Courage and Disaster: an account of the wreck of the Star of Greece

A Geography of Sorrows

The coast along the western shore of Fleurieu Peninsula, from Kingston Park to Cape Jervis, has several names witnessing to its sacred stories. The Kaurna People know it as part of the Tjilbruke Dreaming, The Coast of Sorrows, and the South Australia's European history records the site of the wreck of the Star of Greece, at Pt Willunga, as The Tragic Shore. Of concern here is the coast near Port Willunga, from Blanche Point to Schnapper Point and Aldinga Bay. It is a place of rugged beauty containing places of lost dreams, of ecologies lost to over-clearing, lowered water tables and erosion, of fishing runs over-fished and exhausted, of marine reefs and sea-grass beds made deserts by pollution from septic tanks and water discharged from gutters and drains, of jetties built and destroyed by wind and wave, of mining ventures depleted or obsolete. Yet this is also a hopeful place. A Marine Reserve attempts to manage the remaining life on the the coastal reefs and the beaches are clean. The coast is the playground of many, where air, sea and sand entertains families and surfies, anglers and snorklers, scuba divers and hang-gliding pilots, para-sailing sportsmen and campers, while the rich and influential carve out prime sites as real estate with a view.

Visiting the Star of Greece Wreck

A walk northwards along Port Willunga Beach and past a small rocky outcrop brings you to the site of the Star of Greece wreck, marked by an red buoy, two hundred yards offshore. The wreck lies in about five metres of water and, in good weather, it can be reached easily by swimmers, snorklers and scuba divers. At very, low tides, parts of the wreckage can be seen protruding above water. This is a popular walking, swimming, fishing, diving and surfing site, today.

Occasionally, pieces of broken pottery are found washed ashore, small reminders of the litter from the wreck that covered the coast in wreckage on that terrible, July morning, of Friday 13th, 1888. pottery shards

All the timbers and the steel hull were salvaged soon after the disaster and the ship's bell, figurehead and parts of the rigging are in private collections. The Old Court House Museum, at Willunga, contains decorative doors and other items from the wreck. The actual wreck site is now protected.

An amazing fact is that the ship foundered so close to shore, within easy swimming distance in good weather, yet eighteen lives were lost (or 17 by some accounts, of a crew of 28 persons). The eye-witness accounts and reports of the time record a raging "hurricane", huge seas, with waves from ten to fifty feet high! The latter figure seems an exaggeration. However, the coast at this point does experience rough weather, with strong south-westerly gales and high seas. It is no stranger to marine disaster, for on May, 12, 1857, the American brig, Ida, broke up in a gale after having been stranded for months. Gales set back the completion of the first, jetty at Pt Willunga, in 1857, and contributed to its demise. The second jetty, completed in January, 1868, was also wrecked by cyclonic storms and was destroyed during WW2 by the Australian Army. Some piles stand today as silent watchers of the coast.

Old Jetty, Port Willunga

As elsewhere in South Australia, the initial days of farming in the area (the Hundred of Willunga and Port Willunga), were good. In 1861, 4,477 acres were under wheat and yielded about 11.1 bushels per acre on average, to produce 49,805 bushels of grain. Port Willunga was the second busiest port in the colony, exporting wheat and slate from the area. By 1881, the area had been over-cropped and the soil impoverished to the extent that only 25% of its maximum acreage was under wheat. Wells ran dry and huge erosion gullies began to appear. The agricultural decline from 1870 to 1880 saw many farmers move away from the area and the Port fell into decline.

Courage and Disaster: an account of the wreck of the Star of Greece
The Star of Greece, was built in Belfast in 1868 and ran the trade routes to India. In 1888 the ship sailed to the new colony in Southern Australia, carrying a canon for defense of the colony. On her return journey and laden with a cargo of wheat, the ship was blown off course in a strong gale and was wrecked on the reef at Port Willunga on the morning of Friday, 13th July, 1888. Only 11 persons survived of a crew of 28.

The iron hull of the ship broke in two amidships at 2.00am, upon the reef 200 metres from shore. Huge seas broke over her and a strong rip of back-wash ran from the wreck. The alarm was not raised until after 6.00am, when the Harbourmaster at Port Willunga, Thomas Martin, learnt of the disaster "from a boy" and went to the wreck, armed with a small telescope. The crew was still onboard the stricken vessel. Port Willunga had no rescue gear and Martin hurried from the scene to notify the Marine Board of the disaster and the need for launching an immediate rescue bid. The unfolding, tragic story of rescue is farcical and the response disasterous.

Martin went to notify the Marine Board by telegraph. The Aldinga telegraph station had no telephone attachment and relayed hand messages via the Willunga telegraph station, some six kilometres away and across bad roads- indicative of the agricultural decline of the area at the time. Colonial authorities had followed a "cheese paring" policy, downgrading facilities at Pt Willunga following a decline in shipments. The port had no life boat, mortars or rocket and rope apparatus with which to sent lines to the ship. Its rocket equipment had been removed four years earlier and the nearest rocket apparatus was to the south, at Normanville, with its rope "stolen or damaged". Assistance from Normanville did not arrive until after 4.00pm., by which time 11 survivors had made it ashore and the rest of the crew, including the Captain Henry Russell Harrower, were drowned, either carried down in the breaking ship or drowned trying to swim ashore. Seventeen or18 lives were lost and only 11 bodies retrieved from the waters.

