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Cabin Passenger’s Contract Ticket
Cabin Passenger’s Contract Ticket

Cabin Passenger’s Contract Ticket

Date1873
Object number00055516
NamePassenger ticket
MediumInk and iron gall ink on paper
DimensionsOverall: 270 × 194 mm
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection
DescriptionA first class passenger ticket for the THOMAS STEPHENS issued to artist Edward Roper and his two daughters, Anne and Edith, to sail from the Port of Melbourne to London on the 25th of March 1873. The cost of ticket was £112 and 10 shillings (over AUD$23, 000 in today's money). HistoryEdward Roper 1833-1909 was a peripatetic British artist, illustrator, lithographer, publisher and writer whose perspectives of life in Canada, New Zealand and Australia to 1905 promoted the exotica, adventure and lure of life in the far flung colonies including on display in several exhibitions in the UK in 1889 and 1893. Roper visited and lived in Australia at least three times - in Victoria where he tried his hand at the diggings between 1853-57, in 1866-68, 1870-73 and probably also in the 1880s. With a traveller's eye for detail and interest Roper chronicled his life in writing and imagery - the Victorian goldfields, an Australian Aboriginal corroboree, aspects of European life on the land and native fauna in emu and kangaroo hunts. The Australian National Maritime Museum in partnership with the State Library of Victoria hold several publications and a handwritten journal of his voyage on the CONCORDIA from Boston to gold rush Melbourne. He arrived in January 1853. We don't know when he left Victoria after 1857. He is recorded in the Canadian census in 1861. Roper was back in Victoria between 1870-73 when he established the Melbourne Graphotype Engraving Company promoting a speedier printmaking process than wood engravings, also demonstrating this technique at the Victorian Intercolonial Exhibition in 1872. However the business failed. He was declared bankrupt.SignificanceThis ticket has historical significance as a 19th century record of passenger travel between the Australian colonies and the United Kingdom. In particular it relates to the first class cabin voyage of artist, illustrator, author and publisher Edward Roper, his wife Annie and daugher Edith on the Black Ball Line ship THOMAS STEPHENS from Melbourne to London in 1873 after his printing business folded. It illuminates the vagaries of life in the colonies for prospective colonists.