Captain George
Rose, a former Sydney Sailors’ Home Councillor and Honorary Life
Member, celebrated his 91st birthday on July 15 this year. In
retirement at Southport, Queensland, he recently reflected on a
long life spent either at sea or in association with the maritime
industry, respectively with merchant vessels and the Royal
Australian Navy, and with the P&O Group and E&A.
George was born at York, Western Australia. He entered the RAN
College, Jervis Bay, in 1926 and became a midshipman in May 1930.
His first ship was HMAS Canberra. His association with P&O
began in July 1930, when he joined Australasian United Steam
Navigation Co. Ltd. (AUSN Co.) as a cadet. He transferred to the
E&A Line in September 1932, where he served as Third and Second
Mates aboard Nellore and Nankin. He was awarded his
Master’s Certificate in 1938, and was immediately promoted to
Chief Officer of the Nankin, which post he held until the
outbreak of World War II.
George was mobilised in October 1939. He served in the RAN for
six years, first as a lieutenant and later lieutenant-commander,
mainly in the Southwest Pacific region. During this time he was
Gunnery Officer aboard the cruiser Adelaide, and
subsequently Chief Staff Officer of the Headquarters Staff of RAN
Escort Force in the New Guinea Region, based at Milne Bay and
Madang.
Main picture shows George Rose’s wartime command, HMAS Barwon at
Geelong in early 1946. Left inset shows George shortly after
graduation as a midshipman at Jervis Bay, 1930. Right inset
shows George aboard HMAS Westralia in early 1940.
He was
appointed in 1944 to command the frigate HMAS Barwon, the
post he held until demobilised in 1946. He was promoted to
Commander in 1950 and is now on the Retired List.
George was also ‘old skipper’ to John King Bowen, who died on
May 5 2003 (see Vol 2 No 2). (John had acted as a SSH Councillor
since 1975, and had contributed greatly to progress of the
organisation, especially in the resolution of legal difficulties
that were encountered from time to time.)
John enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy in 1942 and from
then until 1945 was on active service in New Guinea. He served
initially on HMAS Bowen and subsequently transferred to
HMAS Rushcutter.
George Rose writes:
“I first met John Bowen in 1944, when he was appointed to HMAS
Barwon as ASDIC (anti-submarine) officer. I asked him what
he was going to do after the war. He told me he was already
qualified as a lawyer and intended to join the firm Ebsworth &
Ebsworth, whose seniors were well past retiring age. He believed
his prospects were good—which they were. [John became a partner in
July 1946 and senior partner in 1958.]
“When I came ashore in 1950 to join Macdonald Hamilton as
senior assistant, I found that Ebsworth & Ebsworth were P&O
Australia’s lawyers. My dealings were with shipping matters, and
we both became Councillors of the Sydney Sailors Home….
“John always referred to me as ‘my old skipper’, knowing I
would always reject the ‘old’ part.”
After demobilisation George Rose rejoined the E&A Line, where
he was promoted to Captain in 1947. In May 1950 he joined
Macdonald Hamilton & Co as senior assistant in the company’s
administration department for the P&O and E&A Line. In October
1955 he became a partner of Macdonald Hamilton, and, on the
integration of P&O and Orient Lines’ interests in Australia in
1960, joined the Board.
He subsequently served as a director of P&O Australia. During
this term he was an active member of the Australian Northbound
Shipping Conference, of which he was Chairman on four occasions
(1955, 1958, 1961, 1965).
He also represented P&O in the Australian Chamber of Shipping
and in the Sydney Chamber of Commerce. He additionally held
directorships in many associated P&O subsidiaries, and was
Chairman of several. He served on the Board of E&A Steamship Co.
from 1970-72.
During his long association with Macdonald Hamilton and P&O
Australia, he was in charge of the Managing Agents’ operations of
E&A and the Ship Management operation of the Australia Japan
Container Line.