The behaviour of government and the Marine Board officials was deplorable. An offer of a mortar from a chandler at Port Adelaide was refused by the Marine Board, which also failed to dispatch steamers or life boats to Port Willunga. Three steamers, Protector, Defiance and Yatala were available but were not sent to assist, evidently through a decision to save a cost of eighty Pounds to hire the steam tug Yatala. Amid vacillating decisions, personal rivalries and parsimony between various parties and the Marine Board, Yatala was finally sent to assist. The tug left Port Adelaide at 5.00pm on the eve of the 13th, steamed to the Protector to collect lifeboats and crew, and eventually reached Pt Willunga at 1.00am on the 14th! The pilot on board Yatala reported later that the "men who were drowned could have been saved had the tug been dispatched when the information conveying the intelligence of the disaster was received. ... For eighty Pounds the government had sacrificed thirteen lives (sic)."

Public opinion was outraged. The SA Register (newspaper), the Trades and Labour Council, survivors and some members of the Legislative Council made scathing crticism. Some blamed a concern for profit over concern for life and others blamed a drunken captain and crew. The ship was a teetotaller ship and drunkenness was unsubstantiated. Survivors, first mate, John Hazeland, and able seaman, Carl Clason (or Claeson), defended the captain and crew. Hazeland was indignant over the penny pinching authorities who sought to tarnish the reputation of the dead. He questioned why the Yatala had not been sent earlier. Rumours persisited, of the contribution to the disaster made by ill-feeling and haggling between the owners of Yatala and the Marine Board over payment for a previous rescue. The case of a shipwreck ten months earlier, when the Guldax, wrecked off Normanville in September, 1887, had soured relationships to a deadly level of parsimony. Why, asked one writer, had the government rescued 'the dutchman" but not English tars?

Alas, for our sailors! Had only a Lord,
   A Duke, or an Earl, or a commoner rich,
A member of Parliament, knight of the sword,
   Or some one of note (for it matters not which)
Been fighting for life on the ill-fated wreck,
   Then all that invention and modern research
Could do to save life would be done, and the deck
   Cleared quickly of all: none left in the lurch.
But perish the thought! thus to place on a par
   The life of a Lord and a simple Jack Tar!
             [From a poem by "Nemo", SA Register, 19 July, 1888.]

The local people of Port Willunga fared better and gave assistance as best as they could. However, their presence close at hand on the beach may have unwittingly encouraged the sailors to attempt the swim ashore and hence to death. Some crew swam ashore early in the day and others waited until mid afternoon. The surf was too strong for swimmers to reach the ship, due to waves and rips, and attempts from the ship to float a line ashore, by way of floating debris and chests, had failed. Those trying to swim ashore and those who had been washed into the sea, faced entaglement in the wreckage and severe seas. Many drowned and were cut to pieces, as they were thrashed about by pounding surf or were carried to disaster in the backwash and rips. The 11 survivors were treated and warmed at a fire on the beach and were later taken to the local pub, the Sea View. Three days later, the survivors were driven by coach to Port Adelaide, by Hill & Co. Coaches, at 11.30am, on Monday, 16th July, and were given care and hospitality of the Seamen's Missionary, Emmanuel Hounslow. Marker

The bodies and pieces of human remains were taken to a farm house, from where they were taken for burial at Aldinga Wesleyan Cemetery. Identification of six persons remains uncertain, due to the terrible state of some of the bodies. Those named as buried on the Aldinga monument include Captain H. R. Harrower, Second mate W. A. Waugh, R. Muir, (a working passenger), F. C. Blackman (cook and steward), C. Irvine (able seaman), W. Oermich (able seaman), H. J. R. Cork (ordinary seaman), C. Carder (cabin boy), F. C. Carter (crewman), D. "Andrew" Blair (a small boy) and A. Orson (able seaman). The bodies of W. J. Miles (able seaman), J, Gatis (able seaman) and J. Airzee (or Airlie, able seaman) R. (Mc)Donald (or Donnell, carpenter), W. Parker (boatswain) and G. Carlson (sailmaker) were never recovered or able to be identified.

Following the tragedy newspapers and a Coronial Inquest strongly criticised the Marine Board and its rescue operations. The people of Pt Willunga were praised from their bravery and attempts at rescue. Notable among them was the Constable from the police barracks at Willunga, M/C Thomas Tuohy, who attempted to swim to the wreck, was beaten back by the surf and continually entered the water to rescue survivors or to pull the floundering dead to shore.

Today interpretive signs at Port Willunga tell the story of the Star of Greece near the café which bears its name. The photograph at left is of the image printed on the interpretive sign.

There is no memorial. The one that the town's people erected was eaten by termites. The mass grave at Aldinga Cemetery is marked by a white obelisk
Star of Greece wreck, today.

Postscript:
The Star of Greece belonged to the White Star Line, which also lost The Titanic.

Emmanuel Hounslow, Seamen's Missionary, was the great, great grandfather of Wal Anderson, the author of this article.

The Uniting Church Cemetery, at Aldinga, which was a Wesleyan [Methodist] Church at the time of the shipwreck, contains the common grave of those who were killed in the shipwreck. An obelisk, erected by the people of the area, marks the grave.

Only 11 bodies were ever recovered and indentified. 18 persons were believed lost of a crew of 28.

Members of the Greek Orthodox Church blessed the site of the wreck, in the late 20th Century.

The Dreaming
South of the wreck site, opposite a small cave there is a permanent, freshwater spring on Port Willunga Beach, that weeps or bubbles from the sand. Birds are frequently seen drinking from the spring.

There is another to the north of the wreck site, on the northern side of Blanche Point, at Maslin Bay. Both springs are features of the Tjilbruke Dreaming, marking the sorrow of Tjilbruke, grieving his dead, beloved nephew.

The damp sand, pool and small rivulets in this photograph, show the spring in July, 2004.