Captain Edward Goldsmith and the "Waterloo" (1832)

CAPTAIN EDWARD GOLDSMITH master mariner
JAMES DAY first mate
WATERLOO brig 1832



Captain Edward Goldsmith (1804-1869) ca. 1849
Uncle of Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day, wife of photographer Thomas J. Nevin
Daguerreotype by Douglas T. Kilburn, Sydney 
Copyright © Private Collection KLW NFC Imprint 2014

The "Waterloo" 1832
Following the trials and calamities which beset one of his first commands as a young master on the James which was wrecked days after arrival at the Swan River, Western Australia, in May 1830, Captain Edward Goldsmith, his wife Elizabeth and new-born son Richard Sydney continued their journey to Hobart, VDL, as passengers aboard the Bombay, together with crew-member James Day, Elizabeth Goldsmith's brother. They sailed in the Elizabeth from Hobart to Sydney where Captain Goldsmith took command of the Norval, departing Sydney for London on 26th April 1831. He returned in 1832 to the port of Hobart in command of the Waterloo (not to be confused with the convict transport the Waterloo which was shipwrecked at Cape Town in 1842). First Mate on board the Waterloo (1832) was  his brother-in-law, James Day (1806-1882), younger brother of his wife Elizabeth Day (b. Yorkshire 1803- d. Kent 1875) arriving 5th August at Hobart and 22nd August at Sydney.

The 266 tons brig Waterloo built at Hull carried no guns, and was manned by 13 crew when they left Liverpool on 28th March. They arrived at the port of Hobart on August 5th carrying a general cargo, 28 adults, including pensioners, some bound for NSW, and 8 children. One man died during the voyage.



Hobart Port Officer's Report of the arrival of the Waterloo, 5 August 1832
Source: TAHO Arrivals MB2/39/1/1 P276
Goldsmith Ship's Master Waterloo 5 Aug 1832 MB2/39/1/1 P276



Source: The Waterloo, master Edward Goldsmith, arrived Sydney 20 August 1832
New South Wales Australia Unassisted Immigrant Passenger Lists 1826-1922

After a short stay of ten days in Hobart, Captain Goldsmith and brother-in-law, First Mate James Day, set sail for Port Jackson (Sydney) on 16th August, 1832, arriving on 20th August. They reported no instances of cholera or other infectious diseases, and no Surgeon aboard. Exactly one year later, Captain Goldsmith arrived again in Hobart as master of the Wave, a ship he commanded on several more voyages between 1833 and the 1840s . He attended the wedding of his wife's brother, master mariner Captain James Day to Rachael Pocock - future parents of photographer Thomas Nevin's wife Elizabeth Rachel Day (b. 1847, Rotherhithe) - at St David's in 1841, and returned every year thereafter to Hobart in command of various brigs and barques, including his finest, the Rattler, which he advertised in superlatives, but he never again commanded the Waterloo. His last command of the Rattler was on the return voyage to London in 1851. His final farewell to Hobart was in February 1856 when he returned home to Gadshill, Higham, Kent as a passenger on board the Indian Queen, accompanied by his wife Elizabeth and son Edward Goldsmith jnr..



Signature of Edward Goldsmith, witness, on marriage certificate at -
St David's Hobarton
6th January 1841
James Day, 34yrs, Master Mariner
Rachel Pocock, 29 years, Spinster

First Mate James Day
Voyages 1829-1832

1829
Day J Carpenter
Georgiana 22 Aug 1829
Hobart Bombay
CUS33/1/1 p135

1830
After the wreck of the James at Swan River, James Day sailed to Hobart on board the Bombay with Captain Edward Goldsmith, wife Elizabeth Goldsmith nee Day, sister of James Day, and the Goldsmith's new-born son, Richard Sydney Goldsmith as passengers

Day James Seaman
Bombay 22 Aug 1830
Hobart Sydney
CUS33/1/1 p253

Day James Mr Chief Mate
Orelia 6 Oct 1830
Hobart Western Australia
CUS33/1/1 p266

1831
Day James Mr Chief Officer
Lion 24 Apr 1831
Hobart London
CUS33/1/1 p334

1832
On this voyage of the brig Waterloo, Captain Edward Goldsmith was in command, his brother-in-law James Day was first mate.

