State Library of South Australia

Letter written on board SS 'Aconcagua' [D 8676/1-3(L)] • Manuscript

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Summary

A manuscript letter, written by a steerage passenger on board the Aconcagua, February 16 1881, at sea, one day out from Adelaide and addressed to Lizzie. The letter isn't signed, suggesting that it is incomplete.

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Physical description

Manuscript
handwritten
0.5 cm

Dates / Publication details

1881

Subject

Aconcagua (Ship)
Voyages and travels
Immigrants -- South Australia

Catalogue record

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Historical information

From the Douglas Stewart sale catalogue: 'Manuscript letter, single sheet folded into 4 pp, octavo, written on 4 pp, from a steerage passenger on board the 'Aconcagua', February 16 1881, at sea, one day out from Adelaide, from an anonymous male and addressed to Lizzie. Clean and legible. Captain and Mrs Thomas Sutherland arrived in Adelaide on the SS 'Aconcagua' in February 1881, having been despatched from England to head the first Salvation Army Corps in Australia. A small Corps had already been formed in Adelaide by Edward Saunders and John Gore. When the Sutherlands stepped off the ship, they were wearing the first Salvation Army uniforms seen in Australia. The letter offered here, written by an emigrating male passenger to a woman back home in England, mentions the Sutherlands, observing that one of the passengers was very ill and that 'the Salvation Army man's wife was a little bad too. They get every possible care if they are really bad ....' The miserable experience of a steerage passenger emigrating to Australia is described in detail. There is fighting between Englishmen and Danes; some passengers cannot come to terms with having said farewell to their loved ones; a privileged visit to a theatrical performance on the 1st class deck - 'I don't know what the first act was, but the second was Good For Nothing Nan; the food is monotonous, most days just coffee, potatoes and soup, sometimes beef pie, and plum pudding on Sunday, with bread and butter and tea most nights; some Irishmen have lice so big 'you could shoot them with a revolver', so passengers move to the other side of the ship; many passengers are dishonest and there are thefts of watches, purses and clothing; an annoying Cockney brags about how successful he will be at farming in Australia; the writer does not like any of the passengers, and consequently has made no friends. An interesting immigration document which also relates to the establishment of the Salvation Army in Australia.'