RAHS Day Lecture – Stimulated, exhausted or inebriated? Investigating the Queen of Nations shipwreck

Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 4 June 2025 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm

Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000

Cost: Free

Event Description:

Why did Captain Samuel Bache drive his fine clipper ship, Queen of Nations, onto Towradgi Beach in 1881? Was he really drunk as his crew insisted? And what about the captain’s scandalous past involving a sailor who turned out to be a young woman? Dive into the drama and tragedy of sailing to nineteenth-century Australia in this lively presentation.

About the speaker:

Dr Peter Hobbins has the entertaining job title of ‘Head of Knowledge’ at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour. It doesn’t mean that he is a know-it-all, but he is in charge of the museum’s curators, maritime history library and magazine, Signals. Peter’s background is in the history of science, technology and medicine, where he has researched various ghoulish subjects including snakebite, pandemics, quarantine, aircraft accidents and shipwrecks.