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Journal of a voyage to Australia by the Cape of Good Hope, six months in Melbourne and return to England by Cape Horn, including scenes and sayings on sea and land
Journal of a voyage to Australia by the Cape of Good Hope, six months in Melbourne and return to England by Cape Horn, including scenes and sayings on sea and land

Journal of a voyage to Australia by the Cape of Good Hope, six months in Melbourne and return to England by Cape Horn, including scenes and sayings on sea and land

Maker
Date1884
Object number00003178
NameBook
MediumInk on paper
DimensionsOverall: 18 x 124 x 182 mm, 0.3 kg
ClassificationsBooks and journals
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionA book by Sinclair Thomson Duncan titled 'Journal of a Voyage to Australia by the Cape of Good Hope, Six months in Melbourne, and Return to England by Cape Horn, including Scenes and Sayings on Sea and Land'. James Gemmel, Edinburgh, Scotland. Duncan, from Scotland, sailed as a commercial traveller on the immigrant ship SUSSEX. He spent six months in Melbourne but chose to return to his family in Leith. HistorySinclair Duncan chose to take the journey to Melbourne and records in the first pages that he left Leith, Scotland, for Melbourne with some trepidation and under warnings from his friends that the journey was too dangerous. He left behind his wife and children and embarked on the immigrant ship SUSSEX on 29th July. While Duncan did not position himself as an immigrant he did set out with the purpose of recording "remarks made on passing events, and hints to intending emigrants, the latitude and longitude, and distance run at twelve o'clock noon, are given daily; so that he [Duncan] ventures to hope that the following pages will prove useful not only to those intending to leave our shores to travel through or settle in foreign lands, but instructive and amusing to nautical men and the general reader." Duncan returned to Scotland approximately 12 months after his departure and his impressions of Melbourne were favourable. Despite the "drawbacks connected with Australia, such as the hot north winds, heavy rains, extreme droughts, and other minor inconveniences, still it is, when compared to this country, superior in some aspects, and to which no healthy industrious man or woman need to be afraid to emigrate in order to adopt a home, and pursue the avocations of life, especially the cultivation of the land." SignificanceThis book by Sinclair Thomson Duncan is an interesting insight into immigration to Australia, both the voyage and life in colonial Melbourne, from an observer’s point of view. With the sole purpose of assessing the situation, Duncan provides a perspective of the viability and hardships one could expect to encounter.