A search of passenger lists > UK to Australia > only turned up one "Fred COWLING whose occupation was "carpenter" with a birthdate c. 1859. He arrived in Victoria, AUS, with "wife, Jane" in late November 1889. Obviously not your man.
The Age 9 Jan 1890 p6
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/197011578?
SS Port Caroline ......passengers to Melb.....Fred Cowling, Tom Cowling.....also passengers to NZ.
Just some clarification for the above two postings :
a. Although I'd looked at the image of the passenger list for
Fred COWLING, carpenter, b.c. 1859 (and "wife, Jane") arriving in Melbourne from London, late November, 1889, I failed to pick up that "Jane" was actually entered as a "single male, aged 18 years"
. And the vessel in question was the ss "Port Caroline" (as mentioned in wivenhoe's following post.)
The transcription of passenger list did show the name as "
Jane COWLING" but on reviewing the image I can see the name probably is "
Tom COWLING - aged 18 - single
male - ditto carpenter." Both Fred and Tom COWLING had contracted to land at Sydney (the next port of call after Melbourne.)
b. Passengers per ss "Port Caroline" ("The Age" Melbourne - 9 January 1890) named as Fred COWLING and Tom COWLING.
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Amongst NZ passenger lists at familysearch.org is the following for the ss "Mararoa" from Sydney for Dunedin NZ - via Bluff NZ, some 11 or so days later.
(Saloon) Passengers: Mr T. COWLING and Mr F. COWLING - Nationality : British : For Bluff:
Unfortunately there were no additional details by which to identify these men - but they do appear to be the chaps from the ss "Port Caroline" voyage.
~ Lu