Following Peter Benson Lutge Around the World
In November 1860, the Danish sailing ship Hindoo arrived in Sydney from Chile. Among her crew was a young Danish seaman recorded as P. B. Lutje.
I believe he was my great-great-grandfather, Peter Benson Lutge, born in Aabenraa in 1837.
There was just one problem. When Peter applied for naturalisation in New South Wales in 1869, he stated that he had arrived in Australia aboard the Hindoo in 1862.
How could he have arrived in 1862 if he was already here two years earlier?
It was a question that remained unanswered until I discovered another Hindoo crew list, containing a name so badly transcribed that I had almost overlooked it.
And as I followed the evidence, I found that Peter's travels may have begun much earlier than I had imagined.
A young man from a seafaring town
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| Aabenraa Harbour, Denmark, date unknown. |
For young men growing up there, the sea offered opportunities that extended well beyond Denmark.
London, January 1859
On 24 January 1859, the Moselle arrived in London from Hamburg.
Among the men recorded on a British document headed A List of Aliens was:
P. B. Lütge — Matros — Apenrade
The initials, surname, occupation and place of origin immediately attracted my attention.
Matros means seaman, while Apenrade was the German name for Peter's home town. Interestingly, Ancestry had indexed the place as “Aguerada”, concealing a potentially important connection.
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| The Moselle arrival register, January 1859 |
Perhaps he was between engagements or on his way to join another ship. London was one of the world's great shipping centres, offering a young seaman opportunities to travel almost anywhere.
Were they acquaintances from home, or simply men travelling along the same maritime routes?
I was particularly interested in Petersen, because the name would appear again in Sydney.
Across the Pacific aboard the Hindoo
On 9 November 1860, the Hindoo arrived in Sydney from Tomé, Chile, under the command of Captain Jens Rasmussen.
The vessel was described as being of Apenrade — Peter's home town.
Among her crew was:
P. B. Lutje — Able Seaman — aged 22 — Danish
The initials and surname are consistent with Peter's name, and the occupation and nationality fit his background. The recorded age is one year younger than expected, but such discrepancies are not unusual in nineteenth-century records.
Although the entry does not establish his identity conclusively, the combination of details makes it a strong possibility.
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| The Hindoo crew list, November 1860 |
A ship with a remarkable history
The Hindoo was built at Paulsen's shipyard in Aabenraa in 1849. Her principal owner was Jacob Bendixen, a prominent local shipowner who held nine-sixteenths of the vessel.
Danish maritime historian Mikkel Leth Jespersen has documented her involvement in international trade. Her voyages took her to ports in India, China, Southeast Asia, North and South America, and Australia, carrying cargoes that included tea, silk, rice, cotton, spices and manufactured goods.
The Hindoo was part of a worldwide trading network.
We cannot assume Peter was aboard throughout her earlier history, but if P. B. Lutje was indeed our Peter, he was working on a vessel whose trading routes extended across the world.
Another name on the 1860 crew list caught my attention:
J. C. Petersen — Apprentice — aged 18
Could he have been the same J. C. Petersen recorded aboard the Moselle in London the previous year?
The ages are plausible, although the occupations differ and the London handwriting still requires verification. If they were the same man, it raises the possibility that Peter and Petersen had travelled or worked together before reaching Australia.
It is an intriguing connection, but one that remains to be established.
The discovery that may solve the mystery
For some time, I had wondered why Peter's naturalisation certificate gave 1862 as his arrival year when the earlier Hindoorecord suggested he was already in Sydney in 1860.
A sailor might visit an Australian port, continue his employment at sea and return years later to settle. That seemed a reasonable explanation, but I needed evidence of another voyage.
Then I found a second Hindoo crew list.
The vessel had returned to Sydney from Melbourne in 1862, again under a master named Rasmussen.
Among her crew was a 24-year-old Danish able seaman whose name had been transcribed in the published Mariners and Ships in Australian Waters database as:
Peter Binken Sulge
Ancestry had indexed the same man as:
Peter Benken Sultze
Neither version looked promising. But when I obtained the original handwritten record, I realised that the name might actually read:
Peter Bensen Lutge
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| The Hindoo crew list, June 1862 |
This was a much more significant discovery than either transcription had suggested.
Bensen or Benson?
The spelling of Peter's middle name is particularly interesting.
He was christened Peter Bensen Lutge in Aabenraa, and his naturalisation certificate, issued in 1869, uses the same spelling.
However, from his marriage in Sydney in 1864 through to his death in 1890, the other Australian records I have examined generally use Peter Benson Lutge.
