Does Hougoumont Float?
May 10, 2015 - The Chairman in News & Blog Posts, Chairman's Blog, Conversations with the General
Well, I bloody well hope not. I know it rained on the 16/17th June but not so much to float the chateau! However, did you know Hougoumont was the last convict ship to transport convicts to Australia? I and Serjeant Gibson will be surprised if you did!
She was a three-masted full rigged ship of the type commonly of 875 tons gross, on dimensions of 165.5 feet long, 34 ft beam and 23 ft depth of hold. Hougoumont was constructed in Burma of all places, in 1852. The ship’s original owner was Duncan Dunbar, a highly successful ship owner who entered the convict transport trade in the 1840s, providing nearly a third of the ships that transported convicts to Western Australia.
To amuse us all Hougoumont was chartered by the French as a troop carrier during the Crimean War, during which time it was renamed Baraguey d’Hilliers after a long forgotten French general, as its original name would have been offensive to the French. After the Crimean War ended in 1856, it was renamed Hougoumont. Well what do you know. We are grateful to our Belgian correspondent for this little gem.
