The wreck of the Meridian
On 4 June 1853, the Meridian left Gravesend, England, bound for Melbourne, with a 23-man crew and 84 passengers, almost half of whom were children.
The first few weeks at sea were uneventful and mainly enjoyable for the passengers, although Alfred Lutwyche, in his A Narrative of the Wreck of the Meridian, wrote that some of the crew were not trained as seamen and sometimes the passengers were required to help with the running of the ship.
As the ship approached the Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa, the weather changed dramatically, with squalls and rough seas. All passengers were confined below deck as the weather deteriorated, and the ship battled a that, on 24 August, ‘a furious battering commenced… wave after wave striking the ship with violence and rapidity until a great wave of water swirled between decks and down hatches into the hold.’