The naturalisation certificate is therefore an exception to the spelling he otherwise used during his Australian life.
We cannot establish why he adopted or used the alternative spelling. It may have reflected an adaptation to English usage, but that remains an interpretation rather than a documented fact.
What matters here is that Bensen was a genuine form of Peter's name, making its possible appearance on the 1862 crew list particularly persuasive.
There were other similarities. The man was Danish, an able seaman, aboard a ship from Aabenraa, and his recorded age was only one year younger than Peter's.
Most importantly, Peter himself had stated that he arrived aboard the Hindoo in 1862.
For the first time, I had a contemporary record that closely matched his account.
The importance of the original record
There was also a discrepancy in the dates.
Ancestry indexes the Hindoo's arrival as 23 May 1862, whereas the original handwritten crew list is dated 3 June 1862. The published Mariners and Ships transcription also gives 3 June.
The original document establishes its recorded date, but further contemporary shipping evidence is needed to determine whether the vessel actually arrived earlier.
This is a useful reminder of why we should always examine original documents rather than relying entirely on indexes and transcriptions.
In this case, a potentially important ancestor had almost disappeared behind an unfamiliar name, while the indexed date introduced another complication.
Illustration: Original handwritten crew list for the Hindoo, dated 3 June 1862, with the sixth crew entry highlighted. The name is provisionally read as Peter Bensen Lutge.
Had Peter arrived more than once?
The evidence suggests that he may well have done so.
The most straightforward explanation is that Peter visited Sydney aboard the Hindoo in 1860 during his seafaring career, sailed away again and returned in 1862 — the year he subsequently regarded as his arrival in Australia.
Whether he left the vessel permanently at that point or continued sailing remains unknown.
But the apparent contradiction between the two years is no longer quite so mysterious.
The Hindoo's later voyages and fate
The ship's movements between her two Sydney visits contain another interesting detail.
A contemporary shipping report states that the Hindoo, under Captain Rasmussen, departed Texel in the Netherlands on 23 December 1861, bound for Melbourne.
Two days later, on Christmas Day, a ship's nameboard washed ashore at Deal, on the English coast. It bore the name HINDOO, with gilded lettering against a blue background.
A newspaper connected the discovery with the vessel's recent departure from Texel, although the identification was not established.
The Hindoo's history continued into 1863, when she grounded in Port Phillip, Victoria. According to Jespersen's research, financial claims amounting to £1,950 were subsequently made against her, and she was sold by order of the Admiralty Court.
News of the sale reached Aabenraa and appeared in the local newspaper Freja in June 1863.
We do not know whether Peter was still associated with the vessel when these events occurred.
Nevertheless, the ship's history provides a fascinating glimpse into the risks and uncertainties of nineteenth-century maritime trade.
Another possible journey — Brisbane to Sydney
The investigation has also uncovered a possible reference to Peter travelling as a passenger rather than a sailor.
On 3 March 1864, the coastal steamer Clarence arrived in Sydney from Brisbane. Among her passengers was a man recorded simply as:
Mr Lutge
Could this have been Peter?
I have not identified another man with the surname Lutge living in Australia at this time, making him a plausible candidate.
The Clarence was an iron paddle steamer operating coastal passenger and cargo services between Australian ports.
If the passenger was Peter, he was travelling from Queensland to New South Wales at the age of 26. Why he had been in Brisbane, and whether the journey was connected with his maritime employment, remain unanswered questions.
It is another possible glimpse of his movements during the years before he established his family in Sydney.
From seaman to stevedore
Peter's naturalisation certificate, issued on 26 June 1869, records his occupation as:
Ship Owner
That description raises an interesting question. Had Peter progressed from working seaman to owning a vessel or holding shares in one?
In other records, he is described as a stevedore, involved in the loading and unloading of ships in port. His work would have kept him closely connected with the maritime industry, even after he ceased sailing.
I have not found independent evidence identifying a vessel that Peter owned. The naturalisation certificate establishes that Ship Owner was his recorded occupation in 1869, but it does not explain the nature of any ownership interest.
It is possible that he held shares in a vessel or was involved in a shipping enterprise, but further research is needed.
What is clear is that Peter's working life remained closely connected with the ships and cargoes arriving in Sydney Harbour.
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| View from The Rocks over Sydney Cove, 1875 |
From Danish sailor to the founder of our Australian family
On 19 October 1864, Peter married Mary Bonner, a young Irishwoman from County Donegal who had arrived in Sydney aboard the Hotspur in December 1863.
