From Rattery to the World: discovering Captain John Goss 1801 - 1853
By Vera and Len Arthur
As a young rooky family historian in 1967 I first came across the name John Goss on a tombstone in Rattery churchyard. Goss was my maiden name and the stone was next to my 3xggrandfather’s Isaac Goss but there was no record whatever of a family connection. All there was on the stone was ‘In memory of Captain John Goss who died at sea on the 13th day of July 1853 aged 52’ and that is where things stayed for over 40 years. We now know he died at sea as Captain of the sailing ship Candahar heading toward Java from Jakarta, now Indonesia. How was it that someone from the family of an agricultural labourer living in a small village on the edge of the moors between Totnes and South Brent could have ended up as sea captain travelling to some of the most exotic places in the world?
Of course the full answer will never be known but this is
how the pieces of an amazing story have come together so far. The research
voyage, as ever continues.John Goss was born in South Brent to Isaac Goss and Mary (nee Hext) in 1801. Mary was from South Brent but by the birth of their second child, Joanna who died in her first year, they were back in Isaac’s parish Rattery and that is where the family stayed until Mary died in Totnes workhouse in 1852. Another nine children followed. Isaac was down as an agricultural labourer in the 1841 census. Many of John Goss’ siblings worked or married into farming staying in the South Hams but the youngest of them all Samuel also went to sea, became a first mate and lived in Liverpool. The sixth sibling Thomas, was a farmer in Harberton and in 1849 migrated with his wife and seven children to Adelaide in Australia. Hence back to the John Goss connection who probably recommended that they should go.
Socially it is worth noting how the siblings were having to use what opportunities were open to them to survive. My 2xggrandfather William, the third sibling, was a weaver and seemed to sink and die young with the trade in the 1840s. Shipping was one of those industries that went through an expansion in the C19 with employment doubling by 1880 compared with the time of the census in 1851 and following the surplus of sailors after the Napoleonic war. We may never know how and when John Goss went to sea but from his 1851 masters certificate it was clear he saw his home port as Totnes, about 10 miles from Rattery. If his start at sea was from there 10 miles walk is a short distance. We believe Totnes came under the port of Dartmouth and the ship's muster rolls for that port exist but are not online and remain to be searched at the National Archives. At the moment the assumption is that he went to sea young, around 12, possibly through a family connection, a James Goss was a part owner in a ship at Dartmouth.
The first research breakthrough came when British legislation in 1850 required the certification of masters and mates on merchant vessels. These records in the National Archive went online about 2011 and we found a masters certificate for a John Goss who had his hometown as Totnes. Around the same time we also found newly online marriage information of a John Goss about the right age being married in London in 1831. It was reasonably clear that it was the right John Goss as he married a Mary Ann Chaffe from Rattery who was 21 at the time. It seems a love from an early age despite the 10 year age difference and sailor of the world. It was to be a lonely life for Mary, with John away at sea for many months at a time. In the 1851 census, she was down by herself staying with friends in Essex.
Over the last 10 years records of British seamen and shipping in and around Australia have come online covering the 1830s onward and these have proven to be an gold mine of research. John's 1851 master's certificate details his mates and masters experience back to the 1830s on four ships, the William Lushington, the Hope, the Duke of Norfolk and the Candahar. Using this information it has been possible to use the online Lloyds lists and Australian sources to develop a picture and even hear the voice of someone who traversed the world.
Service on the William Lushington predated the 1835 Merchant Shipping Act. It is not clear how far this service would go back but according to the 1834 Lloyds Register the ship was 409 tons, built at Topsham in Devon and registered in London and Plymouth. In 1834 the ship was sailing to Plymouth, North America and again in 1835 and 1837, earlier in the century it had sailed to the West Indies. In 1835 John Goss served as chief mate on the Hope from December of that year to September 1836. On the Duke of Norfolk as his first master appointment from October 1838 to June 1840. On the Hope as master from March 1842 to March 1846 - where his youngest brother Sam was one of the apprentices - and finally as master on the Candahar from June 1847 until he died at sea in 1853. From the Australian Trove newspaper records in July 1842 the Hope under Captain Goss is one of seven ships sailing in what seems to be a convoy with around 2,000 convicts due to arrive in Australia that month. The Candahar is one of the other ships being Captained by Ridley who was also the owner. This may have been the start of the business arrangement with John Goss who five years later took over being the captain and Ridley was still the main owner.
