Signals, issue 116

SIGNALS quarterly NUMBER 116 SEPTEMBER • OCTOBER • NOVEMBER 2016

SPIRIT FIGURES Art and culture of Arnhem Land

HAROLD CAZNEAUX Lost waterscapes of last century

GHOST SHIPS Baltic Sea wrecks

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Contents SPRING 2016

3 BEARINGS From the director 5 THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS Lost waterscapes of last century by master photographer Harold Cazneaux 10 FINDING TINGIRA Luxury passenger clipper, reform ship, naval training vessel – where’s Tingira now?

20 A GHOST SHIP AND A TRAVELLING MAN Wrecks from the Baltic Sea’s massive ship graveyard 27 ‘MY MISERABLE ALLOWANCE’ Poignant relics from the Bounty mutiny 33 THE VAUGHAN EVANS LIBRARY The museum’s first asset celebrates 30 years of service 38 SIGNALS GOES DIGITAL Your Members’ magazine is now available on iPad 40 REMEMBERING BRITAIN’S CHILD MIGRANTS Our travelling exhibition winds up, leaving an important research legacy 44 BLOCKADE RUNNER An Australian merchant seaman becomes an accidental hero of the Spanish Civil War 52 A CHANCE ENCOUNTER Dirk Hartog sails into history and puts Australia’s west coast on the map 58 MESSAGE TO MEMBERS AND MEMBERS SPRING EVENTS Your calendar of activities, talks, tours and excursions afloat 70 SPRING EXHIBITIONS Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Through a Different Lens and more 77 FOUNDATION The museum is given a portrait of polar vessel Aurora 81 MARITIME HERITAGE AROUND AUSTRALIA The Tacoma Preservation Society, South Australia 89 OUT OF PORT Searching for an India-trade horse transport on the Great Barrier Reef 96 AUSTRALIAN REGISTER OF HISTORIC VESSELS Surf clubs, surf boats and community connections 102 COLLECTIONS Spirit figures from Arnhem Land embody Yol u tradition 107 TALES FROM THE WELCOME WALL A Dutch couple swaps The Netherlands for Australia 113 READINGS The art of the French voyages to Polynesia by Christine Hemming 116 CURRENTS ŋ

Cover: Mokuy spirit figures by Nawurapu Wunungmurra, an artist of the Yolŋu people of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. © Nawurapu Wunungmurra, source Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts Centre. See story on page 102. Photograph by Andrew Frolows/ ANMM

Vale Warwick Turner; Indigenous sea rights flag flies over the museum; meet Bailey, our salty sea dog

120 TRANSMISSIONS

Unlocking the collection – bringing the museum’s treasures to digital life

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Bearings FROM THE DIRECTOR

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MY JOB TITLE is a great conversation starter. People love to tell me what they think about our collection and our exhibitions.

Their passion is wonderful and frequently I am asked what goes on behind the scenes at the museum.

While many know about the critical work of volunteers, curators, conservators, educators and our front of house and security staff, few are aware of the breadth and depth of skills required to operate a modern museum. A less well-known dimension of museum business is our design studio, where our specialists in industrial, digital and graphic design are to be found. Under the inspired leadership of Michael Harvey and Alex Gaffikin, we have at the ANMM a team of designers who first imagine and then create the environments that regularly enthral our visitors and, most importantly, inspire them to learn.

Good design is predicated on a deep understanding of the needs of people and, in museums, of how they can be actively encouraged to learn. After all, modern museums are principally places we go to be inspired to learn. My own thinking on this has been substantially influenced by the Harvard psychologist and educator Howard Gardner, who put forward the theory of multiple intelligences in the 1980s. The practical application of Gardner’s theory for museums is that the best exhibitions should be festooned with experiences that not only engage all the senses, but get you to use your entire body.

01 Museum Director and CEO Kevin Sumption

beside the Waterfront Pavilion, which houses the museum’s Action Stations exhibition.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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More and more museums are adopting a design-led approach to the development of new experiences. In part this is because of the sophisticated media technologies that allow us to transport people via high-definition imagery and sound back to ‘imagined’ historic moments. For our digital generation, these mediated experiences are as important as, and sometimes even more important than, object-based experiences. That said, it is my view that an entirely digital museum experience can be one of the least inspiring. The real challenge for museums is to find exciting ways to engage our increasingly ‘touch-screen’ audiences and at the same time bring them into contact with the real artefacts that populated our past. In this way we don’t entirely leave behind the 19th- and 20th-century focus on collection objects, but instead use contemporary design tools to build multi-sensory, content-rich, hybrid experiences tailored for each of us.

This is a journey the ANMM has already embarked on with our new Action Stations exhibition. Here we combined digital interactives with robust objects to deliver a unique environment encouraging what I call ‘sneaky’ learning, particularly for children. Kids are naturally observant and pick up on subtle cues. We had this in mind when we decided to use a ‘vernacular’ approach to the exterior walls of Action Stations, on which you will find reproductions of tattoo images sourced from the sailors who served on the warships.

The tattoos have the effect of personalising the architecture and to this we added a selection of durable everyday objects that the crew would have encountered working on the ship.

The effect we were after was to give a sense of what the everyday might have looked and felt like for a sailor on board a warship of the Cold War era.

The museum is indeed fortunate to have so many creative, dedicated and inspiring staff members who devise and deliver such memorable experiences for our visitors. It’s their world-class skills and experience that have allowed us to break all attendance records this year – our 25th year – with more than 1.5 million visitors over the last 12 months enjoying the exhibitions and programs they have assembled, not just across Australia, but also in Monaco, Indonesia, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Kevin Sumption

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Through a different lens CAZNEAUX BY THE WATER

A new exhibition of the photographs of Harold Cazneaux is on now at the museum.

Combining famous and lesser-known images with personal albums and mementoes, it surveys the life and long career of this renowned pictorialist, writes Senior Curator Daina Fletcher.

01 01 Harold Cazneaux, A study in curves, 1931,

gelatin silver photograph, chloro bromide, matt print. It shows the Chilean Naval Training Ship General Barquedano in September 1931 and reflects pictorialist themes contrasting the old and the new. ANMM Collection 00054649

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PHOTOGRAPHER HAROLD CAZNEAUX (1878–1953) is a giant in the history of Australian photography. In the late 1890s he became interested in the idea of photography as art, rather than a mechanical recording process, when he was exposed to the work of European photographers working in a new, dominant photographic style known as the pictorialist movement.

He was to become its most passionate advocate in Australia – exploring poetry, mood and form through his impressionistic ‘seeing’ eye. His camera art captured the romance, light and life in the world as it changed around him.

‘Often haze and mist works wonders with these subjects, cutting down insistent detail, so that the masses and tones become much more picturesque’

Over the course of the next 50 years Cazneaux produced some of Australia’s iconic photographic images, including Razzle Dazzle (1911), The Japanese blind (1915) and in 1937 The spirit of endurance, his powerful image of a eucalypt rising from, and clinging to, the dry South Australian earth.

Water, too, interested him. It was the perfect medium for his experimentations with creating mood, atmosphere and impression on the picture plane. An exhibition of more than 50 original works at the museum presents this new dimension to Cazneaux’s work, reflecting how the water and Sydney Harbour fit within his oeuvre, his signature pictorial photographic style and his foray into modernism and abstract form.

Cazneaux was born into the commercial studio system.

Both his parents, Emma (Emily, née Bentley) and Pierce Mott Cazneau worked as camera operators or colourists.

02 Harold Cazneaux, Mort’s Dock, Balmain,

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c 1923, gelatin silver photograph, chloro bromide print. ANMM Collection 00054644 Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anne Christoffersen, in memory of the artist

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Harold Cazneaux (who added the ‘x’ to his surname in 1904) was born in 1878 in Wellington, New Zealand, where his parents worked after moving from Sydney. Eight years later the family was back in Australia, eventually settling in Adelaide, where his father worked as chief camera operator at Hammer & Co. After moving to Sydney in 1904, Cazneaux began his artistic explorations in earnest as he became immersed in the energetic harbour city with its industry, enterprise and life. He travelled its waters on Sydney’s ferries to and from work every day from the home he made in North Sydney with his wife Winifred, whom he had met at Hammer.

He said of Sydney’s main ferry terminus, Circular Quay: Here on suitable mornings, one can simply revel in pictorial work, especially if there is a slight mist about, which gives great effect to the ferry boats arriving and departing every few

03 Harold Cazneaux, Old houseboat Kerosene

Bay, c 1907, gelatin silver photograph, chloro bromide, matt print. The image shows the remains of the City of Melbourne as a houseboat in what is now Balls Head Bay, Sydney. ANMM Collection 00054648

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minutes. For figure work get on the pontoons or landing stages and, if you practice your ‘seeing eye’, pictures will occur in all directions...1 He met with early success in 1904 when he won a photographic competition for a view of two fishermen at Bondi, titled Fishing off the rocks. In 1909 he held his first solo exhibition to great acclaim.

The exhibition begins with a small print of Fishing off the rocks and a series of small photographs taken around waterways in Sydney and along the New South Wales coastline. In particular Sydney Harbour scenes: Boy on a raft presents a soft-focus view of a young boy mucking about on a lump of wood and gazing into the distance. It entices us to explore Cazneaux’s maritime work as he develops his technique, practice and reputation.

Cazneaux was a strong adherent to the European style of pictorialism, largely producing wistful, feathered, impressionistic work of low tonal contrast, produced to elevate ordinary subjects, such as Gas works, Kerosene Bay (c 1920), to images taken ‘at the poet’s hour when evening mist and smoke descend and smudge the hard lines of architecture transforming “warehouses into palaces” as Whistler says’.2 Subject, timing and technique were important tenets for both taking and processing photographs, and Cazneaux and his cohort photographers found their aesthetic freedom in careful composition, cropping and printing, but also by melding elements such as sky to enhance the drama or effect of the picture.

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‘Every photographer knows of the subtle fascination of the shimmering reflections from the lighted ferries on Sydney harbour’

Cazneaux’s career as an amateur photographic artist was in its ascendancy, even with the limited availability of materials due to World War I. In 1914 Cazneaux won £100 in a Kodak ‘happy moments’ competition with ten views of his family at various locations, including Rainbow and Jean at Berry’s Bay, seen in the exhibition.

Seeking out an Australian response and ‘something more refined and progressive’, in 1916 Cazneaux and a select group from the Photographic Society of NSW – including Cecil Bostock, James Paton and James Stening – formed the Sydney Camera Circle. They aimed ‘more at the effects of mystery and sunshine – both so peculiar to the Australian bush’.3 Cazneaux wrote: ... the majority of our workers are making use of sunlight as the main theme of their pictures … The pictorial rendering is oft-times very difficult owing to the extreme clearness of atmosphere and absence of haze or mist …4

04 Harold Cazneaux, Sydney Harbour scenes:

Boy on a raft, 1905, gelatin silver photograph.

ANMM Collection 00054641 Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anne Christoffersen, in memory of the artist

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Work from the society’s members featured in the Photographic Society of New South Wales exhibition of November 1917, and work from four of its seven active members was selected for the following London Salon of 1918, including Young Australia by Cazneaux (which features in this exhibition) and The Japanese blind. These works by Cazneaux made an impact on artist and reviewer Sydney Ure Smith. This forged a lifelong relationship with Ure Smith, who became an influential publisher of The Home magazine, Art in Australia and many other titles.

He contracted Cazneaux to his mastheads and through his innovative sense of design in art, advertising and architecture he nurtured in the fervent pictorialist a modernist sensibility in which abstraction, angle and form became as important to him as mood and message – ambitions that Cazneaux never surrendered.

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The exhibition covers the private family world of Cazneaux at his home in Roseville in family albums, his account and appointment books, travelling bag and duster coat from days on the road, and his studio life. It also explores his early experimentations, poetic river and harbour scenes, and the larger muscular industrial waterscapes: ships arriving and departing, boating views, wharves, wharf workers, bridge and beach views, scenes around harbour nooks, and his coastal views from trips to South Australia in the 1930s – all printed in Cazneaux’s studio.

The exhibition concludes with All’s clear, a large, strong portrait of Captain Firth, the recently retired master of SS Canberra.

As Cazneaux intended, his images take you to an inner world and also today, in 2016, to another world – the lost waterscapes of a century ago.

In 1952 Cazneaux was honoured in a travelling presentation of his work mounted by photographer and writer Jack Cato.

He died in 1953 and was cremated at Sydney’s Northern Suburbs Crematorium.

Notes 1 ‘In and about in Sydney with a hand held camera’, The Australasian Photo-review, 22 September 1910 2 From a review by Harrington’s Photographic Journal of Cazneaux’s image of Pyrmont Bridge in the NSW Photographic Society exhibition of 1915.

3 Cecil Bostock, ‘Pictorial Photography in Australia’, Photograms of the year 1917–18.

4 Harold Cazneaux, ‘Pictorial Photography in Australia’, Photograms of the year 1919.

Through a different lens – Cazneaux by the water is on at the museum from 2 September 2016 to 5 February 2017.

05 Harold Cazneaux, The bamboo blind, 1915,

gelatin silver photograph. Exhibited first as The Japanese blind, this view of light effects and his daughter Beryl made a huge impact in London and Sydney. Reproduced courtesy the Cazneaux family

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Finding Tingira

THE SEARCH FOR THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY’S FIRST TRAINING SHIP A small bay in Sydney Harbour may be the last resting place of a vessel once described as a ‘most perfect ship’. It sailed between England to Australia as a luxury passenger clipper for 25 years, before becoming first a reformatory ship then a naval training vessel. Dr James Hunter traces its career, its demise and the hunt for its remains.

