| John Peirce Burt
The death of Captain John Peirce Burt on May 15, on the steamer Jervis Bay, at sea, of heart failure, has been reported. Captain Burt was born in 1855 at Long Gully, Bendigo, , Victoria, the son of William Henry, and Elizabeth Burt, who had been hotelkeepers during the gold digging days in that portion of the State. He was educated at Bendigo High School, and at the age of l8, after several voyages to London, regularly adopted the sea, and for 17 years followed that vocation over the four seas of the globe, mostly in the old windjammer type of vessel. He graduated to the position of foreign going master mariner, attaining also an exemption for the Port of Melbourne. He visited Cairns as master of tho barque Franz during his period afloat, and about 1880 joined the Melbourne Harbour Trust, and remained in that employ for nine year. During that term he was a member of the Victorian Naval Brigade, then under local control.
He went to Townsville in 1898 as second mate of the dredge Crocodile, which had been purchased in Melbourne for North Queensland, and on the Crocodile being put into commission at Townsville was appointed master. He remained in Townsville for some 20 years. having controlled both the Crocodile and Cleveland Bay dredges, and during his residence was flag officer of the Townsville Sailing club, in which he took a keen interest. He retired from Townsville Harbour Board about four years ago owing to his wife's illness, and Mrs. Burt died at Sydney in 1923. Captain Burt was lately employed bv McWhirters Ltd., Brisbane, for some 15 months, and during that employ made a second visit to Le Havre, France, for the purpose, of visiting the grave of his youngest son in the military cemetery at St. Marie, Monte Villiers. This was Clarence Edgar Burt, who was a member of the 15th reinforcements of the 31st Battalion of the A.I.F. Captain Burt had recently been on a visit lo his daughter, Mrs. F. McArthur, of Sydney, and was on his way home to reside with Harold, the eldest son, at Redbank, when he died. At the time of his death he was the oldest member of the King Solomon Masonic Lodge, Melbourne.
The Brisbane Courier, 10 June 1927 |
