Selected voyage(s):
The Nile II, named by Duncan
Dunbar after the British victory in the Battle of the Nile in
1898, was an A1 ship of 763 tons built at Sunderland in 1849.
She left Portland as a convict transport on 5 July 1850 mastered
by George N Livesay and proceeded via Dublin to arrive
in HobartTown on 3 October 1850, after a fast passage of
90 days , equalling the then record set by the Indian-built Anna
Maria in 1848. The Nile II left England with 300
male convicts entrusted to the care of Surgeon-Superintendent
Dr John Kidd RN, landing all but one in Van Dieman's Land.
The final years (after 1841) of transportation to Van Diemen's Land was dominated by newer Sunderland-built frigates, fast and sea-worthy and in their modern design more pleasant for the prisoners than the older vessels. Most of these vessels made only one trip as a convict transport. The majority of the other newer vessels were built in India.
Captain Sinclair brought the Nile II from Plymouth on 11 February 1854 to arrive in Port Adelaide on 19 February 1855.
Of the 37 vessels chartered by the Admiralty to take convicts to Western Australia, ten were owned by Dunbar. The Nile II departed Plymouth on 23 September 1857 carrying 270 male prisoners, arriving in Western Australia on 1 January 1858 having incurred no convict deaths on this 100 day passage. Her master on this voyage was W Johnson. He brought her out again in 1859, departing London on 16 August and gaining Port Adelaide on 4 December.
Source(s):