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01 Oil painting of Sobraon (later Tingira), by

William Barnett Spencer, c 1866. ANMM Collection 00009342

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ON A COLD SUNNY morning in June 2016, Silentworld Foundation Director and maritime archaeologist Paul Hundley steered the survey vessel Maggie III into shallow water at the head of Berrys Bay on Sydney’s north shore. Accompanying him were ANMM maritime archaeologists Kieran Hosty and myself, both of us staring intently at a laptop computer as it displayed readings from a marine magnetometer towed a short distance behind the boat. As Maggie III’s hull glided through water less than a metre deep, we watched for any indication that remnants of a unique sailing ship might lie buried in the silt below.

The object of our search was the bottom of a massive, iron-framed wooden hull that had been hauled into the mud at the head of the bay and abandoned by another enterprising team 75 years before. This forlorn shell may be all that remains of HMAS Tingira, the first training vessel commissioned by the fledgling Royal Australian Navy (RAN) following its creation in 1911. Tingira ended its remarkable 75-year career in Berrys Bay, its final chapter written ‘with the searing flame of an acetylene torch for a pencil, and a drab shipbreaker’s yard as parchment’.1

A splendid ship for the Australian trade The vessel that would eventually become HMAS Tingira was constructed by Alexander Hall & Co in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Named Sobraon (after the Battle of Sobraon in the First AngloSikh War of the mid-1840s), it was launched on 17 April 1866 and commenced service as a passenger clipper for the shipping firm Shaw, Lowther, Maxton & Co. The ship was originally designed for both sail and steam propulsion, but installation of its engine was cancelled during construction. Sobraon was the largest composite-hulled sailing ship ever built; its teak planking was sourced in Burma (Myanmar) and affixed to internal iron frames and diagonal stiffeners with copper-alloy fasteners.

It had an overall length of 317 feet (97 metres) and maximum breadth of 40 feet (12 metres), and its displacement was 2,131 gross registered tons. Sobraon’s draught was 16 feet (4.9 metres) and its depth of hold 27 feet (8.2 metres). Under full sail, the ship could spread up to two acres (0.81 hectares) of canvas and attain a maximum speed of 16 knots (30 kilometres per hour).

Sobraon operated exclusively between London and Sydney between 1866 and 1871. It embarked on one voyage per year and carried 90 first-class passengers, 40 second-class passengers and a crew of 69. Voyages normally commenced in September to take advantage of better weather, and returned to England via Cape Town in South Africa and the island of St Helena.

During its first three return legs, Sobraon loaded cargoes of Indian tea and raced other clippers back to London. Tea was replaced by Australian wheat and wool on subsequent voyages.

Many Tingira recruits would also go on to serve their country with distinction in the two world wars

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In 1870, the ship was purchased by the firm Devitt & Moore and began operating exclusively between London and Melbourne two years later.

Speed and comfort made Sobraon extremely popular with passengers. Among its celebrated features were a water condenser, a cold store that could hold three tons of ice, and fresh milk from three cows held with an array of other livestock in a vast pen in the ship’s hold. Sobraon was never pushed to its limits out of consideration for passengers, but still made excellent time.

The ship frequently covered 2,000 nautical miles (3,704 kilometres) in a week, and once travelled 392 miles (631 kilometres) in a single day. Its fastest voyages to Sydney and Melbourne were 73 days and 68 days respectively.

Had it not faced contrary winds in the latter instance, the ship would have recorded the fastest time for a sailing ship transiting between England and Australia.

Sobraon’s final voyage to Australia began on 14 October 1890 and ended 80 days later in Melbourne. Much of the clipper’s 25-year career proved uneventful, but it briefly caught fire on two occasions, was nearly run ashore in the English Channel twice and encountered one severe storm that resulted in significant damage. Between 1866 and 1891 only one person was lost overboard, and that incident was ultimately ruled a suicide.

02 Sobraon’s brass band often held concerts on

board the ship for the general public, and also performed at philanthropic events in Sydney.

ANMM Collection ANMS1096-205

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From luxury clipper to floating reformatory In January 1891, Sobraon was sold to the colonial government of New South Wales and towed to Sydney. On arrival it underwent a complete internal and external refit and replaced the colony’s reformatory ship Vernon, which had been in use since the 1860s. Some of the more notable changes were the opening of the entire lower deck as a dormitory, construction of three solitary confinement cells and the addition of a layer of concrete atop the orlop deck to act as permanent ballast. The ship’s main deck was divided into a school room, mess room and sleeping and living quarters for teaching staff.

A drawing room for the school superintendent and his family was built on the upper deck, as were a library, seamen’s mess, galley, bath house, sick bay and berths for the cooks and permanent crew. The newly converted Nautical School Ship (NSS) Sobraon commenced service during the second half of 1891, and became home to more than 4,000 neglected, destitute or delinquent boys during the next two decades.

Sobraon was permanently moored off Cockatoo Island for the duration of its career as a reformatory ship. Its inmates received a mixture of elementary education and nautical and industrial training, the purpose of which was to convert them into ‘useful, worthy and morally upright’ adults.2 While nautical training was a significant component of the curriculum, the ship never put to sea, so the boys had no opportunity to practise their seamanship skills. Indeed, very few Sobraon boys ended up in seafaring occupations, with most apprenticed to farmers in rural New South Wales. In an effort to amend this problem, the government leased the steam-powered brigantine HMS Dart as a sea-going tender to Sobraon. From 1904, Dart often embarked on short voyages to coastal New South Wales ports and gave groups of older Sobraon boys an opportunity to experience life at sea.

Industrial training was provided as a means of preparing boys for a variety of land-based occupations, including shoemaking, tailoring and carpentry. The latter proved immensely popular, and during the first decade of the 20th century Sobraon provided most of the school furniture used by the New South Wales Department of Public Instruction. Boys engaged in carpentry work were paid a small allowance of between one and five shillings per week. Those living aboard the vessel also had the chance to participate in a vigorous program of recreational activities, including football, cricket, gymnastics and swimming. One Sobroan boy, Barney Kieran, took up swimming while serving his sentence, and later gained fame as a record-breaking competitor in several Australian and international events.

Sobraon spent two decades as home to more than 4,000 neglected, destitute or delinquent boys

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Life for those incarcerated aboard Sobraon was strictly regimented, and punishment for infractions could be severe.

It was partly for this reason that the vessel was closed and the nautical school ship approach to training and education discontinued. In one parliamentary debate the New South Wales Minister of Public Instruction, G S Beeby, observed: The object [of a reformatory institution] … is to check criminal tendencies on the part of a boy, and to restore him to his normal surroundings as soon as possible – not to confine him for years and to subject him to rigid discipline … that is the new policy, and the necessity for an institution of close confinement like the Sobraon has been steadily decreasing.3 Experts in institutionalised care also noted the anachronistic nature of sail-based nautical training in a profession increasingly dominated by steam-powered vessels, and that very few of the Sobraon boys pursued a seafaring life once they were released.

By 1905 Sobraon was no longer cost-effective and the New South Wales government estimated it could save some £15,000 per year with its closure. The school was discontinued and the ship offered to the Commonwealth government in June 1911.

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The ‘navy’s cradle’ Sobraon was purchased by the Commonwealth at the end of 1911 and transferred to RAN control. It was renamed His Majesty’s Australian Training Ship (HMATS, later HMAS) Tingira, a derivative of dingira (pronounced din-GEER-a), a word meaning ‘sea’ in the language of the Badtjala people of Fraser Island, Queensland.4 The ship was towed to Mort’s Dock and Engineering Company in January 1912 to be repaired and refitted, and was commissioned as the RAN’s first training vessel four months later. Tingira subsequently moved to Rose Bay in Sydney Harbour, where it was moored for the duration of its naval career.

Tingira, like NSS Sobraon, served as a training vessel for boys, but entry was limited to youths between the ages of 14 and 16 years, and all recruits were expected to serve a minimum of seven years in the RAN once they reached the age of 18.

Unlike the destitutes and delinquents who filled Sobraon’s ranks, those who came aboard Tingira did so willingly under the Department of the Navy’s boy enlistment scheme, and were sourced ‘from the best Australian homes … great public schools … outback spaces and … the city’s heart’.5 The first intake of 37 boys was recruited from New South Wales on 1 June 1912, and the draft from other states brought the total to 100 by the end of the month. New recruits were given an official number that remained with them throughout their naval service.

03 George Leatham Roberts embarked aboard

Tingira as a 15-year-old naval cadet in 1914.

He was invalided from the RAN the following year and died shortly afterwards, aged just 16. ANMM Collection ANMS0067[001]

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They were then assigned to either the port or starboard watch, and supplied with an interim kit that contained one ‘casual’ naval uniform made of coarse white cloth, as well as a towel, soap, hammock and blankets. Other items, including shoes and a finer-quality dress uniform, were issued later. George Leatham Roberts embarked aboard Tingira as a 15-year-old naval cadet in 1914 and was assigned one of these kits, the complete contents of which are preserved in the museum’s National Maritime Collection.

For the first four months of his tenure, each boy received comprehensive instruction in seamanship. This was followed by rifle and gunnery training at shore-based facilities at Kent Hall and Lyne Park near Rose Bay. Visual signalling such as semaphore was a specialty of many instructors aboard Tingira, with the result that several boys were proficient by the time they graduated and later served as RAN fleet signalmen.

Many Tingira recruits would also go on to serve their country with distinction in the two world wars. Among them were boys assigned to HMAS Sydney (I) when it engaged and defeated the German raider SMS Emden on 9 November 1914. Other notable graduates included Signalman John William Varcoe, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal while serving aboard

04 Tingira after its conversion into the RAN’s

first naval training ship. ANMM Collection ANMS1092-083

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The final phase of Tingira’s life began in 1929, when it was towed to Berrys Bay and moored a short distance from shore

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HMAS Parramatta (I) during World War I,6 and Petty Officer John Thomas Humphries, who received the George Medal for undertaking hazardous salvage diving activities in World War II. In the mid-1920s, the RAN instituted a move away from the boy enlistment scheme towards a direct entry system for new recruits. The last draft of boys was brought aboard in early 1926, and by the end of the year recruitment ceased entirely.

Tingira was decommissioned on 27 June 1927. During its 15 years as a naval vessel, the ship was home to 3,168 boys, many of whom formed the core of the RAN’s experienced shipboard personnel during the next three decades.

The demise of a ‘most perfect ship’ The final phase of Tingira’s life began in 1929, when it was purchased by shipwright W M Ford, towed to Berrys Bay and moored a short distance from shore. The vessel would remain in the same spot for over a decade, its once-gleaming white hull gradually transformed into a sun-bleached, rust-streaked derelict. Following Ford’s death in 1935, ownership transferred to Major Sidney Friere and Mrs Louisa Ankin, who intended to transform the hulk into a floating naval museum. This idea failed and was followed by other short-lived proposals.

These included conversion of the ship into a floating cabaret, or a shipboard casino that could sail beyond Australia’s threemile (4.8 kilometre) offshore territorial limit, thereby enabling those aboard to legally gamble. In October 1937 Tingira was purchased for £1,050 by demolition contractor Karlo Silvinen.

Following a failed attempt to sell the vessel back to Friere and Ankin, Silvinen kept it moored at Berrys Bay, where it remained another three years.

05 Tingira’s hull stripped to the waterline,

c 1940. National Library of Australia nla.obj-146674518

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Tingira’s end finally came during the latter half of 1940, when a salvage crew began dismantling the ship’s surviving upper-works. The hull was systematically reduced over the course of the following year, until only a shell remained.

A photograph believed to be the last known image of Tingira afloat shows the surviving hull preserved to a point just above the waterline. Iron framing was still present, but all other internal structure – save for a small shed probably built as an office and shelter for the salvage crew – was removed.

By the end of 1941 what remained of Tingira was no longer moored at Berrys Bay, and its fate seems to have gone largely unrecorded in contemporary archival sources.

The sole exceptions are two brief newspaper articles published in the early 1950s that mention in passing that the vessel’s ‘shell’ was towed outside the opening to Sydney Harbour and scuttled.7

Finding Tingira Tingira’s disposal off Sydney was possible, but highly unlikely, given the tremendous risks involved. The sheer size of the surviving hull, coupled with its very low freeboard and lack of decking, would have made it difficult to move in anything less than dead calm wind and sea conditions. In the worst case, the hull could take on water, break its tow and sink in the harbour, where it was certain to become a hazard to navigation – and a headache for its owners. For this reason, ANMM’s maritime archaeology team speculates that Tingira never left Sydney Harbour, and was probably discarded within or near Berrys Bay, a former shipbreaking and discard area.

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06 An aerial image of the mudflat at the top

of Berrys Bay in 1943, with the hull of a large ship clearly visible. NSW Department of Finance and Services 07 A current satellite image of Berrys Bay.

The red line corresponds with the position of the hull in the previous image, now thought to be half buried under the reclaimed land of Waverton Park. NSW Department of Finance and Services

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An initial theory proposed by the team was that Tingira was scuttled at its moorings. The water depth at this location exceeds 10 metres, and the seabed is predominantly silt and sand.

A soft bottom would have allowed the sunken hull to become embedded and immovable, while the water depth was sufficient for small and medium-sized vessels to safely navigate over it.

To test the idea, a survey was conducted at Tingira’s former mooring site. The area is now an anchorage for small craft; consequently, the magnetometer was affected by interference from several sources, including the metal hulls, engines and fittings of modern boats, as well as submerged mooring blocks.

