Convict exhibition ship HMS SUCCESS decked with flags at Circular Quay (7505325640)

This image is part of the William Hall collection, containing images of Sydney Harbour from 1890s to the 1930s taken by father and son William Frederick Hall and William James Hall. This image was most likely captured by William Hall senior.
The SUCCESS was a barque of 622 tons built at Moulemain, India in 1840. Employed as a 'country ship' in the UK to East Indies trade the owners then transferred the vessel to the Australian immigrant service in 1847. On one run in 1853 upon arriving at Geelong, Victoria, the crew deserted to join the gold rush, leaving the vessel stranded. It was purchased later that year by the Victorian Government and turned into a prison hulk for convicts. In March 1857 the Inspector-General of Penal Establishments in Victoria, Captain John Price, visited Williamstown to investigate conditions on the hulks. During this visit, he was surrounded and attacked by a party of convicts, dying from his injuries the next day. A group of SUCCESS prisoners were hanged for the murder, and the incident initiated an inquiry into the use of prison hulks, ultimately bringing an end to this system of incarceration.
SUCCESS was next transferred to Sydney owners before being sold to entrepreneurs in 1890. The ship departed Australia and surreptitiously arrived in England as an 'exhibition ship', fitted out as a floating museum and falsely billed as having a history of transporting convicts to Australia- 'the last of England's infamous felon fleet'. SUCCESS remained on exhibition there until 1912 when the vessel was sold to American owners for the same purpose, going on to tour the east and west coasts of the United States. The greatly exaggerated and often fabricated stories of SUCCESS' dreadful convict history drew multitudes of curious visitors, and in the 1920s and 1930s the Australian government unsuccessfully attempted to have the enterprise shut down. In addition to inaccurately claiming a convict transport past, SUCCESS' operators also declared her to be the oldest ship afloat, advertising 1790 as the year the vessel was built rather than 1840. Despite this, the ship continued on display in the US for many years and was a star attraction at the 1933 Chicago World Fair. However in 1946, after more than 50 years of exhibition, SUCCESS was destroyed by fire and sunk in Lake Erie, USA.
Thank you for helping caption this important historical image.

Object number 00002510