Thursday 26 March 1914, a few minutes before midnight. The Saint Paul has been four days out of Nouméa with chrome ore, and the Cape Moreton light is where it should be. Her master has never been here before. Neither has any officer aboard. At about ten past eleven he signals the shore for a pilot, and the shore answers. The pilot steamer Llewellyn gets under way from the Yellow Patch and comes out to him, showing her lights.
He goes to meet her.
That is the whole of it. Between the ship and the pilot boat lies a rock the Admiralty has charted, described and buoyed for sixty years — and, a little to the east of it, one it has not. At eight bells the chief officer starts up the ladder to take the watch, and feels two light shocks. Four minutes later, or five, the Saint Paul goes down by the head in twenty fathoms with the little girl still in the dinghy on her deck.
Eleven men are pulled out of the water. Eighteen are not. No boat is ever launched.
Summary
The Saint Paul was a steel single-screw steamer of 1,633 gross tons, launched on 22 November 1912 by the Campbeltown Shipbuilding Company at its Trench Point yard in Argyll as yard number 93, and registered at Bordeaux under the French flag[1][2]. She was owned by the Compagnie Navale de l'Océanie, a Bordeaux-based company of the Ballande group with its head office in Paris[3][4][5].
She took in her whole cargo of chrome ore at Néhoué in northern New Caledonia on 22 March 1914, went on to Nouméa, and sailed from there with twenty-seven crew and two passengers[4]. The ore was consigned to Antwerp and was to have been transhipped at Brisbane into the steamer Port Lincoln[6][7].
She made the Cape Moreton light on the night of Thursday 26 March[4]. At about 11.10 p.m. she signalled for a pilot and was answered; the pilot steamer Llewellyn got under way to meet her, and the Saint Paul reduced to half speed[8][6]. Within minutes of midnight she struck. The chief officer, on the ladder to the bridge, felt two light shocks; the engines were put full astern; water came into the men's forecastle between decks; and she sank bow first in about five minutes[4].
Eighteen of the twenty-nine aboard died, including the master, both passengers, the second officer, the chief and third engineers, and twelve of the Kanak, Arab and Indian crew[6][9]. The eleven survivors were picked out of the water by the Llewellyn's two boats and by the steamer herself after about half an hour's immersion[6][8]. No boat was ever got into the water from the ship[10][4].
The Portmaster held a preliminary inquiry on 31 March and 1 April and then adjourned it sine die. The pilot who gave evidence on the second day thought she had been lost because her master steamed towards the pilot boat, and that the "pilots' cruising ground" marked on the Admiralty chart had misled him[11]. No published finding has been located.
Fifteen months later, on the night of 24 June 1915, an Aga apparatus bought from Sweden showed a light over the rock for the first time[12].
The wreck lies today in about 42.5 m on a flat sand bottom, north-west/south-east, and is dived only by experienced divers certified below 40 m[7][13].
Which rock did she strike?
Almost every modern account says the St Paul struck Smith Rock. The Queensland Government's own diver fact sheet goes further and says she "struck an unknown rock (now known as Smith Rock)"[13]. Both halves of that sentence are wrong, and the evidence against them is contemporary and unambiguous.
Smith Rock was neither unknown nor unnamed in 1914. It is a gazetted Queensland place name, recorded as having been named after Lieutenant J. W. Smith RN, of the survey vessel HMS Herald, from her Queensland work of 1856–61[14]. That is consistent with the account given to the Aarhus inquiry in 1894, which described the rock being found by Lieutenant Smith while HMS Herald was surveying under Captain Denham, and taking his name[15]. By 1914 it was described in the Admiralty sailing directions, charted with a black buoy moored south-south-west of it, and known to every master on the coast[16][17]. The naming has nothing whatever to do with this wreck.
The rock she actually hit was a different one. The Brisbane Courier reported on the morning after the loss that she struck Smith's Rock[6], and that is how the story has been told ever since. But within days the pilot steamer, searching, found an obstruction with 15 ft of water on it lying "four cables north and 70 deg. east from Smith's Rock" — at first presumed to be the wreck itself[18]. On 1 April the Harbour Master, Captain Cloherty, went out in the steamer Cormorant and found that the top of one of the pinnacles had been shattered, leaving 18 ft over it[19]. In the third week of April the Marine Board went out to look for themselves:
The shattered pinnacle rock, three or four cables east of Smith's Rock, was seen by the members of the Board, and the Portmaster, Captain Forrester, said that they were all of the opinion that this was the rock struck by the St. Paul.[20]
Captain Prentice of the Wiltshire, writing to the shipping press in the same month, had already put the question in as many words: "did the St. Paul really strike Smith's Rock or some unchartered danger near Smith's Rock?"[21] The Australasian Underwater Cultural Heritage Database records the same conclusion, that she "struck an unknown pinnacle near Smith's Rock"[7].
