Beausite (1863 voyage)

The Beausite was a passenger ship that arrived in Brisbane on September 5, 1863 after departing Hamburg, Germany on May 26, 1863. The ship arrived in Brisbane after 102 days at sea with 508 passengers, all Germans.

The vessel weighed 932 tons and was captained by Captain C.I.S. Bruhn. The passengers were medically supervised by George Steinlein.

During the voyage, there was a "considerable amount" of sickness onboard, according to The Courier, but none of the contagious variety. On August 10, two men were badly injured after a violent lurching of the vessel during heavy wind. One of the men was thrown against one of the hatches and injured his spine so badly that he lost the use of his legs. The other man had his shoulder and one of his fingers fractured but as of September 12 he was recovering well.

Sometime during the voyage, a man named Nicolas Schnieder was drawing a bucket of water when he fell overboard and drowned. There were ten other deaths onboard due to illness. Five were caused by "various inflammatory affections of the lungs" and the other five were caused by "other complaints, but chiefly from diarrhoea." On board there were also nine births, six boys and three girls.

The Beausite reached Brisbane on September 5 but had to wait to complete a health inspection. Two days later on Monday, September 7, the Beausite was visited by Dr. Hobbs the health officer. Dr. Hobbs found the Beausite's passengers to be of satisfactory health and gave them the all-clear to disembark.

It wasn't until September 10 that the steamer Settler left Raff's wharf (located at present-day Eagle Street, Brisbane City) to retrieve passengers on the Beausite out in Moreton Bay. It took the Settler two hours to travel from the wharf to the ship. All 508 passengers disembarked the ship and arrived in Brisbane on the steamer at 5 P.M. The man who had been partially paralysed the month prior was brought to hospital after reaching land.