Biography

• The S.S. Yongala, on her 99th voyage, en route to Cairns with 122 passengers, she was caught in a cyclone off the coast of Ayr, in Bowling Green Bay, on her way to Townsville, on the 23rd March 1911, with no survivors. If she had not been delayed she would have made port before the cyclone hit. The Yongala was rediscovered in 1958. She is listed under the Historic Shipwrecks Act.

Yongala's Bell.

• On her way from Melbourne, Yongala docked in Brisbane, fresh passengers were loaded, including a Bull and the racehorse Moonshine, which, didn't take to being loaded on board easily, and was one of the reason's for the ship's delay in leaving port.

Tasks

• Create Tables.
• Create Profiles.

FindAGrave Virtual Cemetery

• Yongala Virtual Cemetery, FindAGrave

Names

• Abijah Murray not on board, but lost his entire family.

Research

• I have been searching the Qld BMD....any with no parents named, don't have parents listed on ref. Crew not finished..3/2/2020.

• List reconciled by Pat McCallum. List marked up and variances noted. Look for Registrar General Townsville District working papers in support of the registrations at Queensland State Archives.

• Search for WikiTree profiles and 2-3 additional profiles found and categorisations added by Pat McCallum on 22/2/2024

List

Post Script.
From the records of the Townsville Maritime Museum, I acknowledge this list of all Passengers and Crew, from S.S. Yongala who died when a cyclone struck the ship on the 23rd. of March 1911. No one survived.

First class saloon for Townsville.

For Cairns

Second class for Townsville

For Cairns

CREW

The Queensland Registrar-General recorded the deaths in two largely alphabetical listings in the Queensland Register of Births Deaths and Marriages with a death date of 23 Mar 1911. In total the deaths of 49 passengers and 71 crew were registered (120). They are in two largely alphabetical lists with the register numbers 4455-4574 (120). Current day historical summaries report 49 passengers and 74 crew perished (123).^[1] The ASSCo had difficulty being certain about the details of the crew. There were a number of differences between two lists the later of which was described in the press as the final listing.

• 1 Apr 1911,^[2][3]
• 8 Apr 1911.^[4]

THE YONGALA's DEAD.
BRISBANE. Wednesday-The loss of the Yongala having occurred in Queensland waters, it has become necessary for the Registrar-General to register the deaths of those on board, far as the names can be ascertained. Mr. Weedon has received great assistance from the Manager of the Adelaide Steamship Company. This clears the way in the case of many of the passengers. It is more difficult in regard to the crew. Mr. Weedon will be glad to hear from those, having friends on board, so that particulars can be obtained. ^[5]

In reconciling the above listing with the registered deaths and the published listings, in addition to the three crew whose details have not been found in the register, the following two crew were included in the "Final" list of 8 Apr 1911.

• H. Merchant (25), Able Bodied Seaman
• O. S. V. McDonald (18), Able Bodied Seaman.

The final anomaly from the listings is that No. 13. Emily Ada (Shoesmith) Davis (1868-1911) has not been identified in any of the newspaper listings of passengers. She is the only passenger in this situation.

Hauntings

There are several ghost ship sightings of the Yongala.

Holbourne Island, thirty-five kilometres north of Bowen, is associated with the appearance of a ghost ship, sailing the waters where it met its doom. The Adelaide Steamship Company’s 3,644 ton vessel Yongala, commanded by Captain Knight, called at Mackay en route from Brisbane to Townsville. At 1.40 pm on 24 March 1911 it steamed out of Mackay harbour with forty-eight passengers and a crew of seventy-two on board. Minutes later the harbourmaster at Mackay received a report that a fierce tropical cyclone was bearing down on the coast, directly in the path of the Yongala. Without radio, it was impossible to warn the ship.

At 6.30 that evening the Yongala was sighted baffling mountainous seas and gale-force winds at the northern end of the Whitsunday Passage. Later that night or during the early hours of the next morning the Yongala sank with the loss of all on board.

Mailbags and wreckage came ashore south of Townsville but the wreck was not located and identified until 1958, twenty-five kilometres east of Cape Bowling Green. In 1981 the Yongala was declared an historic wreck under the Commonwealth Shipwrecks Act. And so the official file closed on one of Queensland’s worst shipping disasters, but long before then the ill-fated Yongala had entered the folklore of the sea.

