John Dibbs

Did You Know?

• Dibbs' first wife Mary died in childbirth at Raiatea on 25 August 1825.
• A son born prematurely to Dibbs and Sophia Allwright in London in August 1829 died after six hours.

Maritime training

John Dibbs likely trained as a midshipman through the Marine Society around 1806. The East India Company College at Hertford Heath began that year, training 16- to 18-year-olds, and Dibbs may have been among its earliest students, graduating to the East India Company Maritime Service in 1808. His activities from 1808 to 1818 are unknown, but two possibilities exist. He could have joined the Royal Navy, as about 25% of Scottish males served in the military between 1792 and 1815, and his father and grandfather had military service; the Royal Navy was then engaged in the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars. However, no record of a Lieutenant Dibbs in the Royal Navy has been found. The notion that he served in the Royal Navy stems from an 1865 story about an 1828 voyage under a Captain Dibbs, a former Royal Navy lieutenant, who outwitted pirates off Brazil. Alternatively, Dibbs likely progressed through merchant marine officer grades: midshipman to 6th officer about 1810, 5th officer about 1812, 4th officer about 1814, and 3rd officer about 1816. In March 1818 he is listed as master of the Rothiemurchus, a 322-ton vessel owned by John Watson & Co, Leith. That ship had made trips to Quebec in 1816 and 1817 (with Dibbs probably as 1st officer), again in March 1818, and was wrecked on 15 September 1818 on the Naas Reef near Wisby, Gotland, after leaving Leith on 3 September. The Rothiemurchus had previously been known as The Bell of London, an Admiralty supply vessel or transport put up for sale before the Congress of Vienna.

Arrival in New South Wales

Dibbs arrived in Sydney in 1821 on the Westmoreland and became acquainted with Robert Campbell Sr. of Campbell & Co, his sons John and Robert, and Rev. John Williams of the London Missionary Society (LMS) during the voyage from Tahiti and New Zealand. Campbell and Williams offered him command of the schooner Endeavour for trade in the Tahiti region. While ferrying Rev. Williams, Dibbs met René Primevère Lesson and Jules de Blosseville of the French corvette Coquille on a hydrographic expedition. In May 1823, Dibbs and de Blosseville returned to Maupiti Island to map it for the Coquille. On 25 July 1823, Dibbs (re)discovered Armstrong Island (Rarotonga), Mitiero and Mauke. In March 1824, the Russian Hydrographic Service mission under Otto von Kotzebue met Dibbs in Tahiti. Dibbs attended the coronation of King Pomare III on 21 April 1824, then sailed for Sydney with cargo and missionaries George Bennet and Daniel Tyerman. On 16 July 1824, while stopped at Whangaroa Harbour, an altercation with the local Ngāti Pou tribe led to Maori warriors taking control of the Endeavour. The situation was defused by Ngāti Uru chief Te Ara. Rev. Tyerman described it as a cultural misunderstanding, but later accounts turned it into a cannibal adventure. The Endeavour returned to Sydney in mid-August 1824. Dibbs was appointed LMS Master of Ships for the Pacific station until 1827. In March 1825 he took command of the brig Haweis, ferrying missionaries and trading until mid-1827. The Haweis voyaged to Mauritius in early 1827, selling sugar in Hobart on the return, with 1st officer Mr. Doyle commanding as Dibbs remained in Tahiti.

Captain Dibbs' ships

The schooner Endeavour, about 50 tons with a crew of 8–11, was one of the first ships built in Sydney, in 1804 by James Underwood. Used for trading between Port Jackson, New Zealand and Tahiti, it was gifted by the LMS to Tamatoa II, King of Raiatea. The schooner/brig Haweis, 72 tons with a crew of 6–8 and cargo capacity around 45 tons, was built at Moʻorea, Society Islands, for the LMS by missionaries George Bignall and John Williams. Launched in December 1817 by King Pōmare II, it was named after Dr. Thomas Haweis. The Haweis proved unsuitable for its intended trade and supply missions. In November 1828, it departed Sydney for the Antipodes and Bounty Islands, leaving a sealing gang; such gangs were often stationed on remote islands, with the risk that their ship might never return.