The Juno wreck

The Juno wreck is one of the abandoned vessels in the Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard in the North Arm of the Port River, Port Adelaide. The Juno was a 241-ton steel-hulled screw steamer built by George Brown & Co. in Greenock, Scotland in 1903. It was placed between the Flinders and the Mangana in the ships’ graveyard in 1931. All three vessels were placed there in that same year (1931). The Juno is further in the mangroves than the Flinders and the Mangana. According to the “Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard Maritime Heritage Trail” booklet published by the Department for Environment and Heritage in 2001, “The Juno’s bow extends for approximately 4m into the mangroves with the forward collision bulkhead and foc’s’cle bulkhead evident.”

The booklet says that the Juno was ‘schooner-rigged’. It was built for the Coast Steamship Company in South Australia. Its dimensions were length 39.6m, breadth 7m, depth 2.6m.

It arrived in SA in February 1904 as a replacement for the smaller Ceres. According to the “Pioneer” newspaper for 27th February 1904, “Construction similar to the company's steamer Ceres, she is a counterpart of the latter vessel on a somewhat larger modern scale.  

The “Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard Maritime Heritage Trail” booklet says, “On or about 21 April 1931 the Juno’s remains were towed from the bank at the Port Adelaide slipway lease and abandoned at Garden Island.”

The South Australian Maritime Museum has these plans of the “General Arrangement of SS Juno: -

General Arrangement of SS Juno, Port Adelaide

(photograph by Catherine Manning, courtesy of the SAMM).

Erica-Jane Miller’s 2018 thesis titled “Treasured Collections - Memories, Ship Memorabilia and Connections Between People and Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard” (which I assisted her with) states, “The details of the plan are printed in white and have been drawn with a scale in mind (no scale is visible), appearing geometric is design.” The thesis describes several artefacts held by the SAMM from the Juno, plus a photo album and a sketchbook.

Erica-Jane mentions the Juno when discussing the photo album, “One of these ships pictured is Juno, known for providing transport and mail throughout the St Vincent Gulf region. ….. the image of Juno depicts the ship decks filled with many passengers, fluttering bunting flags and clear skies. This illustrates that a special occasion must have occurred, thus connecting the remains of Juno to an event important to the Port Adelaide community.”

In 2019, I managed to track down this bell from the Juno at the Largs Bay Primary School: -

 

It had been used as the school bell in earlier years when it was mounted in the school yard. It is now on display in the school office.

A 1928 photo of the Juno from an AJ Taylor postcard features in “Photographic Album of South Australian Passenger Vessels” by W. John Thomson (ISBN 064642922-1).

East Carolina University’s Nathan Richards’ thesis “Deep Structures: An Examination of Deliberate Watercraft Abandonment in Australia” (January 2002) is all about the Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard.