Macquarie Island Shipwrecks, Sealers and Scientists

'A new way of finding an island' - drunken captain reveals secret location When Captain Hasselburgh discovered Macquarie Island in July 1810, he made his crew swear never to reveal its location. However, according to one story, an ex-convict in Sydney Cove tricked Hasselburgh into revealing the island's location.
Elizabeth Farr - tragic drowning at Campbell Island, 1810 Elizabeth Farr, a teenager from Norfolk Island, was probably the first female to see Macquarie Island. She drowned soon afterwards when a whaleboat she was in capsized at Campbell Island.
James Kelly, Master Mariner, 1791-1859 James Kelly was on watch the night the Campbell Macquarie was shipwrecked on Macquarie Island in 1812. Kelly and his shipmates were marooned on the island for 4 months. Kelly went on to have many more escapades in a long and notorious seafaring career.
Alexander Miller, Convict Stowaway, 1823-24 Convict, Alexander Miller, escaped from Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) by stowing away on the sealing ship, Caroline. He spent a miserable two years trying to survive on Macquarie Island before asking the master of a sealing vessel to take him back to Hobart to face his punishment.
The Skeleton in the Hut When the barque Spirit of the South visited Caroline Cove in 1874, a party of men climbed to the top of the plateau. The men reported finding a skeleton in a hut made from ship's wreckage near a makeshift flagpole on top of the plateau
Chief Harpooner buried in ribs of unknown wreck Henry Whalley, son of a Tasmanian Aboriginal mother and the unofficial governor of Kangaroo Island, was injured during the wreck of the Bencleugh in 1877. Whalley died soon afterwards and was buried in the ribs of an old fashioned sailing vessel.
Boy Bird, 'elephant' hunter 'Boy' Bird was the youngest member of a gang of sealers who hunted elephant seals on Macquarie Island in the summer of 1877-8. By then elephant seals had become scarce and Boy and the other sealers found the island life hard going.
'Robinson Crusoe the second' Captain John King Davis visited Macquarie Island in the winter of 1909 and was amazed to find sealer Bill McKibben contentedly living alone at Green Gorge.
The Scourge of Joseph Hatch Chemist, businessman, politician and brilliant public speaker, Joseph Hatch, quite literally sank a small fortune in the Macquarie Island oiling industries. He made many enemies along the way, including Sir Douglas Mawson.
Tom Hutchinson's Tragic Tales In the midst of a rising storm at the Nuggets, sealer, Tom Hutchinson, told biologist, Charles Harrison and photographer, Frank Hurley, that the islandês reef are ships' graveyards and the rocks tombstones.
Mr and Mrs Mellish - a lucky decision! Mr and Mrs H.C Mellish were headsman and cook to a sealing gang employed by Joseph Hatch. The Mellishes made the luckiest decision of their lives when they decided not to accept a passage back to New Zealand on the Kakanui, for the vessel disappeared without a trace during a storm.
Alan Villiers: Writer and Whaler Writer and whaler, Alan Villiers, visited Macquarie Island with a Norwegian whaling fleet and later wrote a comic description of the islands' 'little Charlie Chaplins' - the penguins.