Pestonjee Bomanjee (1834 ship)

Pestonjee Bomanjee was a wooden sailing ship built in 1834 by James Lang of Dumbarton, Scotland. She was a three-masted wooden barque of 595 tons, 130 feet in length, 31.5 feet in breadth, first owned by John Miller Jnr and Company, Glasgow. Her last-known registered owner in 1861 was Patrick Keith & George Ross, Calcutta, India.[1]

Pestonjee Bomanjee was built for East India service, and undertook a number of journeys between the United Kingdom and the Australian colonies.

In 1838 she undertook a journey from London to the colony of South Australia, carrying with her George Gawler, who had been appointed as the second Governor of South Australia, in succession to Captain John Hindmarsh, who had been recalled. Gawler and his wife, children, gardener (Joseph Whittaker), and future aide-de-camp (James Collins Hawker) arrived on Pestonjee Bomanjee on 12 October 1838, after a four-month journey to Adelaide via Tenerife and Rio de Janeiro.[2] Also on the ship were the German Lutheran missionaries Christian Gottlieb Teichelmann and Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann.[3]

In 1841 her master, Captain Stead, was attacked and murdered by a gang of Chinese villagers in the Chusan Islands.[4][5]

For the latter part of her service she was used as a convict ship. In 1848, Pestonjee Bomanjee was felted and her hull sheathed in yellow metal to protect it from marine growths. On Thursday March 15 , 1849 an advertisement appeared on the Sydney Morning Herald “For London the fine ship Pestonjee Bomanjee , 595 tons , John Baker commander will sail in March Applied to the captain on board, March 7, 1849

  1. ^ "Pestonjee Bomanjee". Scottish Built Ships. Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  2. ^ "The Pestonjee Bomanjee 1838". South Australia Register. 13 October 1838. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  3. ^ Kneebone, Heide (2005). "Teichelmann, Christian Gottlieb (1807–1888)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Supplement. Melbourne University Press. Retrieved 29 December 2020. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ "Murder of Captain Stead of the "Pestonjee Bomanjee," Transport".
  5. ^ "Murder of Capt Stead of the "Pestonjee Bomanjee," Transport". Southern Australian. Vol. IV, no. 272. South Australia. 24 December 1841. p. 3. Retrieved 29 December 2020 – via National Library of Australia.