Success 1840

This full rigged ship Success was built in 1840 at Natmoo, Tenasserim, Burma, measuring 117 feet in length and weighing 621 tons.

Initially flying the Indian flag, she traded around the Indian subcontinent before being sold to London owners and reflagged under the United Kingdom.

During the 1840s, Success made three emigrant voyages to Australia, arriving in Melbourne on 31 May 1852, where her crew deserted for the goldfields.

She was then sold to the Government of Victoria and used as a prison hulk. In 1857, prisoners aboard Success murdered Superintendent John Price, inspiring a character in Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life. Later, she served as a detention vessel for runaway seamen and an explosives hulk.

Eventually sold to entrepreneurs, she was refitted as a traveling museum ship falsely billed as a convict vessel and even claimed to be launched in 1790, promoting herself as the oldest ship afloat.

After sinking at her moorings in 1892, she was refloated and toured Australian ports before heading to England, arriving at Dungeness on 12 September 1895.

She was exhibited widely, crossed the Atlantic in 1912, and spent over two decades touring U.S. ports and the Great Lakes.

In 1918, she briefly returned to commercial service with an auxiliary engine but sank after ice damage.

Once again refloated, she resumed her museum role until falling into disrepair in the late 1930s. On 4 July 1946, she was destroyed by fire at Lake Erie Cove, Cleveland, Ohio, during dismantling for her teak.

Source: historicalmaritime