Jealousies and Stupidities stud story of early overseas mail (Part 1)

On July 29, 1852, the 699 ton, iron built and barque rigged ship, the "Chusan" steamed into Port Phillip Bay carrying a cargo eagerly awaited by everyone in the Australian colonies. During her 76-day voyage from Southhampton she had dodged pirates in the Java Seas, survived heavy seas off Cape Otway which doused her boiler fires, and negotiated the treacherous Rip at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay at the hands of a pilot who later admitted he had never before encountered the dangerous, rocky channel. 

The "Chusan" was the first mail steamer to berth in Australia. And according to a contract between the Imperial Government, the governments of the Australian colonies and the Peninsular and Orient Steamship Company, she was the first of a service to operate bi-monthly from Singapore via King George's Sound, to Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

 It is not hard to imagine the enthusiasm which greeted her arrival throughout Australia. The old sailing ships took an average of 120 days and were unreliable at best. The arrival of the "Chusan" put an -end to demands for a regular steamship service first heard in 1843.

 At every port of call her arrival was greeted both as a great communications break-through and an excuse for much socialising and celebrating. Balls were held and attended by all the local military and naval officers and leading citizens.

 The captain returned this hospitality with champagne luncheons on board and ship's tours. The only ones who missed out on the fun were the "Chusan's" crew who were put under armed guard in the Port of Melbourne in case they were tempted to jump ship and join the gold rush.

 The Press, carried away in a flood of parochial rhetoric claimed the two greatest features of Queen Victoria's reign to be "the discovery of Australia's seemingly boundless gold fields, and the establishment of steam communications".

Only one hundred and twenty years have passed, but today streamlined diesel operated container ships and passenger liners leave Australia for the United Kingdom with the mails at the rate of one a week. Once the mails and passengers were the basis of shipping between here and the United Kingdom. Today many people and much of the mail travel by much faster means, and shipping companies are more concerned with bulk cargo.

 The progress from the days when mails were carried in sailing ships' lockers to the present day when they are conveyed in huge metal containers, has been rapid. The real beginnings of a regular mail service between Australia and the U.K. stem from the early days of settlement.

 In 1809, Mr. Isaac Nichols was put in charge of the receipt of mails arriving on sailing ships in the Port of Sydney, and his house at Circular Quay became the first Australian Post Office. Ships' masters were paid one penny for each letter and twopence for each parcel on arrival.

 These arrangements were only for the receipt of mail and following some confusion over the refusal of certain ships' captains to carry outgoing mail in 1829 it was stipulated that they should be paid the equivalent rates for this service.

 But these arrangements were rather irregular and haphazard and it was not until June 1844 that a monthly contract mail service was established with the English firm of Phillips and Tiplady. This service by sailing ship was very slow and averaged about 199 days around the Cape of Good Hope on the outward journey, and 138 days via Cape Horn on the return. The average mail shipment was 1,300 to 1,400 letters and before long most of this was being given to the faster private ships, and the contract lapsed.

 (to be continued)

Source- Australian Post Office News no 24, July 1974