Hamilton

James progressed through the ranks of his career at sea; he was awarded the grading of Ist Mate on the 10th December 1885 and eventually Master Ord. in Dunedin New Zealand 21st September 1889. Finally he was granted command of his own ship, the S.S Aparima. The Aparima was commissioned and built by William Denny and Bros at launched at Dumbarton on 24th February 1902. Owned by the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand is was a cargo vessel and was first commanded by Capt Augustus James Courbarron until 1904. James and his crew sailed the Aparima to many various ports including South Africa and the West Indies very often accompanied by his wife Mary and, at times, the children. In 1902, a fire raged through the decks of the ship almost causing irreparable damage, but, according to reports and letters at the time…”the situation would have been far more severe with undoubted loss of life has it not been for the calm and level headed handling of the situation by Capt Courbarron”.

The Aparima enjoyed a distinguised but sadly short career. On the 19th November 1917 she was torpedoed and sunk by a UB 40 whilst 6 miles SW off Anvil point en route from London to Barry.

On settling in Sydney in 1888 James met a young Irish girl, Mary Morrissey. Mary had arrived in Sydney in 1881 with her parents and siblings from Killarney, Ireland, as part of the assisted immigrants scheme. They had left Plymouth in late June and arrived 17th July 1881 on board the Peterborough arriving in Sydney the following month. En route, Mary’s sister Honora was born. The family settled at Woolloomoolloo, a harbour suburb of Sydney.

It is unknown how James and Mary met but from the start they defied convention. In 1889 their first child, my great grandmother Mildred Gertrude, was born with a brother, James (Jimmy) born in 1891. The family lived in a little house called ‘The Grove’ in Paddington, later moving to a house in Birrell St Bondi that they nicknamed ‘St Ernans‘. In August 1893 however James and Mary finally married in St Davids Church of England Sydney.

In 1898 Mary-Helen (Molly) was born and lastly Frederick in 1900. James being Protestant, and Mary a Catholic, they somehow bridged the gap as all their children were baptized in the Catholic Church. Obviously religion was never an issue in the house. The family lived happily at Bondi with Mary and the children sometimes accompanying James on his ships voyages. At one time baby Mary-Ellen was saved by a sailor when she crawled too near to the decks edge. From 1903 James entered into a period of ill health which saw him staying at home from his sea duties more often. It is now known he was suffering from Brights Disease.

In 1904 Augustus James fell gravely ill before lapsing into a coma. He died at their home in Birrell Street Bondi. Augustus JH Courbarron is buried at Waverley Cemetery in a plot, fittingly, over looking the sea.

The S.S Aparima circa 1902.

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Augustus James Hamilton Courbarron was born 12th June 1863 on a farm in Millbrook, St Helier Jersey, to parents Mary Hamilton and Frederick Courbarron. His father, Frederick, was a farmer and the son of French immigrants to the Channel Islands in the early 1800’s. Mother, Mary, born in 1825, was the daughter of landowner John Hamilton and raised at ‘Brownhall’ in Co Donegal Ireland.

Brother Stanhope Frederick was born 1865 followed by John Edward and sister Helen.

Not a great amount of detail is available about the family’s life in St Helier but it is known that they led the lives of typical farming folk of the day. Many French arrived in the Channel islands from nearby Brittany to work on the potato harvests; the Courbarrons were originally from Brittany having arrived and settled in 1802.

In 1877 the lives of the four children were to change forever. The family, en route to visiting Mary’s brother in Ireland, made a stopover in Landulph, Cornwall England. It was during their time here that Mary and Frederick were stricken with typhoid and tragically died within weeks of each other. They were buried in a churchyard at Landulph, near Saltash in Cornwall.

The orphaned James, 14, Stanhope, Edward and Helen were sent to live with their mother’s brother James Hamilton at the family estate of Brownhall in Co Donegal Ireland. Here they were cared for in a loving family atmosphere; the Hamiltons having always been a close knit and caring family. It must have been quite a change for the four children to go from a farming community to living on the substantial estate of Brownhall. The children resided in the family’s private residence of St Ernans House on a small island in the estuary near Donegal Town. Their uncle, James Hamilton and his wife, took the children into their home and began to plan to future of the 14 year old James. Young James had professed a love of the sea whereupon he was sent to England to begin the gruelling life of an apprentice seaman in the merchant navy.

Stanhope and John (known as Edward) chose to go to Canada eventually; Helen married, and as Mrs Helen Moody, spent her life in America. Throughout her life Helen remained in contact with her brothers, particularly Augustus James, writing a steady flow of letters from her homes in New York and Paris. Stanhope also went to Canada and settled in Ontario where he graduated from Gulphs Agricultural College. He died in a farming accident in 1899.

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