John Goss starts to emerge from the records as a person from a variety of records covering his association with the Candahar as the captain. By 1847 John Goss became master and captain and the ship had been refitted to transport paying migrants from the UK largely to Adelaide, Australia, returning with goods and trading around Australia and nearby countries whilst there. Trips were made almost once a year going out in one non stop voyage of four months. Return trips may have varied as when the Hope came back in 1843 it was advertised as being via Bombay with facilities to transport horses and people.
We have been very lucky and have access to three almost daily diaries kept by passengers on the Candahar, two on the 1850 voyage and one on the 1851 voyage. This section covers what we can glean about Captain Goss from the diaries. A second section will use the diaries to provide an overall insight into how the three passengers themselves experienced the voyage from their very different personal and social circumstances. It is with great respect for the memories of these two women and the man that we draw upon these journals. They were often written under the most difficult circumstances and reveal considerable skills of observation and description as well as great humanity. Although we are drawing information from these journals for our own purposes, they stand as significant historical documents in their own right. We are very thankful they have survived.
Two of the passengers Jane Elizabeth Skinner and David Liston kept
diaries during the same 1850 voyage. The David Liston diary has been made
available as a copy of the handwritten original by the South Australian
archive. I am currently in the process of transcribing and making a typewritten
copy which will be deposited back in the archive. There is one more diary which
was kept by David Liston’s sister Ellen then aged 12, but this is not as yet in
the public domain. She later became a renowned Australian author and poet.
David Liston was aged 20 on the 1850 voyage and was sailing with his family.
David became an accountant in Australia and lived until 1907. His diary is
quite different from Jane Skinner, as he calls it his ‘log’ and is largely
taken up with more technical information such as longitude and latitude, wind
direction and sightings of birds etc. In the absence of an official log this
information has proven to be invaluable, giving a day by day account of
progress which we have been able to plot on a Google map [use the link for full information]. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1x0T89M3WaDxhFeFEDPxS5Mqxq92OJLI&usp=sharing
As Jane mentions toward the end of the diary when the Candahar was moored just outside Adelaide ‘Such lots of people came down to the ship to see Captain Goss. He is so much respected here.’ This was certainly the case and on a later voyage to Australia on the 3rd December 1852 John Goss was asked to give evidence to the Victoria State Parliament Select Committee on the Melbourne to Hobson’s Bay Railway Company Bill. The evidence was recorded verbatim so here we have the voice of John Goss, the closest to a recording that can be achieved. The evidence is technical and about tides, winds and water depths. He explains he has been in the Port a fortnight on this trip but ‘I have been in the Port four times within this last year’. He also describes an accident ‘In my last, I was laying there in a gale when the Aberdeen dragged her anchor and ran foul of me’... ‘It was owing to this accident that orders were issued that have caused the ships to be so scattered around the harbour as they are now’.
Unlike Jane Skinner, David Liston, provides few personal insights into Captain Goss, largely referring to the general ‘they’ when talking about the crew. It is clear, however, that he was allowed to be present and possibly participated in the midday taking of longitude and latitude positions, as well as other details in relation to wind direction and distance in knots travelled. In one departure from this technical approach, he describes in detail the ‘crossing the line’ ceremony which includes this poem from Neptune to the Captain - most possibly written by Captain Goss.
“Ship
Candahar
May
31st 1850
Sir,
Neptune who all sailors know, the wind and tide direct
I send to all on board my very best respects.
To
you worthy Captain congratulations send
And
hope to be remembered by an old sea going friend.
Unto
the passengers and crew the weather being fine
I
hope to come aboard tomorrow and … on the line
And
when my messenger you see, he is a drunken dog
He
will answer all questions and be glad to drink some grog
His
clothes are fine, he cuts show, a swell but let him pass
He
is quite tame but sure to fill his glass.
The
sailors too can drink a drop ‘twill … away all sorrows.
And
I will settle all accounts when I board you tomorrow.
