The Hunter River Steam Navigation Company are forming an establishment at Pyrmont (exactly opposite their Wharf) at which they intend to perform all the works requisite for keeping in repair their boats and machinery. They have already made a wharf, with a stone front, at which any of their vessels can lay, on which have been erected sheers, seventy feet long, capable of lifting an immense weight, and with which the worn out boilers have been taken out of the Thistle, and the new boilers will be lifted in as soon as she comes off the Patent Slip, where she is now being thoroughly overhauled. A boiler shed, engineers', carpenters', and blacksmiths' shops are to be erected ; and the establishment, when completed, which will of course be some time hence, will be the most complete in the colony.

SG 10 Jan 1846.

Moreton Bay.

March 4 [1846] The steamer Thistle, which has commenced running to this port in place of the Sovereign, arrived in the Bay on Sunday, but did not get up to the township until midnight of Monday, having unfortunately got aground on the river bar, Captain Mulhall taking no pilot ; her detention here has been very short, only thirty-six hours. From the greater speed and stowage this splendid boat possesses over the Sovereign we shall be enabled to have the most of the wool in Sydney as fast as it arrives in town. That article still continues to arrive from the interior, and from the dearth of teams to carry it down, a portion of the late clip will not be all down until May or June.

The Hunter River Steam Navigation Company's vessel Tamar has undergone a thorough repair at their Pyrmont establishment. The whole of the machinery has been taken out of her, and the working parts renewed, and her boilers are entirely new. She has been on the Slip and had her bottom examined and been strengthened with new beams in various parts.
SG 30 May 1846

Australasian Steam Navigation Company:

The Hunter River Steam Navigation Company has ceased to exist, and the Australasian Steam Navigation Company has taken its place, all the assets of the old company having, by a previous arrangement, been transferred to the new one. The new company starts with every prospect of being profitable to the shareholders, and beneficial to this and the neighbouring colonies. Its operations will be gradually extended so as to connect " all the Australian" with each other by lines of steamers starting from the different ports. In addition to the boats which have been hitherto running in the colony, three new vessels are now building for the company in Scotland. One of them, the Yarra, is intended for the Southern trade ; the second, the Waratah, is intended for the Northern districts : and the third, the Brisbane, is intended to run in the river Brisbane, Moreton Bay. There is no institution in the colony which is more entitled to success than the new steam company. The capital of the company is at present �80,000, but there are provisions in the deed for extending the amount as the increasing trade of the colonies may render it necessary.

Circa 1851.

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