"Australian Sea Mysteries" (2nd edition) gives some details of a wooden, ketch-rigged steamship called the Douglas Mawson, built in NSW in 1914.
The first edition was published in 1984, and the second edition was reprinted in 1988. Jack Loney died in 1995.
"Australian Sea Mysteries" says that the Douglas Mawson was a wooden steamship of 333 tons, built in 1914, dimensions being 141.6 X 30.7 X 8.6 feet.
It includes this photo of the vessel: -
Details given state that the Douglas Mawson, named after Australian explorer Sir Douglas Mawson, was built at Bawley Point, New South Wales. It “was under charter to the Macleay Co-operative Society until 1922 and operated between Sydney and the northern river ports of New South Wales. Later she was purchased by the Commonwealth Government, then chartered to the Queensland firm of John Burke. When their steamer Kallatina was withdrawn from service for overhaul, Douglas Mawson replaced her, only to disappear.”
Loney said that the Douglas Mawson disappeared in a cyclone in the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1923. It had “traded around South-eastern Australia before being purchased by the Queensland Government in 1921, to maintain regular sea communication between Cairns and ports in the Gulf of Carpentaria.”
It had arrived in Normanton on its regular run in mid-March 1923 and discharged its cargo. It then went to Burketown, before leaving there on 26th March to head back to Cairns. It ran into a cyclone and was not seen again.
An inquiry decided that it had foundered near the Coen River on 28th March. There had been the captain with a crew of twelve on board, and seven passengers, Mr & Mrs Willett and their five children, three boys and two girls.
Wreckage from the ship was found on the beach north of Mount Alexander by the crew on the lugger Iolanthe in March 1924. Nothing much was found during several searches of the area.
It has been said that the Douglas Mawson crashed onto rocks and some people drowned. Survivors built two huts, one for men and another for women.
It seems from reports received about the incident that all of the survivors of the wreck were killed by natives, except for the three females. The three females, a woman and two girls, were reportedly later seen at Bradshaw’s Inlet, near Point Bradshaw. The woman had apparently given birth to another child.
A second version of the incident suggests that it was just a motor launch from the Douglas Mawson that had capsized, drowning the four men in it. The natives then killed the remaining survivors, except for a mother and her daughter(and possibly a younger daughter).
It is rumoured that they lived with the natives for more than a decade, but despite some attempts to rescue them, the three were never found.
There is a Wikipedia page about the Douglas Mawson. It states that the claim that some wreckage thought to come from the Douglas Mawson found on Prince of Wales Island on18th May 1923 has since been disproved.
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