On the spelling. The gazetted form is Smith Rock, singular and without an apostrophe[14]. "Smith's Rock" is what everyone actually called it, and the Telegraph said so at the time, opening its long article on the subject with the distinction:
Smith Rock, as the Admiralty charts call it, or Smith's Rock, as it is called by the average man possessing some acquaintance with the port of Brisbane, naturally has come in for a lot of discussion since the disaster.[16]
This page uses Smith Rock for the feature and leaves "Smith's Rock" as it stands inside quotations.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1856–61 | The rock is found by Lieutenant J. W. Smith RN during the survey work of HMS Herald, and takes his name[14][15]. |
| 1894 | 24 February — the Danish barque Aarhus strikes Smith Rock and sinks in ten minutes. All fifteen aboard live[17][22]. |
| 1901–02 | Chromite working begins on the Tiébaghi massif in northern New Caledonia; Lucien Bernheim founds the Société Le Chrome in 1902[23]. |
| 1909 | August — the Ballande house of Bordeaux forms Les Voiliers de Nouméa[5]. |
| 25 August — the Waipara strikes Smith Rock at midnight outward bound, beaches at the Yellow Patch, and is got off. No lives lost[17]. | |
| 1910 | 1 December — Les Voiliers de Nouméa is renamed the Compagnie Navale de l'Océanie[5]. |
| 1912 | 22 November — the Saint Paul is launched at Campbeltown, yard number 93[1]. |
| Commander Brew reports to the Commonwealth on the Queensland lights, recommending that the Cape Moreton auxiliary light, which leads over Smith Rock, be discontinued[16]. | |
| 1913 | She reaches Sydney on her maiden voyage, Jean Saulnier her chief officer[6]. |
| 1914 | 22 March — loads her whole cargo of chrome ore at Néhoué[4]. |
| 23 March — sails from Nouméa for Brisbane[7][6]. | |
| 26 March — the Executive Council confirms Captain Forrester as Portmaster and chairman of the Marine Board[24]. | |
| 26 March, noon and 8 p.m. — Saulnier twice asks the master which entrance he means to use. The master has not decided[4]. | |
| ~11.10 p.m. — signals for a pilot; the Llewellyn gets under way[8][25]. | |
| ~11.30 p.m. — the helmsman is told to steer for the pilot boat, and does so for over ten minutes[4]. | |
| just before midnight, 26/27 March — strikes, and founders in four to five minutes[4][10]. | |
| 12.40 a.m. — the Llewellyn signals Cape Moreton that the Saint Paul has gone down and eleven are saved[25]. | |
| 27 March, 3.15 a.m. — the tug Greyhound leaves Brisbane with the Harbour Master and the Government Medical Officer[6]. | |
| 28 March — the Courier publishes the full account and the casualty lists[6]. | |
| ~30 March — the Llewellyn finds an obstruction with 15 ft over it, four cables N70°E of Smith Rock[18]. | |
| 31 March – 1 April — the Portmaster's preliminary inquiry; adjourned sine die[4][11]. | |
| 1 April — Captain Cloherty locates the wreck in 20 fathoms and buoys it; the shattered pinnacle is found[19]. | |
| 1 April — the Commonwealth assumes control of the ocean lights[16]. | |
| 6 April — a light buoy is moored close to the boulder she struck, by Notice to Mariners[7]. | |
| ~17–20 April — the Marine Board inspects the site from the Cormorant and agrees the shattered pinnacle is the rock she struck[20][26]. | |
| 1 May — an attempt to raise the wreck is reported from Brisbane, delayed by weather[27]. | |
| 1915 | 24 June — an Aga light, bought from Sweden, shows over the rock for the first time[12]. |
| 1933 | October — the Clan Urquhart strikes a submerged object and the Smith Rock light is found out of place; the Telegraph revisits the wreck[12]. |
| 1989 | 23 July — the wreck site is discovered by divers[7]. |
| 2019 | Protection passes to the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018[28][29]. |
The vessel
She was built in Scotland, not France
This is the largest single correction on this page. Both Queensland Government sources give her as French-built: the AUCHD records "Country in which built: France", and the Dive into History fact sheet prints "Built: France 1912"[7][13]. Lloyd's Register and the builder's own record both say Campbeltown, in Argyll.
Lloyd's Register of Shipping for 1913 carries her as a steel screw steamer, class 100 A1, built 1912 at Campbeltown, 229.9 × 35.8 × 22.5 ft, registered at Bordeaux under the French flag, with triple-expansion engines of 18, 27½ and 45 inches bore by 33 inches stroke, 135 nominal horsepower and boilers working at 180 lb, the machinery by Rowan & Co. of Glasgow[2]. The 1915 volume repeats the particulars, adds the signal letters KWVG and the tonnages, and carries the wreck annotation[3].
The Caledonian Maritime Research Trust's Scottish Shipbuilding Database has her independently: Campbeltown Shipbuilding Co., Trench Point yard, yard number 93, launched 22 November 1912, 1,633 grt, 229.9 × 35.8 ft, triple expansion, single screw, first owner Cie. Navale de l'Océanie of Bordeaux — and the fate, "Sank after striking Smith's Rock at Brisbane when inward from Noumea with chrome ore"[1].
Two registers and the builder's record agree on the yard, the year and the dimensions, and the dimensions are the ones Queensland itself publishes. She was a Scottish-built ship under the French flag.
Tonnage, and why the figures differ
| Source | Figure |
|---|---|
| Lloyd's Register 1915 | 1,633 gross, 1,505 under deck, 1,045 net[3] |
| Queensland Dive into History fact sheet | 1,633[13] |
| Brisbane Courier, 28 March 1914 | 1,660[6] |
| AUCHD | 1,660.0 gross[7] |
| Brisbane Courier, 27 March 1914 (first report) | 1,650[25] |
| Jean Saulnier, on oath | "registered tonnage was 1675 tons"[4] |
1,633 gross is the register figure and should be preferred. The 1,660 that the AUCHD carries is the Courier's number, and the two Queensland Government sources therefore disagree with each other — the fact sheet has the register figure, the database has the newspaper's. Saulnier's 1,675, given from memory in the witness box four days after losing his ship, is his own approximation and matches nothing.
Her owners
The Compagnie Navale de l'Océanie began life in August 1909 as Les Voiliers de Nouméa, formed at Bordeaux by the house of Ballande to work sailing ships between Antwerp, Dunkirk and Nouméa; it took its new name by extraordinary assembly on 1 December 1910[5]. In 1911 it ordered two 7,800-ton cargo steamers from the Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire specifically to carry New Caledonian nickel ore to Europe, and sold off its sailing fleet the following year[5]. In March 1914 the French colonial press described it as "filiale de la firme Ballande", opening a branch at Suva and on its way to becoming one of the principal shipping enterprises of the Pacific[5].
The Saint Paul was not one of the big ore carriers. She was a small ship — 229.9 ft against the 397.9 ft of the company's Saint André[3] — working the island and Australian trade at the other end of the same business. Lloyd's for 1913 records her owner as L. Ballande fils aîné of Bordeaux; by 1915 the entry gives the Compagnie Navale de l'Océanie[2][3]. Both are the same commercial interest.
Her Sydney agents were Maurice Segur, whose shipping manager Mr M. Pelletier acted as the French interpreter at the inquiry; her Brisbane agents were Gibbs, Bright and Co.[6][4]. Pelletier put her value at about £30,000, and told the inquiry that ship and cargo were insured with underwriters at Bordeaux[11].
The last voyage
The cargo
Saulnier gave the loading place and date on oath: the voyage "was begun at Nehoue on March 22, where the entire cargo of chrome ore was taken in. Thence the vessel went to Noumea, and sailed from that port with 27 crew and two passengers"[4].