Despite these false positives it quickly became apparent that a very large and complex zone of magnetic influence existed on and within the seabed. This was correlated by side-scan sonar imagery, which revealed a low mound of debris interspersed with larger objects, including what may be iron knees or braces.

While results of the survey were being analysed, new historical information came to light. Aerial photographs of Sydney taken in 1943, and made available online through the New South Wales government’s Spatial Information Exchange system,8 revealed a large composite hull in a mud flat at the northern end of Berrys Bay. These aerial images have been corrected to accurately match a modern uniform map scale and known coordinate system. As a result, the overall dimensions of the unidentified hull could be determined, as well as its projected location within the modern landscape. Its preserved length (83 metres) and breadth (11 metres) are virtually identical to Tingira’s length between perpendiculars (83 metres) and maximum beam (12 metres). This provides compelling evidence that Tingira is depicted in the 1943 aerial photographs, and that it was intentionally moved from its moorings and ultimately grounded in the mud flat and abandoned.

Although Tingira appears to have been run ashore in Berrys Bay in the early 1940s, it is unclear whether its remnants are still there. Reclamation in 1960 replaced the mud flat with Waverton Park, which was created through the discharge of 42,000 cubic yards (35,170 cubic metres) of silt from Sydney Harbour dredging. The silt was held in place by a retention wall that laterally bisects the proposed location of Tingira’s surviving hull. Today, the ship’s forward half may be buried beneath the park, while the remainder could be located beneath the shallows and intertidal zone at the head of the bay. The latter zone was the focus of the June survey, which detected a large magnetic anomaly in approximate alignment with Tingira’s projected orientation. However, this area – like Tingira’s mooring site – is surrounded by several modern magnetic sources, and it is presently unclear whether an abandoned hull is the source of the large anomaly.

Aerial photographs of Sydney taken in 1943 revealed a large composite hull in a mud flat at the northern end of Berrys Bay

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The maritime archaeology team plans to conduct additional remote sensing work, including a land-based magnetometer survey of Waverton Park in the area where Tingira is thought to be buried. Other search techniques, including groundpenetrating radar, may be employed to determine the physical presence and extent of any surviving hull, as well as its depth beneath the modern ground surface. The team also intends to inspect the source of the magnetic and acoustic anomalies at Tingira’s mooring site, which may represent hull components and artefacts that were dropped overboard as the vessel was dismantled by shipbreakers. Results of this work will be reported in future issues of Signals.

Notes 1 ‘Most “Perfect Ship” may now be munitions’, Newcastle Sun, 24 January 1941, p 4.

2 Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly, New South Wales parliamentary debates (second series) session 1911, Vol XL, 16 May to 28 June 1911, Government Printer, p 467.

3 New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Report for the year ended 30 April 1902: Nautical School Ship Sobraon, Government Printer, p 1.

4 The author wishes to thank ANMM’s Indigenous Programs Project Assistant, Helen Anu, and Manager of Indigenous Programs, Donna Carstens, for sourcing the Aboriginal origin of Tingira’s name.

5 ‘Australia’s sons of the sea: Inheritors of glorious traditions’, Farmer and Settler, 1 January 1926, p 1.

6 Varcoe later became the model for the sailor statue at the Cenotaph in Martin Place, Sydney.

7 ‘RAN training ship: Story of the Tingira’, The Age, 28 October 1950, p 12; ‘Bad boys who made good’, The Land, 3 December 1954, p 34.

8 six.nsw.gov.au/wps/portal Further reading Ramsland, J, 1981, ‘Life aboard the Nautical School Ship Sobraon, 1891–1911’, Great Circle: Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History, 3(1): 30–45.

Thurston, H J, 1979, ‘The history of HMAS Tingira’, Naval Historical Review, 2(5): 17–19.

The Silentworld Foundation is a non-profit organisation founded in 1999 to support maritime archaeology in Australia. It has had an ongoing collaborative relationship with ANMM and sponsored many of its maritime archaeology expeditions since 2009.

Dr James Hunter is ANMM’s Curator of RAN Maritime Archaeology. He has worked in the field of maritime archaeology for nearly two decades, and during that time has participated in the investigation of shipwrecks and other archaeological sites ranging from prehistory to the modern era.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A GHOST SHIP AND A TRAVELLING MAN

A ghost ship and a travelling man AMAZING WRECKS IN THE BALTIC SEA

Maritime history and archaeology were the focus for curator Dr Stephen Gapps during a recent three-month fellowship in Sweden. Here he gives an overview of finds in the Baltic Sea, a maritime graveyard packed with remarkably well-preserved shipwrecks.

01

01 Diving on the 1660 wreck of Resande

Mannen. In the foreground are a bronze sheave and a box with square glass medicine bottles, nestled between two deck beams.

Photograph courtesy Jens Lindstrรถm

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A GHOST SHIP AND A TRAVELLING MAN

IN 2003 UNDERWATER SONAR was being used to locate a Swedish reconnaissance plane that had been shot down in the Baltic Sea in 1952 during the Cold War. The searchers came across what archaeologists call an ‘anomaly’, indicating a possible shipwreck. As it was 130 metres below the surface, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to investigate.

To the surprise of all, they saw a 17th-century ship sitting upright on the bottom of the sea floor, quite intact, looking as though it was ready to be crewed and to set sail again.

In fact it was so complete that spars and rigging lying on the deck could tell them the last sail settings – and hence manoeuvre – before the ship sank. It was such an eerie sight that archaeologists instantly named it the ‘Ghost Ship’.

Many people know of the iconic Swedish shipwreck Vasa.

Lifted from the sea floor in 1961, it now sits in its own very popular museum. But there is much more to Swedish maritime archaeology than Vasa. The Baltic Sea is littered with Swedish and other nations’ ships – in fact it is one of the best locations in the world for ship archaeology. Most marine organisms that attack wood, including the infamous shipworm Teredo navalis, are absent from this cold, brackish sea.

The 2003 ROV inspection of the Ghost Ship showed it to be a merchant ship from the mid-17th century, revealing typical Dutch shipbuilding characteristics from this period.

A multi-beam echo-sounder was used to penetrate the upper deck and the holds, to gather accurate measurements for

02 The timber frames of Resande Mannen lie

like the rib cage of a skeleton on the sea floor.

Photograph courtesy Jonas Falck

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03

a 3D reconstruction of the ship. This map revealed the contents of the vessel, including rigging, decorative work, sails, a hearth place, sailors’ chests and other artefacts.

The Ghost Ship has the characteristic pear-shaped stern recognisable from 17th-century depictions of Dutch fluyts (fluits), a type of dedicated cargo ship that could operate with a small crew. The rudder head is decorated with three flowers, a motif traditional for Holland. The stern was flanked by two life-size sculptures depicting Dutch mid-17th century merchants in fashionable clothing, with bulging money-pouches on their belts. These have fallen off and were found on the sea-floor next to the wreck.

The Baltic Sea is one of the best locations in the world for ship archaeology

One of these ‘corner men’ (hoekman in Dutch) was salvaged in May 2010 by an ROV fitted with a mechanical claw. A brief inspection revealed red paint on the hat and black on the merchant’s coat and the figure has now been sent to Holland for conservation and further paint analysis.

The area on the transom between the two hoekmen, originally covered with horizontal panelling, was where the ship’s name should have been. But at this time (when most people were illiterate), ships’ names were often added by using symbols – allegoric sculptures or ornaments.

03 Surveying Resande Mannen.

Photograph courtesy Sjöhistoriska Museet

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A GHOST SHIP AND A TRAVELLING MAN

Many names would have been influenced by their ability to be easily depicted and widely understood in symbols, such as Half Moon, Virgin Mary, The Rose, or Prophet Abraham.

When the ROV surveyed the area abaft the ship, a sculpted piece of wood lying among other timbers came into view.

It has been identified as the body of a swan, carved in deep relief. The original name of the Ghost Ship was probably Swan, or at least had the word ‘swan’ as part of its name.

The eerie beauty of the Ghost Ship’s natural preservation makes it possible to reconstruct what the crew were doing just before the ship sank. The spars and yards fell down directly below their original positions as the cordage holding the rig together rotted away. The position of the rigging parts thus indicates the final trim of the sails – they were set to ‘heave to’, or to slow the ship down.

04

The reason for heaving-to might have been to concentrate on desperately operating the pumps or even to get into the ship’s boats, but the main cause of the sinking remains unknown. Still, the Ghost Ship is an exceptional maritime archaeological find, and in terms of its state of preservation has few equals in the world.

The Baltic has been a busy sea-route for a very long time.

Prehistoric vessels traded around this sea, which has been a central highway between the historical cultures of modern-day Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Russia and Sweden. Baltic trade also had a special importance for the Dutch during their period of great maritime expansion, and upwards of 2,000 trading ships would sail into the Baltic each year during the mid-17th century. Salt and manufactured goods were brought to the north, while raw materials such as iron, limestone and timber were carried from the coasts of the Baltic to Amsterdam and other towns in the Netherlands.

In 2003 a well-preserved shipwreck was found north of Dalarö in the Stockholm archipelago. In 2007 and 2008 the site was surveyed jointly by archaeologists from the Swedish National Maritime Museum, Södertörn University and the University of Southampton. It was named the Edesö Wreck, and appears to have been a small man-of-war, built and probably sunk in the late 17th century. It was possibly built in England, or at least in the English fashion of that time. The original name of the ship and the precise history of its demise are unknown.

Another fascinating wreck is the Kronan – the largest ship in the royal fleet of Swedish King Charles XI in the 1670s, and one of the largest in the world during Sweden’s period as a significant European power. Kronan exploded and sank in 1676 in a battle off Öland, an island off Sweden’s south-eastern coast.

04 One of the fallen merchants from the Ghost

Ship. Photograph courtesy Sjöhistoriska Museet

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A GHOST SHIP AND A TRAVELLING MAN

The battle was fought in bad weather and apparently Kronan turned too hard with too much sail and began to founder.

When the powder magazine exploded, most of the bow structure was lost, and King Charles’ prestigious flagship quickly sank. Around 800 men died and more than 100 heavy guns were lost. The wreck was discovered in 1980, and since then more than 30,000 items have been retrieved from the site – including some books, as well as Sweden’s largest-ever hoard of gold coins.

The searchers saw a 17th-century ship sitting upright on the bottom of the sea floor, quite intact

Other significant wrecks near Stockholm include the 17th-century Dutch fluit Lion and the wreck of the Mars – the huge flagship of the Swedish navy that was sunk in battle in 1564 and rumoured to be cursed, as its guns were supposed to have been made from melted-down church bells.

Perhaps the most intriguing Baltic wreck was the focus of a long hunt by divers – the so-called ‘treasure ship’ Resande Mannen.

The evocatively named vessel (Travelling Man in English) went down in the winter of 1660 in the Kastbåden near Nynäshamn.

While 37 people died, 25 survived the deadly cold waters, many clinging to the top masts. Resande Mannen was a small armed ship carrying the Swedish privy council’s Count Carl Christoffer von Schlippenbach to Poland for peace negotiations.

05 A 3D reconstruction showing the Ghost

Ship sitting upright on the sea bed. The fore and main masts are still standing, while the mizzen fell towards the bow in the process of wrecking, probably when the ship hit the sea bed. Image courtesy Marin Mätteknik

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06

It had long been rumoured he was carrying a large amount of money for political bribes, as well as his own personal fortune.

There are more than 20,000 known wrecks in the Baltic Sea, and archaeologists believe there may be as many as 100,000.

The collection of wrecks – well preserved in their own natural conservation lab, the Baltic – has been called ‘a museum under the sea’.

The wonderful state of preservation of wooden ships in the Baltic Sea makes it arguably the world’s best ship graveyard.

In the waters off Dalarö there are plans to create a ‘diving park’ to allow guided recreational divers to visit the many wrecks clustered in the area. A new museum dedicated to these treasures of the Baltic is slated to open in Stockholm in the near future.

As Niklas Eriksson, archaeologist at Södertörn University, pointed out to me: although found in very different contexts, 17th-century Dutch shipwrecks are something that both Swedish and Australian maritime archaeology have in common.

06 Vasa in its purpose-built museum is a huge

drawcard for visitors to Stockhom, Sweden.

Photograph Stephen Gapps

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A GHOST SHIP AND A TRAVELLING MAN

07

ANMM curator Dr Stephen Gapps received an Endeavour Executive Fellowship from April to July 2016. The fellowship supports overseas professional development opportunities. Stephen was based at the Swedish History Museum, the National Maritime Museum and the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. He was involved in several projects relating to Viking Age and other maritime history and archaeology.

Stephen has published a series of blog posts from his fellowship experiences on the ANMM website under the category ‘Journeys’: anmm.wordpress.com/category/ journeys Acknowledgements Stephen Gapps wishes to thank Mikael Fredholm, Jim Hansson and Jens Lindstrom, Curators, Archaeology Unit, Sjöhistoriska Museet; and Niklas Eriksson, Maritime Archaeological Research Institute (MARIS), Södertörn University, Sweden.