James Day J 1st Mate
Waterloo 15 Aug 1832
Hobart Sydney
CUS33/1/1 p474





Full List of Crew & Passengers
Archives Office Tasmania
Waterloo, 1832; Edward Goldsmith master, James Day 1st mate 
Arrivals Passengers 1833-35
https://stors.tas.gov.au/CUS30-1-1P075

SUMMARY of Captain Edward GOLDSMITH's voyages to and from Hobart 1830-1849: -
This is an incomplete list and does not include voyages which started or terminated at Port Jackson, Sydney.

1830
Departed Goldsmith Child Passenger on the Elizabeth 15 Aug 1830 Hobart to Port Jackson
Ship to colony Bombay Child of Captain and Mrs CUS33/1/1 p258
Departed Goldsmith Mrs Passenger on the Elizabeth 15 Aug 1830 Hobart to Port Jackson
Ship to colony Bombay CUS33/1/1 p258
Departed Goldsmith Captain Passenger on the Bombay 22 Aug 1830 Hobart to Sydney CUS33/1/1 p253

1832
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Ship's Master on the Waterloo 5 Aug 1832 MB2/39/1/1 P276
Departed Hobart Goldsmith E Master Waterloo 15 Aug 1832 Hobart to Sydney CUS33/1/1 p474

1833
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Ship's Master on the Wave 14 Nov 1833 MB2/39/1/1 P443

1835
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Ship's Master on the Wave 9 Mar 1835 MB2/39/1/2 P245

1836
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Ship's Master Wave 6 Dec 1836 MB2/39/1/3 P73



Captain Goldsmith reported breakers at Bonavista, Cape Verde Islands (Atlantic, west from Senegal, Africa) on the voyage from London to Sydney in command of the Wave, September, 1836. The reef was the site of the wreck of the Madeline 1835.
Source: John Purdy 1838: page 45, The Brasilian navigator; or, Sailing directory for all the coasts of Brasil, to accompany Laurie's new general chart, Volume 1. Oxford University.

1838
Arrived in Hobart from Portsmouth on the barque The Wave 17 July 1838
Goldsmith Ship's Master Wave 17 July 1838 MB2/39/1/4 P100

1839
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Ship's Master on the Wave 25 Sep 1839 MB2/39/1/4 P351

1842
Arrived in Hobart from London, Goldsmith Ship's Master on the Janet Izzatt 26 Oct 1842 MB2/39/1/6 P355

1843
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Ship's Master on the Janet Izzatt 16 Dec 1843 MB2/39/1/7 P313

1844
Arrived Goldsmith Capt on the Louisa 13 Dec 1844 CSO92/1/13 P110

1845
Arrived in Sydney from Hobart Town on the Louisa, 1st January 1845
Arrived in Sydney from London and Cape of Good Hope, Goldsmith Cpt master of the Angelina, 12 December 1845



1846
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Mr Rattler 11 Nov 1846 CSO92/1/16 P96
Goldsmith Ship's Master Rattler 12 Nov 1846 MB2/39/1/9 P45

1847
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Ship's Master on the Rattler 11 Nov 1847 MB2/39/1/9 P374

1848
Arrived in Hobart Goldsmith Ship's Master on the Rattler 5 Dec 1848 MB2/39/1/10 P374

1849
Arrived in Hobart from London on the Rattler, 27 November 1849 Goldsmith Ship's Master
Rattler 27 Nov 1849 MB2/39/1/11 P381
Arrived Goldsmith Mrs on the Rattler from London 27 Nov 1849 MB2/39/1/11 P381

VOYAGES on the RATTLER, Captain Edward Goldsmith, Master:
1846: arrived Hobart from London, 14th November 1846, departed 21st January 1847.
1847: arrived Hobart from London, 11th November 1847, departed 29th January 1848.
1848: arrived Hobart from London, 4th December 1848, departed 25th February 1849.
1849: arrived Hobart from London, 27th November 1849, departed 26th February 1850.
1850: arrived Hobart from London, 13th December 1850, departed 19th March 1851.

