, the daughter of Jean and Robert Ruxton, a wine importer from Dundee.
The Peruvian left Sydney on Friday February 27, 1846 with Geordie the captain, his brother Alex Pitkethly, Jimmy Morrill and 10 other crew members, although that number had to be revised after two stowaways were found hiding under canvas in the lifeboat.
There were also seven passengers on board, including Betsy, the captain’s wife. The other passengers were John Willmett, his wife Emma, their two small children, Frances, two years old and John William, six months, the children’s nanny, a young woman of about 17 and Emma’s brother-in-law, Jephson Busteed Quarry.
Emma’s sister, Helen, who had been left in Sydney, was only 14 when Quarry married her with the backing of their mother Elizabeth Bowman, a member of the Bowman family of Tarrawingee station.
The result was the infamous ‘Wilmett Affair’ that threatened to derail the push for the separation of Port Phillip district from New South Wales and was the reason for the family’s temporary relocation to Hong Kong.
On Sunday March 8 the Peruvian
was wrecked on Minerva Shoals at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef about 200km east of present day Rockhampton. A raft was hastily constructed using two of its four masts and various spars from the wreckage and 42 days later the raft grounded on a beach at the southern end of Cleveland Bay near modern day Townsville.
The Peruvian didn’t sink and remained stuck high on the rocks of the shoals until May 28, 1846 when it was sighted by the watch on the American cutter Pleiades.
Captain Russell boarded it and found signs of the raft construction before setting it on fire, fearing it would be a hazard to shipping.
The hulk was then seen by Captain Barr of the Mary Ann mid-june.
The complete story of the survivors of the Peruvian wreck is told in my book Ghost Warrior; Jimmy Morrill. LAURENCE MURPHY,
Oak Valley.