Néhoué Bay lies on the north-west coast of New Caledonia, at about 20°20′S 164°08′E[30] — in the country of the Tiébaghi chromite field, where working had begun in 1901 and the Société Le Chrome had been formed to exploit it in 1902[23]. It is worth being careful here: the Tiébaghi company's designated loading and supply point from 1908 was Paagoumène, not Néhoué, precisely because Néhoué Bay did not offer good conditions for loading ore[23]. Which mine this particular cargo came from is not established by any source consulted, and is listed under Gaps and uncertainties.
The quantity is reported three ways:
- 2,371 tons — Saulnier, on oath, having drawn the Portmaster a plan of the ship's bulkheads[4]
- 2,500 tons — the wire account of 27 March[8]
- 2,800 tons — the Brisbane Courier of 28 March, and the Queensland fact sheet that follows it[6][13]
2,371 is the better figure: it is precise, it is sworn, and it comes from the officer responsible for the loading. The 2,800 that appears on the Government fact sheet a century later is a newspaper's round number.
The ore was worth about £3 a ton[11]. It was consigned to Antwerp, and was to have been transhipped at Brisbane into the steamer Port Lincoln[6][7] — which, as it happened, passed the scene of the wreck a few hours after it[6].
Loaded, she drew 17 ft forward and 20 ft aft and lay "about 4in above the load-line"[31][4].
Nobody aboard had ever been here
The single most important fact about the last night is one Saulnier volunteered himself, at the end of his evidence: "He could not explain how the accident occurred, and why the rock was not avoided. None of the officers had ever been to the port before."[4]
The master had never commanded a steamer before either. Captain Coree was a single man of 32, born at Brest. His first command under the company had been the sailing ship The Catherine; he had then gone as second officer into the steamer St André of 5,765 tons, and had "quite recently" been given the Saint Paul[6]. Saulnier told the inquiry it was "the captain's first command of a steamer"[4]. Pelletier, who knew him, said he had served the firm several years and that they had shown confidence in him by giving him the new ship[11].
They had a French chart which the Portmaster, comparing it with his own, found "practically similar" to the Admiralty one; Saulnier drew on it the course he would have taken, and Forrester said it was "perfectly correct"[4]. They also had a book of French nautical instructions and a code of international signals. The captain knew the Morse code and spoke English well, though none of the officers could take a fast message[4][31].
What they did not have was a decision. Twice on the Thursday — at noon and again at 8 p.m. — Saulnier asked the master which way he meant to go in to Brisbane, and twice the master said he had not made up his mind. At that time the ship was heading for the south entrance[4]. She ended up at the northern one.
The wreck
The weather was not the villain here either. The night was dark but fine, the wind north-north-east at force 4, "with very little sea"[25]. Pilot Smith noted "a strong south-east set of the tide"[11].
What the shore saw
The lookout at Cape Moreton first sighted her north-east by east, about six miles off. She then changed course to the north, and afterwards to the north-west, appearing to be coming into the bay north of Flinders Reef instead of south of it; then she altered again to about south-south-west, five miles off the Cape[25]. The AUCHD, drawing on the Courier, describes her as being sighted about nine miles off "repeatedly changing course and coming dangerously close to Smith's Rock"[7].
Uneasy about it, the man on watch signalled her by Morse light, asking her name and whether she wanted a pilot. He understood her to answer that she did, and passed the signal to the Llewellyn[25]. Then he went up the tower to wind the clockwork that turned the light, and when he came down a quarter of an hour later he could no longer see her[25].
What happened on board
The helmsman Tito, a New Caledonian, had the wheel from 3 p.m. The ship ran at full speed until ten o'clock and slow after that. At about half past eleven he first saw the pilot boat on the port side, "and was told to steer to it". He ported his helm and steered towards the pilot boat for over ten minutes, watching Morse signals passing between her and his own captain[4].
At midnight Felix relieved him. The ship was heading south-west; the second officer told him to steer south-west by south. He saw a lighthouse light on the port side. A few seconds later the captain told him to put the helm "all to port" — in English, hard a-starboard — which brought her head round to the south. The engines were going slow ahead:
After the vessel had travelled for four minutes in this position, and brought the Moreton light straight ahead, she struck.[4]
Saulnier was on the ladder to the bridge, going up to take the watch, when he felt two light shocks. He looked round and saw the lights of the pilot boat almost straight ahead, a little on the port bow[4]. The engines were put full astern at once[4].
The second officer was sent to sound the holds. The chief engineer sounded the ballast tanks under the engine and found no water, but a strong current of air. Saulnier went forward and saw the water coming into the men's forecastle between decks, and called up to the captain that the ship was sinking[4].
Four minutes, or five
She sank bow first[4]. How long she took is the most-repeated number in the story and the least stable:
| Figure | Source |
|---|---|
| Four minutes | The Brisbane Courier's headline and Saulnier's account to its reporter on 27 March[6]; repeated by the Mercury[9] |
| About five minutes | Saulnier's sworn evidence on 31 March[4]; and the wire account of 27 March[8] |
| Seven minutes | A badly garbled early wire report[32] |
The four minutes is where the AUCHD's "approximately four minutes" and the Queensland fact sheet's identical phrase come from[7][13]. It is not wrong so much as journalistic: it is the figure Saulnier gave a reporter the same day, and four days later, on oath, he said "about five minutes". Either way she was gone before a boat could be swung out.
The boats
This is the part of the story that killed people, and it turns on a mistake with a knife.
Two lifeboats and a dinghy were aboard. Saulnier told the inquiry the dinghy was often in use, but that the two lifeboats had only ever been swung out — never lowered into the water — and the last time was more than a month before[11].
When the boats were ordered away, the men were told to cut the parts of the ropes holding the staples together. Instead:
…by mistake they cut the ropes that held the boat. … They tried to launch the boats, but they found that the tackle on one boat had been cut, and it hung by one davit. For that reason it could not be launched.[4]
The greaser Mouris, interviewed in France six weeks later, described the captain arriving at a run with a large knife in his hand, shouting "Coupez, coupez!" and falling to cutting the falls himself, with Mouris and the third engineer Royer beside him. The ropes were thick and there were many of them[10].
Mouris was explicit about the outcome: at the moment the ship went under, no boat had yet been put into the water, the ropes not having been entirely cut[10]. Saulnier had "partially cut the grips holding the boat down when the vessel sank"[4].
