First fleet of ships in 1836 taking European settlers to South Australian colony led by the 'Duke of York'

A model of the Duke of York barque on display at the South Australian Maritime Museum, Port Adelaide.

Duke of York, a three-masted barque, was the first South Australian colonial settlement pioneer ship, in 1836, to reach Kangaroo Island in the first free settlement in Australia.

Launched as a brig in 1817 at Bideford, England, the Duke of York worked as packet deliverer between Falmouth, Cornwall, and Jamaica. She also traded in north and south America and the Mediterranean.

Chartered by the South Australian Company and commanded by captain Robert Clark Morgan, the Duke of York left London on 24 February 1836 with 42 passengers (38 adults, four children), leading South Australia’s first fleet of European settlers and arrived at Napean Bay, Kangaroo Island, on July 27, 1836, after 154 days.

Arabella, daughter of Thomas Hudson Beare, regarded as the colony's first storekeeper, was credited as the first of the fleet to set foot on South Australian shores. His wife Lucy was the first white woman to die in South Australia on Kangaroo Island.

Beare’s sister Charlotte married another passenger from the Duke of York: the South Australian Company’s first colonial manager Samuel Stephens. Stephens, one of family to be prominent in the Methodist church in South Australia, was aged 28 and Charlotte 52 – an age difference that set off gossip on the Duke of York voyage.

Leaving its passengers on Kangaroo Island, the Duke of York sailed off on September 30 to hunt whales. Four days later, Samuel Stephens and fellow passenger Charlotte Hudson Beare were wed by captain George Martin on another first fleet ship, the John Pirie. Captain Martin had also officiated on August 28 on the John Pirie at the first European wedding in South Australia between Mary Powell, one of its passenger, and William Staple, a crew member.

After leaving its passengers on Kangaroo Island, the Duke of York called at Hobart Town to refresh and to proceed to the South Sea whaling grounds. The Duke of York was whaling up the coast of Queensland when she was shipwrecked off Port Curtis in July 1837.