On Saturday March 12, 1881, a sailing schooner flying the Liberian flag entered the harbor of Noumea with, on board, nearly two hundred and fifty passengers, in an advanced state of anemia. The engine had broken down and had just been tacking the reefs off the coast of New Ireland.
This episode is just one of the many twists and turns of an incredible affair that hit the headlines between 1879 and 1884.
It started with the overflowing imagination of an enterprising, idealistic and somewhat megalomaniac Breton aristocrat.
Charles Bonaventure Marie du Breil de Rays, native of Lorient, south of Brittany, from an old noble family, was the last heir of the castle of Quimerc’h in Bannalec, Finistère.
In his younger years, he was an adventurer having traveled to America, Senegal and Indochina. And it was under the title of Marquis de Rays that he became the instigator of an unsuccessful attempt at a “free and Catholic” colony in Oceania.
The English authorities had refused him the colonization of a part of Western Australia he has been asking for. So he chose New Ireland (currently a province in the northeast of Papua New Guinea) for his settlement project.
He would never set foot there for his whole life…
The India, the shooner that reached Noumea, was the third ship of the expedition. Several passengers had died during the crossing before reaching the New Caledonia coast. All from Europe, most of them were farmers of Italian nationality, native from from Venice area. Among them were several women, and most of all, 85 children, almost dying of exhaustion.
Fleeing poverty, they have been attracted by the enticing promises made by the Marquis’boisterous advertising campaign.
But the disappointment on arrival in New Ireland (then renamed New France) had been so great that they did not want to repeat the experience of a landing in unknown land. So they therefore refused to disembark at Noumea, then a penal colony, fixed on one and only obsession: Australia.
The India having been judged unseaworthy by the French authorities, was sold at auction. The money from the sale allowed the refugees to charter an Australian ship, the James Paterson, with which most of them were able to reach Sydney.
However, a few remained and settled in New Caledonia…
The Italian settlers who boarded the James-Paterson were rescued by the Australian government on their arrival in Australia.
They did not speak English, but almost all of them were farmers. The government, in search of immigrants able to raise the virgin lands of Australia, issued them land grants.
Thus, they founded a hamlet which took the form of a farming community. It was first named Cella-Venezia, then New Italy and was located north of Sydney, at the mouth of the Richmond River.
Living initially from logging, they gradually managed to develop crops and prospered until the late 1930s.
Today this village has completely disappeared and the descendants have dispersed further north towards the Lismore region.
A monument along the “Pacific Highway” was first established to commemorate the memory of the pioneers.
Then, in recent years, a small museum (New Italy Museum) has emerged between Byron Bay and Grafton, dedicated to the spiritual heritage left by all these emigrant families who survived the expeditions of the Marquis de Rays.
The virtual museum, on its website, also presents several stories told by their descendants, including Anthony Robertson, from two different families who traveled on the India and whose family’s stories inspired a sympathetic song.
Du Breil de Rays family
Here lie
Monsieur Charles Bonaventure Marie
Dubreil
Marquis de Rays
Born 2nd January 1832
Deceased 29th July 1893
Pray for him
Emelie Marie
Dubreil de Rays
Deceased 8th August 1871
1 year old