Vice Admiralty Court (New South Wales) - Work of The Court After 1840

Work of The Court After 1840

The jurisdiction of the British court of admiralty was extended in both 1840 and in 1861 by the Admiralty Court Acts of 1840 and 1861. That increase in jurisdiction did not flow down to the New South Wales court. The British Parliament passed the Vice Admiralty Courts Act 1863 (UK) to confirm the colonial jurisdiction of the courts as well as giving them jurisdiction over ships mortgages, disputes over ownership or possession of ships, employment, the earnings of any registered ship, claims for master’s wages, towage and building or repairing ships. The Act provided for an appeal to the Privy Council and also allowed the judge of the court to appoint a registrar or marshal locally, rather than wait on an appointment from the United Kingdom. However, these changes did not make the court a local court, and the court was still an Imperial Court of the United Kingdom.

In 1868, the Victorian registered schooner Daphne chartered by Ross Lewin and skippered by John Daggett recruited islanders from the islands of Tanna, Erromango, Efate, Loyalty and Banks as indentured labour for employment on Queensland sugarcane fields. This was under Queensland’s Polynesian Labourers Act. That Act required a ship to have a license to undertake that work. The license required the vessel to uphold certain minimum conditions as to the state and fitness of the vessel to carry labourers. The license for the Daphne was for a maximum of 58 labourers that could be conveyed to Queensland on each voyage.

At this some point during a second voyage to Queensland, it was decided to sail to the island of Fiji where the recruiters could obtain six pounds Sterling for each of the 108 islanders, rather than nine pounds Sterling for the 58 islanders which they were permitted to carry to Queensland. The licence was in Lewin’s name but he remained on the island of Tanna. The Daphne sailed on to Levuka where it was intercepted by HMS Rosario on patrol from Sydney. The ship’s captain George Palmer suspected that the Daphne was a slaver ship, detained it, and conveyed it to Sydney.

Palmer brought proceedings in the court to have the Daphne condemned under the British slave trade laws. An earlier magistrate’s committal hearing for the crime of piracy was dismissed. The case was heard by Sir Alfred Stephen, who was the Chief Justice of New South Wales, and held the appointment of judge commissary in the Vice-Admiralty Court. Stephen dismissed the case on 24 September on the basis that the British Slave Trade Act 1839 did not apply to the South Pacific Ocean