Way We Were: Horror story behind lonely Qld monument

It started with the tragic death of a new mother and ended with her husband also losing his life and several men fighting for their survival. This is the horror story behind this long-standing Queensland monument.

She was the greyhound of the seas and delivered thousands of immigrants to Moreton Bay, but it wasn’t her speed or cargo that secured her place in Queensland history, it was the events of April 1863.

The name of the clipper Queen of the Colonies was carved deep into a pandanus on a Caloundra headland by the desperate crew of her lifeboat, who were marooned after they left to bury the body of a female passenger.

The Queen of the Colonies’ story begins in Boston in the age of the American clippers.

She was named Wizard when she was launched in 1853, and over the next decade became known for her speed sailing in and out of America.

When the American Civil War broke out, she was sold to the English Black Ball line and renamed Queen of the Colonies, as a nod to her new job as an emigrant ship on the Queensland run.

As she was leaving London on her first trip to Moreton Bay in December 1862, the confederate cruiser Alabama fired a shot across her bows and demanded, “What ship is that?”

The captain, Robert Cairncross, who later became portmaster at Brisbane, held his course and replied: “The Queen o’ the Colonies, frae London tae Brisbane with 250 souls on board and sundry stowaways,” while ordering the flag be hoisted.

A second gun was fired but when the Alabama’s captain saw the Union Jack he steamed away.

It was a dramatic start to what would be a historic voyage.

She sailed on to Queenstown, now the Port of Cobh, in Ireland, and left for Moreton Bay on January 6, with 1800 tons of merchandise – at that time the largest cargo ever bound for Queensland – and 433 passengers.

“There appears to be a very general desire amongst the Irish to emigrate to this colony, as no fewer than 26 persons secreted themselves on board the ship at Queenstown and they were not discovered for a considerable time after the vessel left the port,” Captain Cairncross reported.

During the voyage, six infants died from a measles outbreak and a child from convulsions; two women died in childbirth; and a man died from his injuries after falling into the hold.

There were also seven births and a wedding.

The ship made good time, and after 87 days, the Queen of the Colonies anchored off Cape Moreton on April 6, 1863.

An advertisement for the Queen of the Colonies.

Just as they arrived, a young mother, Mrs Barnfield, died and as it was against regulations to cast a body into harbour waters, it was decided she would be buried on Moreton Island.

Seven crew members and six passengers, including the grieving husband, manned a lifeboat with First Officer Eldridge in charge.

By the time they returned, daylight was fading. A squall picked up as they approached the ship. They were so close those on board heard voices calling for a rope, but the oarsmen could not get close enough.

The lifeboat drifted past the ship and the burial party disappeared into the darkness.

Water police went searching in the government steamer Brisbane but were forced back by violent weather.

Meanwhile, the lifeboat had been swept north towards Mooloolah Bight, the area now known as Dicky Beach, and despite a heavy surf, made it to shore.

They had no provisions but found a spring nearby and camped on the beach, eating oysters and shellfish gathered from the rocks.

The Queen of the Colonies memorial.

After a week, the wind shifted and they tried to relaunch their boat but after three attempts to get through the breakers, it capsized.

All the men except the widower Mr Barnfield made it back to shore. Clothing and boots which they had removed for the attempt, had washed away.

On April 16, 10 days after their misadventure began, Eldridge and two others set off south-west through the bush and swamp but were forced back.

They returned three days later to find the others gone.

The castaways had been found the previous day, sunburnt, starving and almost naked, camped under bushes near a pandanus where they had inscribed the ship’s name.

It would be another eight days before the last three were rescued.

Two years later, the Queen of the Colonies made one of the fastest passages on record when she sailed from England to Moreton Bay in 76 days, arriving three days before the news that she had left London.

She was wrecked in the English Channel in 1874.

The pandanus on Moffat Headland was fenced in 1920 but it was deteriorating and was removed for preservation.

A concrete memorial was erected on the site in 1963.