H.M.S Buffalo
Watercolour
61.5 x 72.7 cm
The H.M.S Buffalo was built as a merchantman in Calcutta in 1813. Originally named the Hindostan, the ship was purchased into the Royal Navy after its maiden voyage and renamed the H.M.S Buffalo for use as a storeship during the Napoleonic Wars. It served primarily as a vessel for transporting military goods and served as a quarantine vessel to try to contain the spread of cholera in Britain.
In 1833, the Buffalo was commissioned to undertake a significant voyage into Australasia with the primary goal of transporting spars in and out of New Zealand. However, the ship would also take with it an unusually wide variety of passengers for a vessel of this period, including 178 female convicts and 25 children to Australia and the new Government resident at King George's Sound (now Albany in Western Australia), Sir Richard Spencer and family.
After this successful first voyage, The Buffalo made two more significant voyages to Australia and New Zealand. It was amongst the nine naval vessels which brought convicts to Australia, and of the nine, only the Buffalo made more than one voyage. The Buffalo was one of the few Royal Navy vessels to bring a shipload of free emigrants to Australia and it was the first to bring female-only convicts. On its second voyage, it brought Canadian political prisoners, most of whom were in fact Unites States citizens. This was the largest and last ship to transport convicts from Canada to the region. On its third voyage in 1836, it carried the first governor of South Australia Capt. John Hindmarsh.
According to historian Robert Sexton, the ship carried emigrants whose attitudes, ideals and achievements would go on to have significant influence in the expansion of the colony into Australia and New Zealand. In Sexton’s words, “the storv of the Buffalo therefore becomes one of people: the wide variety of passengers carried by the ship was a cargo far outlasting in importance any timber or other requisites she carried in fulfilling her primary role as a naval storeship.”
Provenance: Private Collection UK until 2017
Item #7093
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