Nestled between the coastal town of Port Campbell and the Twelve Apostles rock formations along Victoria’s world-famous Great Ocean Road is the stunning beach nook known as Loch Ard Gorge. Part of Port Campbell National Park, on Kirrae Whurrung Country about 230 kilometres from central Melbourne, the gorge is named after the most famous of the many shipwrecks in the (aptly named) Shipwreck Coast area.
Early one stormy winter morning in 1878, an English ship called the Loch Ard struck a reef just off Mutton Bird Island and sank. Twenty-six-year-old George Gibb was the unfortunate captain, making his first trip as port master, all the way from London to Melbourne. He was lost to the savage sea along with fifty passengers and crew members on board.
The only two survivors were teenagers similar in age, but from vastly different social classes. Eighteen-year-old Eva Carmichael, a first-class passenger and daughter of a doctor, clung to a floating chicken coop in the ocean for several hours after she was washed overboard. Her parents and six siblings, who were also on the ship, all drowned.
Eva was reportedly rescued by Thomas Richard Pearce, a lowly apprentice working on the Loch Ard. Thomas had managed to swim into the small bay that became known as Loch Ard Gorge, and spotted Eva in the water. He swam back out to help her, and the pair managed to struggle back to shore.
The story goes that Eva and Thomas sheltered on the beach in a cave, where they drank brandy (for medicinal purposes, naturally) from a case washed ashore in the ship’s wreckage. Once Tom was appropriately dosed up, he managed to scale the sheer limestone cliffs surrounding the bay in search of help. He followed a sheep track to the remote Glenample Homestead—the only established property in the otherwise vacant area spanning hundreds of kilometres at that time. Farm workers from the property rendered assistance, and the shipwreck survivors were saved.
The tale tugged at the hearts of a 19th-century public who were apparently pretty desperate for romance. The media storm that followed focused heavily on ‘will they / won’t they?’ and the public pressure for them to marry was intense. It seems people wanted a fairytale ending to this dramatic tale of survival.
But Eva and Thomas, from different worlds and social classes, went their separate ways.
Thomas was awarded a gold medal for bravery by the Victorian Humane Society and was lauded a hero. He returned to working on ships, and experienced another shipwreck just three months later in a vessel belonging to the same owners as the Loch Ard, this time off the coast of Ireland.
Eva went to live with family in Ireland and married a wealthy man. There is an enduring myth that Eva and Thomas crossed paths again in Ireland, with Eva apparently caring for Thomas after his next shipwreck, but this story remains unverified.
There was one other notable (but inanimate) survivor of the doomed Loch Ard. An elaborate ceramic peacock statue washed up on the beach a few days after the event, packed so well in a wooden crate that it remained fully intact. It can be seen on display in the Flagstaff Maritime Museum and Village in Warrnambool, Victoria.
