Eliza Fraser
British shipwreck survivor
Eliza Anne Fraser (née Slack; c. 1798 – 1858) was an English woman known for being shipwrecked at K'gari, an island off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 22 May 1836. After being rescued from the island, she spoke and wrote of her experiences, including claims of being captured and enslaved by "Indians", native Butchalla people. The island was renamed 'Fraser Island', in honour of her deceased husband Captain James Fraser. It was renamed to its traditional name of K'gari in June 2023.
Life
She was the wife of Captain James Fraser, master of the brig Stirling Castle. There were 18 people aboard the ship and a cargo mainly of spirits, which may have been involved in the accident. They struck a reef hundreds of kilometres north of K'gari Island. They then launched a longboat and a pinnace, the latter of which landed on the northern side of Waddy Point on K'gari Island. The 11 survivors split up into two groups, Eliza and her husband in the second group, and attempted to trek south, surviving on pandanus and berries until they reached Hook Point. Eliza later claimed she was captured by the Badtjala; her husband either died from starvation or from his injuries.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5362134. VIAF identifies the subject as 231306608. The Library of Congress control number is n95037320. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1798, 1858, 1836 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eliza Fraser” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.