References and further reading Niklas Eriksson, ‘The Edesö Wreck: the hull of a small, armed ship wrecked in the Stockholm archipelago in the latter half of the 17th century’, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2013): 1–12 Niklas Eriksson and Johan Rönnby, ‘The Ghost Ship: an intact fluyt from c 1650 in the Middle of the Baltic Sea’, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2012) 41.2: 350–361 Niklas Eriksson, ‘The Lion wreck: a survey of a 17th-century Dutch merchant ship – an interim report’, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2012) 41.1: 17–25 Niklas Eriksson, Carl During, Joakim Holmlund, Johan Rönnby, Ingvar Sjöblom, Michael Ågren, ‘Resande mannen (1660)’, Marinarkeologisk rapport 2012, MARIS Södertörns högskola 2013, available at sh.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:618884/FULLTEXT01. pdf Niklas Eriksson, ‘Resande Mannen: Ett vrak med potential’ Marinarkeologisk Tidskrift 3, 2013: 19–25 ‘Vraket Resande Mans historia berättas av forskarna’ 2 May 2013; sh.se/p3/ext/ custom.nsf/news?openagent&key=vraket_resande_mans_historia_berattas_av_ forskarna_1367313237078 Niklas Eriksson, 2014, ‘Urbanism under sail: An archaeology of fluit ships in early modern everyday life’, available at academia.edu/8205845/Eriksson_N._2014._ Urbanism_under_Sail_An_Archaeology_of_fluit_ships_in_early_modern_everyday_life

07 A rare view inside Vasa. Due to its

ongoing conservation and preservation, the public are not able to go onto the ship.

Photograph Stephen Gapps

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > ‘MY MISERABLE ALLOWANCE’

‘My miserable allowance’

RELICS OF THE BOUNTY MUTINY

After the infamous Bounty mutiny in 1789 the ship’s commander, William Bligh, and a group of loyal supporters were cast adrift in an open boat. Over the next 41 days, despite inadequate supplies, they made an epic journey to safety. Artefacts from both Bounty and Bligh’s desperate voyage form part of the museum’s exhibition Ships, Clocks & Stars, writes Head of Research Dr Nigel Erskine.

VISITORS EXPLORING the host of rare and exquisite objects displayed in the museum’s current major exhibition Ships, Clocks & Stars – The Quest for Longitude may be surprised to find a humble-looking coconut shell bowl in such exalted company.

Closer inspection reveals the incised initials ‘W B’ and date ‘April 1789’ and a faded ink inscription, ‘The cup I eat my miserable allowance out’. The initials are those of William Bligh, and together with a horn beaker and a musket ball, the coconut shell bowl is a rare survivor of Bligh’s momentous 3,500-mile (6,700-kilometre) open-boat voyage from the Tongan island of Tofua to the Dutch settlement at Timor, following the mutiny aboard the Bounty in April 1789.

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01 Coconut bowl from which William Bligh ate

his rations following the mutiny on the Bounty, 1789. 102 x 127 x 127 mm. © National Maritime Museum, London

This Bligh artefact is on display in the museum’s current exhibition Ships, Clocks & Stars.

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Sailing master aboard the Resolution during Cook’s third Pacific voyage of exploration and under the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks, William Bligh was appointed in 1787 to command the Bounty on a voyage to Tahiti to collect and transport sufficient breadfruit trees to the British colonies in the West Indies to establish a cheap and plentiful source of food for the slaves working on the sugar plantations. As most readers will know, the plan went horribly wrong.

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The idea for the voyage came from Sir Joseph Banks, who had come across the breadfruit tree while in Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus with Cook and the Endeavour in 1769. Initially he planned to convert one of the ships of the First Fleet to continue on to Tahiti after depositing convicts and stores in New South Wales, but upon reflection decided it would be better to refit a ship in England for the purpose, rather than rely on a conversion done in the fledgling colony.

Banks further anticipated that, as Cook had done in Endeavour 18 years earlier, Bligh would sail Bounty directly to Tahiti via Cape Horn, a shorter route than going via New South Wales and then further east to Tahiti.

In the event, Bligh struck such severe weather off Cape Horn that he was forced to change course and sail to the Cape of Good Hope for repairs and supplies. From there he sailed south of New Holland (Australia), stopping briefly at Adventure Bay on Bruny Island, Tasmania, which he had first visited with Cook aboard the Resolution in 1777. He then continued on to Tahiti, anchoring at Matavai Bay in October 1788.

The slow voyage meant that Bligh arrived when the breadfruit plants were still too immature to pot and transport, so the expedition was forced to stay five months waiting for the plants to grow. In the sensuous surroundings, Bligh struggled to maintain discipline among the Bounty’s crew, and by the time the ship finally left Tahiti in early April 1789 many of the men had established close relationships with Polynesian women.

Debate continues as to why Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian led a mutiny aboard the Bounty 24 days later, but the impact of his actions continues to the present day. Not all aboard the ship were prepared to mutiny, the crew divided between 18 loyal to Bligh and 25 mutineers. With the island of Tofua in sight, Bligh and the loyalists were cast adrift in the Bounty’s 23-foot (7-metre) launch, provided with 150 pounds (68 kilograms) of ship’s biscuit, 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms) of salt pork, some rum and wine and 28 gallons (127 litres) of water – enough at the normal rate of consumption to last about five days.

The slow voyage meant that Bligh arrived when the breadfruit plants were still too immature to pot and transport

02 Bullet used to weigh out food rations

following the mutiny on the Bounty, 1789.

63 x 35 x 10 mm. © National Maritime Museum, London

This Bligh artefact is on display in the museum’s current exhibition Ships, Clocks & Stars.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > ‘MY MISERABLE ALLOWANCE’

Adding to the already overcrowded boat, carpenter William Purcell refused to leave his tool chest behind! Fortunately Bligh was also given a sextant, a quadrant, a compass and a book of nautical tables – all of which ultimately proved vital to the survival of those in the boat.

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Set adrift to the mutineers’ cries of ‘Huzza for Otahiti’, Bligh set the boat crew rowing towards Tofua Island, where they landed the following day and remained for five days. Bligh and his men thought the island might be uninhabited but soon found they were wrong, as more and more natives came to see the strangers. Exchanges between the two groups were initially cordial but tensions soon grew as the vulnerability of Bligh and his men became obvious to the islanders, coming to a head when they attacked the seamen. Bligh managed to get all his men into the boat but quarter-master John Norton was killed on the beach while attempting to retrieve the boat’s grapnel anchor, reducing the total number in the boat to 18.

The men were lucky to escape and the experience was sufficiently daunting that Bligh determined to avoid all further encounters with Pacific Islanders, resolving to sail directly for the north coast of New Holland and on to Timor. At Tofua the party had managed to collect a few coconuts, some bananas and a little water but now, faced with the prospect of a long ocean voyage, Bligh was forced to ration the meagre supplies.

He used a lead pistol ball and a small beaker to standardise the amount of biscuit and water served to each man.

These two objects are displayed in Ships, Clocks & Stars, where an inscription on the small metal plate attached to the pistol ball reads: ‘This bullet 1/25th of a lb [18 grams] was the allowance of bread which supported 18 men for 48 days served to each person 3 times a day’. (Eighteen grams is about half of a standard modern slice of bread.) The inscription on the beaker is now lost but originally read: ‘Allowance of water 3 times a day’, representing a total allowance of about 0.3 litres per day.

Bligh had been issued a chronometer made by master watchmaker Larcum Kendall for the breadfruit voyage, but it was retained by the mutineers aboard the Bounty, so Bligh had no way of accurately calculating his longitude during the open-boat voyage towards Australia. Designated K2, it was designed as a cheaper version of K1, Kendall’s exact copy of John Harrison’s revolutionary marine timekeeper H4.

Cook used K1 on his second and third voyages and found the chronometer extremely reliable, and it was later issued to Captain John Hunter and used aboard HMS Sirius when the First Fleet sailed from Britain to establish a penal colony at Botany Bay.

Set adrift to the mutineers’ cries of ‘Huzza for Otahiti’, Bligh set the boat crew rowing towards Tofua Island

03 Beaker used to measure the water allowance

for each man three times a day, 1789.

54 x 48 x 48 mm. © National Maritime Museum, London.

This Bligh artefact is on display in the museum’s current exhibition Ships, Clocks & Stars.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > ‘MY MISERABLE ALLOWANCE’

Debate continues as to why Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian led a mutiny aboard the Bounty

04

K2 proved less reliable but has a remarkable story.

Taken to Pitcairn Island aboard the Bounty by Fletcher Christian, the watch was given to American whaling Captain Mayhew Folger in 1808, when his ship the Topaz became the first vessel to stop at Pitcairn since the arrival of the mutineers and their Polynesian companions 18 years earlier. The watch next passed to the governor of the island of Juan Fernandez, then successively to a Chilean muleteer and the British Consul in the Chilean town of Concepción, before being bought

by Admiral Sir Thomas Herbert. After its return to England it was lent to the Royal United Service Institution museum in 1843, where it remained until transferred to the National Maritime Museum (now Royal Museums Greenwich) in the 1960s. Despite these adventures K2 remains in beautiful condition, which is more than can be said for Bligh and his crew after their marathon non-stop voyage from Tofua to the Australian coast.

Using the sextant and tables given to him by the mutineers, Bligh was able to determine his latitude, and throughout the 27 days from Tofua to the coast of Australia he remained on a westerly course, only changing to avoid islands in his path or when forced to by wind and waves. Bligh later wrote that without a map of any kind he had to rely on his ‘… recollection and general knowledge of the situation and places to direct us’, but whether by accident or design, the place where the launch found a break in the Great Barrier Reef and finally entered the calm waters within was just a few miles north of Providence (Providential) Channel, where Cook had re-entered the reef in the Endeavour in August 1770.

04 Lieutenant Bligh and his crew of the ship

Bounty hospitably received by the Governor of Timor, 1791. Engraved by William Bromley from an illustration by Peter Paul Benazech.

Lieutenant Bligh stands with arms open, his dishevelled crew and their longboat behind him. The governor, his right arm outstretched, offers them food and drink after their gruelling journey. ANMM Collection 00027383 Gift from Vaughan Evans

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After the ordeals of the voyage, Bligh fittingly gave the name Restoration Island to the small island where the boat’s crew finally went ashore. Sixteen days later Bligh and his boatload of loyalists reached the town of Coupang at the western end of the island of Timor, where they were cared for by the Dutch authorities. The extraordinary open-boat voyage was over and Bligh was able to alert the world to the mutiny that would become famous in maritime history and dog him for the rest of his career.

And what became of the mutineers? They sailed the Bounty back to Tahiti, but anticipating that news of the mutiny would soon get out, after picking up their Polynesian companions and a stock of animals, they headed for Tubuai Island in the Austral group to the south, where they hoped to settle permanently.

However, that plan quickly fell apart amid growing hostilities between the mutineers and the Tubuain inhabitants, and the mutineers returned to Tahiti. Some determined to stay there and await events, while Fletcher Christian and a splinter group sailed away in search of an uninhabited island.

That place turned out to be Pitcairn Island, where despite the early murder of Christian and most of his Bounty followers, the population grew steadily, expanding to more than 200 by the middle of the 19th century and outgrowing the island’s resources. In 1856 the entire population was removed to Norfolk Island, where the convict settlement had been closed, leaving stone buildings and other infrastructure for their use.

05 View over convict buildings at Kingston,

Norfolk Island. Photograph courtesy Nigel Erskine

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06

From that time on the inhabitants of Norfolk Island have retained much of their Pitcairn culture and today many on the island continue to strongly identify with their Pitcairn heritage.

From 1856 to 1897 Norfolk Island was a separate and distinct Crown Colony placed under the governor of New South Wales.

In 1897 it became a dependency of New South Wales and in 1914, a Territory of the Commonwealth of Australia. With the passage of the Norfolk Island Act in 1979 and election of the first Norfolk Island Government Assembly that year, there was a gradual devolution of Commonwealth powers in many areas.

However, in recent years the island has found itself in increasing financial difficulties and the Commonwealth government announced its intention to fully integrate Norfolk Island into the Commonwealth. Unsurprisingly, the decision prompted heated debate among the island’s residents, culminating in the painting of the word ‘MUTINY’ in large white letters on a prominent convict-era wall facing the offices of the appointed Commonwealth administrator. It would appear that the mutiny started by Fletcher Christian more than two centuries ago is far from over!

Dr Nigel Erskine is the museum’s Head of Research. He is the former Director of the Norfolk Island Museum and was leader of the Pitcairn Project in 1998/99, leading an archaeological investigation to Pitcairn Island, where he undertook the first archaeological investigation of the remains of the Bounty and the mutineer village site.

The work formed the basis of his PhD, completed in 2004.

06 Cows graze unaware of a new mutiny possibly

facing Norfolk Island. Photograph courtesy Janelle Blucher

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > THE MUSEUM’S VAUGHAN EVANS LIBRARY

The museum’s Vaughan Evans Library CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF SERVICE

In 1986 this museum’s specialist maritime research facility opened. Now called the Vaughan Evans Library, it immediately began serving the public as well as staff. It bears the name of one of the museum’s great patrons, allies and donors, writes librarian Gillian Simpson.

01 Halcyon Evans, wife of the late Vaughan Evans,

01

and Frances Prentice, founding librarian, cut the cake that was made and kindly donated to the library by Corinne Martins.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > THE MUSEUM’S VAUGHAN EVANS LIBRARY

JUNE 2016 MARKED THE 30th anniversary of the museum’s research library, which quickly opened its doors to all researchers in the field of maritime history and heritage, as well as serving museum staff. The museum’s leading patron and proponent, the influential maritime historian Vaughan Evans oam, then donated his extensive personal library of classic and rare maritime history publications, which became the nucleus of the library’s growing collection. It was named the Vaughan Evans Library, not just for his generosity, but to recognise his role in influencing the Australian government to build a national museum of the sea, and providing the fledgling museum with direction.

In 1986, the first staff of the Australian National Maritime Museum were recruited – a year before Prime Minister Bob Hawke laid the foundation of the museum’s building in Darling Harbour, which was being redeveloped for the Bicentenary of Australia’s European settlement. Among those first staff were founding librarian, Frances Prentice, in June 1986, followed in December by technical services librarian Jan Harbison.

