SS Douglas Mawson was an Australian coastal steamer that was lost in the Gulf of Carpentaria around 28 March 1923 along with 20 passengers and crew.
[1] In 1916 under Captain Chellow it was used by Blakiston and Co. to carry cement from Geelong to Tasmania It was taken over by John Burke and Son, for their Gulf trade, a poor choice of vessel according to one correspondent.
[2] It left Burketown with 20 persons— 13 crew and seven passengers— onboard on 26 March 1923 for Thursday Island under captain George Finch Tune but never arrived.
The crew consisted of first mate Richard Shewring, engineer R. D. Thompson and donkeyman John Fraser, firemen and drivers John Tully and Hector B. Dinte, cook and steward Robert Nixon, seamen James Laird, Archie McNeill, Christian Nielsen or Nielson, William Rowe, William Nugent and Maurice Giese.
James Watson, a Methodist missioner in the area, also considered the story unlikely,[11] but the Women's League of New South Wales demanded the federal government immediately send out a rescue party.