I
am
Yours
…
Neptune”
David’s
few references directly to Captain Goss support the view that he was as
attentive to the passengers as well as his seamanship. David experienced a
stomach upset after eating some preserved - possibly canned? - salmon, and the
Captain making the comment that once opened, preserved food needed to be eaten
straight away, especially in the warm weather. David also reports the Captain
remarking that once the ship reaches the warmer and milder weather nearer to
the equator all coughs seem to disappear. There is also a reference in David’s
diary that gives an indication of what Captain Goss had to take account of in
managing the crew, with one person on the helm sailing the ship in a circle as
he lost his bearings and another being thrown 10 feet into the air when the
swell catches the rudder.One direct reference to Captain Goss was a bird
falling on his head “One of the pigeons [cape pigeons?] fell off the shrouds
onto the Captain’s head and glanced off into the water”, which both he, David
and the Captain seem to find amusing.
The following year in 1851 another migrant passenger to Adelaide Sophy Taylor also wrote letters to her father about the voyage which by good fortune have also survived. These were published as a book in 1969 under the title Sophy Under Sail. Sophy Taylor was from Clerkenwell in London and worked in her father’s bead and jewellery merchants business. She was the eldest daughter having one sister and two brothers. She was 25 when she made the journey to Australia to marry her fiance who had left three years earlier and had now set up a general store just outside the town. She travelled with her fiance’s widowed mother. Like Elizabeth Skinner [insert some later personal details for Elizabeth above] Sophy Taylor was to experience a hard life in Australia, with her husband going the the ‘diggings’ as part of the South Australia gold rush just after she arrived and married him, then three weeks after the death of her first six week old child in 1853, Sophy also dies.
It is with great respect for the memories of these two women that we draw upon these journals. They were often written under the most difficult circumstances and reveal considerable skills of observation and description as well as great humanity. Although we are drawing information from these journals for our own purposes, they stand as significant historical documents in their own right. We are very thankful they have survived.
Sophy made a number of references to Captain Goss. As with Elizabeth they give insights into the type of person he was and how he ran the ship. It seems that on this voyage Captain Goss’ wife Mary Ann sailed with the Candahar from Gravesend on 24 July 1851 to Plymouth which was the last stop before Adelaide. Some passengers travelled this far and others joined the ship for Australia. Sophy describes the scene when leaving Plymouth Sound on 7 August 1851 with ‘many tears’. She also mentions that ‘The parting between the Captain and his wife when we reached the breakwater was truly heart rendering… it was really quite a scene while she was being let down almost fainting into the boat, to see the passengers and crew climbing up the rigging to give her three hearty cheers. She said “Give three more for my husband”.’ Sophy describes her as a ‘kind, agreeable lady and we all felt her loss’ Sophy explains that her ‘health not now allowing her ever to accompany her husband on his voyages’.
Sophy has a number of other references to Captain Goss. Early in the voyage she mentions him calling out to the sailors “Look smart, my lads” and calling for the male passengers from below to help pull the ropes. She refers to him being a ‘very agreeable man, jocular and good tempered, answering every question’ and treats us all alike; ‘None of the sailors are allowed to swear if he knows it for he does not like females to hear it’. He clearly kept the passengers informed of progress, such as when crossing the edge of the Bay of Biscay he expressed how calm it was and then when off Cape Finisterre he was not at all happy to be so close to the coast. He clearly helped keep the passengers happy with gentle flattery as Sophy mentions that he stated that he never took out such a respectable lot of migrants before. Later in the voyage she refers to meeting other ships and Captain speaks with them through a ‘trumpet’, all the passengers hushed so as to help the communication.
There is also regular references to his concern about the 129 passengers of whom 33 were children, so when near the equator Sophy reports that he ‘will not allow anyone to sit five minutes in the sun… as although it is the same sun as in England its rays have a very different effect upon the brain’. The passengers were organised into messes of around 15 people to organise collective eating, cooking and other duties with one of each being elected each fortnight as a ‘captain’ and ‘mate’. Sophy refers to her mess as being numbered one with all females. She mentions that ‘Captain often comes down and sits on the stairs at our end of the table to chat with us; he tells us that ours is the only Mess he takes a positive interest in and he feels he ought to protect the unprotected. His advice to us at first was to “keep the men at arms length” and Miss Stone and I have not failed to follow it’. Captain Goss interest in this Mess continues so having just passed the equator on 17 September Sophy reports in her letter a day later ‘I should like to write to you again but Captain has just given me a glass of such beautiful strong cider which has actually got up in my head so that I do not feel particularly bright…’. Sophy describes the crossing the line ceremonies of throwing water, mock shaving, ducking, a lighted tar barrel over the side, sailors dressed up as Neptune and his wife. Sophy says she felt rather timid and asked permission to sit in the Captain's cabin to look on. She says after two hours the Captain came out and gave orders for all to be cleared up and the scene was immediately changed. This was all followed with a feast of 5/- each in the evening with two pigs being killed and roasted, the Captain and his mate at the head of the table.