The "Waterloo" 1842
Although this convict transport bears the same name as the Waterloo which arrived safely at Hobart Town in 1832 under the command of Captain Edward Goldsmith, it appears NOT to be the same vessel. This vessel was shipwrecked off Cape Town in 1842, it weighed 414 tons, not 266 tons, and was built at Bristol, not Hull, in 1815, though it too was built for the timber trade, and in a state of “fragility and rottenness” -

" ... no longer fit to carry logs, she is patched up like other whited sepulchres, stuffed with a living cargo by a contractor, and dispatched to the ends of the earth – a voyage of more than twenty thousand miles ..." (see the editorial below)



Source: State library Tasmania
Wreck of the Waterloo
Charles Hutchins, lithographer, from a sketch by Captn. Hext, 4th The King's Own regiment

The South African Commercial Advertiser for 31 August 1842 and for 3, 7 and 10 September 1842 carried reports of the wreck of the convict ship Waterloo in a scathing critique of those responsible. . Sue MacKay has posted this transcript online together with names of those who died and those who survived.

Editorial 31 August 1842
Cape Town, August 31 1842
On the forenoon of Sunday last two large vessels, the Abercrombie Robinson and the Waterloo went on shore on the South Eastern beach at the bottom of Table Bay.
Both vessels were engaged as Transports by the British Government. The Abercrombie Robinson had on board, besides her crew and several passengers, 501 soldiers with their officers. She was a large Ship of nearly 1500 tons burden. After grounding near the shore she stood upright, and no lives have been lost. She will probably, or rather certainly, be a total wreck.
The Waterloo, a Ship of 414 tons, bound to Van Diemen’s Land, had on board, besides her crew, two hundred and nineteen male convicts, Dr. HELSELL in charge, Lt. HEXT, Ensign LEIGH, thirty men of HM 99th Regiment, five women and thirteen children. She took the ground between eleven and twelve o’clock in the forenoon and in fifteen or twenty minutes became a mass of rubbish, And now ensued a most piteous massacre. In about two hours and a half, amidst the crumbling heaps of their perfidious prison – of men, women and children, one hundred and ninety four were crushed, disabled and drowned.
There was no preparation for saving life made on board or on shore. No life buoys, no coils of ropes lashed to casks, nor any apparatus for establishing a communication with the shore from the Ship.
On the shore there was no Life Boat, no apparatus for throwing ropes over stranded vessels, nor any thing, in short, to show that the Government or people here had ever before heard of such a thing as a shipwreck. We stood amongst thousands on the beach within a hundred and fifty yards of the dissolving fabric, looking on the agonised faces of our fellow creatures, as they sunk in dozens, battered and bruised and suffocated – useless as children, or idiots, or wild Caffers. As corpse after corpse floated to our feet, and was raised from the brine, there seemed a curse in every dead man’s eye on the improvidence, the imbecility, the brutish indifference to human suffering and human life, to which, combined with fiendish avarice, so many miserable souls had been sacrificed.
For this ship, it appears, was built twenty seven years ago at Bristol, of light materials for the timber trade. No longer fit to carry logs, she is patched up like other whited sepulchres, stuffed with a living cargo by a contractor, and dispatched to the ends of the earth – a voyage of more than twenty thousand miles.
No doubt a “survey of professional men” will “find” that there was no fault anywhere; that the Waterloo was a sound ship, thoroughly repaired, and perfectly seaworthy; that she had on board all the equipments requisite for such a voyage and such a consignment; that the officers of the ship did all that human strength, directed by skill and animated by humanity, could do; and that the accident must be ascribed entirely to a hurricane, a mountainous sea, and a remarkably hard beach.
