THE dramatic story of 19th-century immigrant misfortunes overcome by courage and dedicated leadership is one of King Island’s few shipwreck success stories.

Ann Rutte, a descendant of the Cubbin family who were among the passengers rescued from the Netherby when it was wrecked on the island’s rocky shores on July 14, 1866, is a driving force behind the 150th Netherby Commemoration Weekend.

Rutte and a small group of organisers started the reunion call-out five years ago with a website and newsletter.

Celebrations kick off on Thursday and continue until Sunday on the remote Bass Strait island.

Rutte has spent countless hours delving into her family’s history through friendly networks of island residents, Netherby survivors’ descendants, archivists and historians, who have all helped put the event together.

From midweek, the ranks of King Island’s 1500 residents will begin to swell with more than 140 visitors arriving to commemorate the shipwreck and successful rescue of all of its passengers and crew.

With exact details unclear, the number of survivors will doubtless be a lively topic over the weekend, with Rutte settling on a total of 452.

media_camera Tasmanian MP Matthew Groom with a family golfing trophy topped with a piece of the Netherby. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

“There are records stating 413, 452, 502 and most numbers in between,” she writes in the last Netherby newsletter, which reaches 600 people.

“There are a number of records pointing to 38 crew but, again, I don’t have the names for 38 crew.” Many of next weekend’s guests will be descendants of Netherby survivors. Almost all King Island’s accommodation is booked out but no one is about to complain if local services feel stretched by the sudden influx of guests.

Events will include wreck site heritage bus tours, local produce markets and cheese tastings, and the Netherby Bush Dance in the Currie Town Hall on Saturday night.

The event will also serve as a 150th birthday celebration for Rutte’s late great aunt Netherby Victoria Lousia Cubbin, aka Nettie, who was born on the beach just hours after the rescue.

Museum and historic society tours and talks, as well as the handover of Sea Chest, a time capsule of Netherby descendants’ mementos to King Island Museum, are also scheduled.

The 176 foot, full-rigged sailing ship was just eight years old when she sailed from Plymouth, UK, in mid-April, 1866. Bound for Queensland, she made good time to Fremantle, her first port of call in Australia.

The ship carried live pigs, poultry and railway sleepers, along with families and single male passengers all immigrating to Queensland, many to take up government land grants.

One passenger, a nurseryman, carried a precious lead-lined box of seeds.

Others brought tools and implements to establish enterprises in their new country.

Enduring months of cramped discomfort, the passengers’ fears of travelling across unpredictable seas were tempered by hope and excitement about their futures.

Captain Owen Owens, helped by Netherby’s chief surgeon Marshall Webster, ran a tight ship. Morale was high and there were no outbreaks of typhoid or dysentery despite the cramped conditions. The Netherby Gazette, the vessel’s onboard newspaper, published letters complimenting the crew along with articles of interest throughout the journey.

media_camera A painting recounts the survivors of the Netherby shipwreck coming ashore. Picture: COURTESY OF STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA

After leaving Fremantle in early July 1866, stormy weather at the entrance to Bass Strait left Captain Owens and his crew with no visible navigational beacons. Under the cloudy night skies they sailed badly off course.George Massingham, a 16-year-old photographer’s assistant travelling alone to set up a studio in Australia, later wrote to his mother describing the experience: “It was about half past seven when she struck. Then to see them rush on deck groaning and praying. Some who had never prayed before.”

In the darkness, it was impossible to land lifeboats safely, with passengers forced to remain on deck overnight as the ship broke apart. The rescue began at daylight.

Ashore, wet and cold with few supplies and no shelter in the freezing weather, passengers and crew managed to light fires to warm themselves and dry their clothes, and erect temporary shelters.

Many food supplies were lost in the wreck.

Stranded and hungry after surviving several days on short rations, Massingham describes his pleasure at eating what he described as the best supper they’d had since leaving Plymouth, a stew of “kangaroo and a duck-billed porcupine”.

Netherby’s 2nd mate John Parry was noted for his exceptional courage, walking to Cape Wickham light station to borrow a whale boat and cross Bass Strait to Victoria in just 24 hours to get help for the stranded passengers and crew.

type_quote_start Under the cloudy night skies they sailed badly off course type_quote_end

“John Parry was the person who held it together,” Rutte says, admiringly. “It was a successful shipwreck with a happy ending.”

Many Netherby descendants, including Tasmanian MP Matthew Groom, are tickled by vivid family anecdotes passed down through generations.

A descendant of Benjamin and Lucy Groom, his great-great grandparents, who survived along with their four children, the politician is visibly moved when describing his ancestors’ courage and resilience. He wonders whether Benjamin was able to save his locksmithing tools from the wreck.

Lucy, he says, would never again travel by sea. Instead of boarding a steam ship with Netherby passengers bound for their original Queensland destination, the family stayed put in Victoria after the rescue. The family moved to Tasmania in the late 1940s.

Groom says overcoming hardship with faith and practical fortitude left his ancestors “determined to make a positive contribution to their new society”.

It’s easy to imagine they might be delighted by what Groom describes as a sense of confidence and optimism at King Island, where the entire State Government Cabinet convened earlier this year.

media_camera Tasmanian MP Matthew Groom's great-great grandfather Benjamin Groom, left, his wife Lucy and their four children including son William Groom, right, were aboard the Netherby when it ran aground in 1866.

Two new golf courses on the island attracting impressive tourist numbers are a promising sign, giving a welcome boost to local businesses amid challenging economic times.

“It’s in a very positive growth phase,” Groom says. “[And] imagine how extraordinary it would be for Netherby survivors to know that their descendants would gather again on King Island, at the site of the wreck, to mark the anniversary 150 years later.

“It’s incredible to think that everything the descendant families have experienced in Australia in the generations since is a consequence of the extraordinary risks those on the ship took in embarking on that fateful journey.”

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