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Convict ship SUCCESS docked at Port Adelaide, South Australia
Convict ship SUCCESS docked at Port Adelaide, South Australia

Convict ship SUCCESS docked at Port Adelaide, South Australia

Date1894-1895
Object numberANMS0048[048]
NamePhotograph
MediumBlack and white photographic print on paper
DimensionsOverall: 11 × 148 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineANMM Collection Transfer from the Australian War Memorial
Terms
    HistoryIn 1890 SUCCESS was purchased by a group of entrepreneurs to be refitted as a museum ship to travel the world advertising the perceived horrors of the convict era. A former prisoner, bushranger Harry Power, was employed as a guide for her first commercial season in Sydney Harbour in 1891. The display was not a commercial success, and her owners promptly abandoned their business venture and scuttled the ship in Kerosene Bay. The following year the sunken SUCCESS was sold to a second group of entrepreneurs and refloated. After a thorough refit she was taken on tour to Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart, and back to Sydney, then headed for England in 1895. In 1912 she crossed the Atlantic and was exhibited as a convict museum ship until the 1930s.