Now as to the hurricane and the mountainous sea, it is enough to observe that there were twenty other vessels at anchor in the Bay, besides the Waterloo and the Abercrombie Robinson, and none of them parted from their anchors, or dragged them to any perceptible extent. The wind was blowing a gale, but by no means a violent one, and it was partly off shore. The sea was not running unusually high. Without ropes in their hands or any precaution, men walked into the water up to their shoulders to drag out the bodies of the dead and dying, without the slightest risk. This could not have been done had the surf been such as a gale causes on an open beach. These are facts to which thousands can bear witness.
With respect to the bottom or ground where the ship struck, some say it is rock, others that it is sand, like the rest of the beach. As soon as the weather is fine it will be examined, and the most convenient spaces marked for this method of disembarking Her Majesty’s troops or convicts.
For some years back such “accidents” have been ascribed to the insufficiency of Lighthouses at the entrance of the Bay. That fault has just been fully remedied. The old Lighthouse is now properly attended, and the new one is so well placed, and so brilliant, that no man dare pretend to miss it, or to mistake it for anything else. These and some further improvements in this department, still in progress, were forced on the Government by the remonstrances of the Public, and particularly of the mercantile body.
When the Helen was lost at the entrance of the Bay, four or five months ago, the Commercial Committee very properly inquired into the cause, and found on the testimony of numerous witnesses that the Lights on that particular night were defective, and had thus misled the master of the vessel. This they represented to Government, and a remedy was instantly found.
We recommend the same course in the present case. The committee cannot compel witnesses to attend or give evidence, but they can invite them; and if interested parties disregard such invitations, that fact will not be without meaning.
These two wrecks will be much talked of at home. We think we can insure their being mentioned in Parliament. Let us show that we here are neither indifferent to human life nor to the character of our bay, which the villainy and the incapacity of strangers have too often brought into undeserved disrepute.
In the midst of this unhesitating condemnation on some points, and charges of guilt on others, we have to mention that two unofficial spectators, Mr. MOLTENE and Mr. STILL, procured the assistance of a common boat belonging to a Malay, which reached the Waterloo after she was falling to pieces, and brought off two men, and on a second trip fastened a rope to the wreck. After this a larger boat, belonging to Messrs. SINCLAIR was brought from the Abercrombie Robinson, and moving backwards and forwards along the rope, saved a good many lives. This shows what might have been done by a Life Boat used in time.
We purposely avoid going further into details at present, satisfied with thus openly charging all the parties concerned, before the world, with the offence of culpable negligence, or criminal intention. The world, let them be well assured, expects an answer, and will treat them according to the case they may make out in defence.
It is not strange, by the way, that we should hear such lamentations from what is called the Shipping Interest, as if no employment could be had for their new-built, fine-moulded, copper-fastened A.I. Vessels, while for the most important of all services, the transport namely of troops, and of persons under Judicial Sentences, such vessels as the Waterloo find ready acceptance in the twenty seventh year of their fragility and rottenness? We shall endeavour to force our way through this moral confusion, convinced that either the Shipping Interest are a pack of liars or the Contractors a pack of knaves. The official gentry who grant the contracts and their cousins the Surveyors will naturally fall into their proper places in the course of the Inquiry.



Records of the convicts aboard the Waterloo who drowned.
Source: TAHO
Item CON33/1/30 Cape Packet ex Waterloo (2) 01 Nov 1842 24 Nov 1842
Item CON14/1/18 Cape Packet ex Waterloo 24 Nov 1842 24 Nov 1842 24 Nov 1842

Copy, dated 24 November 1842, of alphabetical list of convicts saved from the wreck of the Waterloo, convict ship; forwarded to the Lieut. Gov. of Van Diemen's Land from the Government of the Cape of Good Hope.



Painting of the troop carrier "Abercrombie Robinson" and the convict ship "Waterloo", aground in Table Bay in August 1842. Unattributed, sourced at Wikipedia.

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