Tomb of the Dunbar victims: the unidentified remains from a wreck sometimes known as “Australia’s Titanic.”

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6 days ago Nathan

Hidden in a nondescript corner of Camperdown Cemetery, a historic burial ground located in Newtown, Sydney, Australia, is the tomb of the victims of the Dunbar sailing ship.

The Dunbar, named after its owner, the wealthy Duncan Dunbar, was an English ship bound for Sydney.
It was at the time said to be the largest vessel ever built at the Sunderland shipyard in north-eastern England, completed in 1854, when the Australian gold rushes created a demand for passenger ships, although because of the Crimean War it was first used as a troop ship, finally voyaging to Sydney in 1856.
Near midnight on August 20th 1857, after 81 days at sea, all the passengers were excited and dressed for disembarking despite heavy weather and poor visibility.
Captain James Green was a veteran of eight previous visits to Sydney and had been captain on the Dunbar on its 1856 voyage, but on this night there were treacherous weather conditions, with heavy rain squalls impairing vision and obscuring the cliffs at the entrance to Port Jackson, several hundred metres north of the Macquarie lighthouse.
Although he believed he was approaching the entrance to Sydney Harbour, the ship struck the cliffs below The Gap at South Head, breaking apart almost at once, with the lifeboats that were destroyed by the pounding seas.

There are several theories about why the Dunbar went aground where it did, at The Gap, just south of the entrance to Sydney harbour.
One is that Captain Green may have believed he was overshooting the harbour entrance at North Head and tried to make a quick turn in, while another has that the officers on watch, blinded by the squalls, mistook The Gap for the entrance to the harbour.

Either way, of the 122 people on board, only one survived, able seaman James Johnson, who clung to a ledge until rescue, while some bodies were so damaged they could not be recognised.
In fact, as the enormity of the tragedy was revealed the next morning, and searches were made for any other survivors, sharks attacked those trying to recover the bodies of the dead, and only on the morning of 22 August was James Johnson noticed from the cliff top, and rescued.
The wreck of the Dunbar had a major impact on Sydney, which went into mourning, mass funerals followed and the tragedy became one of New South Wales’ worst peace-time shipping disasters.
At the funeral procession on Monday 24 August, every ship in harbour flew their ensigns at half mast, guns were fired every minute, banks and offices were closed, and seven hearses and over 100 carriages passed in front of the 20,000 people who mutely lined George Street.
Moreover, the Dunbar wreck drove home the dangers of long-distance sea travel, and when the Catherine Adamson was lost off North Head just nine weeks later, it prompted the colonial government to construct another lighthouse to mark the actual entrance to Sydney Harbour, the Hornby Lighthouse on the tip of South Head.

The unidentifiable remains of passengers and crew were buried in a mass grave at Camperdown Cemetery, and the wreck of the Dunbar is still remembered each year by memorial services held at St Stephen’s Church in Newtown.