Photo: Ben Talman

Ben Talman, a reader and contributor to the Old Salt Blog, visited the Edwin Fox in Picton, New Zealand and took a series of wonderful photos of the historic ship. The Edwin Fox is an East Indiaman built in 1853 of teak in Calcutta, India.  She is the second oldest surviving merchant sailing ship. Only the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan is older. To see more and larger photos of the Edwin Fox, click here.

Her career is described on the Edwin Fox Society website:  On her maiden voyage to London via the Cape of Good Hope she carried 10 passengers and a general cargo. Less than a year later she was purchased by Duncan Dunbar and was immediately put into service with the British Government as a troop ship for the Crimean War, reputedly carrying such illustrious passengers as Florence Nightingale. After the fall of Sebastopol she was refitted out to again carry civilian passengers and general cargo. Edwin Fox made her first voyage to the Southern Ocean on 14 February 1856 carrying 5 passengers and some cargo arriving in Melbourne on 28th May.

The Edwin Fox then spent a period trading between various Eastern ports culminating in a contract to carry 300 coolies from what was then Swatow in China to Cuba where they were destined to work in the cane fields. Large amounts of extra water had to be taken on this voyage.

In 1858 she was again chartered by the British Government to transport convicts to Freemantle in Western Australia.

Between 1858 and 1872 Edwin Fox was used primarily for 2 purposes:

• to sail between England and the East as a trader carrying a range of cargoes including several trips to India carrying a pale ale earning her the nickname of “Booze Barge”.
• as a troop ship again, making several voyages with troops from the UK to Bombay. The return voyages were with casualties: many dying en route. As far as is known these voyages ended Edwin Fox’s role as a troop transport.

In 1873, the Edwin Fox carried immigrants to New Zealand from England. She was to make 4 such voyages carrying a total of 751 passengers to the new colony.