In Sobraon Messrs. Devitt & Moore undoubtedly had possessed one of the finest passenger sailing ships ever launched; this firm, indeed, possessed a very keen eye where ships were concerned. The two partners started as shipbrokers, and loaded ships for the Australian trade as far back as 1836. They always loaded on commission, and I believe the first ships for which they did business belonged to Robert Brooks, afterwards the well-known M.P. for Weymouth. But the most famous shipowner who gave Devitt & Moore his ships to load was Duncan Dunbar. And on the death of Dunbar in 1862 Devitt & Moore acquired an interest in several of his best ships, notably the wonderful old La Hogue, one of the favourite passenger ships to Sydney in her day and celebrated for her huge figure-head and single mizen topsail.
Shortly before his death Duncan Dunbar had commissioned Laing, of Sunderland, to build him a 1000-ton frigate-built passenger ship, to be called the Dunbar Castle. This ship, afterwards known as the “Last of the Dunbars” was launched in 1866, and sailed regularly in Devitt & Moore’s list of passenger ships to Australia.
The La Hogue, by the way, was built by Pile, of Sunderland, and measured 1331 tons, being one of the largest frigate-built ships ever launched.
Devitt & Moore kept her in the Sydney trade, and so popular was she with the Australians that they would wait weeks and often months on purpose to sail in her.
In 1866, Laing, of Sunderland, launched the equally well-known and popular frigate-built liner Parramatta, of 1521 tons, for Devitt & Moore’s Sydney passenger trade. These two ships do not properly come within the scope of this book and I shall give a more detailed account of them in the next book of this series, which will deal specially with these frigate-built Blackwallers.
Few shipowners can escape scot-free from disaster, and the firm’s greatest loss was when their new ship, the Queen of the Thames, considered by many to be the finest ship that ever left the London River, was lost off the Cape on her first homeward bound passage from Melbourne.
With La Hogue and Parramatta in the Sydney trade and Sobraon in the Melbourne trade, the house-flag was well known throughout Victoria and New South Wales. Nor was it less well known in South Australia; indeed Devitt & Moore’s ships were amongst the pioneers in the passenger and wool trade of Adelaide.