Introduction to the "Great Victoria" Passengers and Crew

I am currently researching the passengers and crew of the auxiliary steamship, "Great Victoria", which left the East India Docks, London, on 5 October 1865, and anchored in Moreton Bay, Queensland, on 1 January 1866.


There is no known official passenger list for this voyage, but there are are documents that were created before, during or after the voyage that can and have been used to compile a large list of passengers.

Dr Jennifer Harrison compiled a passenger list in her book "Great Victoria" as part of the Bicentennial Record Series B: 19thC Voyages to Queensland, published by the Genealogical Society of Queensland Inc in 1989; reprinted in 2012.

I have used a wide range of sources to compile a passenger and crew list: financial accounts, letters, diaries, reports, land orders, inquests, newspaper items, crew agreements, crew musters, and the ship's log. The list of names (about 800) will be posted in later blogs.

There is a range of differences from the already published list - names added, some spellings changed, and names deleted. I hope this will assist researchers whose ancestors travelled to Queensland on the "Great Victoria".

I plan to publish a book on the people from this voyage (as many as I can identify), with brief summaries of their lives before, during and after the voyage.

Some difficulties with identifying the exact individuals from the documentary evidence are: unclear signatures, multiple spelling variations, and some very common names.

My great-great grandparents and four of their children were on this ship, along with some relatives, and others who would later marry into the family.