In February 1972 he was appointed Director of P&O’s Victorian
operation. He lived in Melbourne until recalled to Sydney as
Director in Charge of Shipping, which position he held until his
‘retirement’ in 1975. He then acted as a marine consultant to
Macdonald Hamilton, managing a small fleet of tankers in the
Southwest Pacific region, as well as a small amount of salvage.
After fourteen years he retired again. His final retirement was as
a Councillor of the Sydney Sailors’ Home in 1990.
AMWS ‘evolution’ booklet published
The recently-published 12-page booklet,
From SSH to AMWS: the transition,
has been mailed to all on
the Society’s list. The booklet begins with a brief history of the
Sydney Sailors’ Home from its conception in 1863, and notes the
significance of its resumption in 1970 by the Sydney Cove
Redevelopment Authority, at a time when the shipping industry was
itself undergoing fundamental change..
It became obvious in the late 1990s that the name, Sydney
Sailors’ Home no longer represented the levels of change that had
evolved in and around Council’s activities. The charitable
organisation accordingly became the Australian Mariners’ Welfare
Society.
This transition was recently articulated in an address by
Society Chairman, Mr John Hunter, to the Mission to Seafarers
Australian Council Meeting, held at Townsville from 23-29 August
last. In his address Mr. Hunter emphasised the need for kindred
charities to work closely together.
Parts of that address graphically illustrate the response of
Councillors to transition forced upon them. Mr. Hunter said that a
particular period of his own professional life, in Asia between
1966-70, had left him unprepared for his return to Australia.
“My world had changed,” he told his Townsville audience.
“Shortly before my departure for Asia the first of the unit-load
Scandia ships had arrived on the Australian coast.
“In less than four years their cargo-handling advances had been
overtaken by the arrival in Australia of the so-called container
revolution. To my eyes the changes were so profound and unexpected
that it was indeed a revolution,” he said.
“No longer did the funnel or the engine room sit amidships,
ship-sourced cranes and derricks were gone, crew numbers had been
dramatically reduced, and shore labour had commenced an inevitable
and steep decline….
“[But] the late sixties and early seventies were only a preview
of what was over the immediate horizon….
“With the benefit of hindsight it could be said that by the
time of the completion of Mariners’ Court at Woolloomooloo in 1995
that [the need for sailors’ shore accommodation] had basically
passed.”
The Council, he said, had therefore to adapt to a changing
market and circumstances. The question to be asked was not, ‘Why
should we change it?’, but rather the more creative, ‘Why should
we keep it?’
Mariners’ Court was duly, if reluctantly, sold, Mr Hunter said.
But the Councillors could not remain standing to attention. They
therefore set about redeveloping the few products left to them,
developing potential new products, and eliminating products that
were no longer relevant. These considerations led to the name
change, from Sydney Sailors’ Home to Australian Mariners’ Welfare
Society.
“[Today],” the Chairman told his audience, “we cannot overlook
that the activities of the Society are subject to a court order.
In brief, and in my words not those of the legal
fraternity, we are empowered to provide accommodation and support,
award scholarships and assist kindred charities. Paramount is the
qualification that our assistance is directed to those of moderate
or less than moderate means.”
Then, recalling that the AMWS is a Sydney-based organisation,
he requested the assistance of The Mission and Stella Maris, with
nationwide representation, in acting as honorary agents for wider
implementation of the Family Welfare Scheme.
Reciprocally, he offered further electronic communications
assistance to the Mission’s various offices. The Society had
recently donated to the Mission in Sydney a computer, printer, and
the expense of setting up a work station with ongoing
communication expenses borne by the Society. This equipment is for
the sole use of seafarers visiting the Mission at Sussex Street.
“If other offices do not presently have this facility, and feel
it of use, please let me know.We do not have a bottomless pit, but
progressively could help many.”
Did Joseph Conrad stay at the old SSH?
In Vol2 No2 we speculated that it would be remarkable if, in
scouring all the literature touching on the Circular Quay-Rocks
area, we did not come across references to the old Sydney Sailors’
Home. It was, after all, a prominent landmark and part of the
history of development.