No attempt was made by anybody to put on the lifebelts, Felix said; every effort went into the boats[4].
The captain, the grandmother and the child
Mrs Carter and her granddaughter were in their cabins. The captain came down off the bridge himself and called the lady passenger, the steward and the little girl. Only the little girl appeared. He took her in his arms and gave her to one of the Kanak sailors[4].
That sailor was Jeremie, who told the inquiry what happened next:
When he went up on the boat deck the captain gave him the little girl, and he placed her in the dingey. When the vessel sank he went down into the water with the child in his arms. She was moaning, and the strong waters pulled her out of his arms, and he saw her no more.[4]
Mouris's account adds that the captain called the child by name to a servant he calls "Paul", telling him not to move away from the boat, and that Paul stayed with her to the last[10]. Mrs Carter had gone back to her cabin for her belongings[10]; Felix heard the captain order a man below to fetch her out, and saw him go[11]. She never came on deck[4].
The Telegraph, nineteen years later, remembered one exchange from the inquiry above all the rest. The Kanak seaman was asked whether the little girl had struggled in his arms:
"Non; elle pleurait," he replied.[12]
Saulnier last saw the captain ascending the ladder to the bridge to give a signal of distress, having just called for steam pressure on the whistle[4]. Two or three seconds before she went, Saulnier saw the small hatch in front of the funnel blown up by the air below[4].
In the water
There was a vortex. Saulnier went down "very deep", came up dazed, held a case under his arm for a couple of minutes, then got across a hatch and heard people calling[4]. The second engineer Courtois stuck to his engines until the water was above his waist and reached the deck as she made her last plunge[6]. Mouris was drawn down, fought back to the surface, found Courtois and Revest each with a lifebuoy, swam five minutes with nothing to hold, and was taken by the boat a few minutes later[10].
The fireman Seyd Ali, a Yemeni Arab, told his story to a Courier reporter in Arabic: shovelling coal in the stokehold, he heard a great crash, looked up and saw the water pouring in on him, was swept off his feet, caught a rung of the ladder by chance and climbed to the upper deck to be thrown into the sea as the ship went down. He mourned the loss of a bundle of clothes and ten shillings, and said of his dead shipmates that they had gone to Paradise[6]. He had been shipwrecked once before, crossing the Persian Gulf in a dhow[6].
Mouris noticed two things worth recording. There was no boiler explosion — he saw steam coming off the water as he swam, but nothing more. And at the moment of the accident the engines were stopped, "probably because the captain was awaiting the pilot"[10].
The greaser Mourin gave the inquiry the flattest line of the whole affair: "Some of those who could swim were lost, and some of those who could not swim were saved."[4]
The rescue
Pilot S. M. Smith was off duty in his bunk aboard the Llewellyn, lying at the Yellow Patch, when he heard the engines start. He came on deck and saw a steamer's lights broadside on about four miles off to the eastward, apparently stationary and lying north-west and south-east. He went below to tell Pilot Gibson, whose turn it was, and who was dressing. When he came up again the steamer's lights had gone[11].
The Llewellyn was then well past North Point. Cries came out of the water. She lowered two boats, which picked up four men each, and took three more over her own side — eleven[11][6][8]. The men had been in the water about half an hour, clinging to hatches, and were in a state of collapse[6]. The Llewellyn was under the command of Captain F. Markusen; Captain T. F. H. Roberts, later Portmaster of Queensland, was one of the pilots aboard[12].
At 12.40 a.m. the Llewellyn called up the lighthouse by Morse lamp with the news, and asked for medical assistance at once[25]. At 2.20 a.m. Superintendent George Byrne at the lighthouse asked whether any more had been saved. The answer was no[25].
The tug Greyhound, Captain Bedford, left Brisbane at 3.15 a.m. with the Harbour Master Captain T. Cloherty and the Government Medical Officer Dr Espie Dods aboard, and had the survivors on her deck by seven[6]. HMAS Sydney passed shortly before daylight and put her searchlight over the scene[6][8].
Searching the beaches of Moreton Island as far as Flat Rock and seven miles out to the eastward, the Greyhound found "a life boat on end, an oar belonging to the ship's boat of the Saint Paul, and a few cocoanut mats"[6]. On the Saturday, holidaymakers at Point Lookout on Stradbroke Island came across a quantity of timber and five lifebelts marked "Saint Paul" — and, not having heard of the wreck, wrote from Dunwich to ask whether a vessel of that name had been reported missing[19].
No bodies were recovered. Senior Sergeant Henderson of the Water Police sent four men to camp on the beach for a week[6]. What Captain Cloherty brought back to Brisbane instead, to hand to Dr Espie Dods, was what was thought to be a portion of human flesh[19].
The reason was in the water above the wreck. Cape Moreton, the Courier wrote, "is noted as one of the worst shark-infested places on or near the Queensland coast"; the smallest shark Cloherty saw at the site was about fourteen feet long, and one charged the side of the Llewellyn with its mouth open[33][19].
Those aboard
Twenty-nine. Saulnier gave the number twice, and the arithmetic closes: he sailed from Nouméa "with 27 crew and two passengers"[4], and on the second day of the inquiry he stated flatly that "there were 29 souls on board"[11]. Eleven were saved and eighteen were lost[6].
A conflict worth flagging. The Queensland Government's fact sheet states that "of the 29 passengers, 18 lives were lost including the captain"[13]. There were two passengers. The 29 is the total complement. The AUCHD, for its part, records 26 crew and 2 passengers — 28 — because its crew list, taken from The Capricornian, does not include the master[7]. Add him and it comes to 29.
The saved
| Name | Rating |
|---|---|
| Jean Saulnier | Chief officer (or "second captain"); held a master's deep-sea certificate[4] |
| Charles Courtois | Second engineer[6] |
| René Mouris | Greaser[6][10] |
| J. Revest | Cook[6] |
| Five New Caledonian sailors | Including Tito and Jeremie, who gave evidence[6][4] |
| Two Arab firemen | Including Seyd Ali[6] |
Felix, the helmsman who had the wheel when she struck and who was recalled on the second day, gave evidence and must therefore have been among the survivors — but he does not appear by name in any published list of the saved[4][11][31].
