The Blackwall Frigate Madagascar - Lithograph c1853.

The Madagascar was a large British merchant ship built for the trade to India and China in 1837, but went missing on a voyage from Melbourne to London in 1853. The disappearance of the Madagascar was one of the great maritime mysteries of the 19th century and was probably the subject of more speculation than any other 19th century disappearance except for the Mary Celeste. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Merchant Marine. ... Melbournes CBD has grown to straddle the Yarra River in three major precincts. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... A painting of the Amazon (later renamed Mary Celeste) by an unknown artist. ...

The Madagascar - Building and Career

The Madagascar, the second Blackwall Frigate, was built for George and Henry Green at the Blackwall yard they co-owned with the Wigram family. She was a ship of 951 tons New Measurement on dimensions of length of 150.6 feet, beam 32.6 feet, 22.4 feet depth of hold, and drew about 15 feet of water when fully laden. A one-eighth share in the vessel was held throughout her 16-year career by her first master Captain William Harrison Walker, the remainder continuing to be owned by various members of the Green family. The Madagascar carried freight, passengers and troops between England and India until the end of 1852. In addition to her normal crew she also carried many boys being trained as officers for the merchant marine. Known as midshipmen from naval practice, their parents or guardians paid for their training, and they only received a nominal wage of usually a shilling a month. The Clyde (1860) Blackwall Frigate was the colloquial name for a type of three-masted fully-rigged merchant ship built between the late 1830s and the mid 1870s. ... Blackwall Frigate Blackwall is an area of the East End of London, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. ... For the fishes called midshipman, see Midshipman fish In the navies of English-speaking countries, a midshipman is a low-ranking commissioned officer, usually the lowest rank. ...

The Madagascar's Final Voyage

As a result of the Victorian Gold Rush the Madagascar was sent to Melbourne with emigrants under the command of Captain Fortescue William Harris. She left Plymouth on 11 March 1853 and, after an uneventful passage of 87 days, reached Melbourne on 10 June. Fourteen of her 60 crew jumped ship for the diggings, and it is believed only about three replacements were signed on. She then loaded a cargo that included wool, rice and about two tonnes of gold valued at £240,000, and took on board about 110 passengers for London. The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria in Australia between approximately 1851 and the early 1860s. ... Plymouth is a city of 243,795 inhabitants (2001 census) in the south-west of England, or alternatively the West Country, and is situated within the traditional and ceremonial county of Devon at the mouths of the rivers Plym and Tamar and at the head of one of the world... March 11 is the 70th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (71st in leap years). ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... June 10 is the 161st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (162nd in leap years), with 204 days remaining. ...

On Wednesday 10 August, just as she was preparing to sail, police went on board and arrested a bushranger John Francis who was later found to have been one of those responsible for robbing the Melbourne Private Escort between the McIvor goldfield (Heathcote, Victoria) and Kyneton on 20 July. On the following day two others were arrested, one on board the ship and the other as he was preparing to board. As a result of these arrests the Madagascar did not leave Melbourne until Friday 12 August 1853 and after leaving Port Phillip Heads she was never seen again. August 10 is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Bushrangers were outlaws who used the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities between committing their robberies, roughly analogous to the British-American highwayman. Their targets often included small-town banks or coach services. ... John Francis (c1825-?) was one of a party of bushrangers who held up the Melbourne Private Escort Companys regular escort of gold from the McIvor diggings at Heathcote, Victoria and Kyneton on the morning of 20 July 1853. ... Heathcote is a town in central Victoria, Australia, situated on the Northern Highway 110km north of Melbourne and 40km south-east of Bendigo via the McIvor Highway. ... Kyneton is a town in Victoria, Australia. ... July 20 is the 201st day (202nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 164 days remaining. ... August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Landsat 7 composite imagery of the bay. ...

When the ship became overdue many theories were floated, including spontaneous combustion of the wool cargo, hitting an iceberg and, most controversially, being seized by criminal elements of the passengers and/or crew and scuttled after the gold was stolen and the remaining passengers and crew were murdered. Spontaneous combustion may refer to: The self-ignition of a mass, for example, a pile of oily rags. ... Iceberg west of Ilulissat inlet, Greenland For other uses, see Iceberg (disambiguation). ...

The Madagascar in Legend and Fiction

In 1872 rumours of a supposed death-bed confession by a man who "knew who murdered the captain of the Madagascar" were first published and over the next century many purely fictional stories based on this rumour have been published (being mentioned by authors of such reputation as Basil Lubbock and James A. Michener). Most 20th century versions state that the death-bed confession was by a woman passenger who was taken by the mutineers and by implication raped, and was too ashamed of what had happened to her to confess beforehand. James Albert Michener (February 3, 1907? - October 16, 1997) was the American author of such books as Tales of the South Pacific (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948), Hawaii, The Drifters, Centennial, The Source, The Fires of Spring, Chesapeake, Caribbean, Caravans, Alaska, Texas, and Poland. ...

The legend of the Madagascar has also been used many times as a plot device in popular fiction, the earliest known usage being in Frank Fowler's Adrift; or The Rock in the South Atlantic in 1861 (which is probably the foundation of the modern mutiny legends), and later in Thomas Harrison's My Story; or, the Fate of the "Madagascar" first published as a serial in The Colonial Magazine, Melbourne in 1868. It probably influenced many other gold-rush era sea stories including Clark Russell's The Tale of Ten: A Salt Water Romance in 1896 and the alleged loss of the Starry Crown reported as fact in T. C. Bridges' The Romance of Buried Treasure in 1931 - which was in turn used in 1949 by Captain W. E. Johns in Biggles Breaks the Silence. The most recent usage in a fictional setting is probably Sandy Curtis' Deadly Tide in 2003 (ISBN 0-33036398-0 Publisher : Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd.) W. E. Johns (February 5, 1893 - 21 June 1968) was an English pilot and writer of adventure stories, best known as the creator of the ace pilot and adventurer Biggles. ... The dust jacket of an early 1970s edition of Johns Biggles, Pioneer Air Fighter Major James Bigglesworth, known to all as Biggles, is a fictional pilot and adventurer created by W. E. Johns. ...

References

• Basil Lubbock, The Blackwall Frigates, Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, 1922.
• London Times Newspaper, various dates.
• Melbourne Argus newspaper, various dates.
• Jack Lewis, Bloody Mutiny of the "Madagascar", in Sea Classics, Vol. 16, No. 4, July 1983.
• Lurline Stuart, The Lost Gold Ship, in The La Trobe Journal, No. 67 Autumn 2001.