Its very purpose—that of providing cheap accommodation for
seamen—must have given it unique status within the precinct.
Maritime author,
Joseph Conrad
‘Such a reference,’
we noted, ‘is given in one of Henry Lawson’s short stories, Ah
Dam, about a local Chinese businessman with an opium habit.’
This in turn ‘broadens our own speculation that those
philanthropic citizens who proposed, way back in 1859, the
building of a sailors’ home, were in part influenced by the
proximityof the Rocks and all its attendant pubs, brothels and
sundry other traps for seamen’.
Earlier we noted that had
internal Sailors’ Home records been entirely preserved,
researchers might possibly have discovered corroborative
notations, among other, unexpected insights. While much research
has still to be carried out, a considerable body of historical
data seems to have disappeared altogether.
It is possible, although there is no way of
checking, that Joseph Conrad
1 (1857-1924), stayed at the old
Sailors’ Home some time in 1878, when he was an ordinary seaman
aboard the wool clipper,
Duke of Sutherland; and again in 1880, as second mate aboard
the wool clipper, Loch Etive. He made a third visit to Sydney in
1888 as captain of the barque,
Otago.
The Rocks
area was not unique in the world. During the 19th Century,
Sailors’ Homes existed in most of the world’s major seaports.
Jocelyn Baines, in Jospeh Conrad, a critical biography,
writes:
‘On 10 September 1883 [Conrad] embarked as
second mate on the
Riversdale, a sailing
ship of 1500 tons bound for the East….’
From Madras Conrad went to Bombay in search
of another berth. Aubry writes that Conrad told him ‘he was
sitting with other officers of the Mercantile Marine on the
veranda of the Sailors’ Home in Bombay, which overlooks the port,
when he saw a lovely ship, with all the graces of a yacht, come
sailing into the harbour.
She was the
Narcissus2,
of 1500 tons, built by a sugar
refiner of Greenock nine years before. Her owner had originally
intended her for some undertaking in connection with the Brazilian
sugar trade. This had not come off, and subsequently he had
decided to employ her in the Indian Ocean and the Far East. She
was commanded by Captain Archibald Duncan. A few days later Conrad
signed on as her second mate.’
We may surmise from this passage that
officers as well as crew stayed at Sailors’ Homes in these
seaports.
It seems also, to judge from Conrad’s
letters and Baines’s text, that Conrad stayed at the Singapore
Sailors’ Home before going aboard the
Otago. Conrad’s visits did not
of course infer particular status on any Sailors’ Home; he was not
then a prominent writer, but a merchant marine officer storing up,
consciously or not, impressions that would be transmuted as
fiction during some three decades of writing. His first novel,
Almayer’s Folly, was published in 1894, followed by An
Outcast of the Islands
in 1896. What we are left with, insofar as
visits to Sailors’ Homes are concerned, are
historical shadows made all the more
insubstantial by lack of supporting archival material.
1 Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Korzeniowski of Polish
parents at Berdichev, by then Russian. His father, a revolutionary
of literary gifts, had translated Victor Hugo’s Les
Travailleurs de la mer. The younger Conrad went to sea in 1878
as an ordinary seaman aboard an English merchant ship. He was
naturalised in 1884, after gaining his master’s certificate. In
the ten years following he sailed in a number of ships between
Singapore and Borneo. He also sailed to the Belgian Congo, which
provided background for Heart of Darkness, which in turn
later informed the film script of Apocalypse Now. The Nigger of
the Narcissus (1897) and Lord Jim (1900) achieved a
limited success, before Chance (1914) made Conrad famous.
Readers then turned back to the barely noticed masterpiece,
Lord Jim. Of the novels and short stories that followed,
Typhoon and Nostromo (Italian: ‘coxswain/boatswain’) are reckoned to
be the most notable. Conrad died in England, where he had lived
for many years.
2 The Narcissus left Bombay on 28
April, 1884, and paid off at Dunkirk on 17 October. We are
subsequently given glimpses of the transmutation of actual events
into fiction. This voyage, writes the biographer Baines, formed
the basis of Conrad’s novel, The Nigger of the Narcissus.