Both served for 27 years before retiring.

The library initially catered to the research needs of the museum project, but from the very start public calls and emails came in. The library quickly became the first of this museum’s facilities to serve the Australian public and private researchers, five years before the museum’s galleries and main building opened in 1991.

Who was Vaughan Evans?

Vaughan Evans oam (1924–1993) was an influential figure in Australian maritime history, a founder – with Australia’s leading academic maritime historians of the day – of the Australian Association for Maritime History, and an energetic advocate, patron and supporter of this museum and its library.

Vaughan was committee chairman of the 1975 Piggott Inquiry into National Collections, the national cultural masterplan launched by the Whitlam government that would lead to the creation of national collecting institutions, including today’s National Museum of Australia and National Film & Sound Archive. In this capacity Vaughan argued for a national museum of the sea to be built in Sydney, advising the government on the location for the site. Together with Professor Peter Spearritt, one of the nation’s most influential figures in history, culture and the arts, he co-authored the museum’s draft collection policy once the government had committed to fund the museum.

02 Helmets of the Deep by Leon G Lyons.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

Collection highlights

02

Among the library’s most prized items are: • The naval history of England, in all its branches: from the Norman conquest in the year 1066, to the conclusion of 1734 ... by Thomas Lediard, Volumes 1 & 2 • Helmets of the deep by Leon G Lyons • Kathleen’s voyage: the log book of the Kathleen Gillett, written and illustrated by Jack Earl during his 1947–48 voyage around the world • Lloyd’s register of British and foreign shipping 1773–2009 • Lloyd’s Captains registers 1869–1948 • America’s Cup yacht designs, 1851–1986 by François Chevalier & Jacques Taglang (translation

by Roger T Wakelam) • John Allcot, marine artist, text by Cyril L Hume • Shipbuilding, theoretical and practical. Illustrated by a series of engravings, from drawings furnished by some of the most eminent British shipbuilders

by Isaac Watts et al; corresponding and general editor, W J Macquorn Rankine • Steel’s ship-master’s assistant and owner’s manual: containing general information necessary for owners and masters of ships, ship-brokers, pilots and other persons ... by I Stikeman • Sea transport of the AIF, prepared in Naval Transport Board by Greville Tregarthen • Varg by Bruce Stannard, photography by Kraig Carlström

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > THE MUSEUM’S VAUGHAN EVANS LIBRARY

The library quickly became the first of this museum’s facilities to serve the Australian public and private researchers

03

Vaughan Evans was born in Cornwall in 1924. He came to Sydney in 1955 as a ‘ten-pound Pom’, or subsidised migrant.

Travelling on the New Australia, he sailed from Southampton on 19 January 1955, arriving in Sydney on 20 February.

The transcript of his diary for that voyage is held in this library and the photographs that he took during it are held in the museum’s collection.

In the Bicentennial year of 1988 Vaughan donated his vast personal library. From the outset, however, he had provided his assistance as volunteer and advisor, sharing his wealth of knowledge with Frances Prentice. This allowed the library to provide a specialist public research service from the start.

In 1988 Vaughan was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to maritime history. This library was officially named the Vaughan Evans Library in September 1993, in honour of Vaughan’s services to and support of the museum.

His photograph takes pride of place on the library wall along with his volunteer name badge.

Three decades later, the benefits of Vaughan Evans’ legacy are still evident. The Vaughan Evans Library collections reflect the specialised nature of our discipline: ship and shipping history and development, ship design and building, navigation, commerce, migration by sea, naval topics, maritime ethnology and archaeology, sailing, surfing and other maritime recreations.

It also supports the strategic activities and collecting interests of the museum, including specialist museum publications on conservation and restoration, exhibition design and museology.

03 Kathleen’s Voyage, also in the library’s

collection, is the illustrated log book of Jack Earl’s round-the-world voyage in 1947–48 in a yacht named after his wife. The yacht, Kathleen Gillett, is one of the museum’s floating exhibits. Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > THE MUSEUM’S VAUGHAN EVANS LIBRARY

Vaughan argued for a national museum of the sea to be built in Sydney

04

As well as the standard reference sources on ships and shipping, such as Lloyd’s Lists and registers, we also have extensive serial holdings, including the leading journals on maritime history.

Members of the public can make appointments to locate information about ship details, shipping procedures, life on board ship through various ages of sail, and ranks of merchant and naval ships’ crews; identify uniforms, flags and ships; locate general arrangement plans for some vessels; and locate information and images of yachts, engines and fittings.

The two volumes of the original draft of Vaughan Evans’ unpublished manuscript Shipbuilding in Australia – Volume I: New South Wales and Volume 2: Other states; 1939–1980s; Naval shipbuilding are in high demand for enquiries about shipbuilders.

04 Vaughan Evans, aged 31, on the deck of the

New Australia, just off the coast of Port Phillip, Victoria, 17 February 1955. ANMM Collection Gift from Vaughan Evans

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > THE MUSEUM’S VAUGHAN EVANS LIBRARY

Vaughan’s donation of his collection and research to the museum’s library inspired other high-profile donors to donate their own collections to the library: Lou d’Alpuget (1915–2006), journalist, author and blue-water yachtsman; Alan N Payne am (1921–1995), naval architect; Norman Lang McKellar mbe (1918–1985), maritime historian and author; Kevyn Webb oam (1924–1990), Rome 1960 Summer Olympics rower; and the Cockatoo Island Dockyard Library.

Vaughan Evans Library services and clients Vaughan was the library’s first volunteer, passing on his extensive maritime knowledge and helping the founding librarian to answer our early requests.

Among our popular resources are transcriptions of passenger voyage diaries and ship-board newsletters from the ANMM collection. These provide details of life on board ships on which a researcher’s forebear might have migrated. And our index of ship images from the library’s holdings is a fantastic resource for people searching for an elusive picture of a ship that brought an ancestor to Australia.

The main users of the Vaughan Evans Library are staff, museum volunteers and Members, along with maritime archaeologists, authors, novelists and playwrights, film and television researchers (for example from the popular family-history show Who do you think you are?), artists, model makers, journalists, academics, students, family historians, genealogists and migrants wanting to obtain details of their arrival to add to the Welcome Wall.

Indeed, the library has become the first point of contact for many enquiries. Two more groups of clients provide a glimpse of the library’s diverse appeal. There have been developers and corporations, architects and designers curious about the harbourside areas they are working on. Then there are the many boat owners and restorers looking for their boats and fittings illustrated in the library’s extensive back-collections of old Australian boating and yachting periodicals.

Online access to Australian shipping and daily newspapers has made it easier to locate, among other information, specific details about captains, shipwrecks and disasters occurring in Australian waters.

The Vaughan Evans Library is located in Wharf 7, 58 Pirrama Road, Pyrmont, just a short walk from the main museum building, and is open to museum Members and the public by appointment Monday to Wednesday between 10 am and 4 pm.

Please email library@anmm.gov.au to arrange a time to visit.

05

Searching online In the last 30 years the library’s unique collection has grown from five boxes of books to 29,000 books and 915 journal titles. Its catalogue is available on the museum’s website for all to search, and all of the library’s holdings are also searchable via the National Library of Australia’s Trove website. Access to the collection is also available worldwide through the OCLC WorldShare Platform, making it easier to open up our collections and ensuring inter-library loans are processed much more quickly.

If you’re stuck in your research and can’t make it to the library, check out our research guides at: anmm.gov.au/ learn/library-and-research You can read more than 200 publications and everything ever published in Signals on your phone, tablet or PC on our ISSUU website: issuu.com/ anmmuseum

05 The library’s collection now numbers

29,000 books and 915 journal titles.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > SIGNALS GOES DIGITAL

Signals goes digital NOW AVAILABLE ON IPAD

02

01

Touch the bottom of the screen to bring up the handy navigation icons. Use the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen, or click on the thumbnail icon in the top left.

Your magazine is now available in a choice of formats – this familiar print version or one tailored for iPad. The digital version will always be free to Members, and by contacting our Members section you can now nominate whether to you wish to receive the print or digital version, or both.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > SIGNALS GOES DIGITAL

THE DIGITAL VERSION OF SIGNALS offers the same quality editorial and sumptuous pictures as the print magazine, but can be delivered quarterly to your iPad, allowing you to access it almost anywhere on the planet and do your bit for the environment. You can easily navigate the entire magazine using either the handy navigation bar at the bottom of the screen or the thumbnail view in the top left. To make the text bigger and allow a closer look at the images, just touch your fingers to the screen then stretch them apart to zoom in.

You can create your own lightweight archive by downloading each new issue.

Access your free trial version of digital Signals by following the instructions below. If you like what you see, please return to the App Store and give us a review and a star rating. All subsequent issues are free to museum Members via a coupon code which will be emailed to Members or can be obtained by contacting the Members section. Non-Members can buy issues for $1.99.

Browse the page-by-page view of Signals.

Downloading Signals to iPad 1. Open the App Store and type in ‘Signals Quarterly’ or go to anmm.gov.au/ signalsApp.

8. Click on the ‘Magazine Store’ icon at the bottom of the app. You will be presented with all the available issues of Signals.

2. Choose the app with the ANMM logo and click ‘Get’ and then ‘Install’.

9. Select the issue you wish to download by clicking the adjacent ‘More’ button.

This will take you to a page that provides an overview of the content. Click the ‘Download’ button at the bottom. The magazine will download automatically.

3. Enter your iTunes/Apple ID password.

4. When the App has downloaded, click on the ANMM icon on your tablet top.

5. Click on ‘register’ and complete the form to set up a secure email address and password. You will need to agree to the Terms & Conditions and can subscribe to the museum’s regular newsletter if you wish. Click ‘register’.

6. You will be automatically sent a confirmation email asking you to verify your address. Open your email account, find the email – it will be sent from web@anmm.gov.au – and click on the verification link within. You will be taken to a webpage that activates your account.

7. Return to the app and log in.

10. Click on the ‘My Magazines’ icon at the bottom left of the screen and your digital edition will open up.

11. To download additional issues, repeat steps 8 and 9. The only difference will be that a ‘Buy’ button will replace the ‘Download’ button. Click ‘Buy’ and choose ‘Coupon Code’ from the pop-up.

Enter the coupon code number, which will be sent via email or can be obtained by contacting the museum’s Members section.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > REMEMBERING BRITAIN’S CHILD MIGRANTS

Remembering Britain’s child migrants REFLECTIONS ON RESEARCH LEGACIES

In June the ANMM and the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood (V&A) convened a one-day conference in London titled Britain’s child migrants: interpreting the past and remembering today. The conference marked the end of the tour of the exhibition On their own – Britain’s child migrants, which over the past six years has visited seven Australian and two British venues, and reached more than 850,000 visitors, writes curator Kim Tao.

01 01 First group of postwar child migrants from

Asturias arrives in Fremantle, WA, 1947.

Reproduced courtesy State Library of Western Australia, The Battye Library

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > REMEMBERING BRITAIN’S CHILD MIGRANTS

ON THEIR OWN was developed as an international collaboration between the ANMM and National Museums Liverpool, UK, to explore the history of the government-sponsored schemes that sent 100,000 unaccompanied children from Britain to Canada, Australia, Zimbabwe and New Zealand between 1869 and 1970 (see Signals 92, Sep–Nov 2010). The exhibition opened in Sydney in 2010, in the wake of two formal apologies from the Australian and British governments that brought the previously marginalised histories of former child migrants emphatically into the public consciousness.

Since then a number of political developments have occurred, including the launch of the Australian Find & Connect web resource, a £6 million Family Restoration Fund for former child migrants, and a landmark $24 million settlement in the class action against the Fairbridge Farm School in New South Wales.

Still ongoing are both the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. There has also been a proliferation of books and articles about child migration, as well as the acclaimed Jim Loach film Oranges and Sunshine, all of which have contributed to a greater public awareness of the schemes over the last few years.

In an academic context, this has corresponded with the emergence of childhood, memory, trauma and transnational lives as popular fields of historical inquiry. Kate Darian-Smith from the University of Melbourne has described On their own as ‘one element of a commemorative environment that has since the new millennium directly acknowledged harsh childhood experiences in postcolonial societies’.1 It is clear that childhood has been firmly established as an area to be historicised, problematised and analysed, and this interest is evident in such groups as the Australasian Society for the History of Children and Youth and the new UK-based Children’s History Society, which was inaugurated in the same week as our conference at the V&A. The culmination of the On their own tour in London provided an important opportunity to reflect on the processes of remembering Britain’s child migrants through three intersecting strands: academic research, museum exhibitions and creative practice. With the legacy of the schemes still being investigated through public inquiries in Australia and the UK, the conference aimed to offer a balance between historical and contemporary discourses. The morning session was dedicated to research perspectives, with papers by Stephen Constantine (Lancaster University) and Eithne Nightingale (Queen Mary University of London) and myself. The afternoon session featured presentations by creative practitioners Rosemary Harris (theatre performer), Jini Rawlings (installation artist),

02

The exhibition has inspired several doctoral and masters’ projects in diverse disciplines, including history, museum studies, fine arts and film

02 Former child migrants Dennis McNerney

and John Holloway participate in a storytelling workshop at Clontarf, WA, 2012.

Photographer Daniel Grant. Reproduced courtesy Community Arts Network Western Australia

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > REMEMBERING BRITAIN’S CHILD MIGRANTS

04

03

John Leonard (music producer), and Chris While and Julie Matthews (folk music duo). Both sessions were linked in their consideration of methodologies for interpreting contested private histories in the public sphere.

