Ships transporting the 51st Regiment

Some of these ships carried members of the 51st Regiment  to Australia. Some soldiers Transfered from earlier  Regiments  in Australia and they will be listed on their ships 

We are attempting to place each soldier of the 51st Regiment, who arrived  on board their respective Ship. It does not represent all soldiers only those who may have settled.

We have omitted convicts from these pages as the site is dedicated to the Soldiers.

It is not intended to justify or condone the actions or behaviour of some of the military or the civilian contractors in any form, and should not be taken that way.

Information regarding convicts can be found on the following site :

Claim a Convict 

Soldiers of the 51st  Regiment on board who may have stayed. Some were convicts who later enlisted.

" Neptune "

Date Arrived : 2-1-1838

" Melville "

Date Arrived : 1838:

HINES John

"Castilian"

Date Arrived : 10 June 1837

FORD Charles

MAHER Philip

" John Barry "

Date Arrived :22 March 1839

BLUNDELL Joseph

" Runnymede "

Date Arrived :   25 June , 1840

FERMANER Joseph

CUNNINGHAM James

HORN Charles

NICHOLLS John

PUSEY William

STRAIN James

WOODS Henry

"Lord Lyndoch "

Date Arrived :August 1838

ALCOCK George

MOTTRAM Samuel

PEAGAN Andrew

"ASIA 1"

Depart Sheerness Kent 17th April 1840 -- Arrived VDL 6th August 1840

From Superintendent James Wingate Johnston (the ships surgeon) Journal we know that the convict guard embarked on the 15^th April at Deptford. On the 17^th April at Woolwich the first batch of 160 convicts were taken on board, eighty convicts each from the prison hulks Warrior and Justitia both moored at Woolwich. From the reaches at Woolwich the ASIA 1(5) proceeded down the river Thames past Tilbury, and into the Thames estuary. She then docked at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey situated off the north coast of Kent.

The official Tasmanian prison records state that all the convicts embarked on the 17^th April 1840. This is not true as On the 21^st April, 116 additional prisoners (including Austin) were brought up from the hulk Fortitude at Chatham by government cutter, and loaded on board. The actual departure date from Sheerness is recorded in Charles Bateson definitive book “The Convict Ships”. He states that the actual departure date for the ASIA 1(5) from Sheerness was the 27^th April 1840.The ten day delay in sailing may be due in part to the bad state of health that the 116 prisoners from the Fortitude were in. Wingate Johnson’s journal records “At Sheerness on the 21^st of April, received on board one hundred and sixteen male prisoners from Fortitude hulk at Chatham making a total of two hundred and seventy six. The latter prisoners were by no means in the same healthy condition as those received from the Warrior and Justitia. It was with great difficulty that one hundred and sixteen could be released for embarkation”.

Combining Bateson’s information with surgeon Wingate Johnson’s journal we can plot the movements of the ASIA 1(5):

15^th April         Convict Guard Embarked      (51^st Regt)                               Deptford

17^th April         160 Convicts Embarked                    (Warrior and Justitia hulks)  Woolwich

21^st April         116 Convicts Embarked                    (Fortitude)                              Sheerness

27^th April         Depart England                      ASIA 1 (5)                              Sheerness

4^th August       Anchored in River Derwent  ASIA 1 (5)                              Hobart

6^th August       Docked                                               ASIA 1 (5)                              Hobart

"Augusta Jessie "

Arrived at Hobart on 3 December, 1838

McDONALD William

" Bengal Merchant "

Date Arrived : 21-7-1838

GATES James

" Minerva "

Date Arrived :

BARNES Andrew

" Fairley "

Date Arrived :

O'CONNELL, Maurice

" Portsea "

Date Arrived : 30th December 1838

KING David

WAGSTAFF William

" Java,"

Sydney Shipping Gazette

Volume 3, Number 136 (24 October, 1846) Page 293-296

The Java is chartered to take troops of the 65th Regiment from Sydney to the Bay of Islands, Auckland and Port Nicholson. After wards she proceeds to Hobart Town, taking the remainder of the 51st Regiment from thence to Swan River on her way to Calcutta.