Henry Simpson's Black Diamond Line carries coal, camels from 1866; busy Port Adelaide corner named after it
Henry Simpson (top right) built a fleet of ships carrying coal ("black diamonds"), operating out of Port Adelaide from 1866. His Black Diamond Line was remembered well into the 20th Century with its motif on a "silent cop" (bottom right) at the busy interection of Commercial Road and St Vincent Street, Port Adelaide.
Images courtesy SA History Hub
Henry Simpson founded the Black Diamond line of collier sailing ships that by 1866 had a fleet of operating out of Port Adelaide.
Simpson arrived at Kangaroo Island in 1836 as second officer on the 105-ton two-masted schooner John Pirie, one of the first South Australia’s first fleet bringing out European settlers. He became captain of the Orwell in 1842, then the South Australian Company’s schooner Victoria ( 1843), the John Pirie (1844) and the barque Lord Hobart.
Simpson was appointed wharfinger or harbour master at the Old Port (Adelaide) before a transfer to the New Port. He became a shipping agent and around 1850 was partners with millers Phillips and P. A. Horn until 1853 when left South Australia for the goldfields of Victoria.
Back in Adelaide two years later, and having dealt previously with coal from Newcastle, he started as a coal merchant, anticipating the rapid rise in coal-fuelled steam power. He leased Port Adelaide’s Queen's wharf and No. 4 bond store and, in 1864, started building his fleet to carry coal from Newcastle in New South Wales to Adelaide and Wallaroo.
The fleet comprised the Fairfield (1864, wrecked 1874), Koh-i-noor (1865), Julie Heyn (barque, wrecked off Gerringong, New South Wales, 1865), Kadina (originally Jeanie B. Payne, 1865-79,) Moonta (1865,) Frowning Beauty (1866) Bosphorus (barque, 1866, Wallaroo, Meander (1866-75) Contest (wrecked 1874), Verulam (1869), Exonia. By 1871, the Julie Heyn, Moonta and Frowning Beauty were replaced by the Lanercost, Saxon, Stag (1872), J. L. Hall, Athena, Planter and Ardencraig.
Simpson didn’t adopt steam power until 1879 with the Ridge Park (named after Simpson's residence in Glen Osmond); followed by Birksgate (1881) and Tenterden (1883, sold 1884). Tenterden, previously the family home in Woodville, later belonged to Simpson’s son James. Birksgate was a residence owned by Simpson’s business partner Thomas Elder.
Simpson’s Koh-i-noor was used to bring 40 camels and their “Afghan” attendants from Karachi to be used at Elder’s Umbaratana station in South Australia’s far north from 1868. The Koh-i-noor also was chartered by the South Australian government to service the Northern Territory expedition in 1869.
Simpson kept his ships in top condition with smart skippers paid generous bonuses for fast times. The name Black Diamond Line was never officially incorporated as a business. It came from the nickname for coal because of its value. Simpson adopted the nickname and had his steamships’ funnels carry a black diamond motif.
By the late 1860s, the Black Diamond Line operated from premises in Currie Street, Adelaide. Another small office was in Port Adelaide at the corner of St Vincent Street and Commercial Road, near the company’s coal stocks at Queen’s Wharf. The Port Adelaide office was also managied the Black Diamond Line’s fleet of hulks that supplied coal to local steamships, locomotives and Port Adelaide’s new gas lighting system.
Around the 1870s, St Vincent Street-Commercial Road intersection became the busy “Black Diamond Corner”. This coincided with Duncan Reid, a former skipper on Black Diamond Line vessels, taking over and changing the name of the Family Hotel on the corner to the Black Diamond.
The company Simpson & Sons continued after Henry Simpson’s death in 1884. It owned the three-master collier Otago, built in Glasgow in 1869 and arriving in Adelaide in 1872. Its main claim to fame was being the only ship commanded by future novelist Joseph Conrad after its captain died in the Gulf of Siam in 1888.