Prison Hulk "SUCCESS", at Hobart.

Ship

• Type: Full rigged ship
• 1840 Built in Natmoo, Tenasserim, Burma
• 621 tons
• Length: 117 feet 3 inches
• Beam: 26 feet 8 inches
• Depth of hold: 22 feet 5 inches

History

• 1840 Named: Success Flag: India
• Trading around the Indian subcontinent
• Sold to London owners Flag: United Kingdom
• 1840's Made three voyages with emigrants to Australia.
• 31 May 1852 Arrived at Melbourne with emigrants, and the crew deserted to the gold-fields
• Sold to Government of Victoria to be employed as prison hulk Flag: Australia
• 1857 Prisoners from the Success murdered the Superintendent of Prisons John Price, the inspiration for the character Maurice Frere in Marcus Clarke's novel For the Term of His Natural Life.
• When no longer needed as a prison ship as such, the Success was used as a detention vessel for runaway seamen and later as an explosives hulk.
• Sold to a group of entrepreneurs to be refitted as a museum ship to travel the world advertising the perceived horrors of the convict era. Although never a convict ship, the Success was billed as one, her earlier history being amalgamated with those other ships of the same name including HMS Success that had been used in the original European settlement of Western Australia. This may have led to the claim that she was launched in 1790. In any event, she was promoted as the oldest ship afloat ahead of the 1797 USS Constitution
• 1892 Laid up and sank at her moorings
• Sold and after a thorough refit toured the Australian ports and then headed for England
• 12 September 1895 arriving at Dungeness and was exhibited in many ports over several years
• 1912 Crossed the Atlantic and spent more than two decades doing the same thing around the eastern seaboard of the United States of America and later in ports on the Great Lakes.
• 1918 Returned to commercial service with an auxiliary engine being fitted, but sank after being holed by ice.
• Refloated and returned to use as a travelling museum ship.
• Late 1930s fell into disrepair
• 4 July 1946 Destroyed by fire at Lake Erie Cove, Cleveland, Ohio, while being dismantled for her teak