Cultural Artefact: Southern Cross

Details

Nine Anglican ships have been named the Southern Cross. The early pattern was that the Southern Cross worked out of Auckland and made two trips each year to the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands, and to Norfolk Island (1867-1920), each lasting three to four months. The ship visited all of the Melanesian Mission stations, delivered supplies, changed personnel and collected students to take back to Auckland and then Norfolk Island to study.

The tradition of naming the main ships of the Melanesian Mission of the Diocese of Melanesia (q.v.) the Southern Cross dates back to Bishop Selwyn's first Southern Cross schooner in 1855. That ship was wrecked in 1860 and replaced by a series of sailing vessels, and then combined sail and engine ships, and finally coal- and oil-powered ships. Chartered ships were used until 1863 when the Southern Cross II arrived from England, which remained in use until 1873. The Southern Cross III, a three-masted schooner, was launched in 1874 and remained in service until 1892. It was powered at first by an auxiliary engine. The Southern Cross IV made her first voyage to the islands in 1892. She was 300-ton register, three-mast square-rigger, and was slow with uncomfortable living quarters. The ship was sold in 1902 and replaced by Southern Cross V, a 500-ton register, steel-hulled barquentine steamer which cost £20,000. This was the largest Southern Cross to that time and the most famous since she had a small chapel on board, and was used for almost thirty years (1903-1932).

Maintaining the one name on Lloyds Register continuously for different ships proved difficult, and from late in the nineteenth century the ships were registered as yachts in the Royal Thames Yacht Club of London, and flew the blue ensign. Although the ships were a great source of pride for the Diocese of Melanesia they were large and expensive, and in 1931 it was decided to instead have two smaller ships. But the Southern Cross name was preserved for the Church's Solomon Islands ship, Southern Cross VI. This vessel wrecked at Aneityum Island on her way to the Solomons in 1932.

The new large oil-burning Southern Cross VII arrived in 1933, and was subsequently chartered by the Australian Navy and put to war service in 1942. In March 1946, the re-furbished Southern Cross VII was once more at the service of the Mission, although in the interregnum between Bishop Baddeley (q.v.), who departed in January 1947, and the arrival of Bishop Caulton (q.v.) in mid-1948, the ship was chartered by the Protectorate Government. She ended her service with the Church in 1954 and was eventually sold in 1956 and became a New Guinea trader called the Kilinailau. The new incarnation, Southern Cross VIII arrived in Honiara from Sydney in September 1958. She was thirty metres in length with a six-inch beam, and capable of carrying 25 tons of cargo plus deck cargo. The ship was a gift from Australian, New Zealand and British mission supporters, but was wrecked on a beach at Maravovo, Guadalcanal in March 1960. The last of the ships, the Southern Cross IX, arrived in June 1962. She was 121 tons and 25.6 metres long, with a speed of 9.5 knots, and built in Ballina, Australia. It remains in service today. This ship once collided with Alite Reef off west Malaita and had to be winched across the reef into the lagoon through a passage blasted with dynamite. That operation took seventeen days to complete but the damage was superficial. (NS Sept. 1958, Apr. 1960, May 1960, 15 June 1962, 15 May 1969; PIM Mar. 1946, July 1947; Hilliard 1978a, 15, 21, 34, 40, 73, 79, 140, 148, 206, 250-251, 293; Fox 1958, 18, 47, 84-85, 255-262; Montgomery 1904 [1896], ch. 4; Wilson 1932, 9; Terry Brown, personal communication, 2010)

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Published resources

Books

Fox, Charles E., Lord of the Southern Isles: Being the Story of the Anglican Mission in Melanesia, 1849-1949, Mowbray, London, 1958. Details
Hilliard, David, God's Gentleman: A History of the Melanesian Mission, 1849-1942, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1978a. Details
Montgomery, Henry H., The Light of Melanesia: A Record of Thirty-Five Years Mission Work in the South Seas, Written after a Personal Visitation made by Request of the Right Rev. John Selwyn, D.D., late Bishop of Melanesia, Originally published: 1896, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1904. Details
Wilson, Cecil, In The Wake of the Southern Cross: Work and Adventures in the South Seas, John Murray, London, 1932. Details

Journals

Pacific Islands Monthly. Details
British Solomon Islands Protectorate (ed.), British Solomon Islands Protectorate News Sheet (NS), 1955-1975. Details

Images

Title: "An Afternoon Nap": Melanesian Boy Asleep on the Deck, Southern Cross
Type: Image
Date: 1906
Source: Anglican Church of Melanesia