Travelling Through Time in Newcastle & The Hunter

The Cawarra: Newcastle’s worst maritime disaster
NEWCASTLE names three of the great storms since European settlement after the ships they destroyed or
drove ashore. The Pasher Bulker storm of 2007 is the most recent, and the Sygna storm of 1974 remains a
strong memory for those who experienced it.
But the storm that cost the most lives was the gale that claimed the steamer Cawarra on July 12, 1866.
Up and down the NSW coastline this tremendous gale caused havoc, taking the lives of 100 people and
wrecking 14 ships over the course of two days.
The Cawarra was a fine paddle-steamer, and had been in the colony only about two years when disaster
struck as it made its way from Sydney to Queensland with passengers and cargo aboard. It seems the ship
had passed Newcastle when the already bad weather worsened and Captain Henry Chatfield decided to turn
and head back to the port. Although Captain Chatfield was an experienced steamship skipper, he was new
to the Cawarra. Evidence was later given that the ship was overloaded, which would have made it harder to
handle in one of the worst gales ever recorded on the coast.
The Cawarra got around Nobbys but the heavy seas pushed the ship towards the dreaded Oyster Bank –
where Stockton Breakwater now helps protect the harbour entrance. The effort to get past the danger point
failed, and Captain Chatfield tried to head back out past Nobbys to the open sea. The ship was struck by
huge waves, however, which put out the boiler fire and filled the forward cabin, sealing the Cawarra’s fate.
Confusion in the port meant the lifeboat didn’t reach the stricken ship. Only one man, Frederick Valentine
Hedges, was rescued. An inquiry into the disaster later criticised the management of the city’s lifeboat.
A large portion of Newcastle’s citizens had crowded all available vantage points to watch the ship’s
struggle for survival.
The storm that claimed the Cawarra raged through the following day, capsizing the ketch Arthur near
Nobbys and drowning its crew, and driving the schooner Lismore ashore on Stockton Beach. More lives
were lost in the barque William Watson, which also failed to clear the Oyster Bank as it tried to run into port.
Bodies from the Cawarra washed ashore on Stockton Beach in the days that followed. They were gathered
up and a mass funeral was held at Christ Church on July 15. It was the city’s biggest funeral up to that time.
Shops closed and business was suspended as drays brought the bodies to their graves.
The wreck broke in two and became a hazard to future shipping. Ultimately it joined the numerous
other wrecks that form the foundation of Stockton Breakwater – where a simple plaque monument today
commemorates the disaster, which remains the worst in Newcastle’s long maritime history.
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