John Germein junior was Captain of the S.S. Ceres, Yorke Peninsula trading vessel. Details are given of early coastal steamer trade in South Australia.

Ceres was built for Charles Heath acting for a group of Yorke Peninsula settlers who needed a regular supply service and formed a company to do so. Ceres was an 86 ton, 90 foot iron hulled screw steamship built by Forman & Co. of Melbourne. The company formed to manage the ship was the Coast Steamship Company of South Australia and John Germein was named in the prospectus as the captain. The Coast Steamship Company continued until 1906 when it was merged with other shipping companies to form Gulf Steam Ship Company.

Ceres made 4212 trips across the Gulf, carried over 84,000 passengers and 180,000 tons of freight. Germein captained Ceres for 27 years, retiring in 1903. He was the son of John Germein who arrived in South Australia in 1837 and who discovered Port Germein and captained a number of the government survey schooners including Waterwitch and Yatala. His uncle was Benjamin Germein, lighthouse keeper at Cape Northumberland and a key figure in saving survivors from the wreck of the steamship Admella in 1859.

Germein, John, 1847-1928

Germein, John, d. 1879

Germein, Ben, d. 1893

Historic walk of Stansbury [Stansbury, S. Aust.]: Stansbury Progress Committee, 2005

Stansbury 1873-1973, 1986 [Stansbury, S. Aust.]: Stansbury Centenary Committee, 1986

Parsons, Ronald, Yorke Peninsula shipping Magill, S.A.: R. Parsons, 1976

Parsons, Ronald, Southern passages: a maritime history of South Australia Netley, S. Aust.: Wakefield Press, 1986