Later in September she writes that they are passing the island of ‘Trinidad’ which we take to mean Tristan du Cunha, and gives a little pen portrait of Captain Goss
‘This is the Captain’s wedding day, he has been married 20 years. I like him much, he is full of fun and good humour without any foolery or nonsense. When he comes on the poop the question he calls out the man at the wheel is “How’s her head now?” If wrong he scratches one whisker, if right he lifts his hat on one side and says “beau-ti-ful,” He is about the height of Mr Wooley but rather stouter, good features and brown curly hair. I should like you to see his funny ways with us here, perhaps as some of us are coming down the poop stairs he will come behind and take us by the shoulders pretending to push us down, or when Miss Stone and I are taking our evening walks together on the poop he will walk softly behind us, close to our heels when we little suspect him, so on turning around there he is in our path like a post, pretending we startled him. One Sunday evening we were sitting on the deck reading and some one came behind and placed a great hand each side of our heads and there we were in a vice; we felt the hands but could not tell who it could be until we were liberated and then we found it was Captain!”.
I had not long left Plymouth before he found out the object of my coming so of course I often have to put up with a joke about it, but he commends me for doing so and says he shall always come to see me whenever he is in Adelaide. He is too hard upon me for getting so stout; he says “if any of the passengers at the end of the voyage feel inclined to go before a magistrate to complain of the ship’s provisions, he has only to show Miss Stone and me, himself and the First Mate, and they will immediately say to the complainants ‘be off’. So Miss Stone told him it was our contented minds that makes us get stout. “Oh no” said he, “it’s that awful pudding pan that’s under my nose when I look downstairs every morning” and this is the way he is always going on. I do not say there is not some truth in it but it is slightly stretched. When the waves are extra high I say to him: “It’s rather rough Captain.” “Rough!” he says “you are never going to call such a beautiful day as this rough”. So as he never will allow it to be rough when I ask him, Mrs Cooke the other day added “Will you tell us, Captain, when you do call it rough,” “I call it rough, ma’m, when you can’t sleep in your beds.” So you see he is a kind, jocular, good-tempered man, familiar and yet in a way that we cannot be offended, has plenty of good sense, has seen much of life and human nature, possesses great nautical experience and often entertains us with the tales he relates.
I had no thin writing paper of my own so he made me a present of this, for which I have mended one of his shirts and hemmed him a silk handkerchief. Nearly all his shirts he bought in China last voyage. I was surprised when he told me they were all made by men as the men do all the needlework in China, and the women, if they are seen at all, are doing men’s work, but they are generally out of the way and very seldom seen in public.’
This last reference is particularly interesting as it indicates that once in Australia the Candahar was kept busy bringing in revenue until there were enough bookings to return to the UK, through trading along the Australian coast and up to China, Java and Indonesia. Similarly, there is an interesting reference to the Captains nephew working on the boat and incautiously opening the lamp just as the mate opened some rum which briefly ignited, but caused little damage. We are not sure who this is, but it could be one of his brother Thomas’ sons, who had migrated to Adelaide in 1849, though not on the Candahar.
By October the Candahar was around the Cape of Good Hope and well into the Southern Indian Ocean. Sophy had previously described what she now called ‘a little rough weather’ but now they were experiencing some big seas. It has been rough and squally with lightning for three successive nights which ‘the Captain considered was a forerunner of bad weather, and so it proved. ‘On Saturday night we retired to rest as usual; at two on Sunday I was wakened by hearing the sailors rushing about. Captain and Mate were calling out to them up in the riggings; all sails had to be reefed, men from below were running up to help.’ Sophy goes on to explain how the storms continued for a number of days with the sea breaking over the decks with such violence that the hatchways were shut down and all passengers were compelled to ‘sit in the dark, feeling cold and miserable until the lamps were lit in the evening’. She reports that ‘Captain said he had not seen such an ugly sea for twelve month’.
