William Brooker

The ketch Electra was built in Fremantle in 1883 for John Bateman Snr, a wealthy ship owner of Fremantle. She was 24 metres [78.7 feet] in length, 6 metres [19.9 feet] across her beam and drew 2.3 metres [7.5 feet] of water. She weighed 91.6 tonnes and could carry 84.81 tonnes under-deck. She had two masts, a single deck, counter stern and billet head. Her official number was 75317.

Electra was built to work at a time when pearling settlements along the coast needed so much cargo, and Western Australia was supplying its own farms, and farms across the world with ever-increasing amounts of guano, found on the islands off the coast. 

Electra was sold to Francis Perrier Bell, another Fremantle ship owner in 1898. She was mortgaged back to John Bateman for £300 and 8% interest. After only one month the loan was cleared, and ownership reverted to John Bateman. This use of marine as mediums of finance exchange was commonplace in the 1800s when so many vessels were being built, bought and sold.

In August 1899 Electra was sold to Alexander Gordon, a Broome accountant. In October 1901, she was sold to a consortium of Fremantle merchants and shipping agents including John Denny, James Leslie Denny, Robert John and Robert John Lynne. Despite changing hands multiple times, Electra was mostly owned by John Bateman over her working life of 20 years. She was a long-lived and hard-worked vessel.

Electra worked solidly for most of her career. There was a tragedy in 1890 and a crew member was lost (See the story of Edward Tuckett). Electra had her fair share of accidents and incidents. She was always repaired, refloated and put back to work. 

By 1898 Electra was 15 years old, and like all hard-working, high-earning boats she was tiring. She was put to work lightering in the Cossack area where the harbour was less than ideal and ships and large boats were loaded by lighter. [Lighters were crucial to working ports. They were small boats that could work inside the harbour, get to nearby pearling grounds, travel up rivers and creeks and negotiate the heavy marine traffic to load/unload boats]. The lay-up camps needed supplies. [Lay-up camps were camps used by crews when they were not working, usually upriver safe from cyclonic winds and tides. The camps were also used for boat repairs and careening]. Luggers and camps needed firewood and fresh water. Mail needed to come and go, and so did crews, boat owners and pearl buyers.

William [Bill] Brooker was born in 1853 Kent, England. He had lived in Cossack since 1872. He worked on lighters or crewed on luggers. He was seen as a quiet unassuming man, aged 45 years. He was well known in the town. Bill liked a drink when he wasn’t working and was in good company in Cossack where many of the men drank substantial amounts of alcohol in their time off work.

On 14 December 1898 Bill had been taken ashore by the master of Electra, Captain Thomas Chope because he was intoxicated. He was due to return for a 10.30pm cast-off because Electra was booked to load the steamer Saladin. At the time Bill was the mate aboard Electra, and Captain Chope was less than pleased when Bill did not show up for work.

Crew member H Bartlett told Captain Chope he had seen Bill lying on the jetty earlier and had left him there to sleep off his drink, expecting he would respond to the Captain’s call to board later that night. He offered to go and get Bill and bring him aboard. Captain Chope muttered that he didn’t care whether Bill came aboard or their replacement crew member Jimmy Wilson, but tasked Bartlett with finding him a mate as soon as possible.

Bartlett found Bill still lying on the wharf at 10.10pm, roused him and told him Captain Chope was not pleased. Bill said he had not heard the Captain calling him. They made their way to the Electra, where the mainsail was being hoisted. The ladder was stretched from the wharf to the vessel, suspended from the wharf by a rope. Bartlett went aboard.

As Bill started to step on the ladder, the mainsail took wind, and blew Electra more than a foot from the wharf, leaving a large gap between the wharf and the first step of the ladder. Bill attempted to step into the rigging instead but misjudged his footing and fell into the water between the boat and the wharf.

Bartlett shouted “Man overboard” as Captain Chope was slackening off the mizzen sheet. All aboard had heard the splash of Bill entering the water. Captain Chope ordered the crew into the boat to pick Bill up and they responded immediately. While pushing the dinghy off the stern of the boat, it went over the top of Bill, pushing him down into the water.

Captain Chope sent Bartlett to fetch the police at 10.30pm, and Water Police Constable Fry, officer in charge of the Cossack police station, and Constable Brown arrived in their dinghy within seven minutes, and a third dinghy rowed by Mr A S Watts arrived a few minutes later. The boats searched in all the places a body might float or be caught up. They found nothing and decided to end their search at 1am on 15 December. The water was muddy, and a strong current was running.

Constable Fry recommenced his search on foot at low tide which was 4am. He found Bill’s body floating face down in the water among the rocks opposite Japantown. The body was fully clothed, and the face was discoloured. The nose had been cut when the face scraped on the sea bottom. He took the body to a room the back of the Weld Hotel for the coroner Doctor J Brockman to carry out an examination.

A jury was hastily convened to view the body: A S Thompson, C W Paterson and H A Hall. As soon as the jury had completed their viewing, Coroner Brockman examined the body and then ordered the burial be carried out at noon. The weather in Cossack in summer was hot and humid and there was no way to keep a body cold enough to prevent rapid putrefaction and the consequential spread of disease. Bill was buried at the Cossack cemetery at noon. His plot was registered as 2131/1899, dated from the inquest into his death.

The inquest took place on 5 January 1899 in the afternoon before Dr Brockman, who was the government’s resident agent and the coroner, and the jury who witnessed Bill’s remains. H A Hall was the jury foreman. When Constable Fry gave his evidence, he stated he did not know whether Bill was drunk although he was “not entirely sober”.

The jury determined Bill Brooker met his death through accidental drowning. Captain Chope was censured for failing to withdraw the boat’s ladder before making sail. The lack of lighting at the wharf was pointed out to be an issue, and the fact that Cossack was the only known port without working wharf lights.

Electra worked in the busy Cossack pearling grounds for a further six years, lightering for the pearl boats and crews, and fetching supplies from the south when required. She ended her days on 18 March 1904, 730 metres [800 yards] from shore at Bunker Bay while under the command of Captain John Anderson with a crew of five. She was voyaging from Hamelin Bay to Fremantle at the time carrying timber for Millars in Fremantle and cargo for John Bateman Jnr. She sprang a leak which was too serious for the crew and pumps to control. The crew safely abandoned ship three minutes before she sank. Electra was still valued at £1000. The inquiry on 21 March 1904 before A R Price, Sub-collector of Customs and E Cross, J.P. resulted in no adverse findings against the captain or crew.