House Competition

This was a paddle steamer built in 1841 in Sydney. It worked between Sydney and the Clarence River settlements carrying many different cargoes, including wool from the north west tablelands and ranges of NSW, and passengers, from 1842 onwards. It was eventually wrecked in the south passage of Moreton Bay, near Brisbane 11th March 1847 and there was great loss of life.

This wooden paddle wheeled steamer was built in Sydney 1846. It travelled on the Clarence and also between the Clarence and Sydney with cargo and passengers. On the 14th April 1852, the Phoenix struck the Clarence Bar and was swept onto the northern beach near Iluka where she became a total wreck. No lives were lost. Her rusted old engines are still there buried in sand and saltwater.

The Induna was a single deck steamship built in 1891 in Aberdeen in Scotland. Originally it carried cargo between ports along the African coast. Then as a trading ship between the Pacific Islands and Australia. Later is was used as a train ferry then a wharf in the Clarence River. This vessel’s history includes assisting the escape of Sir Winston Churchill and internment in the Marshall Is. by the Germans during the First World War. Part of the Induna’s bow section is mounted as a memorial in Earle Page Park at South Grafton near the bridge.

This passenger steamship was built of steel in 1890 at Glasgow in Scotland. It regularly travelled to and from Sydney with cargo and passengers. In November 1908 the ship was partially sunk in the river at the Grafton wharf and then wrecked and sunk in 1912 just north of Woolgoolga. However, she was salvaged and towed to Sydney to be refitted and she traded again until 1931. In this year the “Kallatina” was laid alongside several other ships to form part of an artificial reef off the end of Moreton Island. The steering wheel is in the Clarence River Historical Society’s room at Schaffer House.