William Salthouse was the first merchant vessel to sail with a cargo of merchandise from the British Dominion of Canada to British Colonies of Australia. The ship was lost on 28 November 1841 while attempting to enter Port Phillip Heads en route to Melbourne Harbor.[Staniforth, M. 2003. "Early Trade Between Canada and Australia and the Wreck of the William Salthouse (1841). IN:Mer et Monde : questions d’archeologie maritime, ed.Christian Roy et al., Association des Archeologues du Quebec, 2003, pp. 212–227.] The wreck of William Salthouse has been the site of several maritime archaeological investigations as well as experimental in situ conservation efforts.
The Story of William Salthouse William Salthouse was a 251-tonne barque designed and built for trade by Salthouse and Co. of Liverpool, a prominent merchant, in 1824. It served as a trading vessel delivering mixed cargoes from Britain to its colonies in the West Indies and India for 17 years before being sold to Green and Co. of Liverpool. Green and Co. were aware of the colony at Melbourne's struggle to establish itself as self-sustaining and recognized it as a potentially profitable investment for trade. The economical incentives are most likely what prompted William Salthouses change of trade destination to Montreal and onto Port Phillip. On 27 March 1841 William Salthouse departed London en route to Montreal, where it arrived safely on 26 May 1841. After clearing Montreal customs on 17 June 1841, the vessel set sail on open water for Melbourne by mid-July loaded with mainly flour and salted provisions, but also carrying whiskey, wine, cider, vinegar, and nails.
It was a stormy day on 28 November 1841 when William Salthouse, guided by its Captain George Brown, attempted to fight the opposing tides and make port at Melbourne Harbor, just beyond Port Phillip Heads. According to records, the choppy surface of the water gave no indication of a reef located near Point Nepean where the vessel collided, dislodging the rudder and causing William Salthouse to take on water. Captain Brown ordered that an anchor be dropped to steady the unnavigable vessel while a brave unnamed pilot from nearby Queenscliff boarded the crippled ship in an attempt to help sail it through the Heads of Port Phillip Bay. Unfortunately, the vessel was too badly damaged and before long had foundered on Pope's Eye Shoals with two metres of water in its holds. It was at this time Captain Brown gave the order to abandon ship, it would be more than 140 years before William Salthouse would be seen again.
The William Salthouse is now the name of a park and a road (William Salthouse Way) in the suburb of Patterson Lakes.
Legislation and Public Access Divers Peter Kennedy and Dennis Bolton discovered William Salthouse wreck in August 1983, near Popes Eye Bank in Port Phillip Bay. It lies in 12 metres of water, buried in a 2 to 3 metre sand ridge, and is approximately 25 metres long by 8 metres wide. Material is scattered up to 50 metres from the hull remains. The site quickly became subject to disturbance by divers. Official inspection led to the declaration of the site under Historic Shipwrecks Act 1981 (Vic) on 22 December 1982. Unfortunately looting and interference continued, and on the 9 February 1983 a ‘Protected Zone’ was put in place around the wreck. This zone had a radius of 250 metres and could only be entered with a permit. The implementation of a permitting system allowed control of access to the site by limiting the number of divers to twelve and only at specific times. Monitoring after implementing the 'Protected Zone' revealed that divers were still impacting the wreck, but only marginally. The wreck was re-opened after excavation, and has been constantly monitored to gage any disturbance by visitors.
Archaeological Background In March 1983 the Historic Shipwreck Unit conducted a six-week excavation on the William Salthouse wrecksite. This also involved an extensive stabilization programme. The main objectives were to examine the archaeological potential of the site, and prevent the further loss of loose material that had been previously disturbed by divers and the strong water current. Two 2 metre by 8 metre trenches were cut across the site, one through the main cargo hold area, and the other aft of the mainmast. It was discovered that the site had a very large archaeological potential with the integrity of the hull able to provide information on ship construction, as well as details about food and cargo being carried and packing methods. A large amount of material was recovered, which was conserved and is held at the Heritage Victoria conservation laboratory. The wreckage was also found to be vulnerable to scouring and erosion due to strong currents. Scour holes had increased in size exposing more of the hull. In 1984 to 1985 the site was also constantly monitored by the Maritime Archaeological Unit to gage the amount of damage done by visitors and environmental conditions.
Analysis and Research The excavations on William Salthouse have resulted in several archaeological investigations in order to better understand the social climate of 19th century colonial trade. Examples of these studies are summarised below include analysis of cask materials, wine contents, and butchering techniques in use at the time of William Salthouse'''s wrecking.
