FLY HMS 1832

[shipstamps]

On Papua New Guinea stamps 15t and 17t you can find the HMS FLY under command of Capt. Francis Price Blackwood.
She was built as a sloop at the Pembroke Drydock as one of the Fly Class for the Royal Navy.
30 January 1829 ordered.
November 1829 keel laid down.
25 August 1831 launched under the name HMS FLY.
Tonnage 485 ton (bm), dim. 34.9 x 9.7 m.
Armament: 2 – 9pdrs. bow and 16 – 32pdrs. carronades, which was reduced on the FLY in 1848 to 16 guns.
Crew 120.
27 January 1832 completed in Plymouth.

1832 Under command of Capt. Peter M’Quhae, and she sailed under his command in September 1832 to the West Indies.
1835 At Plymouth.
She sailed in July 1836 to South America. 1837 Under command of Capt Russell Elliott
Under his command she arrived at the Pitcairn Islands on 29 November 1838, and he drew up a few regulations for the new colony, after a vote was held under the inhabitants of the island in which the islander’s unanimous choice was to be a colony of Great Britain.
29th November 1838 is now regarded the date when Pitcairn Island became a British Crown Colony.

1839 was she under command of Capt. Granville Loch in South America.
October 1841 she became a survey vessel, and in November that year she came under command of Capt. Francis Blackwood.
Blackwood was born on 25 May 1809, the second son of Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood. He entered the Royal Navy in 1821, and obtained his first commission in 1828. In 1833 he served with the east India Station and as commander of the HMS HYACINT, he gathered hydrographic data on the Queensland coast. In 1838 was he promoted to Captain.
In 1841 Capt Blackwood was appointed by the British Admiralty to command an expedition undertaking hydrographic surveys of the Coral Sea area.

16 October 1842 she arrived at Sydney, Australia under his command, and from there she was accompanied by the cutter HMS BRAMBLE under command of Lt. Charles Yule.
23 November 1842 both ships set course Coral Sea, they landed at a coral island of the Capricorn Group both vessels as well as their boats were engaged in surveying all islands of the Capricorn Group, and all islands were named.

22 January 1843 both vessels sailed again north in search for some reefs that had been reported shortly before by the navigator Swain in the ELIZA, the reefs were found and surveyed in the beginning of February and named the Swan Reefs.

For some minor repairs on the FLY both vessels entered Port Bowen on 14 February. After the repairs both vessels remained in the vicinity for one month, then sailed along the coast and investigate the bays north of Cape Palmerston including the present site of Mackay. The coast was surveyed and several coastal rivers in that area.
17 May both vessels sailed from Cape Upstart to Rockingham Bay which was surveyed the next fortnight.
02 June both vessels sailed to the Endeavour River, what was reached two days later.
The place Cook careened and repaired his vessel, not any item was found belonging to the ship or crew of the ENDEAVOUR.
Slowly both vessels sailed northwards surveying the coast and the reefs along the coast.
On 24 June one of the crew members of the BRAMBLE during a landing was speared in the back by an Aborigine, heavily wounded he was brought back to the vessel were he died two days later.


The survey of the Great Barrier Reef continued, the FLY anchored in Pandora Entrance on 1 August, on 5 August they were on Murray Island and on 07 August the FLY sailed to the west of Cape York.
On 11 August the FLY arrived in a small bay, which they named after the captain. The same month both vessels passed through the narrow passage north of Wednesday Island in the Arafura Sea.
Both vessels sailed the back to Sydney were she arrived on 20 January 1844.

27 March 1844 both vessels sailed out again from Sydney to Cape York were she arrived on 20 August, many islands in the Torres Strait were surveyed, under which the Darnley Islands which was reached on 28 March 1845.
Near the end of April the surveys were continued towards the New Guinea coast and on 2 June they made their chief discovery in New Guinea; the river named after the vessel the Fly River.
By the end of 1845 the survey was completed and both vessels sailed home in December 1845.

After Blackwood returned in England he married on 12 October 1848, but he died six years later on 22 March 1854.
Yule the commander of the BRAMBLE became a lieutenant under Capt. Owen Stanley during the expedition to the New Guinea coast and the Louisiade Archipelago in HMS RATTLESNAKE (1846-1850).
When Capt Stanley died he took over the command of the RATTLESNAKE.

