William Alexander Mouat

Who was William Alexander Mouat?

William Alexander Mouat was baptised on 9 April 1821 in Eastcheap, in the City of London. He was born into a seafaring family. His father William Mouat - born 1774 in Kirkwall, Orkney - was a master mariner and later a coal merchant and a coal meter in the City of London. William Alexander’s mother was Elizabeth Ingles born 1796 in East London. He had two older siblings: Elizabeth Ann Mouat who married John Edward Foster a master mariner and John Ingles Mouat who, according to a statement by his great nephew, drowned at sea off the coast of Madagascar. Captain Foster and his wife Elizabeth Ann were early settlers in New Zealand.

William Alexander Mouat began his sailing career as an apprentice in 1835 at the age of fourteen. In 1844 he served as second mate of the Hudson's Bay Company steam bark Vancouver under the command of Captain Andrew Cook Mott. He sailed to North America and arrived in Fort Vancouver, in what is now Washington state and then the "capital" of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia District, on 27 March 1845. From 28 April 1845 until the end of February 1847 he was first officer of the Cadboro under Captain James Scarborough.