Lucy Ann(e) was built in Canada early in the 19th century and was brought to Australia in 1827. She was first employed as a trading vessel before purchase by the New South Wales government in 1828. In government service the ship was used to help establish a number of new coastal settlements. She was also used to transport descendants of the Bounty mutineers from Pitcairn Island to Tahiti in 1830.
Sold out of government service in 1831, Lucy Ann served as a trading vessel and support ship for whaling stations in New Zealand. She was then converted into a pelagic whaler and in that role made 11 deep-sea whaling voyages from Sydney between 1835 and 1852. One of the crewmen who served aboard, in 1842, was American seaman Herman Melville, who later wrote about his time aboard. The vessel was taken to Melbourne in the 1850s, and ended her days there as a storage hulk in the Yarra River.
Arrival in Australia
Her Australian registration papers say Lucy Ann was a brig of 213 tons built at Frederickton, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1817 or 1819. Another source, based on Canadian records, agree the vessel was built at Frederickston, but in 1810, and was initially called the William (236 tons). Yet another source says she was built at St Johns in 1809. What seems beyond dispute is that her length was 87 feet 3 inches, beam 23 feet 10 inches, with 5 feet 3 inches between decks.
Lucy Ann departed London 19 January 1827 under the command of Captain Ranulph Dacre with a general cargo and a few passengers. After calls at Cork and St Jago the vessel arrived Hobart on 22 May. She departed Hobart and arrived Sydney 26 June. After completing several voyages between Sydney and Hobart, Captain Dacre offered the vessel for sale to the New South Wales colonial government in August 1827. The offer was accepted, the government paying £2,200.
In government service
Lucy Ann departed Sydney 23 October 1827 for Western Port, on the coast of Victoria, where the government was attempting to establish a new settlement near present-day Corinella. Aboard were 22 soldiers for the garrison, plus other settlers. The settlement was poorly located and later had to be abandoned. On 12 February 1828 she was despatched from Sydney to Moreton Bay where the government was in the process of creating a new settlement that would eventually become the city of Brisbane.
In November 1828, Lucy Ann departed Sydney for King George's Sound in Western Australia, and Fort Dundas on Melville Island off the northern coast, where two new government settlements were being established. The settlement at Melville Island was beset by problems and had to be abandoned. The colony at King George's Sound, the first in Western Australia, prospered and later became the modern city of Albany.
Lucy Ann departed Sydney, on 26 December 1830, in company with HMS Comet, to take aboard the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island and transfer them to Tahiti. Pitcairn, it was decided, had become too small and crowded for the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the British government had obtained permission from the Tahitian leadership for their resettlement on Tahiti. A dozen of the 86 islanders died in Tahiti due to their susceptibility to disease. For that reason, and, being homesick, they were returned to Pitcairn five months later.
Lucy Ann was back in Sydney by June 1831 where it was announced she would soon be offered for sale. In September that year she was sold out of government service. Her new owners, who paid £1,200, were the Weller brothers, who were in the process of establishing a trading post and bay whaling station in New Zealand.
Whaling and trading
Lucy Ann, under the command of Captain William Owen, left Sydney and arrived at Otago in October with stores and merchandise. This included 6 cases of muskets, 10 barrels and 104 half barrels of gunpowder and assorted whaling equipment. This whaling/trading community became one of the first European settlements in the area. Lucy Ann then went on to the North Island, for a cargo of timber, before returning to Sydney 29 February 1832, in need of repair. While in Sydney Harbour someone tried to burn the vessel. George Weller offered a reward of £50 for apprehension of the culprit.