Journal, Sea Voyage of Victor Wilson on board MV BULOLO

Images(5)

Journal, Sea Voyage of Victor Wilson on board MV BULOLO

Date1948

Object number00055463

NameJournal

Mediumpaper, fish skin

DimensionsOverall (open): 332 × 430 mm
Overall (closed): 332 × 220 × 25 mm, 671 g

ClassificationsBooks and journals

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection Gift from Victor Wilson

Terms

Description16-year-old Irish immigrant Victor Mills Wilson kept this journal during a voyage with his family from England to Australia on MV BULOLO in 1948. It contains daily entries documenting the voyage and early days of settling into Sydney, watercolour illustrations of many points of land features, and even the preserved skin of a flying fish caught by Victor in the Indian Ocean in 1948.HistorySixteen-year-old Victor Mills Wilson Jnr (born 1931) emigrated from Belfast, Northern Ireland, with his father Victor Mills Wilson Snr, mother Sarah and younger brother Raymond Ernest on the Burns Philp liner MV BULOLO in 1948. Victor’s father was a pharmaceutical chemist and his mother was a homemaker. The family were unassisted migrants and embarked from Liverpool, England, on 16 June and arrived in Sydney on 24 July. The Wilson family resided in the Sydney suburb of Concord. Victor Snr worked as a chief pharmacist in Sydney, while Victor Jnr and Raymond (born 1942) became medical practitioners. The two brothers practised together for 30 years in the Sydney suburb of Blakehurst.SignificanceThis is an extremely rare first-hand account written by a child migrant from Northern Ireland after World War II. The watercolour illustrations of land features and the preserved skin of a flying fish speak delightfully of children's pastimes on the long sea voyage to Australia.