The Titanic captured the recent headlines, but the loss of another ship caused greater devastation to Oxfordshire families.

The Cataraqui, a British barque sailing ship, sank in Australian waters on August 4, 1845, claiming 400 lives. Ninety-two people from Oxfordshire were among those who perished, mostly poor people hoping to start a new and better life ‘Down Under’.

They included 43 from Tackley, 15 from Stonesfield, nine from Kiddington, four from Wootton and others from Chesterton, Stoke Lyne, Fringford, Fritwell and Great Haseley.

The ship, which had left Liverpool four months earlier, was just two days from Melbourne when it hit rocks in a gale at 4.30am, broke in half and went down, off the south-west coast of King Island in the Bass Strait.

Terry Pratley, of School Road, Finstock, who has researched the disaster, became interested after realising he was born in a farm cottage less than a mile from Stonesfield.

The 15 Stonesfield people who died were William Barrett, his wife Mary Ann and their four children, James and Hannah Rawlins with their family of six, and James Oliver, 20.

Mr Pratley writes: “William Barrett had been transported to Bermuda for some misdemeanour, only to return and meet his fate on the Cataraqui.”

One Stonesfield couple, George Poole and Mary Ann Hopkins, had a lucky escape.

Mr Pratley tells me: “They were engaged in 1845, but did not have time to marry before the Cataraqui sailed.

“Although accepted for the journey, they were dissuaded from travelling, possibly by their families, as they were still unmarried.

“They married later in 1845 and had one daughter, Sarah, but sadly, Mary Ann died of typhus in 1847, aged 21. George later married Mary Ann’s sister, Harriet, and they had a number of children and were still in Stonesfield in 1891.”

Only nine people – eight crew and one passenger – survived Australia’s worst maritime disaster in peacetime. They managed to reach King Island, where they shared salvaged provisions with survivors of another wreck in the same waters. After five weeks, they were rescued by the cutter, Midge, and taken to Melbourne.

Mr Pratley has written a lengthy poem about the disaster, and other research has been carried out by Carol Richmond, of Oxfordshire Family History and Society, and Barry McKay, of Tackley Local History Group.

Mr Pratley writes: “There is a plaque commemorating the Tackley victims in the village church, but nothing, as far as I know, in Stonesfield.

“I mentioned the story to some Stonesfield people recently and none of them had heard of the Cataraqui.”