Auxiliary Screw Missionary Steamer "Southern Cross" No. 100.

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circa London?, 1855. Four design documents for the "Southern Cross", including a detailed and finely hand-coloured plan of the vessel with elevation and views of both decks, 72 x 117 cm, thick paper laid down; line plan of the hull, 64.5 x 199 cm, thick paper laid down; mid-ship section, 35 x 53 cm, waxed silk; blue-print of mid-ship section, 52 x 37 cm, roughly torn along bottom edge, pencil note at upper right saying that this is a copy of the amended blueprint submitted to Lloyds; all four a little dusted at edges and clearly having been rolled for many years, some pencil shelf markings to versos, very good. An important suite of plans and documents relating to the construction of the Southern Cross, a 70-ton schooner purpose-built for the Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Church and the Church of the Province of Melanesia. This was the first vessel of this name to be built for the Mission, and a succession of vessels of the same name would follow (the current Southern Cross - the ninth - is still in service).

The Melanesian Mission was founded in 1849 by then Bishop of New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn (1809-1878) to evangelise the south-west Pacific (that is, chiefly, the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, and the Northern New Hebrides Islands). It formally became part of the Australian Board of Missions in 1850, and it was under the aegis of this group that Selwyn visited London in 1854. His efforts meant that Charlotte Mary Yonge donated funds from the sale of her novel The Heir of Redclyffe (1854) to pay for the construction of this bespoke mission vessel.

The Southern Cross, as the vessel would be aptly named, became the link between the remote parts of the vast diocese, used by Selwyn and others for their regular circuits, and otherwise fulfilling the many training and logistical tasks required. The early days of the Mission are chiefly known through the memoir of the Reverend Ashwell, Journal of a Voyage to the Loyalty, New Hebrides, and Banks's Island, in the Melanesian Mission Schooner the Southern Cross, with an Account of the Wreck of that Vessel (Auckland, 1860). As the title confirms, this first Southern Cross was lost in 1860, and Ashwell gave a vivid account of her wreck.

On 17 June 1860, off the "Poor Knights" (near Whangarei), the vessel was overtaken by a gale, and in heavy winds ran aground. A heavy surf crashed over the vessel forcing the crew to take to the rigging, and the ship's boats were washed away, but at the break of day they were relieved to discover that they were in the reasonably protected bay at Ngunguru, and shore-lines got the entire crew safely to land.

A contemporary view of the wreck was published but, significantly, visual material relating to the vessel is very scarce, making this documentation an important, perhaps unique, record of its design and construction. The chief archive of the mission is held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Underlining the Mission's important role in the region, small collections of material relating to the Mission are held in some Australian collections, however, such a substantial set of documents relating to their first Southern Cross is not otherwise known.

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• 订书号：: 807_790

• 书商: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)