12 May 1865

12 May 1865 links a social gathering at the House of Many Wishes with the transfer of the Godspeed to Francis Carver, a transaction whose consequences extended well beyond the night itself. The sale set a one-year window for an insurance appeal, while injuries Carver sustained that night disrupted his plans for the ship and delayed his assumption of command.

The party at 35 Cumberland Street

The inhabitants of 35 Cumberland Street rose early on 12 May to prepare for an evening party honouring naval officers and men with maritime connections. Mrs. Wells had hired a fiddler and ordered lemons, spruce liquor, rum, and several hundred yards of rope. She planned to cut and plait the rope into knotted wreaths for the tables, showing Anna how to make the first wreath as a template before asking her to complete the rest.

The preparations place Anna and Mrs. Wells at the centre of a carefully arranged social occasion, even as the party’s maritime theme echoes the business unfolding around the Godspeed. That evening, with the naval party in full swing, Carver arrived at the house. He told Mrs. Wells that the sale had gone through and was effective immediately; a boy was keeping watch on Alistair Lauderback until morning. The deed of sale was folded in Carver’s inside pocket.

The sale and its immediate disruption

The night of 12 May also left Carver with multiple injuries severe enough to prevent him from making the Godspeed’s scheduled departure for Melbourne the following afternoon. James Raxworthy sailed on time rather than delay the barque for Carver. Because Carver had missed the departure, he could not inform Raxworthy that ownership had changed, and had to wait for the ship’s return.

Carver spent the next four weeks convalescing under Mrs. Wells’s care. The wound to his face was stitched and later left an ugly, puckered scar, which he often touched with his fingertips and covered with his hand when speaking. The physical consequences of that night thus accompanied the practical delay: although the sale had taken effect, Carver could not immediately take charge of the vessel.

A date with financial consequences

The sale’s timing later mattered because Lauderback had protection and indemnity cover on his ships through the Garrity Group, a shipowners’ cooperative. Each vessel carried credit of nearly a thousand pounds. Carver could legally seek those funds toward the cost of removing the Godspeed wreck from the Hokitika spit, but only if he filed his appeal before the middle of May, when a year would have passed since the sale and Lauderback’s legal obligation to the ship would end.

Gascoigne had independently traced the arrangement through Balfour Shipping, newspaper archives, the Harbourmaster’s office, and the Reserve Bank. He knew that Carver’s eligibility was real, not merely a possibility raised in conversation. The date of the transfer therefore became a deadline: the same transaction that placed the ship in Carver’s hands also governed how long he could draw on cover associated with Lauderback’s ownership.

Disputed ownership and proxy

Lauderback later objected when Carver attempted to draw on the protection-and-indemnity funds. He accused Carver of planning the arrangement from the outset and insisted that Crosbie Wells had never bought the Godspeed; in his account, Carver had signed the contract using another man’s name. Gascoigne observed that, on the evidence available, no law appeared to have been broken: Carver’s letter to the cooperative presented him as acting for the dead Wells, the apparent shipowner’s proxy in settling the wreck’s costs.

That dispute gives 12 May significance beyond a date in the chronology. The sale established the formal ownership on which Carver’s claim depended, while the concealed identity behind the transaction made its legal appearance vulnerable to Lauderback’s challenge. The approaching anniversary turned the date into both a financial opportunity and a point of pressure in the continuing contest over who could act for the Godspeed.