Netherby (ship)

Netherby was a full-rigged sailing ship of the Black Ball Line that ran aground and sank off the coast of King Island—an island in Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland—on 14 July 1866 while sailing from London to Brisbane.

Remarkably, all of the 413 passengers and 49 crew were saved, firstly from drowning in the rough waters of Bass Strait and then from starvation on the mainly uninhabited island.

Netherby was a 944 ton vessel of dimensions 176 x 33 x 22 feet, built in Sunderland in 1858. The vessel was under charter to the Queensland Government to carry emigrants from the United Kingdom to the then-British colony. Queensland, recently separated from its parent colony New South Wales, saw a need to quickly increase its population and so set in place a "land order" system of assisted emigration.Netherby was the 77th vessel to sail under this system for the Queensland government.

Sailing from East India Docks in London, Netherby sailed to Plymouth to take on its final group of emigrants before setting sail for Queensland. The ship's master for the voyage was Captain Owen Owens. The ship was supposed to take a route to the south of Tasmania but Owens decided to pass through Bass Strait instead. The ship had encountered extremely rough weather earlier in the voyage that had seen the steerage passengers confined below decks for 14 consecutive days. In taking the passage through Bass Strait, Ownes hoped to avoid further rough weather and ease the burden on the passengers.

Owens' problems started when low cloud obscured the sun from view and thus he was unable to plot his position using celestial navigation techniques.

After Netherby was wrecked, all the 413 passengers and 49 crew were able to reach King Island safely, but there they were without shelter and with very limited provisions. The second officer, John Parry, led a small party of crew and passengers to procure assistance from the lighthouse on the island, but there were insufficient supplies there for the number of survivors. Parry and 3 others took the 23-foot whaleboat at the lighthouse and, despite high winds and rough seas, managed to reach the Australian mainland between Point Roadknight and Barwon Heads, where they met a party of surveyors who immediately assisted them. Parry then took a horse and rode the 26 miles to Geelong from where he raised the alarm by telegram to Melbourne on 21 July.

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