The lost
| Name | Rating |
|---|---|
| Captain Coree | Master. Single, 32, born at Brest[6] |
| Charles Charbonneau | Second officer[6] |
| Achilles Le Jeune | Chief engineer[6] |
| Royer | Third engineer[6] |
| Mrs Carter | Passenger[6] |
| Miss Nancy Carter | Passenger, aged 7½[6] |
| One Indian steward | [6] |
| Seven Arab firemen | [6] |
| Four New Caledonian sailors | [6] |
The French list of the dead, printed in Brittany six weeks later, differs in three respects: it gives the master's name as Jean Corée; it adds Broise, cambusier (storeman) and Paul, maître d'hôtel as separate men; and it counts two Kanak sailors and eight Arab firemen where the Queensland lists have four and seven[10]. The 1933 Telegraph retrospective adds "the storekeeper" too, which supports Broise being a real man rather than a duplication[12]. The Queensland lists total eighteen exactly; the French one, read literally, totals nineteen — unless "Paul, maître d'hôtel" and "un Indien" are the same person, which would bring it back to eighteen. That reading cannot be confirmed and is left open here.
Who they were
Saulnier described the ship's company on the second day of the inquiry: the white personnel were the captain, the second captain, the second officer, the chief, second and third engineers, the cook and the storeman, plus the lady passenger and her grandchild; the second engineer he described as "half-caste". The rest he gave as 10 Arabs, 7 Islanders, and an Indian[11]. Those figures do not reconcile with the casualty lists, which imply nine Kanak sailors (five saved, four lost) and nine Arab firemen (two saved, seven lost)[6]. Both statements come from the same man, four days apart.
The one fireman whose origin is recorded, Seyd Ali, was a Yemeni Arab[6]; nothing was printed about where the other eight came from. The sailors were Kanak — the contemporary papers call them "New Caledonians", "natives" and "kanakas", and this page uses Kanak except inside quotations. It was one of them, Jeremie, who was holding the child when the ship went down[4], and the 1933 account records that another, unnamed, went below to try to bring the grandmother up and did not come back[12].
Mrs Carter was the wife of the mining chemist in New Caledonia. She was travelling to Brisbane to visit her daughter, Mrs French of Nambour, who had come down to the city on the Thursday to meet her. Nancy was her granddaughter, and was going on to Sydney with a Mrs Mitchell who had come north to take her[6]. The Mercury, reporting from Brisbane, called Nancy the niece rather than the granddaughter[9]; an early wire report called her the adopted daughter[32]. The Courier, which had the details from the agents and named the daughter and the town, is the better source.
The three French survivors were put up at the Exchange Hotel in Edward Street. The Collector of Customs gave the agents "every assistance in removing difficulties as to the landing of the coloured crew", and the Salvation Army depot in South Brisbane took them in[6].
The preliminary inquiry
A preliminary inquiry opened on Tuesday 31 March 1914 before Captain W. V. B. Forrester, who had been confirmed as Portmaster and chairman of the Marine Board by the Executive Council on the very day the ship was lost, and who as Shipping Inspector had held many such inquiries before[4][24]. Present were the Consular Agent for France, the Hon. A. J. Carter M.L.C.; Mr M. Pelletier, who acted as interpreter; and Pilot Smith, who had been aboard the Llewellyn[4].
Witnesses on the first day were Saulnier, the second engineer Courtois, the greaser Mourin, and the seamen Felix, Tito and Jeremie[4]. Forrester complimented Saulnier "on the lucid and straightforward manner in which he had given his evidence", and Saulnier told him that he would not himself have hesitated to make the port at night — but "would have waited outside in a position that was absolutely safe until the pilot boat came to him"[4].
On the second day, 1 April, Pilot S. M. Smith gave the only direct statement of cause anybody made on the record:
There was no reason why the captain of the Saint Paul should not have picked up the pilot boat between Cape Moreton and the fairway buoy to the west, a course which a good many vessels followed. That portion was marked on the chart as "Pilot's cruising ground." … He thought it was a mistake to mark that spot as "pilots' cruising ground" on the Admiralty chart, because masters of vessels would naturally expect to find the pilot steamer in the cruising ground. Various captains had been thus misled, and he thought the master of the Saint Paul had been similarly misled. In his opinion the vessel was wrecked through the captain apparently making the mistake of steaming towards the pilot boat.[11]
Smith went further, and gave the practical remedy: it would take the Llewellyn about half an hour to get her anchor and steam from the Yellow Patch to a position of absolute safety for an incoming ship, and if a vessel burnt a blue light on reaching the cruising ground — eight miles from the Yellow Patch — the pilot boat would have time to reach her while she was still safe[11].
The inquiry was then adjourned sine die.[11] No published finding has been located, and none should be assumed. The 1933 Telegraph retrospective twice refers to evidence given "to the Marine Board" and to "the Marine Board inquiry"[12], and the Board certainly considered the matter — it went out and inspected the site in April — but the outcome of that meeting was reported at the time as "more a departmental matter", to appear in the minute book[20].
There is an echo here of the Aarhus twenty years earlier, where the pilot service's arrangements were found by the Marine Board to have contributed to the loss[34]. In 1894 the complaint was that the pilot schooner cruised inside the dangers. In 1914 the complaint was subtler and worse: the chart told a stranger where to expect the pilot, and going to meet him there took him over a rock.
The rock, the buoy and the light
The Admiralty sailing directions of the day described Smith Rock as
a dangerous, conical rock, with only 7½ feet of water over it and from three to four fathoms close to, and lying midway between the outer extreme of Cape Moreton and Flinders reef, with Cape Moreton lighthouse bearing S. 18 degrees W., distant 2 miles. A black buoy, surmounted by a staff and cage, is moored in 10 fathoms, three cables, S.22 degrees W. of the rock.[16]
The Telegraph added that the obstruction covered "several acres", with points varying from 18 feet to 7 feet below the surface, sitting "practically right in the middle of the four miles wide channel which separates Flinders reef from Cape Moreton"[16]. That is why the suggestion of blasting it away went nowhere: as Captain Cloherty put it in 1933, "Blow it up: dammit-all man, there are several acres of those pinnacles there!"[12]
Three things had gone wrong before the Saint Paul ever arrived.
