["Court Cases", The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), Wednesday 04 September 1912, page 4]
COURT CASES.
KOOMBANA WRECK RECALLED.
APPLICATIONS FOR PROBATE.
At the Full Court on Tuesday two applications for probate were heard which recalled the sad fate of the steamer Koombana.
Mr. S. H. Skipper made application on behalf of Seaborne Robert Cottrell Allen (executor) that probate be granted in the estate of the late Thomas Maurice Allen, master of the steamer Koombana, which was lost some months ago off the north-west coast of Western Australia. Mr. Skipper asked for leave to swear that the death of the testator had occurred between Port Hedland and Broome, North-West Australia, on or since March 20 last. The motion was supported by affidavit by Peter Donaldson Haggart (secretary of the Adelaide Steamship Company), Walter Vernon Ray, Robert A. Smith, and Stoddart A. Poole. It was mentioned by Mr. Skipper that the Koombana left Port Hedland on March 20 and on the next morning she should have arrived at Broome, 204 miles distant. A few hours after the vessel's departure there was a terrific cyclone and the vessel had not been heard of since. Althought steamers had been sent out in search of the missing vessel nothing had since been heard of it, and he believed that no wreckage had been found. Insurance had been paid on the vessel as a total loss.
The court granted the application.
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