DUKE OF GLOUCESTER and ADMIRAL COCKBURN

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aukepalmhof
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER and ADMIRAL COCKBURN

Post by aukepalmhof » Sun Feb 01, 2015 7:45 pm

Augustus Earle was born on 1 June 1793 in London, son of James Earle, an American artist and his wife Caroline. Augustus was the nephew of Ralph Earle, the well-known American portrait painter. His father, who had studied at the Royal Academy, returned to America in 1794, but died of yellow fever at Charleston in August 1796.
Earle also studied at the Academy and apparently befriended American artist, C. R. Leslie, biographer of Constable, and Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse code, who accompanied him on painting excursions. He is reported to have exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806, when only 13 years old!
At the age of 22, he joined his half-brother, William Henry Smyth aboard the Royal Naval Vessel SCYLLA that Smyth commanded as part of Admiral Exmouth's Royal Navy fleet. Earle was therefore able to visit and sketch areas of Sicily, Malta, Gibraltar and North Africa, before returning to England in 1817. A portfolio of drawings from this voyage is held by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Apparently never content to settle in one place for any length of time, in March 1818 he left for New York, worked there for some months, then moved to Philadelphia. He then journeyed to Brazil, Chile and Peru, painting water-colours illustrating local as well as naval life.
In 1824, he boarded the ageing DUKE OF GLOUCESTER bound for the Cape of Good Hope, and onwards to Calcutta. In the mid-Atlantic, storms forced the ship to anchor off the remote Island of Tristan da Cunha. During the ship's stay in the island's waters, Earle went ashore with his dog and a crew member, Thomas Gooch, attracted by the idea that 'this was a spot hitherto unvisited by any artist'.
Three days later, to their amazement, the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER set sail, leaving Earle and Gooch on the island, which had only six permanent adult inhabitants. In the ensuing eight months of enforced stay on the Island, between March and November, Earle became a tutor to several children, and continued to record impressions of the island until his supplies ran out.
Sixteen works survive from the stay on Tristan da Cunha a number of which appeared on their 1988 Definitive set.
This new set, marking the 190th Anniversary of his enforced visit, depicts paintings that he made during the voyage and just after arrival at Tristan. Only one of the designs, the poignant image of Earle and his dog looking out to sea in the unlikely hope of spotting a vessel, has appeared on a stamp before, but the image clearly chose itself for inclusion in this set.
Earle was finally rescued on 29 November by the ADMIRAL COCKBURN, which had stopped off on its voyage to Hobart, Van Diemen's Land. He spent several years in Australia and New Zealand still painting, during which time he published 'Journal of a Residence in Tristan D'Acunha' and for a year sailed with Charles Darwin on the BEAGLE until he was forced to leave due to ill-health.
Returning to England, Earle continued to paint and produce books until his death in London in 1838.
The set of stamps which are produced in sheets of 10 consists of two 50p stamps 'Scudding before a heavy westerly gale off the Cape, lat. 44 deg. 1824' (National Library of Australia) and 'On board the DUKE OF GLOUSTER, Margate hoy, between Rio de Janeiro and Tristan De Acunha 1824' (National Library of Australia) as well as two 70p stamps 'Tristan Da Cunha, 1824' (Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne University) and 'Solitude, watching the horizon at sun set, in the hopes of seeing a vessel, Tristan de Cunha in the South Atlantic 1824' (National Library of Australia).
http://www.tristandc.com/po/stamps201413.php
There are two stamps which shows part of a ship, the 50p shows a cabin inside the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER a cutter or sloop rigged vessel under command of Captain S Amm, on which Earle was the only passenger, he boarded her on 14 February 1824 at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Captain Amm did want to make a call at Tristan da Cunha to load some potatoes, there was a good market for potatoes in Cape Town. After a passage of five weeks she arrived at Tristan da Cunha. (Captain Amm did live in South Africa so most probably the homeport for the vessel was Cape Town.
But very soon their solitude was relieved, pleasantly for them, but rather painful for him, by the arrival of a visitor, whose stay, intended to be very short, was singularly enforced to be a very long one. This was a Mr. Earle, an artist and a naturalist, one who had travelled over a great part of the world, following the various pursuits of his profession. He had now embarked at Rio, for the Cape, in a small sloop, the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. Her master, Captain Amm (the same who afterwards took Glass's children to the Cape), touched here for water and potatoes. Mr. Earle came ashore to look about him while they were being got on board, and stayed on shore that night. The next morning, just as the island boat was preparing to go on [27/28] board with the last load of potatoes, the sloop tacked, and stood out to sea, The wind was already blowing hard, and soon increased to a heavy gale; and the sloop went off before it, leaving Mr. Earle, and another young man belonging to her, standing deserted on the shore, with nothing belonging to them but the clothes they each had on, and Mr. Earle with his sketch-book in his hand. And here for exactly eight months they were compelled to remain, for not one ship touched at the island during that time.
http://anglicanhistory.org/africa/taylo ... n1856.html
I can’t find a DUKE OF GLOUCESTER in Lloyds, in Lloyds of 1824 there is a DUKE OF GLOSTER of 92 tons and under command of Captain S. Amm owned by S. Twyart. I think she is the vessel which made a call at Tristan, and the other source have the name of the captain wrong, or Lloyds gives the name of the ship wrong. 1827 She is mentioned with same owner and captain, thereafter she disappears.

The other 50p stamp shows a deck scene and this stamp is designed after a painting made by Earle on board the ADMIRAL COCKBURN sailing between Tristan da Cunha and van Diemens Land (Tasmania) in November 1824. The latitude given must refer to the Cape of Good Hope with the vessel running before the westerly gales. This was the only time in his travels that Earle was in this position. It is believed that the man seated on the left is the artist with his dog Jimmy at his feet.
The ADMIRAL COCKBURN was built in 1808 in Philadelphia, USA, of her early life I can’t find anything most probably built for an American owner. The first time she appears in Lloyds is in 1818 when she is owned by Corney in London and used as a cargo vessel, 350 tons. Ship rigged.
1819 Is she owned by John Briggs who was also the captain, she sailed from Portsmouth on 29 January 1819 and made a call at St Pauls Island and Port Davey, Tasmania.
Under Briggs ownership she made regular voyages between the U.K. and Australia.
1829 Sailed from Gravesend as a whaler for the South Seas.
1831 Was she given as owned by J. Somes, London and used as a whaler in the South Seas. Barque rigged.
27 July 1839 grounded at Muizenberg, in the Vals Baai, South Africa with on board 839 barrels of sperm whale oil.
The ship was lost but her 80 men crew was saved, and the barrels of whale oil salvaged.
The 70p stamp is designed after a painting with a view on Tristan da Cunha with on the left a full rigged sailing vessel, which has not been identified, could be also the ADMIRAL COCKBURN.

Tristan da Cunha 50p/70p sg?, scott?
Tristan da Cunha 20p sg467, scott449 Is given by Watercraft Philately as the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.
Sources: Many Lloyds Registers and internet.
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Anatol
Posts: 1037
Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:13 pm

Re: DUKE OF GLOUCESTER and ADMIRAL COCKBURN

Post by Anatol » Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:44 pm

Tristan da Cunha 2006;80p;SG?
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