The buoy was missing. "It was only quite recently," the Courier reported two days after the wreck, "that the Marine Department of Queensland had sent out a notice that the black buoy which marked Smith's Rock had been carried away in heavy weather, and immediately the Marine Department was approached with the request to have the buoy replaced by a lighted buoy"[35]. Twenty years earlier the Aarhus's buoy had been washed away in a gale too, and her master had been looking for a mark that was not there[15].
The rock had never been lit, though the shipping community had asked for years. Captain Prentice of the Wiltshire wrote that he had approached the Portmaster about a gas buoy after the Aarhus was lost and believed the necessity was agreed, "but cost seemed the greater consideration"[21].
And the auxiliary light led straight over it. This is the detail that turns the loss from an accident into a warning that had already been given. Portmaster Forrester explained to the Telegraph that when approaching from the eastward, as the Saint Paul had, the sailing directions require a vessel to be kept off the line of lights, "which leads right over the obstruction"[16]. And in 1912 Commander Brew, reporting to the Commonwealth on the Queensland lights, had recommended in terms:
Auxiliary Light Discontinued.—The auxiliary light in line with Cape Moreton, which leads over Smith rock. This auxiliary light should be discontinued; it is not necessary.[16]
He had also recommended replacing the main Cape Moreton light — established 1857, 5,000 candlepower, an out-of-date catoptric apparatus running on kerosene — with a modern quick-flashing one of about 130,170 candlepower[16]. Neither recommendation had been carried out. Within days of the wreck the southern correspondents were reporting that blame attached to the Customs Department's lighthouse branch, and "that the wreck of the St. Paul could have been avoided if the experts' recommendations made 18 months ago had been carried out"[16].
The timing was almost cruel: the Commonwealth assumed control of the ocean lights on 1 April 1914, five days after the wreck[16].
Forrester himself was not persuaded a light was the answer. He told the Telegraph he would not mind lighting the danger "if shipmasters generally were agreed that it really is necessary, but I hope they would not expect us to guarantee that it always would be there when wanted", and observed that "some of the worst wrecks, not only on the Australian coast, but also in other parts of the world, have happened right under lighthouses"[16]. He was afraid a light buoy would break adrift or fail, and that masters would come to depend on it[16][12].
He lost the argument. The consensus of the men who worked those waters, and of the Shipping Inspector Captain H. G. Shaw, favoured the light:
The Government of the day took notice, and as a result a special apparatus—an Aga—was obtained from Sweden, and its beams flashed over the dangers hidden around the scene of the tragedy of the St. Paul, for the first time on the night of June 24, 1915.[12]
In the meantime, and much sooner, a light buoy was moored close to the boulder the Saint Paul struck, notified to mariners on 6 April 1914[7].
Forrester's misgiving was not baseless. In October 1933 the Clan Urquhart struck a submerged object off Cape Moreton, and the light on Smith Rock was found to be out of place — which is what prompted the Telegraph to tell the whole story again[12].
Finding the wreck
She was not found quickly. On the evening of the 27th Captain Cloherty reported that an attempt to locate her had failed — "the weather was too thick to enable the pilot steamer Llewellyn and the Greyhound to approach too close to Smith's Rock"[6].
What found her in the end was oil. Bubbles were seen rising north-east of the Cape, and Captain Markusen of the Llewellyn wired the Portmaster:
Proceeded to the oil patch this morning, N.39 degrees east and from two to three miles from Cape Moreton Lighthouse. The place is infested with huge sharks, and all about are floating small pieces of flesh.[33]
On 1 April Cloherty went out in the Cormorant. He found the shattered pinnacle, marked it, then steered the course the Saint Paul had travelled going astern. He saw swirls on the surface, took soundings, and fouled and broke his line three times — once bringing it up slimy. About a cable further on, the wreck came into view. It was eleven in the morning, the tide half flood, and the water was so clear that she could be seen with the naked eye from the Cormorant's masthead[19].
His wire to the Portmaster was brief:
Located wreck in 20 fathoms, 15 fathoms above deck; clearly visible. Position is N.39 east from Cape Moreton, distance 2 3/10 miles. Laid green and red buoy half cable from it on each side round position where vessel struck.[19]
And his description of how she lay is the earliest there is:
The vessel was lying with her stern to the north-west, and was partly on her starboard side on a sandy bottom. An overturned boat was on the bridge deck, the boat apparently having been made fast prior to the disaster. The mast head lamp was still on the foremast, which had 8 or 10 fathoms of water over it.[19]
Note that orientation. Cloherty, eleven days after the loss, had her stern to the north-west. The AUCHD's modern site description says "the wreck is lying NW/SE, the bow is NW"[7], and the Queensland fact sheet says the bow "lies partially buried in a north-west position"[13]. These are not reconcilable as statements about the same moment; a century of collapse and sand movement lies between them, and one of the two may simply be wrong. Either way, any single statement about how this wreck lies is a statement about one point in time.
The overturned boat on the bridge deck is the one that was never launched.
Salvage
An attempt was made. On 1 May 1914 a cable from Brisbane reported that the wreck of the Saint Paul was to be raised, and that operations were being held up by bad weather[27]. What became of the attempt is not established, and no Australian report of it has been located; the wreck is still on the bottom, so it can be said with confidence that it did not succeed. See Gaps and uncertainties.
The wreck today
The wreck was rediscovered by divers on 23 July 1989, and the AUCHD's site description is drawn from a Queensland Museum report written a week later[7].
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Position | -27.0041666, 153.4971666 (WGS84), GPS-derived[7] |
| Maximum depth | 42.5 m[7][13] |
| Average depth | 40 m[13] |
| Average visibility | 25 m[7][13] |
| Current | up to 2 knots; bottom surge in heavy seas; average 2 m swell[7][13] |
| Dive rating | advanced and experienced divers certified below 40 m only[13] |
She lies north-west/south-east on a flat sand bottom, in an exposed position, and — unusually — "is not, and does not become, covered in sand"[7]. The hull outline is discernible. Named site features are the hull, twin boilers, the triple-expansion engine, winches, the propeller and an anchor, together with chromite ore from the cargo still lying in her[7][13].
The Queensland site sketch, adapted from a plan by Linton Holroyd, George Didek and Steven Holly, marks the same inventory and adds a tank, a condenser, timber planks, part of a derrick, hatches and hatch coamings — with the ore drawn as scatters through the midships holds and the propeller shown lying separately in the sand off the stern[13].
