2776) Leisure Time (Hobbies - Painting): i) "East Indiamen" Trading Vessels: ii) The mysterious Disappearance of the East Indiaman "Madagascar" - a maritime mystery: iii) A painting titled the "Madagascar" (by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee):

 2776) Leisure Time (Hobbies - Painting): i) "East Indiamen" Trading Vessels: ii) The mysterious Disappearance of the East Indiaman "Madagascar" - a maritime mystery: iii) A painting titled the "Madagascar" (by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee):

Links to posts by Anupda on this blog:

1) Leisure Time - (Hobbies): The Musical Journey of Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee (Anupda)

2) Leisure Time (Hobbies - Painting) i) Sunflowers ii) Rum Runner (by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee (Anupda) 

3) Leisure Time (Hobbies - Painting): i) "East Indiamen" Trading Vessels: ii) The mysterious Disappearance of the East Indiaman "Madagascar" - a maritime mystery: : iii) A painting titled the "Madagascar" (by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee)

i) About "East Indiamen":

East Indiamen were trading vessels used by the East India Company for transporting merchant goods from India and China - for example tea from India and China and wool from Australia.

East Indiaman (East Indiamen - plural) was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. 

The term was used to refer to vessels belonging to the Austrian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, or Swedish companies.

Some of the East Indiamen chartered by the British East India Company were known as "Tea Clippers".

For an interesting post on the Great Tea Race involving "Tea Clippers" from China to London, please visit the following link to a post on this blog:

Did You Know Series (35): 150th Anniversary of "The Great Tea Race - 1866" (from China to London): The Age of the Clipper Ships: Commemorative Coins of 10 and 2 Dollars issued by the Cook Islands in 2016

East Indiamen were generally between 110 ft to 175 ft.in length and about 30 ft wide and built for speed.

In later years they also carried armaments and ammunition for the garrison in India and China. 

In the early nineteenth century, they traded regularly with British colonies in the Americas as well. 

In Britain, the East India Company held a monopoly granted to it by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1600 for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. This grant was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, until the monopoly was lost in 1834.

English/British East Indiamen usually ran between England, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The Indiamen often continued on to China before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena. 

Trading sailing vessels of this class gradually dropped in popularity after the introduction of steam ships, which were much faster.

When the company lost its monopoly in 1834, the ships of this design were sold off.

ii) About the "Madagascar":

The Madagascar was a British trading ship in the nineteenth century. It was an East Indiaman which was licensed for trade exclusively with India and China.   

It was a large British merchant ship built for the trade to India and China in 1837 that disappeared on a voyage from Melbourne to London in 1853. 

The disappearance of Madagascar was one of the great maritime mysteries of the 19th century and has been the subject of more speculation than any other 19th century maritime puzzle, except for the Mary Celeste.

Madagascar was the second Blackwall Frigate, and carried freight, passengers, and troops between England and India until the end of 1852. 

In addition to her normal crew, she also carried many boys being trained as officers for the merchant marine. 

Known as midshipmen from naval practice, their parents or guardians paid for their training, and they only received a nominal wage of usually a shilling a month.

The Madagascar on its final voyage to Melbourne, Australia and mysterious disappearance:

Because of the Victorian Gold Rush, Madagascar, under the command of Captain Fortescue William Harris, was sent to Melbourne with emigrants. 

She left Plymouth on 11.03.1853 and, after an uneventful passage of 87 days, reached Melbourne on 10.06.1853. 

14 of her 60-member crew jumped ship due to the lure of the Victorian Gold Rush, and only three replacements were signed on which left her manned short. 

She then loaded a cargo that included wool, rice, and about two tonnes of gold valued at £240,000, and took on board about 110 passengers for London.

On 10.08.1853, just as she was preparing to sail, Melbourne police went on board and arrested a bushranger John Francis, who was later found to have been one of those responsible for robbing the Melbourne Private Escort between the McIvor goldfield (Heathcote, Victoria) and Keyneton a few days earlier. 

On the following day the police arrested two others, one on board the ship and the other as he was preparing to board. 

As a result of these arrests Madagascar could not leave Melbourne until the 12.08.1853. After she left Port Phillip Heads (also known as "The Rip"), the Madagascar was never seen again.