Cask Materials The 19th century was the pinnacle of Cooperage technology, the regulation of cask size and production had a streamlining effect on maritime trade and industry. The cask design was paramount to trade for two reasons; the ability to uniformly apply packing techniques to merchant vessels, and the efficiency of inspecting and calculating materials contained within stowed casks. At this time in the mid 19th century, cask had become a generic term for any type of wooden staved container, and could vary in both size and purpose. For example, cask sizes ranged from a 9-gallon keg to a 252-gallon tun and were designed in three ways depending on the properties of the goods being stored.Staniforth, M. 1987. "The Casks from the wreck of the William Salthouse". Australian Historical Archaeology, Vol. 5, pp. 21-29. The manifests of William Salthouse state there were at least 1000 casks of varying size stowed on board when the vessel foundered at Port Phillip Bay in 1841. The high concentration of casks in a single location provided an opportunity to gain information about 19th century cooperage technology, cask marking traditions, cask contents, and stowage methods in a merchant sailing vessel.
The excavation of William Salthouse yielded 36 cask staves, 41 partial or complete cask heads, and sample material of dunnage, hoops, and stowage materials.Breidahl, H. and Elliget, M. 1991, "Time and Tide: A guide to the Wreck of the Barque William Salthouse. Victoria Archaeological Survey, Albert Park, VIC. This combination of materials acted as a representative sample for the ship, with no complete casks being raised due to the subsequent conservation problems they would present. A comparison of the casks to the statues and regulations being imposed by British North America by Staniforth (1987) showed that the quality of casks being excavated consistently fell below set standards. For example, British North American regulations held that cask heads were to be no thinner than inch, however excavated cask heads yielded measurements below inch thickness. The staves of each cask were meant to have a minimum thickness of inch, examination of the staves from William Salthouse show that approximately 30% of the archaeological material falls short of this mark.
There is historical evidence that suggests from the late 18th to early 19th century British North America was continually enacting, amending, and repealing numerous acts of legislation related to the regulation of various facets of inspection, packaging, and shipment from their ports. These continuing changes lend to the idea that it was possible that authorities of the time recognized the difficulty to adhere to fluctuating standards and had the tendency to turn a blind eye when these standards were not kept. In an interesting application of post-processual archaeology, Staniforth (1987) assesses the regulations surrounding the position of inspector, to further analyse the statutes that had been implemented. To become a cargo inspector for import/export goods, an individual was required by law to abstain from any personal investment in the goods passing through the inspection houses. However, William Watson, the inspector responsible for ensuring the quality of casks of flour aboard William Salthouse was married to the daughter of the owner of the largest flour mill on the Lachine Canal and the proprietor of the casks of flour en route to Melbourne. It is likely that the variance in cask quality found in the archaeological record is the result a combination of factors, but the above examples illustrate how complex the system surrounding cooperage and inspection was in the mid 19th century.
Markings on the cask heads allowed maritime archaeologists to easily identify the goods being carried within the casks. These marking were required for exported goods and included information on weight, quality, contents, inspector, location of inspection, and year and month of inspection. By gathering the data from excavated casks, we can learn more about what types of goods were important to help establish and strengthen the newly forming colony at Port Phillip Bay, and test the validity of the historical record through comparison with cargo manifests. In the case of William Salthouse, the small excavation sample has already yielded discrepancies in the cargo manifest related to the grade and quality of salted pork, and types of alcohol being shipped to the budding Australian colony.
Wine Identification The testing of bottle contents aboard William Salthouse was an act of necessity as excavated bottles were undergoing rapid deterioration due to poor conservation efforts immediately following their excavation. The three bottle types recovered during excavation were consistent with the three types of alcohol listed on the ships outgoing cargo manifest, which stated that the vessel was carrying over 360 bottles of French Champagne, Sauternes, and Muscat at the time of its departure from Montreal.[Peters, S. 1996, "Archaeological Wines: Analysis and Interpretation of a Collection of Wines recovered from William Salthouse Shipwreck 1841". Australasian Historical Archaeology, 14, pp. 63-68] However, the incoming cargo manifest published in thePort Phillip Herald stated that only French Champagne and Sauternes were aboard William Salthouse when the vessel wrecked on Pope's Eye Shoal. The study of wines aboard William Salthouse would consist of two approaches, a chemical analysis and a less orthodox sensory analysis. The unscientific nature of a sensory analysis, or taste-testing, was included as a means of adding a dimension of wine style that would be lost through a strictly chemical analysis of the wines. The goal of the research was to determine how many wines and which varieties were aboard William Salthouse at the time of its foundering.
The sensory analysis of the wines was undertaken by professional wine tasters in order to establish the intangible features of wines being tested, such as sweet, dry, bitter, and so on. Two public tastings took place, in which tasters were asked to engage in discussion and note the effect of salt on the wines, as well as colour, nose and taste.