John Stein (whaler)

Captain John Stein, aka Steine, was an early navigator and whaler based in Hobart and Sydney, who lived from 1811–1841. At the age of 22, he circumnavigated the globe in the Emma Kemp, and also set out on an expedition to Antarctica. In 1834 he suffered a mutiny, and was then accused of assisting the escape of a convict from Tasmania. Stein died after a typhoon shipwrecked his boat "Mary," near Woodlark Island.

John Stein first appears as the 1st mate of the brig Dragon, owned by Mr Briggs, leaving Hobart for Sydney on 26 June 1830. The Dragon, under Captain Taylor, had just arrived on the 21st from Isle of France which she left on 30 April. It cannot be confirmed that Stein was also on that voyage, but it seems unlikely that the captain would choose a new 1st mate in a space of a few days in Hobart. Before this, the Dragon had been one of the first ships to have brought supplies to the fledgling settlement at Swan River, which would develop into Perth, when only 700 settlers were there. Stein may have been a settler there who decided to become a sailor.

Nevertheless, Stein became the captain of the Dragon when she sailed from Sydney to New Zealand on 4 August 1830,^[1] carrying oil. By 5 June 1832, Stein had adopted the barque "William the Fourth",^[2] and was again sailing from Hobart to New Zealand. He arrived back 14 August of the same year, bearing three Māori, as well as timber and flax.^[3] He discovered a river in New Zealand which he named William the Fourth's river,^[4] which was identified by Robert McNabb as the Tory Channel or the Pelorus River^[5]. The three Māori – Ahuda, Chewack, and their chief, Tamoc – were from the town of Wickett, near Picton. While there, Stein also named Horne's bay (now called Waitohi bay), after the ship's owner.

On 12 August 1833, Stein had again arrived in Hobart, this time from Rio De Janeiro,^[6] from which he had supplied tobacco and coffee. By reaching Hobart, Stein had completed a circumnavigation of the globe, at the age of 22, and that with only five others on board, none of whom could read, and without any medicine on board. The vessel in which he accomplished this was the Emma Kemp, owned by Betts and Co. He had set out from Sydney on 13 December of the previous year with his course set towards New Zealand, but, likely after having returned to Australia, must have rounded the Cape and reached the Americas. He departed Rio on 14 April 1833, presumably the final stop on his voyage before his return to Hobart in 1833.

Following this, the Sydney Monitor reports his plan to sail to the south pole.^[7] It entitles him "the Tasmanian Captain Cook,"^[8] and refers to a circumnavigation of the globe by him in a sloop of thirty tons, with only five other men, none of whom were able to read, with no medicine on board, while he was only 22. This was lauded when he returned to Hobart on 11 August 1833 in the Austral-Asiatic Review, which says that he returned from Rio on the Emma Kemp, having circumnavigated the globe in "little more than seven months, his stoppages included.".^[9] The article referring to his South Pole expedition also states that he was first made captain at the age of 18, that he was likely to reach the continent in a week or ten days, and that he only sets out with the preparations of a normal voyage, without furs and blankets or anything else.^[10] The result of his voyage is unknown, however it is quite unlikely he reached it.

His next appearance in the paper is in the Colonist and Van Diemen's Land Commercial and Agricultural Advertiser,^[11] in 1834, and reads thus:

28 March – Arrived the schooner Adelaide, 86 tons, Captain Stein, from the South Seas, which she left 21 November, with a cargo of 32 tons sperm oil.

Mr Petchey was the owner of the Adelaide. For a while after his Antarctic adventure, John continued as a whaler in the Adelaide, until a mutiny involving an escaped convict occurred.^[12] He arrived in Sydney in early January or late December 1834/5, but he and his first mate, Charles Aldrich, were kept in the prison there, while the Adelaide set sail on 6 January under the command of Mansfield.^[13] They were taken to court for unknowingly assisting the escape of a convict, William Powers, to Howe's island, that is, Lord Howe Island. It seemed that the crew where using the fact that John had unknowingly taken William Powers from Van Diemen's Land to construct a counter-case to the one he was bringing about the crew mutinying. Notably, a witness in this case was Mr John Forster Church, a shipping agent who would become John Stein's father-in-law: he testified that John Stein had come to him saying the crew of the Adelaide were very insubordinate, so he obtained a warrant against the cooper, and when he attended the Police Office to prosecute the case, he was apprehended on a warrant on the present charge. The Adelaide had then discharged and was refitted, having been in port about a fortnight. The verdict of Not Guilty was received with much happiness. Following this, Stein was given the reins of a new ship in Sydney, namely the Lunar, as in the Sydney Monitor, 11 July 1835,^[14] and he arrives back in Port Jackson on 30 November 1836. After whaling in this ship a while longer, John Stein again appears in the Sydney Gazette in December 1836, where his ship is put in danger due to the negligence of harbour pilots as he is setting out.^[15] He is then absent from newspapers till 11 September 1837, as the commander of his last ship, the barque Mary.^[16]

During Stein's command of the Mary, many improvements were made to the ship, and he brought large amounts of sperm oil to the sperm whale fishery. Hughes and Hoskings owned his boat. On 14 November 1839, Stein married the daughter of John Forster Church, Sarah Emma Church, at St Philip's Church, Sydney.^[17] They had one daughter.

The first report of the incident came on 25 March 1843, in the Sydney Morning Herald.^[18] Captain McCarrol, of the barque Jane, first discovered the wreck of the Mary on 22 November 1842. He had landed on the north-west part of Lachlan's islands, when he found strewn around the island casks and various articles belonging to the wreck, and he found some belongings of John Stein, including the ship's clearance. He said that the natives pointed to John Stein's grave in particular, saying "he vomited a good deal a short time previous to his death."

A later report provided more detail. There had been a great Typhoon in December 1840, while they were on the North side of Woodlark Island. On the 1st, at 9 pm, they were at the mercy of the hurricane, and by the fourth hour of the 2nd, they had struck the reef on the south east point of Lachlan's islands. Four crew were tossed overboard, and one was crushed by the moving of the casks. After the winds had died down, they constructed a raft, and in a short time they had constructed huts on the island with the help of the natives. Seven more hands died naturally, over a period of nine months. After this time, they were made ready for a journey to some part of New Holland, though Captain Stein, the doctor, the carpenter, and two others, had become ill. As they left, the people of the island attacked them and killed all the sick, including John Stein, but not the carpenter. The two boats, carrying fifteen survivors, and carrying three native women likely the subject of the dispute, landed on Woodlark island, and found a settlement. One of the crew, William Valentine, separated himself from the group to spend the night with a native tribe, but when he returned, he was told by a native women that the others had been killed by natives of the other island, as they had shot one. After jumping from tribe to tribe, he eventually escaped on a stolen canoe, to the ship named the Woodlark, of Captain Smith. Captain Eury, of the Tigress, met this ship, and questioned Valentine, who relayed the story to him, and then Eury to the paper.^{[19][20][21][22]} William Valentine later returned to Britain, after being declared unfit for serving as a sailor ever again because of his illness sustained while on the island.

Stein's only daughter, Eliza George Stein, married Osman Edward Middleton.^[23] He was the third son of Rev. George Augustus Middleton, the early colonial chaplain of Morpeth and Maitland. In 1845, Stein's wife married again, to R K Broughton, in Tumut.

The Old Whaling Days, a History of Southern New Zealand from 1830 to 1840 by ROBERT McNAB, M.A., L.L.B published 1913 by Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.