Obituaries Australia

Robert Pockley, n.d.

State Library of New South Wales, 110323844

Regret in the city was expressed at the announcement of the sudden demise of Captain R F. [Robert Francis] Pockley. Captain Pockley for more than half a century has been identified with the shipping history of Australia. An old Australian geography (1846) was shown in the Merchants' Exchange, in which his opinion is quoted as to the respective merits of Boydtown and the opposite side of Twofold Bay for the site of the harbour proper. In the very early days as a boy he sailed in these seas with his father, who commanded a whaling vessel, and having qualified himself for the position of shipmaster, he came out to Sydney finally in 1841 to settle here. Captain Pockley hold the position of superintendent of pilots and lights for the colony at the time of the Donaldson Ministry, and at the date of the wreck of the Dunbar he was harbourmaster here, and went down to the scene of that memorable disaster in a whaleboat the night it occurred. In 1854 Captain Pockley married the youngest daughter of the late Major Antill, who came out to the colony with Governor Macquarie, to whom he was ADC. Dr Pockley, of St Leonard's, is a son, and one of 12 of a family, who, with the widow, are called upon to mourn their loss. Captain Pockley was Lloyd's surveyor and representative in New South Wales up to the time of his death, and held that position for 20 years.