In 1923 a party of fishermen from Bowen in a small boat were trying their luck off tiny Holbourne Island (near the main shipping channel the Yongala would have used) when a large ship steamed into view from the south. Although it was rusted and barnacle covered, the fishermen, who had seen the ship before, recognised her- it was the Yongala, steaming placidly by in the bright sunshine twelve years after her sinking.

The fishermen watched in amazement as the Yongala disappeared behind Holbourne Island, then their amazement turned to incredulity when it failed to appear out the other side. They raised anchor and sailed around the island but could find no trace of a ship- it had completely vanished. Until the discovery of the wreck of the Yongala ninety kilometres further north in 1958, many believed the ghost ship had appeared to the fishermen to indicate that it lay off Holbourne Island.

There are two interesting postscripts to this story. A Mrs Lowther, who lived on in Mackay until 1969, recounted her own strange experience at the time. She was booked to sail on the steamer on its final voyage but at the last moment had a premonition of disaster and, although she was halfway out to the ship on a tender, refused to go aboard and demanded to be taken back to shore.

That fateful night a family staying in a hotel at Eton, west of Mackay, also had a vision of the disaster. There was a kerosene lamp on the table in their room and suddenly one of the children pointed to it and said: ‘Look at the big ship!’ The flame had blackened a portion of the glass, creating a clear picture of a large ship riding a mountainous sea. As the fascinated family watched, the image faded and was replaced by another the distressed face of a young girl. The next day news of the Yongala's disappearance broke, and while the father was walking down a Mackay street he saw a poster for a touring theatrical company with the face of the young girl on it. He later learned that she had been among the unlucky passengers on the Yongala.

Research Notes

• SNIPPETS., FULL. 2016. "FULL PASSENGER LIST AND SNIPPETS.". Yongalarevisited.Blogspot.Com. Accessed January 4 2020. Passenger List and snippets
• Ahoy - Mac's Web Log - The mysterious disappearance of SS Yongala on the 23rd.of March off the North Queensland coast in 1911, "Ahoy - Mac's Web Log - The Mysterious Disappearance Of SS Yongala On The 23Rd.Of March Off The North Queensland Coast In 1911". 2020. Ahoy.Tk-Jk.Net. Accessed January 4 2020. The Mysterious Disappearance.
• 100th Anniversary of the Sinking of...: 30 May 2011: House debates (OpenAustralia.org),"100Th Anniversary Of The Sinking Of...: 30 May 2011: House Debates (Openaustralia.Org)". 2020. Openaustralia.Org.Au. Accessed January 4 2020. Member's Business comments

Sources

1. ↑ Yongala Artifacts Maritime Museum of Townsville. https://www.tmml.org.au/yongala-artefacts/.
2. ↑ The Queenslander, Sat 1 Apr 1911. p. 38. HER PASSENGERS AND CREW.
3. ↑ The Queenslander Sat 1 Apr 1911. p. 38. PASSENGERS AND GREW.
4. ↑ The Evening Telegraph, Sat 8 Apr 1911. p. 3. THE YONGALA.
5. ↑ Cairns Post, Thu 4 May 1911, p. 5. THE YONGALA'S DEAD.

See Also:

• Admin, J.Admin, JOL. 2011.> "Queensland 100 Years Ago – The Sinking Of The S. S. Yongala | John Oxley Library". Blogs.Slq.Qld.Gov.Au. Accessed October 21 2019. Blogs
• at Wreck Site
• SHIPWRECKS - View;>"SHIPWRECKS - View". 2019. Environment.Gov.Au. Accessed October 21 2019. Cultural Database, Yongala
• The unnamed Yongala Cyclone, 2020. Hardenup.Org. Accessed January 2 2020. Cyclone, 1911
• Captain Tutty, Townsville, Yongala.
• 1911 Cyclone Blog
• Yongala, wikipedia
• Loch Vennachar, sank 1905
• Australian Disasters, wikipedia

Acknowledgements

• Wikimedia Commons for photos.