On behalf of the ANMM, I discussed the powerful emotional responses and social impact that On their own has engendered during its lifetime and its travels (see Signals 109, Dec 2014–Feb 2015). I also examined the exhibition’s rich research output, and the way it has contributed to the growing body of scholarship on child migration through a range of conference papers, academic forums and citations in peer-reviewed and popular publications (see box at right). This ensures that On their own has a very tangible scholarly legacy, in contrast to most museum exhibitions, which are ephemeral in nature.

The exhibition has inspired several doctoral and master’s projects in diverse disciplines, including history, museum studies, fine arts and film. It has been used in educational case studies by Sydney University as well as Leicester University, in its Behind the Scenes at the 21st Century Museum online course, helping to build future research and teaching capacity. The enduring public interest in family history and genealogy indicates that the subject of child migration has continuing relevance and resonance.

The ANMM is proud that On their own will have a life beyond the exhibition, in the form of published works and academic programs that we hope will benefit prospective researchers into Britain’s child migrants.

1 Kate Darian-Smith, ‘Memorializing Colonial Childhoods: From the Frontier to the Museum’, in Shirleene Robinson and Simon Sleight, eds, Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2016, p 282.

03 Comment from a nine-year-old visitor to the

ANMM, 2011.

04 Since 2010 the Family Restoration Fund has

helped more than 700 former child migrants to travel to the UK to meet their families.

Reproduced courtesy Child Migrants Trust and Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > REMEMBERING BRITAIN’S CHILD MIGRANTS

On their own – Britain’s child migrants Related publications and citations Chynoweth, Adele, ‘Forgotten or Ignored Australians? The Australian Museum Sector’s Marginalisation of Inside – Life in Children’s Homes and Institutions’, The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, vol 6, no 2, 2014, pp 171–182.

Daly, Kathleen, Redressing Institutional Abuse of Children, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2014.

Darian-Smith, Kate, and Carla Pascoe, eds, Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage, Routledge, New York, 2012.

Evans, Tanya, ‘The Forgotten Australians Remembered’, History Australia, vol 8, no 3, 2011, pp 202–204.

Henrich, Eureka, ‘Museums, History and Migration in Australia’, History Compass, vol 11, no 10, 2013, pp 783–800.

Henrich, Eureka, ‘Children’s Toys and Memories of Migration in Australian Museums’, Childhood in the Past: An International Journal, vol 7, no 2, 2014, pp 133–146.

Innocenti, Perla, Cultural Networks in Migrating Heritage: Intersecting Theories and Practices Across Europe, Ashgate, Farnham, 2015.

Karr, Katherine, ‘The Lost Children of Britain’, Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration, vol 2, no 1, 2012, pp 41–46.

Levin, Amy K, ‘European Museums, Migration, and Social Inclusion’, Museum & Society, vol 13, no 4, 2015, pp 545–548.

Lynch, Gordon, Remembering Child Migration: Faith, Nation-Building and the Wounds of Charity, Bloomsbury, London, 2016.

Murray, Suellen, Supporting Adult Care-Leavers: International Good Practice, Policy Press, Bristol, 2015.

Oliver, Gillian, ‘Migrating Heritage: Experiences of Cultural Networks and Cultural Dialogue in Europe’, The Australian Library Journal, vol 64, no 2, 2015, p 157.

Robinson, Shirleene, and Simon Sleight, eds, Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2016.

Sherington, Geoffrey, ‘Contrasting Narratives in the History of Twentieth-Century British Child Migration to Australia: An Interpretive Essay’, History Australia, vol 9, no 2, 2012, pp 27–47.

Skidmore, Patricia, Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry: A Home Child Experience, Dundurn, Toronto, 2012.

Soares, Claudia, ‘Care and Trauma: Exhibiting Histories of Philanthropic Childcare Practices’, Journal of Historical Geography, vol 52, 2016, pp 100–107.

Tao, Kim, ‘On Their Own: Telling Child Migrant Stories in a Transnational Context’, in Perla Innocenti, ed, Migrating Heritage: Experiences of Cultural Networks and Cultural Dialogue in Europe, Ashgate, Farnham, 2014, pp 125–137.

Willis, Ian, ‘Stories of Child Migration’, History Australia, vol 8, no 1, 2011, pp 250–252.

Wright, Hazel R, The Child in Society, Sage Publications, London, 2015.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > BLOCKADE RUNNER

Blockade runner

AN AUSTRALIAN SAILOR IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR This year marks the 80th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War. Curator Dr Stephen Gapps tells the story of William Fowler, an Australian merchant sailor who found himself caught up in this conflict, and under the fire of General Franco’s guns, while running blockades and rescuing refugees from the Basque region in Spain.

01

01 Captain William Fowler. ANMM Collection

ANMS1397[033]

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > BLOCKADE RUNNER

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR lasted from 1936 to 1939, and while the involvement of the International Brigades – volunteers from around the world who went to fight against Fascism – is well known, the story of the 70 or so Australians who volunteered to fight with or assist the Republican forces against General Franco’s fascist troops is not.

Recognition of their service against the rise of Fascism in Europe was a long time coming. Not until 1993 was a plaque unveiled in Canberra. It could not be at the Australian War Memorial, as their service in this war was not sanctioned by the Australian government. Instead, the plaque was placed on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin, just behind the Hilton Hotel. Typically, the involvement of merchant seamen such as William Fowler, who ran blockades under fire, went even less noticed.

02

A career at sea William Fowler was born in Sydney in 1903, the son of a Scottish forensic police officer who had migrated to Queensland in 1890 and married an Australian.

William went to sea at a young age and his early career was on sailing vessels.

While at sea, William wrote long, descriptive letters to his father, after his mother died in 1926. By the 1930s he had completed his Master’s exams and advanced to the rank of Second Officer.

In January 1936 he joined a small but expanding Hong Kong– listed shipping company based in Shanghai, the Moller Line, as Second Officer on SS Marion Moller. Fowler was promoted to Chief Officer in March, then to acting Master in January 1937.

A later reference from the Moller line was full of praise for his service with the company.

With engines at full steam, in what Fowler described as the longest 24 minutes of his life, the Marion Moller raced in to the Asturias coast

Fowler’s career in the merchant service took an eventful turn when in April 1937 Marion Moller was chartered for four months to a firm in London. As Fowler wrote in a letter from Hamburg to his father: … we are now en route to Antwerp to load, I believe, a cargo of grain, destination unknown, but from hints dropped, I think it will be Spain.

Fowler wryly noted that ‘Spain of course isn’t too pleasant a spot just now’.

The Spanish Civil War began in July 1936 after a rebellion by a group of right-wing generals against the centre-left Republican Government and its supporters. The military arm of the rebel coup was led by General Francisco Franco, who would soon become infamous.

02 A photograph from one of Fowler’s albums

of a vessel he sailed on in the 1920s – possibly the three-masted barque Maid of England.

ANMM Collection ANMS1397[111]

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > BLOCKADE RUNNER

Franco’s forces received the support of Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, as well as neighbouring Portugal, while the Soviet Union intervened in support of the Republican government. The other major European powers and the United States remained neutral. While governments shied away from joining the conflict, around 50,000 people from around the world came to Spain to help the Republican forces. Many were communists or trade unionists.

The civil war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired. Tens of thousands of civilians on both sides were killed for their political or religious views. It also became a testing ground for Adolf Hitler’s German air force, which most notably – and controversially – carpet-bombed the non-military target of the Basque town of Guernica in April 1937, killing hundreds of civilians.

The Spanish Republican forces were seriously hampered by the policy of non-intervention proclaimed by France and the United Kingdom. Although France in particular turned a blind eye, the importation of food and materials into Spain became a clandestine affair of running the Fascist naval and air blockade of the three-mile Spanish territorial limit.

Fowler was at first not at all politically motivated to assist the Spanish republicans and was aware of the danger in running the blockade. But he saw an opportunity:

03 The Marion Moller – described by a news

reporter as ‘a battered looking British tramp steamer, painted a dingy black’. ANMM Collection ANMS1397[078]

03

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‌ it is better than returning to the Orient as was first hinted and where I would most likely have been relieved by some senior Master and had to go back to Mate.

As the Marion Moller was from Hong Kong, all the loading of cargo was performed by the 42 Chinese crew. Fowler also had six other British petty officers. Fowler was correct that their next destination was to be Spain and Marion Moller left Antwerp with a cargo of foodstuffs, mostly grain.

Running the blockade While the British did not intervene militarily, they assisted the blockade runners. The Marion Moller was escorted by HMS Shropshire right up to the three-mile limit. On his first run to northern Spain Fowler was lucky. The weather was hazy and there were no vessels in sight, so he took the Marion Moller into the port of Musel near Gijon in northern Spain. His first contact with the people there may well have influenced his later decisions. Fowler was shocked at the poor condition of the people, who were quite near the front line of the war.

After quickly unloading, Fowler headed back to England, from where he was sent on another food run, to Santander in northern Spain.

When the Marion Moller arrived off the Asturian coast, the fascist blockade had become more intense. Fowler joined French and British merchant ships waiting at the edge of Spanish territorial limits for a chance to sneak through.

After two weeks, Fowler had almost given up hope when a break occurred. A Spanish Republican sea and air counter-attack on the Fascists created an opportunity to run into port and the Marion Moller followed another British vessel into Santander.

04 Fowler took this photo of the Marion Moller’s

04

deck crowded with motor cars destined for the Republic of Spain. One of the important elements of the collection of his letters and photographs is his extensive annotation of the images. ANMM Collection ANMS1397[061]

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > BLOCKADE RUNNER

With engines at full steam, in what Fowler described as the longest 24 minutes of his life, the Marion Moller raced in while being peppered all around by fire from a distant ship, to the great joy of crowds of Spanish refugees on the wharves.

A refugee ship When it had unloaded its precious cargo, the Marion Moller was transformed into a refugee rescue ship. Despite constant airraids, Fowler began to take on groups of refugees in an orderly fashion. All was proceeding well until around 1 am, when the mob took charge and, Fowler wrote, ‘the crowd surged forward and all count was lost’. At 5.30 am Fowler refused to take any more passengers and left port. A head count later revealed there were 1,883 people crammed on board the 3,800-tonne ship.

The Marion Moller finally slipped away under cover of darkness. Much equipment had been thrown overboard in the chaos and all Fowler had left was his precious log book.

As Spanish Relief Committee member Anne Caton described it: The ship was without accommodation or supplies of food.

Two and a half days were spent at sea in cold, wet weather with nothing but scanty tarpaulins to cover the refugees on deck.

The plight of the children was more than the men could bear to witness; the officers and crew gave up all the accommodation available including their own cabins to the refugees, as well as all the food they had on board, and were themselves without food or shelter until the port was reached.

05

05 Pablo Picasso painted Guernica in 1937

in response to the German air force’s carpet-bombing of the Basque town of Guernica, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians. ©/Succession Picasso. Licensed by Viscopy, 2016

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After being stopped by French naval authorities and refuting charges that the vessel was carrying militia, Fowler was shunted from port to port as there were already thousands of Spanish refugees crowding the southern French towns.

After two exhausting days he finally disembarked the hungry and desperate refugees near La Rochelle in France. The Daily Express reported they were a ‘most distressing cavalcade of human sorrow … women falling to their knees too weak to stand.’

Despite constant air-raids, Fowler began to take on refugees in an orderly fashion

Fowler then took the Marion Moller to Antwerp via London, expecting to make yet another trip to Spain. The Spanish Relief Committee approached him and asked to join his next journey to Spain ‘with gifts of food from various societies’. On this next trip, from Antwerp in July 1937, Marion Moller was officially carrying cargo that had been purchased by the Asturias government – 78 Ford motors and ‘the greatest assortment of cargo possible’ including flour, beans, cocoa, eggs, car tyres, lard and salted cod. This time, Fowler snuck through the blockade during a heavy fog.

06 A group of Australians returned to Australia

06

from the Spanish Civil War. They hold a torn Republican flag. Australian War Memorial P04951.001

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > BLOCKADE RUNNER

Anne Caton pointed out the risks merchant blockade runners such as Fowler took. The captains were at once responsible to their owners, who ordered them to take no risks, and to the Spanish authorities ‘who have purchased the cargo at great cost and are in desperate need of it’. Fowler himself noted in a letter to his father on 28 May, ‘I’m between the owners and the charterers and if anything goes wrong, it is the Master who carries the proverbial “baby”’.

But there were benefits to the courageous blockade runner, if not to his stalwart Chinese crew. Fowler was excited to later find £250 Sterling had been lodged in his bank account as ‘credit for breaking the blockade’.

Fowler was not one of the Australians who went to Spain for ideological reasons. He had no desire to join what many felt was a great crusade against the threat of fascism. But from his letters home it is obvious Fowler developed a compassion for the Basque people and his humanity towards refugees shines through. He noted in one letter that ‘things don’t look too good for the Basques now that Bilbao has fallen, and I’m really sorry as I like the Basque people very much’.

07

From one war to another Fowler took Marion Moller back to China, arriving in Shanghai in August 1937, just after the Japanese and Chinese forces had been fighting over the city at the start of the Second Sino–Japanese War. Fowler did several cargo trips between various ports in China, French Indo-China and Japan. His reputation as a fine sea captain grew and he was put in charge of the Moller line flagship Nils Moller.

A later reference from the Moller line was full of praise for Fowler’s service with the company

When war was declared in 1939, Fowler decided to volunteer for service in the Royal Navy. In Shanghai at the time, he continued to work on cargo vessel runs through late 1939 and early 1940.

