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AUSTRALIA (1870)
Service dates: 1870-1889
Official number: 63614
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Passenger Liner.
Career
- 17.08.1869
- Ordered. She was laid down as Mirzapore but this was changed to Australia before she was launched.
- 21.04.1870
- Launched.
- 23.06.1870
- Registered as Australia for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.
- 02.07.1870
- Left builders. The last P&O ship to have a clipper bow, and the last built with compound engines.
- 16.07.1870
- Maiden voyage Southampton/Alexandria after which she was fitted with a new screw.
- 17.09.1870
- Southampton/Alexandria/Suez/Galle/Hong Kong. The first P&O ship to go out to the East via the Suez Canal.
- 11.11.1875
- Re-registered at Greenock.
- 21.04.1876
- Collected mails for Sunda, broken down in Lisbon.
- 25.07.1876/11.01.1877
- Fitted with new boilers and new engines of 3,300 bhp in London.
- 17.10.1879
- Shaft broke when outward bound off Ushant, bound for Calcutta with 197 passengers, general cargo and stores for the Army in Afghanistan.
- 19.10.1879
- Tow parted in heavy weather. Trentham Hall made for Plymouth to summon assistance.
- 20.10.1879
- Wooden paddle frigate HMS Valorous and HM paddle tug Trusty meet Australia 20 km (12 miles) off Guernsey.
- 21.10.1879
- Attempts at a tow by Valorous having failed, passengers transferred by boat and taken to Plymouth in Valorous, which then returned to take over tow from Trusty.
- 22.10.1879
- Australia arrived in Plymouth under tow by Valorous.
- 24.10.1879
- Seven European seamen who had refused to man the boats to transfer passengers to HMS Valorous were each sentenced to 12 months’ hard labour.
- 13.07.1880
- Rescued crew and passengers of steamer Duke of Lancaster wrecked at the south end of the Red Sea.
- 20.06.1883
- First voyage to Australia.
- 09.1884
- With Deccan took 85 officers and 1,550 men from the Guards and other elite regiments from London to Alexandria to form the Camel Corps.
- 1885
- One of 7 P&O ships hired as transports.
- 07.1889
- Sold at auction for £14,831/8/5d to Union Steamship Co Ltd, Southampton, and renamed Dane.
- 01.1894
- Sold to be broken up at Woolwich.