In 1854 the FLY became a coal hulk at Plymouth; and later a yard craft under the name C.2.
1903 Broken up at Devonport.

On Papua New Guinea 1987 15t and 17t sg 546 and 547.
Pitcairn Island 1988 40c sg 321 and 1998 $3 sg 533.

Source: The Sail & Steam Navy List by Lyon and Winfield. The Discovery and Exploration of Australia by Feeken & Spate. Ships Arrivals in Sydney 1840-1844.
Ships on the Australian Station by Bastock. The Pitcairners by Nicolson.

[aukepalmhof]

The vessel depict on this MS is HMS FLY:

George Hunn Nobbs (1799-1884) was born on 16 October 1799 in Ireland, allegedly the illegitimate son of the Marquis of Hastings. Nobbs's childhood was spent near Yarmouth and in 1813 a family friend, Admiral Robert Murray, procured him a position in the navy. The years that followed were an interesting mix of naval service. They included six years with South American patriots fighting the royalists; commission as a lieutenant in the Chilean navy; merchant service to West Africa as chief mate and then captain of the GAMBIA and finally, following a recommendation from his dying mother, he sailed to Pitcairn island with an American, Noah Bunker, in his 18-ton cutter.
Landing on 5 November 1828 they were welcomed by John Adams, the aged patriarch who had largely handed over the spiritual and temporal care of his community to the Bristol shipwright, John Buffett. Though Buffett had been five years on Pitcairn, Nobbs's superior education and stronger character enabled him to assume the position as pastor and schoolteacher, albeit not without friction, which continued after Adams's death four months later.
On 18 October 1829 Nobbs married Sarah, granddaughter of Fletcher Christian. Then in 1831, following earlier requests from Adams, the islanders were removed to Tahiti with Nobbs reluctantly accompanying them. Sickness and deaths saw the Pitcairners return to their island with the help of Captain William Driver of the CHARLES DOGETT but soon after anarchy and drunkenness followed.
In 1832 Joshua Hill arrived on Pitcairn (claiming to be a representative of the British government) and succeeded in supplanting Nobbs as pastor and teacher and in March 1834 forced him to leave the island. He thereupon settled as a missionary on Mangareva until, with Hill's fraudulent exposure, the community requested him to return, which he did in October 1834.
Nobbs was officially ordained in 1852 and in 1856 joined the community in their migration to Norfolk Island. He decided to remain on Norfolk until his death in 1884 leaving a widow, 10 children, 65 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

Russell Eliott (1802-1881) was the seventh son of Sir William Eliott, 6th Baronet of Stobs in Roxburghshire, Scotland. He entered the Royal Navy in 1814 as a volunteer onboard HMS STORK, moving to the HMS FAVOURITE in 1817 as a midshipman and serving in St Helena, the Brazils and Newfoundland. His service record that followed showed time served in the West indies on ten different vessels rising to Captain in 1829. Returning home in 1830 he married Bethia Bart, eldest daughter of Sir William Russell Bart and raised four children. He was called back to duty in 1836 and joined HMS FLY as Commander, later becoming Captain and was occupied on ‘secret service’ amongst the South Sea islands including Pitcairn. His service ended in 1839 and he had no further command or postings. His interest turned to railways and politics where he became a prominent liberal.
The flag ranks indicate that he was eventually appointed as a Rear Admiral in 1857, a Vice Admiral in 1864 and rose in the retired list to full Admiral in 1869.He died in Appleby Castle in Westmorland in 1881.

The Constitution
The community’s experience with Joshua Hill and increasing visits from troublesome American whalers brought the islanders to recognise their need for stability and protection. The visit of the HMS FLY was timely as Captain Russell Eliott was able to work with George Nobbs to draw up a brief constitution and a code of laws selected from those already in force. A Magistrate (who must be native-born) was to be elected annually and assisted by a council of two members. Pitcairn’s Constitution, signed onboard the HMS FLY on 30 November 1838, incorporated Pitcairn into the British Empire and included two notable firsts in British legislation : female suffrage and compulsory schooling.
It is interesting to note that Pitcairn Islanders date their formal incorporation into the British Empire as 1838 rather than their appointment as a British Settlement under the British Settlements Act of 1887.

http://www.stamps.gov.pn/Constitution.html
Pitcairn Island 2018 $3 + $3 sgMS?, scott?