CHARLES EATON

Charles Eaton. Barque, 313 tons. Reg. London. Captain J.G. Moore.  On board was Captain William D'Oyley of the Bengal Artillery and his family. From Sydney to India, struck the Great Detached Reef, approximately 40 miles east of the Sir Charles Hardy Islands, on the outer Barrier Reef on 15 August 1834. Six of the crew stole the boats and set out for Timor which they reached about two months later. Those abandoned at the wreck made two rafts, then set out for the mainland. After days and nights of misery without food and water, they were captured by Aborigines who murdered all except two young men, John Ireland and William Sexton, and the two young sons of the army captain. They lived with their captors for some months, being eventually exchanged at Murray Island to a native for a bunch of bananas. Their new owner treated them kindly and months later, when the schooner Isabella was making a search for the lost ship, only Ireland and four-year-old William D’Oyley had survived. They were handed over to the Captain Charles Morgan Lewis of the Isabella, who returned them to Sydney. The ship also carried back skulls believed to be those of the murdered passengers and crew. Captain Lewis took leave of absence to take the young D’Oyley back to England to be placed in care of relatives.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Hardy_Islands  Downloaded 12 May 2012

Inscription on Memorial reads: Within this tomb were interred, on XVII November MDCCCXXXVI, Discovered, after the most diligent research, in the island of Aureed, in Torres Straits, by Mr. C.M. Lewis, Commander of H.M. Colonial Schooner “Isabella”, and by satisfactory evidence identified as the mortal remains of certainof the officers, crew and passengers of the Bark “Charles Eaton”, who, after, escaping from the total wreck of that vessel on XV August, MDCCCXXXIV, were savagely massacred by the natives of the islands on which they landed. His Excellency Sir Richard Bourke, K.C.B. Governor in Chief of this Colony, by whose command the expedition to ascertain the fate of those unhappy persons was undertaken caused the last offices of pity to be discharged. Towards them, by directing the internment of their remains with the rights of Christian burial and the erecting of this Monument to record the catastrophe by which they perished. “And they told David, saying that the men of Jabesh-Cilead were they that buried Saul; and David sent messengers to the men Jabesh-Cilead, and said unto them, blessed be ye of the Lord, that ye have shown this kindness.” – Psalm (unreadable).

Reference: Transcribed from a photograph taken by Marjorie Earl at Pioneer Memorial Park Cemetery (Bunnerong Cemetery) in 2003 – in her private collection.

(c) Marjorie Earl photograph.