The sail across the Indian Ocean continued to be uncomfortable, especially as they had to tack South toward the Antarctic. On 6 November Sophy reports that there was another terrible rough night and ‘to make matters worse, some of the unsteady young men made several of the sailors intoxicated so they were not fit when wanted to unreef the topsails. I am sorry to say that the chief mate was not much better, but our dear Captain is always the same and ever at his post so no harm came to us’. By the 9 November the weather improved and she reports that was ‘What the Captain calls a “butterfly day” because it fetches all the ladies out’. Sophy reports the Captain saying that it was just like Adelaide. With the weather improving, Sophy has time to make some more observations, this time on salt beef, which some speculate is horses or donkey flesh and possibly been on more than one voyage. She considers that it looks like a piece of mahogany when it comes out of the boiler. The Captain she reports ‘says the beef has only been on one voyage and he eats a great deal of it’.
As they were nearing Australia Captain Goss was clearly
getting concerned about coping with the landing and Sophy reports him ‘telling
us what a confusion the ship will be in when we get into port as he then loses
all control, for as soon as the anchor is dropped the sailor work is done…’.
Sophy has clearly been making her father some carpet shoes during the voyage
and tells him ‘I have at last finished your carpet shoes, and Captain has
kindly offered to take them back to England for me when he returns…’. By 2
December they finally make landfall in Port Adelaide. There is a footnote in
the book which refers to the local newspaper the South Australian Register
printing a testimonial to Captain Goss signed by the passengers. This is in
addition to the one quoted above from the previous voyage.
It was on this last trip before returning to England, that John Goss died at sea between what is now Indonesia and Java. So far I've not found any evidence of a log or inquiry into the circumstances of his death. The probate records reveal that he left £1,000.00 and are extensive running over 10 pages, with all his surviving brothers signing to say that they agree that his final will leaves his wealth to his wife Mary Ann. The will and affidavit are all online and provide confirmation of where John Goss and his wife lived, his wealth, as well as signatures of the family. I assumed for a couple of years that this was all required due to the nature of his death. However, of course with family history, you are never allowed to assume for long and a final twist and mystery to John Goss has recently appeared.
A recent word search in a newspaper archive revealed a
report in the Morning Chronicle of 6 July 1854 of the London Consistory Court
that a second will of John Goss had been found.
‘...a paper purporting to be a later will for the deceased
was received per post by the executor appointed under the former instrument.
This paper reduced the amount of the bequest to Mrs Goss, and purported to be
signed by the testator in the presence of two witnesses, neither of whom was
known on board the vessel where, from the date, it must, if genuine, have been
executed. Dr Addams submitted that the second paper was a forged will. The
learned Judge was of the same opinion, and decided in favour of the previous
paper.’
Hence the requirement of the probate paperwork. The records of the Consistory Court are not online, so a visit to the archives will hopefully reveal a copy of this ‘purported’ will and whether further issues can be investigated to reveal yet more about the life of John Goss.
BT 98 National Archives Register of Shipping and Seamen: Agreements and Crew Lists series 1: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C4064368
Ships registered in Dartmouth 1800 - 1824 http://www.dartmouth-history.org.uk/dartmouth/main.asp
Masters Certificates, Greenwich, London UK National Maritime Museum via Ancestry.
Google ebooks Lloyds Register of British and Foreign Shipping
National Library of Australia - Trove website Newspapers and Gazettes https://trove.nla.gov.au/
South Australian Maritime Museum - https://maritime.history.sa.gov.au/research/
Diary of Elizabeth Skinner 1850 https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/28615308?keyword=Jane%20Elizabeth%20Skinner
Sophy Under Sail - Diary of Sophy Cooke 1852 https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/5762996?subject=Cooke,%20Sophy,%201825-1853.
Victory State Parliamentary Reports 1852-1853:
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1852-53Vol2p983-1018.pdf
British Newspaper Archives https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
London Metropolitan Archives and
Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section, Clerkenwell, London, England; Reference
Number: DL/C/538; Will Number: 139 via Ancestry.com. London, England, Wills
and Probate, 1507-1858
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