Emma (1808 ship)
1809 ship
Emma was a merchant vessel launched at Calcutta in 1809 that in 1810 served as a government armed ship in the British invasion of Île de France. In 1811 she sailed to England where she was sold. She then became a transport and later a whaler. Between 1815 and 1853 she made 11 whaling voyages. She was then sold and became a merchantman on the England-Australia run. Between 1851 and 1853 she made one more whaling voyage to the South Seas fisheries. She then returned to the England-Australia trade. In 1857 her home port became Hull, and she became a Greenland whaler, though that role may have begun as early as 1855. She was converted in 1864 to a screw steamer but was lost in April while seal hunting.
Career
Initially, Emma was under the command of Captain Frazer Sinclair, trading between Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras.
The public source identifies “Emma (1808 ship)” as 1809 ship. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Emma and ship.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Emma (1808 ship)”, the useful work is to connect “1809 ship” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q48734794. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1809, 1810, 1811 and 1815.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Emma (1808 ship)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Emma (1808 ship) primary sources, Emma (1808 ship) archive and Emma research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Emma (1808 ship)”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Emma (1808 ship)” 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.