The wreck of the Neva: uncovering the cover-up

On 8th January 1835 the Neva sailed from Cork, Ireland destined for Sydney. There were 241 people on board, most of them either female convicts or the wives and children of already deported convicts journeying to join their loved ones. However, on 13th May 1835 the ship hit a reef just north of King Island, Tasmania, and sank with the loss of 224 lives. The Neva was Australia’s second-largest maritime disaster and suffered the worst loss of life for a convict transport.

Kevin Todd is from Cork in Ireland and first came to Australia in 1981 where he studied at Sydney College of the Arts and the Tasmanian School of Art, Hobart. Kevin co-authored The Wreck of the Neva with Irish historian Cal McCarthy and it was first published in Ireland in 2013 by Mercier Press. An updated version has recently been published in Hobart by Navarine Publishing.