But he was desperate to join the war effort in Europe and hoped that Moller Line ships would be requisitioned by the British navy.

In August 1940, nearly a year after World War II had broken out, Fowler got his wish and was transferred to the Lillian Moller, which had just been requisitioned by the British government.

After taking on a cargo from Calcutta bound for Britain, the ship joined a convoy at Cape Town in South Africa.

Fowler’s last letter home to his father was written on 24 October 1940 from Freetown, Sierra Leone. On 18 November, the Lillian Moller was torpedoed and sunk by the Italian submarine

07 A standard letter from the King of England

to the families of war dead, kept by William Fowler’s father John in his collection of memorabilia of his son. ANMM Collection ANMS1397[20]

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Maggiore Baracca. The 42 Chinese crew members and seven British officers aboard Lillian Moller were all killed. The names of the Chinese crew are not known.

William Fowler is included in the Australian War Memorial Commemorative Roll for his service on the Lillian Moller during World War II. William’s father kept his letters and a collection of material William had sent home during his years at sea.

It included photographs of various vessels and ports visited, a diary, and postcards and letters written to his family.

Significantly, the poignant collection includes the telegram sent by the Minister of War Transport informing John Fowler of William’s death. Fowler was 37 years old when he died.

There has been little attention paid to the actions of the merchant vessels that ran the blockade during the Spanish Civil War, and, until now, nothing has been widely known about the Australian sea captain and his Chinese crew who ran the blockade several times and rescued thousands of war refugees.

Further research may reveal the involvement of other Australian merchant seamen, whose service in many wars has often been neglected in official recognition and commemoration.

08

A longer version of this story, including references, can be found at stories.anmm.gov. au/spanish_civil_war

08 A reference for the young Fowler in 1920

from the Master of the Maid of England.

ANMM Collection ANMS1397[111]

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

A chance encounter

COMMEMORATING THE 400TH ANNIVERSARY OF DIRK HARTOG’S LANDING Four hundred years ago, Dutch mariner Dirk Hartog (1580–1621) sailed into history when, on 25 October 1616, he made the first documented European landing on the west coast of Australia.

Curator Kim Tao details the accidental encounter that put the west coast on the map.

01 Hessel Gerritsz, Chart of the Malay

Archipelago and the Dutch discoveries in Australia (detail), 1618–1628.

National Library of Australia nla.obj-231306061

01

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

DIRK HARTOG’S LEGACY is preserved through the remote island that now bears his name at the entrance to Shark Bay, Western Australia, but the man himself remains an enigmatic figure. There are no known portraits of the Vereenigde OostIndische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) captain or his ship the Eendracht (‘Concord’ or ‘Unity’). At a period in which regional Dutch spellings were not yet standardised, his forename appears variously in the historical record as Dirck, Dirick or Dierck, and his surname as Hatichs, Hartoogs, Hartogszoon or Hartogh. Regardless of its spelling, four centuries on, his name is synonymous with the inscribed ‘Hartog plate’ that marked his landfall at the far western edge of the Australian continent. This evocative pewter relic, now held in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, provides tangible evidence of one of the earliest European encounters with the mysterious Terra Australis Incognita – the unknown southern land.

The promise of gold and abundant wealth lured European voyagers to the southern seas – home to exotic goods such as tea, porcelain, silk and spices

Ancient scholars such as Aristotle and Ptolemy firmly believed in the existence of a southern landmass, based on the concept of a balanced globe. Their ideas influenced the work of 16th-century cartographers, including Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius, whose world maps depicted fabled lands that overflowed with gold and spices, and were derived from the tales of Venetian traveller Marco Polo in the 13th century. The promise of gold and abundant wealth lured European voyagers to the southern seas – home to exotic goods such as tea, porcelain, silk and spices. At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese explorers discovered the seaway from Europe to Asia around the southern tip of Africa, and dominated this trade route for a century. But by the end of the 16th century, the Dutch and English were ready to challenge the Portuguese monopoly.

European interests were particularly centred on the historic Spice Islands (the Moluccas) in the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, once the world’s exclusive source of nutmeg and cloves. Here traders wrestled for control of the lucrative market in spices, which were in high demand in Europe as they had medicinal qualities, added flavour and zest to food, and also

02 Hessel Gerritsz, Caert van’t Landt van

02

d’Eendracht uyt de Iournalen ende afteykeningen der Stierluyden t’samengestelt [Chart of the Land of the Eendracht], 1627.

National Library of Australia nla.obj-231306238

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

helped in food preservation. It was against this backdrop that the Dutch government established the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (also known by its Dutch acronym VOC) in 1602.

The VOC brought together six regional chambers of commerce based in the coastal cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Delft and Middelburg, and was governed by a board of directors, the Heren XVII (Gentlemen 17).

Exercising a mix of diplomacy, commercial pressure and military force, it developed into one of the largest and most powerful trading companies in the world. Between 1595 and 1795, Dutch ships made nearly 4,800 voyages across the Indian Ocean on their way to the Spice Islands, originally taking up to a year to sail one way from Europe to Asia. During this time the protracted journeys, cramped conditions and equatorial heat took their toll on seafarers.

In 1610–11 Hendrik Brouwer, commander and later GovernorGeneral of the East Indies, pioneered a faster sea route that utilised the westerly winds of the Southern Ocean between latitudes 35° and 40° south, rather than the more traditional northerly routes across the Indian Ocean. The Brouwer route instructed ships to maintain an easterly course for at least a thousand mijlen (an old Dutch mile, equivalent to approximately four modern nautical miles), or about 7,400 kilometres, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, before heading north towards the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java. In doing so VOC ships could halve their sailing time, thus reducing the risk of infectious disease and death among the crew, while also giving the company a distinct advantage over its competitors. The Brouwer route was officially adopted by the VOC in its 1617 seynbrief (sailing instruction).

03

03 Hendrik Cornelisz, The Return to Amsterdam

of the Second Expedition to the East Indies, 1599. Oil on canvas, 102.3 x 218.4 cm. Reproduced courtesy Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

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The main navigational problem with the Brouwer route was working out when to turn north. The only orientation points on the way were the small islands of St Paul and Amsterdam at about 700 mijlen. While navigators were able to ascertain their latitude (distance north or south of the equator) by this time, there was no reliable method for determining longitude (distance east or west of a given point) at sea until the development of the marine chronometer in the 18th century.

Thus a consequence of the new route was that VOC ships might sooner or later come into contact with the west coast of Australia, as in the case of Dirk Hartog.

Hartog was born in Amsterdam in 1580, the second son of Hartych Krijnen, a mariner, and Griet Jans. Before joining the VOC in 1615, he traded as a private merchant and skippered the small vessel Dolphyn (‘Dolphin’) to a number of Baltic and Mediterranean ports. In January 1616, aged 35, Hartog became the skipper of the 700-tonne Eendracht on its maiden voyage to Bantam in the East Indies (now Banten, Indonesia).

The ship embarked from Texel in northern Holland along with four other vessels. It had a crew of 200 and carried 10 money chests containing 80,000 reales (pieces of eight), valued at about 200,000 guilders, which were to be delivered to VOC trading posts.1 In August 1616 Eendracht arrived at the Cape of Good Hope alone, after becoming separated from the fleet during a storm.

It was restocked with supplies of fresh fruit, vegetables and drinking water, before departing the Cape three weeks later following the new Brouwer route. Eendracht sailed too far east, however, resulting in an unexpected encounter with the then unknown west coast of Australia, where Hartog saw ‘several islands, though uninhabited’, behind which a vast mainland could be seen.2 On 25 October 1616, Eendracht made landfall at the northern end of Dirk Hartog Island in Shark Bay, an area that was home to the Malgana people. Hartog and his crew spent two days ashore. The group examined the area thoroughly but determined that it had nothing to recommend it from a mercantile point of view. Before proceeding for Bantam on 27 October, they inscribed a testimony of their visit on a flattened pewter dinner plate. Recording their landing date, the name of the ship and its senior crew, and details of the onward journey, this act transformed an ephemeral engagement into a tangible mark of discovery. The Hartog plate was nailed to an oak post placed on the rocky cliff top, overlooking what is now known as Cape Inscription.

Ancient scholars such as Aristotle and Ptolemy firmly believed in the existence of a southern landmass

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04

In December 1616, Eendracht reached Makassar, where 16 of its crew were killed in a confrontation with locals.3 Hartog then visited a number of trading posts to deliver the money chests, before departing Bantam one year later for the return passage to the Netherlands, arriving in the province of Zeeland in October 1618.

Following his history-making voyage, Hartog left the employment of the VOC and became the skipper of Geluckige Leeu (‘Lucky Lion’), which sailed to various European ports.

Dirk Hartog died in 1621, shortly before his 41st birthday, and was buried in the grounds of the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in Amsterdam.

Hartog’s landing in 1616 had a significant impact on world geography and cartography, and foreshadowed a series of Dutch, British and French expeditions that would gradually, over the course of two centuries, put Australia on the map.

As he sailed north from Shark Bay to Bantam, Hartog charted some 400 kilometres of the Western Australian coastline and named it after his ship, ’t Landt van de Eendracht (the Land of the Eendracht) or Eendrachtsland. This name soon began to appear on maps of the world, in place of the mythical Terra Australis Incognita. Among the earliest were the 1618 and 1627 editions by chief VOC cartographer Hessel Gerritsz.

04 Dirk Hartog plate, 1616. Tin (metal),

diameter 36.5 cm. The message on the plate is translated as: ‘1616, 25 October, is here arrived the ship the Eendracht of Amsterdam, the upper-merchant Gillis Miebais of Liege, skipper Dirck Hatichs of Amsterdam; the 27th ditto set sail again for Bantam, the under-merchant Jan Stins, the upper-steersman Pieter Dookes van Bill, Anno 1616.’ Reproduced courtesy Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

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Successive Dutch navigators would extend the charts of the western, northern and southern coasts to give shape to Hartog’s Eendrachtsland, which was also known as ’t Zuyd Landt (the South Land) or ’t Grote Zuyd Landt (the Great South Land), and then Hollandia Nova (New Holland) after Abel Tasman’s second voyage in 1644.

Dirk Hartog’s plate would lie undisturbed at its windswept island outpost for more than 80 years, until Willem de Vlamingh’s expedition in the ships Geelvinck (‘Yellow Finch’), Nyptangh and Weseltje in 1696. De Vlamingh had been instructed to search for possible survivors from the wrecks of two VOC ships, Ridderschap van Holland (lost 1694) and Vergulde Draeck (‘Gilt Dragon’, lost 1656; see Signals 109, pp 34–39), and also to chart the remainder of the western coast of New Holland. In February 1697, de Vlamingh and his crew landed at Dirk Hartog Island and by sheer coincidence discovered the inscribed Hartog plate, lying half-buried in the sand beside its now decayed oak post. Recognising its historic significance, de Vlamingh took the Hartog plate on board and replaced it with a new one engraved with his predecessor’s original message, as well as a record of his own visit.

The plate was nailed to a new post of cypress pine collected from Rottnest Island.

In March 1697 de Vlamingh delivered Dirk Hartog’s plate to Batavia (now Jakarta) as ‘proof of the daring spirit of his ancestors’.4 The following year the plate was taken to the VOC headquarters in Amsterdam, where it remained until the company was dissolved in 1799. In 1819 the plate was handed to the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities in The Hague, which became part of the Rijksmuseum in 1883.

Today it endures as a powerful icon of shared cultural heritage, symbolising the longstanding maritime connections between the Netherlands and Australia. The de Vlamingh plate is in the collection of the Western Australian Maritime Museum, one of the few material reminders of pre-British, 17th-century Dutch encounters with the continent that would come to be known as Australia.

The Dutch ultimately abandoned their interest in New Holland in the mid-18th century, having found nothing of commercial value in what they deemed a barren and inhospitable land.

In 1770 the British navigator Lieutenant James Cook charted the elusive east coast of New Holland and named it New South Wales. In 1801–1803, Matthew Flinders’ circumnavigation showed that Terra Australis was an island, and not part of a larger southern landmass. Hartog’s Eendrachtsland, New Holland and the Great South Land were finally revealed to be one continent – Australia.

1 Phillip E Playford, ‘Hartog, Dirk (1580–1621)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ hartog-dirk-12968.

2 J P Sigmond and L H Zuiderbaan, Dutch Discoveries of Australia: Shipwrecks, Treasures and Early Voyages off the West Coast, Batavian Lion, Amsterdam, 1995, p 36.

3 Although Bantam is listed as the onward destination on the Hartog plate, VOC log books indicate Eendracht visited the Dutch factory at Makassar before sailing on to Banda and Bantam.

See Western Australian Museum, ‘1616: Dirk Hartog’, museum.wa.gov.au/ explore/dirk-hartog.

4 Peter Sigmond, ‘Cultural Heritage and a Piece of Pewter’, in Lindsey Shaw and Wendy Wilkins, eds, Dutch Connections: 400 Years of Australian–Dutch Maritime Links 1606–2006, Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney, 2006, p 83.

For a more detailed digital version of this story, visit stories.anmm.gov.au/ dirk_hartog.

The ANMM will mark the 400th anniversary of Dirk Hartog’s landing with a new roof projection, A chance encounter, showing nightly after dark from 20 October to 6 November 2016.

The show is developed in collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney and supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Canberra. The ANMM will also present a lecture on Dirk Hartog

by Dr Wendy van Duivenvoorde, senior lecturer in maritime archaeology at Flinders University, on 20 October.

See page 66 for details.

