John Roberts Kirby

John Roberts Kirby (1819–1906) was an English midshipman who made seven voyages in East Indiamen between 1833 and 1844, reaching the rank of second officer before retiring to shore life. His handwritten Life’s Log, compiled in 1881 from old diaries and ship’s logs, constitutes a rare first-person account of the post-charter East India trade, the early settlement of Western Australia, and the Canton trade on the eve of the Second Opium War [1, pp. 33–34]. The Log, adorned with vivid sketches of sailing craft, was published posthumously by his grandson, Dato Sir Roland Braddell, in 1959 [1, p. 33].

Maritime Career and the Post-Charter Fleet

Kirby was born on 23 July 1819 at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his father, the Rev. John Lawrence Kirby (1787–1850), was a Fellow Commoner [1, p. 34]. At fourteen he was appointed midshipman in the James Pattison, a 513-ton vessel owned by James Pattison, a Governor of the Bank of England, noted for her fast voyages though not clipper-built [1, p. 34]. His first voyage, in 1833–1834, carried the first free settlers to King George’s Sound under Governor Sir James Stirling, along with a miscellaneous cargo of livestock including fourteen thoroughbred racehorses from Lord Egremont’s stud [1, pp. 34–35]. The ship was detained three months at Spithead by westerly gales before reaching the Cape in May 1834 [1, p. 36].

Following the expiry of the East India Company’s charter, the Company’s ships continued in service with their former discipline and uniform maintained [1, p. 41]. Kirby sailed in the Hythe to Bombay, Singapore, and China in 1835–1837, and in the Bolton to Calcutta, China, and Bombay in 1837–1838 [1, pp. 41–54]. He was promoted to second mate of the Bolton at the age of nineteen in 1838, receiving £5 per month and a cabin [1, p. 53]. His final four voyages were made in the Essex, an 850-ton ship of the Wigram line, between approximately 1839 and 1845 [1, pp. 55–62].

The Canton Trade and the Second Opium War

Kirby’s accounts of the Canton trade provide a junior officer’s perspective on the commercial and social routines of the period. He describes the Hongs, the separate European trading compounds, the diversity of Chinese boats, and the practice of smuggling sycee silver and opium with the mandarins’ tacit consent [1, pp. 44–52]. The origins of the Second Opium War are narrated from the ship’s deck: a Chinese man was strangled under the American flagstaff at Canton, prompting a fight that escalated into the wider conflict [1, pp. 52–53]. Left in charge of the Bolton when the boats were ashore, Kirby prepared the ship for an anticipated Chinese attack that never materialised [1, p. 53].

Yachting and Later Life

After marrying Elizabeth Nassau on 7 April 1845, Kirby devoted himself to yachting [1, p. 62]. He built his first yacht, the Fawn (10 tons), in 1846, and went on to build, sail, and sell a long succession of yachts with which he won numerous prizes at regattas in England, France, and Belgium [1, p. 64]. He was elected to the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1854 and co-founded the Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club in 1872, serving as its Rear-Commodore until 1887 [1, p. 64]. A talented marine artist, he worked in pencil and crayon on tinted paper; his drawings, which hung in the Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club house, were destroyed in the Second World War [1, p. 64]. He died on 6 November 1906 [1, p. 33].

Research and Documentation

The principal source for Kirby’s life is the unpublished Life’s Log, a family manuscript in his own hand, supplemented by old diaries and ship’s logs [1, p. 33]. Braddell’s 1959 essay in the JMBRAS represents the first scholarly publication of this material, framed as both a genealogical memoir and a primary-source contribution to the history of the post-charter East India trade [1, p. 33]. Braddell draws on Buckley’s A History of the Malay States to corroborate details concerning Kirby’s brother Lawrence in Singapore [1, p. 49]. The Log remains a scarce first-person account from a junior officer of the period, complementing the more numerous merchant-principal narratives of the Canton trade [1, p. 33].

MBRAS Sources

• R. Braddell (1959). An Essex sailor. JMBRAS 32: 33–66

References

1. R. Braddell (1959). An Essex sailor JMBRAS 32(1): 33–66. Read on JSTOR