GHOST WARRIOR | Jimmy Morrill. Cet article n’est pas disponible.GHOST WARRIOR | Jimmy Morrill

This is a work of fiction that is based on the true story of the wreck of the barque, Peruvian and its aftermath, and many of the events described actually took place.

The Peruvian was lost in a gale off the east coast of Australia in February 1846. When it was found wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef several months later there was evidence that some of the passengers and crew may have constructed a raft and abandoned ship. Nothing further was heard, however, and it was assumed all on board had perished.

A shipping agent based in Sydney in the Colony of New South Wales, Clem Ross, had contracted a young sailor James Murrells, (also known as Jimmy Morrill) for the voyage, and he became obsessed with the possibility that Jimmy, and perhaps others may have survived. Seventeen years later a man claiming to be a sailor from the Peruvian made contact with shepherds at an outstation on the Burdekin River near Cleveland Bay in North Queensland telling the astonished men that he had been living with an Australian Aboriginal tribe. The man was Jimmy Morrill and this is his story.

Laurence Joseph Murphy was born in Scotland, the eldest of six boys, to Irish and Scottish parents. The family arrived in Adelaide, South Australia in 1960 as ten pound tourists. (Assisted immigration). He met his future wife Anne, while on a surveying expedition to North Queensland with the Australian Army and they were married in 1969. They moved to Anne's hometown of Cairns, Queensland in 1972, and thus began a lifelong interest in the history of the north of the continent. Their six children have moved on to greener pastures and they now live in retirement with a dog, various native animals, including possums, kangaroos and a tribe of rock wallabies, on a rural property south of Townsville, Queensland. His home, built on a hilltop on 100 acres of land, has views over to Cleveland Bay and Mount Elliot, both of which figure largely in the story of Jimmy Morrill.