SS Ellengowan facts for kids

The SS Ellengowan was a special kind of ship that used both sails and a steam engine. It was built in 1866 in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway. Its first name was Nøkken. The Ellengowan sank in Port Darwin in 1888 and was left there. Over 100 years later, in 1991, divers found the shipwreck! This makes it the oldest known shipwreck in Darwin Harbour.

Building the Ship

The Ellengowan was built in 1866 by a company called Akers Mekaniske Verksted in Christiania, Norway. It was first named Nøkken and was built for a person named Mr D. Hegermann. The ship was about 79 feet (24 m) long, 15 feet (4.6 m) wide, and 8 feet (2.4 m) deep. It weighed 58 gross tons, which is a way to measure a ship's internal volume.

The Ellengowan could move using its sails or a special type of steam engine. This engine got its power from a round boiler, which heated water to create steam.

Adventures as a Missionary Ship

Mr Hegermann used Nøkken as his private yacht until 1874. Then, it was sold to the London Missionary Society (LMS). This group helped spread their beliefs in different parts of the world. A Reverend named Samuel Macfarlane convinced a kind lady, Miss Baxter, to donate £3,000 for the ship. She renamed it Ellengowan after her own home.

Macfarlane wanted the Ellengowan to help with missionary work in New Guinea. In November 1874, the ship left Somerset, Queensland, and sailed to Anuapata (now Port Moresby). This trip helped set up the first mission in New Guinea. A missionary named W. G. Lawes, his wife, and Reverend A.W. Murray were on this first journey. Lawes later became the first European missionary to live in Port Moresby.

Exploring the Fly River

Macfarlane then planned a trip to find the main part of the Fly River. This is a big river in Papua New Guinea. He wanted to see if there was good land along the river for more missions. The Ellengowan sailed about 103 kilometres (64 mi) up a river, but it wasn't the Fly River. Macfarlane named this river the Baxter River after Miss Baxter.

After returning to Somerset, the ship's captain, James Runcie, took Lawrence Hargrave, a famous Australian inventor, and two naturalists on another trip. They tried again to find the Fly River and cross the Owen Stanley Mountains, but they didn't succeed.

A third trip to find the Fly River happened on December 3, 1875. Macfarlane went with Luigi D'Albertis, an Italian naturalist, and Lieutenant Cherster. This time, they found the river! The Ellengowan sailed about 150 miles (240 km) upstream. This showed that the Fly River was large and easy to travel on. The Ellengowan was the first European ship to sail up both the Fly and Baxter rivers. The furthest point they reached on the Fly River was named Ellengowan Island, after the ship.

The Ellengowan in Northern Australia

In 1881, the Palmerston Plantation Company bought the Ellengowan from the London Missionary Society. This company used the ship to carry supplies from Palmerston (now Darwin) to a sugar plantation on the Daly River. While doing this job, the ship hit a sandbar in the Daly River and sank.

The Ellengowan stayed underwater for four years. In 1885, a man named Charles Stuart Copeland managed to raise the ship. He wanted to use it to supply camps along the Roper River and McArthur Rivers. The ship's first trip after being raised was to help a government customs officer, Alfred Searcy. They were looking for Macassan perahu (traditional boats) along the Northern Territory coast.

However, the Ellengowan was not repaired well after being at the bottom of the Daly River. When it returned to Port Darwin, it was declared too unsafe to sail.

Copeland had borrowed money using the Ellengowan as security. The people he owed money to, Herbert H. Adcock and Richard De la Poer Beresford, then used the ship as a quarantine hulk. This meant it held Chinese passengers from Hong Kong for 21 days before they were allowed to land. Because it was in such bad shape, the Ellengowan sank again at its mooring near Channel Island on April 27, 1888. It was left there and abandoned.

Finding the Shipwreck

The Ellengowan shipwreck was found in 1991 by local scuba divers. They got help from historical research done by Margaret Clinch. In 1994, archaeologists from the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory checked and confirmed the shipwreck's identity. This made it the oldest known shipwreck in Darwin Harbour. It is also the only known Norwegian-built iron steamship in Australian waters.

The shipwreck lies about 14 metres (46 ft) deep. It is in the channel between Wickham Point and Channel Island in Darwin Harbour. The wreck is the biggest thing that shows up on a depth sounder in that area. It stands about 3 metres off the harbour floor. Its exact location is 12°32'28"S, 130°52'08"E.

The Ellengowan is a protected shipwreck under the Northern Territory Conservation Act 1991. This means visitors to the site must not disturb it in any way. This helps keep the remaining parts of the ship and any artefacts safe for people to enjoy in the future.

Legacy

• A second ship named Ellengowan was also paid for by Miss Baxter. It was built in 1881 for the London Missionary Society. This ship was a sailing schooner with an iron hull. In 1895, a British naturalist named Albert Stewart Meek used it for his first trip to Woodlark Island. This second Ellengowan also sailed between Cooktown, Queensland, and Samarai, Papua New Guinea. In December 1898, this schooner was wrecked in New Guinea during a hurricane.
• Ellengowan Drive, a street in the Darwin suburb of Brinkin, was named after the ship.
• On a map of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, Sheet 7282, which includes Ellengowan Island and the Middle Fly River, is titled ELLANGOWAN (with a spelling mistake). The island is also named Ellangowan Island on the map.