Extract from the Sunday Mail - 25 July 1971 ABROAD THE FLYING CLOUD By Dixie Gauvin There must have been plenty to do on the long sailing ship voyage from England to Australia 100 years ago – whales to sight, babies to bear, children to bury at sea, washing to do once a fortnight, albatrosses to catch with a line and hook baited with pork, charades to play. That is the picture presented by one of the migrant clippers’ “shipboard newspapers” The Flying Cloud Gazette. The Flying cloud was a speedy clipper ship of the Black Ball Company, part of the line owned by James Baines of England. She flew a flag that showed a black “ball” on a red field. Between 1863 and 1870, the Flying Cloud made seven trips to Brisbane bringing 2500 migrants from England. The trip took three months, less than half the time it took the First Fleet to get to Australia. The Flying Cloud was built in 1861 by the famous American designer-builder Donald McKay. Of all the clippers of her time, she held by far the best record for speed. I had a quick peek into a beautiful book owned by Dr Charles Hammond of Bulimba which records the Flying Cloud’s dashing career before she settled down (mainly because her softwood timbers became waterlogged) to the humbler life of a migrant ship. The book tells of the fabulous rigging of the clipper that made her name so appropriate and of the desperate struggles her captains often had with those thousands of square yards of sail. Some of her records for trips between New York and San Francisco and across the Pacific to China and back stand to this day. She died in a fire at a shipyard on the West Coast of America in 1874 while she was being repaired. Now, an American historian is writing a book about the clipper and his world wide inquiries led Queensland Museum Librarian (Mr E P Wixted) to unearth a copy of the final issue of the ship’s first migrant shipboard newspaper, the Gazette. Eight issues were published on the journey, the first seven of them by hand-writing on sheets of paper which were handed around the passengers and crew. The eighth was a summary of the others, plus latest news, and printed at the Courier General Printing Office in George Street, Brisbane, while the Flying Cloud lay at anchor in Moreton Bay in January 1863. On that first migrant voyage, which left Plymouth on October 10, 1862, the clipper carried 367 adult migrants, 131 children under 12, 22 infants and 47 in the ship’s company. Seven children died at sea and four babies were born. Mr Wixted’s copy of the Gazette notes them all. At least one of the birth notices, that of Mary Miller, hints at how little privacy there could be among 567 people travelling on a sailing ship 235 feet long. The birth notices read: Annie Wayte, daughter of John and Ann Wayte, born October 21, 1862; Alice Cloud Thorn, daughter of James and Margaret Thorn, born October 22, 1862; Mary Cloud Miller, illegitimate daughter of Emma Robinson, born December 1, 1862; Ocean Thomas Williams, son of Thomas and Croline Williams, born December 17, 1862. Of the children who died, four were victims of “coup”, two of “Hydrocephalus” and one of “mortification” (gangrene). All were, as the Gazette records, “committed to the deep”. Alongside one such grim paragraph appeared one that recorded “the initiative of our steward in perceiving that the soup tureen was inadequate to hold a sufficient quantity for serving,” so he borrowed a lady’s foot bath to serve the pea soup from. Another snippet reports the capture of a spider with legs 2.5 inches long. To quote: “However, after losing two of its eight appendages, the spider escaped and has not been seen since.” The gazette published letters from readers, an opportunity taken up in the first issue by “Bachelor” to praise the charm and accomplishments of the ladies aboard. Next issue, Bachelor was sharply reprimanded for his “romantic foolishness” by a lady signing herself “Maude”. The the Editor, Mr W Fraser, stepped in to remark that, as Maud seemed a sensible young woman, and Batchelor sentimental young man, they would make a very good match! At that, both letter-writers turned on the poor Editor with wrathful scorn. The man writing a book about the Flying Cloud is Mr Bruce M Lane of Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Mr Wixted is handling all inquiries at (old Brisbane phone number). He told Mr Wixted in a letter he would be grateful to hear from descendants in Australia of migrants who voyaged on the clipper to Brisbane. And I would rather like to know if Maude and Bachelor made a match of it after all.