Conrad in a letter said that most of the persons portrayed in the
fiction belonged to the crew of the real Narcissus,
including the admirable Singleton (whose real name was
Sullivan)….There was an Irishman named Daniel Sullivan, who signed
his name with a cross, aboard the Tilkhurst when Conrad
sailed in her….James Wait was not the name of the ‘nigger’ aboard
the Narcissus but of another negro sailor, on the Duke
of Sutherland. Researchers have noted in Melville’s Redburn
a malingerer named Jackson who tyrannises the crew and, like
the ‘nigger’ of the Narcissus,
finally dies at sea from tuberculosis.
Baines writes that the similarities between Redburn and
The Nigger of the Narcissus ‘are almost certainly a
coincidence’. The ‘Nigger’ of the Narcissus is Jimmy Wait,
who appears to be dying. But the crew cannot abandon the suspicion
that the black man is shamming. Did they known for certain that he
is to die, or alternatively that he is in fact a malingerer, they
would know how to respond. So they hate him, while he holds them
in a ‘weird servitude….He overshadowed the ship’. Conrad’s
resolution of this story is masterly.
Reverend
Tom Hill retires
The
Reverend Tom Hill has retired, after 11 years as senior chaplain
at the Mission to Seafarers, Sydney.
This very popular man will long be remembered for his work in
caring for visiting seafarers in Sydney and Port Botany.
His successor is the Reverend Ian Porter, formerly an Anglican
parish minister at Lindfield, Macquarie, Ermington and Hornsby
Heights. Ian, who was ordained in 1983, began working with the
Mission in April last, at the suggestion of a parishioner who was
also a member of the Mission Board.
Ian and his wife Janette have two daughters, Amy, 13, and
Rachel, 12. They are presently renovating their recently-purchased
home in Wahroonga. Ian is a rugby and motor racing enthusiast, and
an active cyclist and photographer.
The Reverend Ian Porter—succeeds The
Reverend Tom Hill as Senior Chaplain at the Mission to
Seafarers, Sydney.
Welcome to new Councilor
The Society welcomes new Councilor Mr. Ian Bulmer, who is manager LGP
Supply Pacific and New Zealand for Origin Energy. The company operates
two ships, Pacific Gas and Boral Gas in coastal work
between the two countries. Mr Bulmer said his new role was an expression
of his admiration for the maritime industry, the members of which he had
always found to be ‘hard-working but friendly’.
AMWS web site links
The Society’s web site is now linked to the Australian Maritime College; and the British Navy Cadet Training Ships organisation in the UK:
www.rakaia.co.uk
MTS Internet facility
The Society has installed a computer and printer for general use at the Sydney Mission to Seafarers.
Newly-appointed Councilor Ian Bulmer had advised that two secondhand units would be donated by Origin Energy for installation at other MTS stations.
Unit 74 Horizon Towers
Former mariner Mr. Peter Crombelholme has taken up residence in one of the Horizon Towers units owned by the Society and made available at nominal rent to persons of moderate or less than moderate means. Mr. Crombleholme, who first went to sea with the UK Royal Fleet Auxiliary in 1962, was prematurely retired at 62 after diagnosis of a heart condition and lung asbestosis.
Scholarships progress
The Australian Maritime College at Launceston advises that Mr. Tim Shape and Mr. Gerard Phillips are progressing well with their AMWC Scholarships.
Mr Shape sat for his Second Mate’s examination in September, and Mr. Phillips completed his studies during the same month.
Council has agreed to continue the question of supporting a scholarship for the Shipwrights Point School of Wooden Boat Building in Tasmania. The School trains students in wooden boat building to diploma and certificate levels. Prospective candidates would be assessed on their interest in the undertaking of courses to pursue boat building as a career, and not as a hobby at an older age. Scholarships might possibly be awarded on a cost-sharing basis, with AMWS supporting every second course at a cost of $6000 per annum.