On the depth. Cloherty found her in 20 fathoms — about 37 m — in 1914, with 8 to 10 fathoms over the foremast[19]; the Courier thought the wreck lay under "18 or 20 fathoms"[33]. The modern measured maximum is 42.5 m[7]. Fathom soundings taken by lead from a moving steamer are not survey data, and the two figures need not be treated as contradicting each other.
For marine life, the AUCHD records the wreck's structure as habitat for sponges, corals, pelagic and reef fish, rays, octopus and wobbegong sharks[7]; the Queensland fact sheet uses the same words[13]. A recreational listing adds snapper, yellowtail kingfish, estuary cod and bull rays[36].
Protection and access
The St Paul is protected. She is listed on the Australasian Underwater Cultural Heritage Database as Shipwreck ID 3144, jurisdiction Queensland, region QLD — Moreton Bay, with protection recorded under the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018 (Cth) and responsibility with the Australian Government[7]. That Act, in force from 1 July 2019, replaced the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 and uses the AUCHD as its register[28][29].
She differs from the Aarhus in one practical respect. The AUCHD's "Details of the protected zone" field for the St Paul is blank[7], whereas the Aarhus record spells out a 500 m protected zone within which a permit is required to enter[37]. On the evidence available here the St Paul does not have a declared protected zone, and the general protections of the Act apply instead — but the absence of an entry in a database field is not the same as a statement that no zone exists, and the point should be checked with the Commonwealth department before anyone relies on it. It is listed under Gaps and uncertainties.
What is not in doubt is the conduct required on site. The Queensland fact sheet lists the most common damaging actions as divers holding on to fragile structures, uncovering parts of the wreck by digging or hand-fanning, taking anything from the site, anchoring on the wreck, and attaching lines directly to it[13]. Its instruction for the St Paul is to anchor away from the wreck and let the boat hang back over the site, using a shot line to mark it if necessary[13].
She also appears on Queensland's Moreton Bay Shipwrecks map of February 2014, plotted in the North Moreton Island inset alongside the Aarhus, the Marietta Dal and the Atlantic[38].
Diving the site
This section draws on commercial and recreational sources and is secondary. The official conditions data above comes from the Queensland fact sheet and the AUCHD.
The St Paul is the deep dive of the Moreton Island wrecks and is generally described as the most demanding in south-east Queensland. The Queensland fact sheet restricts it to divers "certified for diving below 40m"[13]. At 40 m average depth she sits at the outer edge of recreational no-decompression diving, which leaves very little bottom time on air, and she is normally reached only by charter boat in settled weather at slack water[13][36].
Recreational listings put her about a kilometre from Smith Rock, give the maximum depth as 42–43 m and visibility to 30 m, and describe most of the hull and superstructure as collapsed, leaving beams, handrails, winches and the two large boilers as the principal structure[36].
Nigel Marsh, writing in Scuba Diver Asia-Pacific, records that Smith Rock "has claimed three ships over the years", and describes the St Paul as "a French freighter that sank in 1919" resting in 42 m and suitable for advanced divers only[39]. The 1919 is an error — she was lost in 1914 — and it is a useful illustration of how far the secondary literature on this wreck has drifted from the record.
Not the Aarhus
Two of the details most often repeated about the St Paul do not belong to her at all. They belong to the Aarhus, the other ship lost on this rock, twenty years earlier — and the confusion is old enough that the Brisbane Courier was already muddling the two in 1914.
| Claim sometimes made about the St Paul | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| She sank in about fifteen minutes, in twelve fathoms | Four to five minutes, in about twenty fathoms[4][19]. It was the Aarhus that sank ten to twelve minutes after striking, in twelve fathoms[34][17] |
| Survivors rowed about three hours to Moreton Island | No boat was ever launched from the St Paul; her survivors spent about half an hour in the water and were picked up by the Llewellyn[10][6]. It was the Aarhus's fifteen people who made "a very anxious pull of nearly three hours" to the Yellow Patch[40] |
The 1914 press made its own version of the same mistake in the other direction. The Courier's background piece of 28 March called the Aarhus a Norwegian barque under a Captain Currie, and put her loss at 8.50 p.m.[17]; the Cairns wire dated her to 1894 but printed it as 1834[8]; and Captain Prentice, writing in April, called her Austrian[21]. She was Danish, her master was Captain Christian Gram, and she struck between 8.20 and 8.30 on the evening of 24 February 1894[34].
There is one further vessel to keep clear of. There is an unrelated American St. Paul wrecked near Point Pinos in Monterey Bay in the 1890s, and a well-known transatlantic liner of the same name; neither has anything to do with this ship.
Gaps and uncertainties
Things this page could not establish, and where they would be found.
- The inquiry's outcome. The Portmaster's preliminary inquiry was adjourned sine die on 1 April 1914[11] and no published finding has been located. Whether a Court of Marine Inquiry or a formal Marine Board finding followed is unresolved. Queensland Votes and Proceedings, the Marine Board minute book referred to in April 1914[20], and the Department of Harbours and Marine records at Queensland State Archives are where this would be settled.
- The master's given name. Queensland sources call him George Coree[6][7]; the French press calls him Jean Corée[10]. The correct French spelling of the surname is also unestablished — "Coree" is how Brisbane printed it. His inscription maritime record in France, and the Bordeaux crew agreement, would resolve both.
- Which mine the chrome came from. Saulnier gave the loading place as Néhoué[4], in the district of the Tiébaghi field — but Tiébaghi's designated loading point from 1908 was Paagoumène[23]. The mine, the shipper and the consignee are all unestablished. The Archives nationales d'outre-mer and the New Caledonian mining registers would answer it.
- The salvage attempt. Reported from Brisbane on 1 May 1914 and delayed by weather[27]; no Australian report of it was found, and its outcome is unknown. The Brisbane press of May–July 1914 would carry it.
- The protected zone. The AUCHD's protected-zone field for the St Paul is blank[7], unlike the Aarhus[37]. Whether a zone has been declared should be confirmed with the Commonwealth department rather than inferred from an empty field.
- The Queensland Museum report of 30 July 1989, cited by the AUCHD for the site description and the discovery date[7], is not published online, and the names of the divers who found her are not recorded there. The Queensland Museum maritime archaeology section holds it[41][42].