They married at St Mary's Cathedral and began raising their family in The Rocks, where Peter worked as a stevedore and, for a time, operated the Dumbarton Castle Hotel in Kent Street.
Together they had ten children. Peter also became involved in a stevedoring partnership with Richard Moran, and by the mid-1880s the family had moved across the harbour to Military Road, Mosman.
Sadly, Mary died in June 1889, aged just 42, and Peter followed in May 1890, aged 52.
Among their children were John Henry Lutge, my great-grandfather, and Denis (Dinny) Lutge, who went on to become a prominent Australian rugby footballer and captain of the inaugural Kangaroo touring squad in 1908.
It is remarkable to think that the young sailor whose name appears in those difficult-to-decipher shipping records became the ancestor of so many of us.
His journey from Aabenraa to Sydney was not simply the story of one man's travels. It was the beginning of our family's Australian history.
More than a date of arrival
When I began investigating Peter's arrival in Australia, I expected to establish a date and perhaps identify the ship that brought him here.
Instead, the records have revealed a much more interesting picture of a young man whose working life took him far beyond his Danish home town.
There are still unanswered questions. Where did he first join the Hindoo? Did he travel with other young men from Aabenraa? When did he finally leave the sea? And was the passenger aboard the Clarence in 1864 our Peter?
But the discovery of the second Hindoo crew list has brought us considerably closer to understanding his arrival in Australia.
It has also reinforced something I have learned repeatedly through family-history research: sometimes the evidence we need is already there, hidden behind an incorrect transcription, an unexpected spelling or a record we have not yet examined closely enough.
What began as a search for an arrival date has become a journey through the ports, ships and records of the nineteenth century — and another chapter in the story of the family Peter established in Australia.
Research notes and sources
The identification of Peter in the 1859 Moselle record and the two Hindoo crew lists is based on the combination of his name, nationality, occupation, age and connection with Aabenraa. Although the evidence is persuasive, these identifications remain provisional.
The original 1862 Hindoo crew list is dated 3 June, while Ancestry indexes the arrival as 23 May. Contemporary shipping notices may help reconcile the difference.
The possible identification of J. C. Petersen in both London and Sydney, and of Mr Lutge aboard the Clarence in 1864, also requires further investigation.
Sources
Peter Bensen Lutge, christening record, 1837. Aabenraa, Schleswig. Original family-history research.
British Alien Arrivals, 24 January 1859. Original List of Aliens, vessel Moselle, Hamburg to London. The National Archives, Home Office series HO 3, accessed through Ancestry.
Registration of Aliens Act 1836. British legislation governing declarations of foreign nationals arriving by sea, including provisions concerning mariners. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Will4/6-7/11/pdfs/ukpga_18360011_en.pdf
NSW Shipping Master's Office, 9 November 1860. Hindoo from Tomé, Chile, Captain Jens Rasmussen. NRS 13278, reel 408. Transcribed by P. and H. Smith (2004), Mariners and Ships in Australian Waters: https://marinersandships.com.au/1860/11/014hin.htm
NSW Shipping Master's Office, 1862. Original handwritten Hindoo crew list, Melbourne to Sydney, dated 3 June 1862. NRS 13278, reel 410. Original image accessed through Ancestry, New South Wales, Australia, Unassisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1826–1922, which indexes the arrival as 23 May 1862. Transcribed by Anne Dugan (2004), Mariners and Ships in Australian Waters: https://marinersandships.com.au/1862/05/067hon.htm
Peter Bensen Lutge, Certificate of Naturalization, 26 June 1869. New South Wales. Original certificate in family collection. Records arrival aboard the Hindoo in 1862, without a day or month.
NSW Shipping Master's Office, 3 March 1864. Inward passenger list, coastal steamer Clarence, Brisbane to Sydney. Records “Mr Lutge” among the passengers. Available through Ancestry.
Mikkel Leth Jespersen (2016). “Skibsreder Jacob Bendixen fra Stolliggård: En Aabenraa-matadors storhed og fald.” Sønderjyske Årbøger.
Contemporary shipping intelligence, 1861–1862. Report concerning the Hindoo's departure from Texel on 23 December 1861 and the discovery of a nameboard at Deal.
Museum Sønderjyllands Mediearkiv. Aabenraa. Havneparti, photograph B32870, undated. https://arkiv.dk/vis/5493540
Family records and earlier research. Marriage of Peter Lutge and Mary Bonner, 19 October 1864; subsequent occupational, family and death records.
