I have come across a hand written journal written by a Mr A.S.A. Whelen, a second-class passenger aboard the iron clipper Hesperides that departed London 27th September 1878 for Australia, arriving in Melbourne 93 days later on 28th December 1878.
The account of the voyage is simple in its telling with often only short entries recounting his meals, tales of card playing, and what time he went to bed. But interspersed with the daily mundanity of occupying oneself for 93 days in the confines of “our not too spacious bedroom (12ft x 6ft) to hold 3 by the bye (the Guv’nor, Arthur and myself)”, I’ve found it a fascinating insight into travel at the end of the nineteenth century – a journey that took the writer to the other side of the world from the temperate climes of England across the stifling equatorial tropics and down into the depths of the roaring forties where they came into close contact with an iceberg.
The joy of a journal transcends time
so over the coming weeks I thought I’d share and reproduce extracts retelling this travelling tale as it occurred over 130 years ago.
It always astounds me that anyone made it out here. I have a number of convicts in my ancestry and what they had to endure for some really insignificant ‘crimes’ was amazing!
Always amazes me how small the ships were and how large the journeys!
When you tour a replica, you cannot imagine the conditions they lived and worked under.
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