- The 1914 position against the modern one. Cloherty fixed the wreck at N39°E, 2 3/10 miles from Cape Moreton lighthouse[19], and the Llewellyn's obstruction at four cables N70°E from Smith Rock[18]. Plotted against the gazetted positions of Cape Moreton and Smith Rock[14], neither lands exactly on the AUCHD's GPS position[7]. Whether the 1914 bearings were magnetic or true is not stated in the sources, and the magnetic variation at Cape Moreton in 1914 was not established here; no correction has been applied and none should be assumed.
- Trove search was unavailable. The National Library's search API rate-limited this work partway through, and the newspaper corpus below was assembled by browsing individual issues rather than by systematic searching. The Telegraph (Brisbane) alone holds 63 articles matching this wreck, of which two are used here, and the Daily Standard's 18 are untouched — including a report of remarks by Mr Finlayson on Moreton Bay's lighting, 31 March 1914. A clean Trove search would very likely add the inquiry's outcome, the salvage, and the 1915 light.
- The Capricornian, 4 April 1914, p. 28, which the AUCHD cites for its crew and casualty lists[7], was not read directly; its content is known here only through the database entry.
- Notice to Mariners No. 5 of 1914, dated 6 April 1914 and cited by the AUCHD for the light buoy[7], was not seen. The Queensland Government Gazette for April 1914 would carry it.
- Whether the Hon. A. J. Carter M.L.C., Consular Agent for France, who attended the inquiry[4], was any relation of the passengers Mrs and Miss Carter is not established either way by any source consulted, and no connection should be read into the shared surname.
- Felix's full name and fate. The helmsman who had the wheel at the moment of impact gave evidence twice[4][11] but appears in no published list of the saved.
- No memorial or grave. No bodies were recovered[19], and no memorial to the eighteen has been located.
News stories from history
The Brisbane Courier, 28 March 1914 — the survivors' accounts
Jean Saulnier's account, given the day after[6]:
He was in his bunk at five minutes to midnight, when he was called to relieve Captain Coree on the bridge. While ascending the stairs to the deck he felt the ship bump, the force of the impact being somewhat reduced owing to the fact that the Saint Paul was steaming at half speed. In four minutes from the time the Saint Paul struck she had foundered, not giving sufficient time for a boat to be lowered, although an effort was made to do so. There was no confusion on board…
The fact that the sea was calm, the water warm, and rescuers near at hand accounts for so many lives being saved after such a terribly sudden catastrophe. All the survivors agree that after the first crash there was a dead stillness. No cries were heard, and many of those who went down with the ship were, no doubt, hardly awakened from their sleep before being engulfed, while those cast into the water swam in company, but in silence.[6]
The Brisbane Courier, 1 April 1914 — the helmsman
Felix, who had the wheel[4]:
A few seconds afterwards the captain told him to put the vessel "all to port"—in English, "hard a-starboard." This had the effect of making the vessel's head go to port or to the south. At that time the engines were going slow ahead. After the vessel had travelled for four minutes in this position, and brought the Moreton light straight ahead, she struck. Afterwards he heard the captain say something to the effect that he had lost his billet.
The Courier prints "billet"; the wire version carried by the country papers has the captain saying he had lost his bearings[31]. Given the context — a master who has just put his ship on a rock — the wire reading is the more natural, but the Courier's compositor set what he set, and both are on the record.
L'Ouest-Éclair, 3 May 1914 — the greaser's account
Mouris, the greaser, interviewed after the Australian papers reached France[10]:
Il était minuit moins 3 minutes. Remontant pour le changement de quart, M. Mouris venait de mettre le pied sur le pont quand un bruit sourd se fit entendre comme si tout le fond du navire se déchirait immédiatement.
Le capitaine arriva en courant, un large couteau à la main, criant : « Coupez, coupez ! »
That is: it was three minutes to midnight; coming up for the change of watch, Mouris had just set foot on deck when a dull noise was heard as though the whole bottom of the ship were tearing open. The captain came at a run with a large knife in his hand, shouting "Cut, cut!"
The Telegraph, 2 October 1933 — the rock, nineteen years on
"Why don't you blow up that rock?" "Blow it up: dammit-all man, there are several acres of those pinnacles there!" "Well, what can be done?" "Light it man, light it. That's what ought to have been done years ago."[12]
A note on the sources
Four bodies of evidence stand behind this page, and they are of very different weight.
Primary and strongest: the Brisbane Courier's reporting of 27 March to 2 April 1914, and above all its verbatim reports of the two days of sworn evidence at the Portmaster's preliminary inquiry. This is the only place where the men who were aboard speak for themselves, and where the numbers — 27 crew and two passengers, 2,371 tons of ore, 29 souls — are given on oath rather than estimated by a reporter. Where this page departs from the Government's own published figures, it is almost always because the inquiry evidence says otherwise.
Independent and unusually valuable: the French press. L'Ouest-Éclair of 3 May 1914 carries an interview with the greaser Mouris that no Australian paper ran, and it is the only source that states plainly that no boat ever reached the water. It also dates the loss to "la nuit du 26 au 27 mars" — the night of the 26th to the 27th — which is the exact and correct formulation, and one no Queensland source manages[10].
Authoritative on the ship herself: Lloyd's Register for 1913 and 1915, and the Caledonian Maritime Research Trust's builder record. These three agree with each other and disagree with both Queensland Government sources about where she was built[2][3][1].
Official and authoritative for the modern site, but not for 1914: the AUCHD record and the Queensland Dive into History fact sheet. On depth, position, site condition, marine life and diving conditions they are the best sources there are[7][13]. On the history they are working from newspapers at second hand, and they carry the newspapers' errors — the 1,660 tons, the 2,800 tons of ore, the "29 passengers", the "unknown rock (now known as Smith Rock)", and France as the place of building.
Secondary, and flagged as such throughout: dive-operator and tourism listings. On this wreck they place the loss variously in 1914 and 1919, and none of them consulted a register.
One last observation on the whole record. Almost every error that survives about this wreck can be traced to something printed in the first forty-eight hours, before anybody had been asked a question on oath — the four minutes, the 1,660 tons, the 2,800 tons of ore, and Smith Rock as the rock she struck. The inquiry evidence, the Marine Board's own inspection and the shipping registers correct all four. They were all available in 1914.