Some fascinationg theories about the fate of the "Madagascar":

When the ship's arrival became overdue in London, many theories were propounded, some of which were:

- Spontaneous combustion of the wool cargo,

- hitting an iceberg and, 

- being seized by criminal elements of the passengers and/or crew and scuttled, with the gold being stolen and the remaining passengers and crew murdered.

- In 1872, rumours of a death-bed confession by a man who "knew who murdered the captain of the Madagascar" were first published.

- Several fictional accounts based on this rumour abound about the fate of the Madagascar, including one in the Biggles Series by W.E. Johns - "Biggles Breaks the Silence" and by Basil Lubbock (British) and James A. Michener - (American).

- Most 20th-century versions state that the death-bed confession was by a woman passenger who was taken by the mutineers, and by implication raped, and was too ashamed of what had happened to her to confess beforehand.

iii) The Painting titled the "Madagascar" (by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee):

In the above painting by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee (Anupda), he has depicted the East Indiaman "Madagascar", sailing around the Cape of Good Hope on its way to Zanzibar and from thereon to Bombay in India during its heyday.

Links to some other short stories on this Blog by Rajeev Prasad:

1) Leisure Time Short Stories: Friends at the Crossroads

2) Leisure Time Short Stories: Arvind Dada & the Street Dogs

3) Leisure Time Short Stories: The present moment (split second) contains an eternity: A strange experience at the Balaji (Hanuman) Temple near Jaipur: 

4) Leisure Time Short Stories: A tour of Pune's Blind School (or as I prefer to call it the "School for visually challenged students") 

5) Leisure Time Short Stories: An Otherworldly Encounter: A Personal Experience:

6) Leisure Time Short Stories: Remembering Uncle Paul Haegar: A German Army Officer in World War II, who became an exemplary Horticulturist and transformed/landscaped the gardens of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) into examples of beauty and excellence

7) Leisure Time Short Stories: Connecting through several lifetimes: The Story of the "Panditji" (Priest) of the Hanuman Temple at Chandrasekhar Azad University, Kanpur

8) Leisure Time - Memories: From the website of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh: Setting up/establishing of the Physiology Department and the new Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JNMC) Campus by my late father Dr.J.N.Prasad

9) Leisure Time (Memories) A photo-journey to Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad: The residence of Mahatma Gandhi and his wife Kasturba Gandhi from 1918 to 1930

10) Leisure Time (Memories) State Bank of India Inaugural Essay Competitions - 1994: 25th Anniversary (1994-2019): Winning the II Prize at the Whole Bank Level on my Essay titled "State Bank of India in the New Banking Era" in a grand Presentation Ceremony at SBI Central Office, Bombay

11) Leisure Time (Memories): The story of our little "Oye", a Adenium Plant (also known as "Desert Rose")

12) Leisure Time (Memories): State Bank of India, Hardoi Branch (Lucknow Circle): The "Youth Hostel"

13) Leisure Time - (Experiences): "What's in a name"? wrote Shakespeare: This quote didn't seem to work for me

14) Leisure Time: Telephonic Cross Connections

15) Leisure Time (Hobbies): Tom Babinszky, a US based blind Coin Collector/Numismatist who has visited several countries and has collected several interesting coins from all over the world: (A Guest Post from Tom on how he goes about his hobby of collecting coins)

16) Leisure Time - (Hobbies): The Musical Journey of Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee (Anupda)

17) Leisure Time (Hobbies - Painting) i) Sunflowers ii) Rum Runner (by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee (Anupda) 

18) Leisure Time (Hobbies - Painting): i) "East Indiamen" Trading Vessels: ii) The mysterious Disappearance of the East Indiaman "Madagascar" - a maritime mystery: : iii) A painting titled the "Madagascar" (by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee)

Related links:

1) "Rum Runner", Antigua & Barbados: First coin out of 8 to be issued in the Eastern Caribbean Gold & Silver Bullion and Commemorative Coin Programme" (EC8 Coin Programme") - all coins to be released durring 2018: Gold Bullion Coins (10 Dollars) and Silver Bullion Coins (2 Dollars)