I don't normally digress into non-Beaumont things, but this chap seems worth it. I wrote this up in March and April 2020.
Edward Dollman 1814-1861
Voyage of the Whaler Harriet 1836-1837 and later career in London
Before I started this I knew that I am descended from Edward Dollman. I knew very little of him except that he had been described as a surgeon, and that one of his Dollman relatives in an old family notebook had nicknamed him “the Scamp.” Then I made a chance discovery that Edward Dollman was the name of the doctor on a whaling ship which had been wrecked in the Pacific Ocean in 1837, and that he and some others from the ship had made it to Australia at the end of that year.
So I started digging a bit more!
A London childhood
ED was born in late 1814 in Doughty Street, where his parents then lived, and was christened at St.Pancras.
ED's father – whose name was the same – seems somewhat a gentleman of leisure. His father Francis Dollman, who was still alive in 1834, had been a “hatter” in St. James's Street, Westminster, and the hat business had been taken on by a cousin and may indeed have come to an end before ED was grown up.
ED was 19 or 20 in 1834 when his maternal grandfather James Heath died. James Heath was well known in his time as an engraver of historical portraits. ED senior had married his daughter Harriet in 1811.
Thus both sides of the family were used to serving wealthy members of London society, and I would tend to describe them as highly creative and socially aspirational - but no doubt saddled with mortgages and the need to keep up appearances.
To the other side of the world
The Harriet left London Docks on 1 June 1836 under the command of a man named Christie, whose teenage son was also on board. Somewhere near the Cape of Good Hope Captain Christie suffered several broken ribs when he fell in rough weather. Information on the voyage all comes from a “Narrative” by Charles Sparshatt, an Able Seaman in the crew.
Our Doctor, Mr. Dollman, a very clever young man in his profession, attended him [Captain Christie] with the greatest care.
But the Captain did not comply with “doctors orders,” and his condition worsened. Having rounded the southern end of New Holland [Australia], the Harriet made her way to the Bay of Islands [near the north end of North Island, New Zealand], where in November 1836 Captain Christie handed over his command to a Mr Ridout.
Captain Christie was taken ashore. Mr Dollman left the ship to look after him.
The ship then cruised between Australia and New Zealand looking for whales, with very indifferent success, and returned to the Bay of Islands in May 1837 where the crew learned that Captain Christie had died shortly after they had left. Some of the men went ashore to pay their respects at his grave.
Mr Ridout must have kept an Account Book with him all through the events that followed, and it is now in the National Maritime Museum Archives. It shows that board and lodging costs for Dr Dollman were paid on May 12 1837, and about that time the Doctor rejoined the Harriet, which set sail again looking for whales.
Dr Dollman soon had a new patient, for Able Seaman Sparshatt dislocated his knee. When the Doctor came to see it he … tried to put it in its place by main strength, but could not succeed for two or three days; at the expiration of this time it slipped in of its own accord, but left me of course very lame…. That sounds painful.
Then on 16 July, in calm weather but with an ocean swell and on a falling tide, the Harriet struck a reef of coral rocks [the Providence Reef] off the Fejee [Fiji] Islands, and became hopelessly stuck and damaged. All of the crew save one (the carpenter, who was fatally injured) got into the boats with what they could save, and eventually made their way some hundreds of miles to Wallis's Island [Wallis & Futuna Islands], where they seem to have become scattered into several groups.
Without going into detail about their adventures, I will simply say that not all of the natives were friendly, and that Charles Sparshatt did not detail what happened to the Doctor.
To Sydney
But from other sources, it is clear that after some weeks a group of the Harriet's crew came away from Wallis's Island on a ship called the Riata [or Riatea, or Raitea], of Otaheite [Tahiti], and in due course they arrived at Port Jackson [Sydney]. Their names being given as:-
“Thomas Ridout, master; James Larkin, mate; J. Murphy, Third Mate; Edward Dollman, surgeon; William McCletchie; William Williams; J. Christie; J. Smith; two boys; William Wright, cook” (Sydney Herald 14 Dec. 1837 and other NSW newspapers)….
(That is the only time in the accounts of this voyage, that I have seen ED's first name given).
As for Charles Sparshatt, eventually he and six others were taken on board a Sydney whaler, were left at Port Jackson in August 1838, and arrived back in London in February 1839. Sparshatt says that whilst he was at Sydney “I saw a man belonging to a vessel that had brought part of the Harriet's crew there, who had left Wallis's Island in the boats, and who told me that the Captain and a part of them had gone to England….”
It appears that Edward Dollman was one of those, as we soon find him back in London.
To be continued.
Sources for the voyage
One of the crew, an Able Seaman, was a certain Charles Sparshatt of Stoke Newington. When he got back to London in 1839 he wrote a “Narrative” of the voyage for his “dear little brother” - advising him to live a peaceable and useful life, put your trust in God, respect and obey your parents, never depart from truth, be honest, sober, industrious, and learn some trade. This was published by the Philanthropic Society (of which several of the senior Dollmans had been members, by the way).
Another source is the ship's own papers, now in the National Maritime Museum archives as MSS/85/020. They haven't been catalogued, and I haven't seen them. I understand there are several boxes of papers. One of the things I'd like to know is whether they detail the owners of the ship (i.e. who hoped to share the profits of the voyage) and whether that has any bearing on the ship's name being that of Mrs Dollman. A copy of a page was sent to me by Harriet Braine, Archives Assistant; I'd like to thank her, she photographed it on her phone, as the usual equipment is shut down due to the coronavirus!
The newspapers printed in Sydney, New South Wales, are now available in full text through Australia's amazing “Trove” search facility.
The story of the Harriet's voyage is not covered in the English papers. The incident is mentioned briefly in May 1838 saying that all the crew were saved except the carpenter. We can take that as confirming that some of the men were back home by that time.
The ship was a total loss. Somebody / some people took a hit! I had a look in several volumes of Lloyds Register without seeing anything I could be sure was the right vessel, though there were several of the name Harriet. A more thorough search might pay off. Incidentally another whaler called Harriet had been wrecked on the coast of New Zealand a couple of years earlier, so care is needed eg in reading source material.
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