Sail of the "Shannon" Diary of Joseph Steele's Journey from England to Tasmania August - November 1874

Second print

Publication No. 320   Size: A4   Weight: 240 grams

FOREWORD

Joseph Gilbert Steele was born 27th August 1850 in Ludgershall, near Andover, Wiltshire. Born to a heritage of farming, he was the only one of five brothers to seek his fortune on the other side of the world.

Keeping a diary of the voyage was a means of relating his journey to his family and friends back in England. In fact the diary spend fifty years in England before being returned to Tasmania in 1923.

Joseph Steele (or Gilbert, as he was called) married Charlotte Jhonson (nee Gibson) a widow in 1879. She was the daughter of William Gibson, the founder of Gibson's Flour Mill in Hobart.

Nine years after their marriage, Charlotte inherited a large fortune which was enough to purchase one of Hobart's largest emporiums. This was Best & Co. - not the Perkin's store mentioned in his diary.  Joseph was at one time Precentor of St. David's Cathedral. Joseph and Charlotte had four children:

• Charles Gibson    born 1879
• Frederick William born 1883
• John Edward    born  1883
• Beatrice Mary    born 1885

Beatrice Mary, my grandmother, married Cecil D'Arcy Yeoland in 1909.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In producing this book I wish to thank Colin Steel for his kind permission to print the diary; also Denise McNeice and Christine Woods who typed the diary.
Rosemary Yeoland 1995