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A new season at the museum MESSAGE TO MEMBERS

As the weather warms up, we have plenty to get you out into the spring sunshine with our range of talks, tours and family activities. And don’t forget to book for the Members 25th anniversary lunch, at which renowned shipwreck hunter David Mearns will share highlights of his career.

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SPRING IS HERE and we have some new and interesting activities planned for our Members.

Firstly, I would like to introduce you to Alana Sharp, our new event co-ordinator. Alana has come to us with a wealth of experience and event knowledge from venues such as Riverside Theatre, Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre and Sydney Conservatorium. Please make her feel welcome when you attend your next Member event.

01 HMAS Sydney (pictured) and HSK Kormoran,

which both sank as a result of a battle in 1941, are two of many significant wrecks researched and located by David Mearns, guest at the 25th anniversary Members lunch.

Image courtesy WA Museum and Curtin University, Š WA Museum

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

We’re very excited to have booked David Mearns, the ‘shipwreck hunter’, as guest speaker for the museum’s 25th anniversary Members lunch. One of the world’s most experienced and successful deep-sea shipwreck hunters, over his 23-year career he has led the research and discovery of 21 major shipwrecks, among them HMAS Sydney, HSK Kormoran and HMS Hood. So make sure you save the date, 26 November 2016.

Following Members’ suggestions, we have introduced a regular program of curator talks, the Members Maritime Series.

The first, ‘The cup I eat my miserable allowance out’

by Dr Nigel Erskine, detailed the aftermath and effects of the Bounty mutiny, which are felt to this day. We plan to host one talk a month, and we look forward to your feedback on them.

We hope you find them informative and interesting and that you enjoy the opportunity to meet some of our knowledgeable staff here at the museum.

02

The exhibitions Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Ships, Clocks & Stars are proving to be a big hit with the general public and our Members. If you haven’t yet seen these engaging exhibitions, please make time to come in before they finish in October.

We are also hosting a Dirk Hartog talk by Dr Wendy van Duivenvoorde, in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Consulate-General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It commemorates the 400th anniversary of Hartog’s landing at Cape Inscription on Dirk Hartog Island in Shark Bay, Western Australia.

Wartime history buffs might wish to join author Stephen Robinson for the launch of his book False flags: Disguised German raiders of World II. It tells the epic story of German raider voyages to the South Seas during the early years of World War II. In 1940 the raiders Orion, Komet, Pinguin and Kormoran left Germany and waged a ‘pirate war’ in the South Seas – part of Germany’s strategy to attack the British Empire’s maritime trade on a global scale.

You can keep up to date with these and future events and cruises via our regular Member emails. If you are not receiving these emails and would like to do so, please contact Renae Sarantis or me directly in the Member’s office on 02 9298 3646.

I look forward to seeing you at the museum over the coming months and would love to hear your feedback and any suggestions on your membership or your museum experience.

Oliver Isaacs Manager, Members

02 Wildlife Photographer of the Year has proved

popular with Members and the general public.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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Members events SPRING 2016

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

On land and sea

Family torchlight tour

Members Maritime Series

Military history in action – Holsworthy Army Base

Starry skies on a tall ship

9 am–4 pm Wednesday 14 September

A theatrical guided tour through celestial navigation history on HMB Endeavour

What happened to Cook’s ship Endeavour?

A rare opportunity to tour two museums on the Holsworthy Army Base Family fun Sundays

Talk like a pirate 11 am–4 pm Sunday 11 September

Themed character tours, face painting, performances and more Spring school holidays

Kids’ and family activities 25 September–9 October

Hands-on workshops, themed creative activities, film screenings and performances Family theatre performances

The lighthouse keeper’s lunch; Jungle drums – musical storytelling Selected dates, 25 September–9 October

Interactive performances with whimsy, windswept humour and a musical kick

6.15–7.45 pm Thursday 6 October

Exclusive tour

2–4 pm Thursday 3 November

How the museum is helping to solve the mystery of this famous ship’s fate

Convict footprints on the Old Great North Road

Family event

9 am–4 pm Saturday 15 October

10.30–11.30 am Friday 11 November

Theatre in the wild in Dharug National Park

Remembering those who served, and those who still serve today

Members Maritime Series

Dirk Hartog talk; roof projection launch 5–9.30 pm Thursday 20 October

Commemorating the Dutch sailor’s fateful encounter

Remembrance Day

Book launch and author talk

False Flags by Stephen Robinson 2–4 pm Thursday 17 November

Family fun Sundays

The story of how Nazi ‘pirate’ raiders brought WWII to our doorstep

Cockatoo Island adventures

Members 25th anniversary lunch

11 am–4 pm Sunday 23 October

Themed character tours, face painting, performances and more Exclusive tour

Ships, Clocks & Observatory Hill stargazing 6–9.30 pm Friday 28 October

Curator-led tour of Ships, Clocks & Stars, then a visit to Sydney Observatory

Shipwreck hunter David Mearns 11 am–2 pm Saturday 26 November

Join fellow Members for this special lunch and tales of shipwreck finds worldwide Kids’ activities

Mini Mariners open week Monday 24–Wednesday 26 November

Special programs for children 0–6 years to celebrate NSW Childrens Week

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Members events SPRING 2016

Available free

For your diaries

ANMM Speakers

26 December – Boxing Day Cruise

ANMM has a team of professional speakers available to give talks in the greater Sydney area.

Over 20 topics are available, covering significant maritime events and people in Australian history: Bass and Flinders, Captain Cook, navy battles such as HMAS Sydney (II) and HSK Kormoran, the attack in Sydney Harbour by Japanese mini submarines, and events that were not covered in their day, like the bombing of Darwin.

The complete list of talks can be found on anmm.gov.au/ Speakers. If you would like to invite a speaker to your club, please contact Noel Phelan or Ron Ray: noelphelan@bigpond.com / 0402 158 590 / (02) 9437 3185 ron.ray@aapt.net.au / 0416 123 034 / (02) 9624 1917

26 January – Australia Day Cruise

Bookings and enquiries Booking form on reverse of mailing address sheet.

Please note that booking is essential unless otherwise stated.

Book online at anmm.gov.au/ whats-on/calendar or phone (02) 8241 8378 (unless otherwise indicated) or email members@ anmm.gov.au before sending form with payment. Minimum numbers may be required for an event to go ahead. All details are correct at time of publication but subject to change.

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

Members events SPRING 2016

On land and sea

Military history in action – Holsworthy Army Base 9 am–4 pm Wednesday 14 September Enjoy a rare opportunity to tour two museums on the Holsworthy Army Base: the Commando Museum, 2nd Commando Regiment (under construction) and the Museum of Military Engineering.

Highlights include diorama displays, equipment used for gap crossing, engineer plant and armoured vehicles developed for construction, land clearing and landmine destruction and clearance.

Members $65, guests $75. Includes morning tea. For lunch we will visit Moorebank Sports Club; order off the menu or bring your own.

Book at weasydney.com.au or phone (02) 9264 2781.

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Kids’ and family activities

Kids On deck 11 am–3 pm (hourly sessions) every Sunday during school term Play, discover and create in Kids on Deck – a fun-filled activity and art-making space for primary school-aged children.

Members free. Included in any paid admission. To attend Kids on Deck only: child $8.50, adult $7

Kids’ activities

04

Kids’ activity backpacks Available every day to 30 October Explore our latest exhibition Ships, Clocks & Stars with fun and creative activity backpacks for children ages 2–12.

Free loan with temporary exhibitions ticket/Big Ticket/ membership

Family activities

Family fun Sundays 11 am-4 pm Sundays 11 September and 23 October Join us for special themed family fun Sundays with lively performances, character tours, face painting and more.

Full program online at anmm.gov.au/familyfun or subscribe to our family e-newsletter to keep up to date on all the details.

11 September – Talk like a pirate 23 October – Cockatoo Island adventures

03 Museum of Military Engineering.

Courtesy Holsworthy Army Base 04 Piratical action at Family fun Sundays.

Photograph Annalice Creighton/ANMM

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

Members events SPRING 2016

Under fives

Mini Mariners 10–10.45 am and 11–11.45 am every Tuesday during term time and one Saturday each month Explore the galleries and sing and dance in interactive tours with costumed guides. Enjoy creative free play, craft, games, dress-ups and story time in our themed activity area.

For ages 2–5 and carers.

September – W is for Wildlife October – Tick, Tock and Twinkle November – Pirates Ahoy!

December 13 – End of year concert

05

Members free. Child $8.50. First adult $3.50, extra adults $7 (includes galleries). Booked playgroups welcome.

Online bookings essential at anmm.gov.au/whats-on

Spring school holidays

Kids’ and family activities 25 September–9 October Go wild at the museum these school holidays with exhibitions, vessels, hands-on workshops, themed creative activities, performances and more. It’s fun for the whole family!

Daily activities include art-making, games and dress-ups in Kids on Deck, exploring touchable objects and artefacts at the Cabinet of Curiosities, enjoying family theatre performances, relaxing with a film screening, checking out a kids’ activity backpack and more.

See anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays for full program.

Kids on deck

Wild wonders 10 am–4 pm daily 25 September–9 October Play, create and discover in Kids on Deck – a fun-filled activity space with art-making, games and dress-ups for primary-school aged children and their carers. These holidays, delve into the biology of wondrous wildlife. Create a whale mobile, make your own creature mask, or sculpt a camera or a miniature diorama.

Enjoy dress-ups and interactive games.

Kids on Deck ticket: Child $8.50. Adult $7. Or included in any paid admission. Members Free.

05 Crafty creativity at Kids on Deck.

Photograph Zoe McMahon/ANMM

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

Members events SPRING 2016

Cabinet of Curiosities

Creature feature 11 am–12 pm and 2–3 pm daily 25 September–9 October Touch and discover curious creature specimens and artefacts from our education collection in this hands-on discovery device inside the galleries.

Free screenings

Family film 2.30 pm daily 25 September–9 October See anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays for a full list of what’s on

06

Family theatre performance

The lighthouse keeper’s lunch 11.30 am, 2 pm Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday 25 September–9 October Mr Grinling is a lighthouse keeper with a big, hungry problem – pesky seagulls who eat their fill of his food. Join the flock of cheeky gulls as you go head to head with Mr and Mrs Grinling and Hamish the cat. By Drop Bear Theatre Members free. Included in any paid admission

Family theatre performance

Jungle drums – musical storytelling 11.30 am, 12.30 pm, 2 pm Wednesdays 28 September–5 October Take a journey into the rhythms of wildlife and the natural world with interactive storytelling and music workshops.

Members free. Included in any paid admission admission

Under fives tour

Alphabet animals 10 am, 11 am Tuesday 27 Sept, 4 October or Saturday 8 October A is for anemone, Z is for zebrafish. Discover animal pictures and specimens on display at the museum with movement, songs and storytime in a fun and interactive learning program especially designed for toddlers. Afterwards head to Kids on Deck for crafts and messy play.

Members free. Child $8.50, adult $7. Bookings essential anmm.gov. au/under5s

06 Get hands-on with museum specimens at the

Cabinet of Curiosities. Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

Members events SPRING 2016

Drop-in workshop

Cyanotype Sundays 11–11.30 am, 12–12.30 pm, 2.30–3 pm Sundays 25 September and 9 October Create your own spectacular sun prints and learn about the science behind this special photographic process.

Members free. Included in any paid admission or Kids on Deck ticket

Family torchlight tour

Starry skies on a tall ship

07

6.15–7.45 pm Thursday 6 October Take a theatrical guided tour through celestial navigation history in Ships, Clocks & Stars and on board HMB Endeavour.

Use astronomical telescopes and navigational devices to find constellations in the night sky. Enjoy refreshments and souvenir art-making activities. For ages 4–12 and carers.

Members: child $18, adult $10. Guests: child $22, adult $18.

Book online at anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays

Youth workshop

Young inventors 10 am–3 pm Thursday 29 September Get hands on with kinetic art and science inspired by our temporary exhibitions. Experiment with engineering creations that move, float, fly and spin. Learn about navigational instruments and their ways of telling time, distance, speed and location, and invent your own creative wayfinding device.

Members $40, guests $45. Book online at anmm.gov.au/ schoolholidays

07 Torchlight tours evoke the olden days

on board Endeavour. Photograph Annalice Creighton/ANMM

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

Members events SPRING 2016

Youth workshop

TV presenting – In the wild 10 am–4 pm Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6 October Join filmmaker and educator Nicola Walkerden to script, film, present and direct your own wild creative TV segment inspired

by Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Learn skills in working with green screen and on location, videography, directing, lighting, sound and acting to camera.

Have your finished work exhibited in a special museum screening for your family and friends. For ages 8–14.

08

Members and early bird special (until 28 September) $140, guests $165. Book online at anmm.gov.au/youth

Exclusive tour

Convict footprints on the Old Great North Road 9 am–4 pm Saturday 15 October Try a terrific new experience – theatre in the wild in beautiful Dharug National Park, bringing to life the story of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Old Great North Road in the 1830s.

Professional actors tell tales of the convicts and the suffering they endured, lightened by bawdy convict humour. The surrounding bush gives the audience a greater understanding of the hardships faced by the men who laboured for their sins.

09

Members: adult $75, child $65. Guests: adult $85, child $70.

Family $240 (two adults, two children). Bookings essential.

Includes tea and damper, bus travel, play and tour.

Members Maritime Series

Dirk Hartog: an archaeological and historical context Thursday 20 OctoberTalk: 5–6.30 pm Four hundred years ago, Dutch mariner Dirk Hartog (1580–1621) sailed into history when, on 25 October 1616, he made the first documented European landing on the west coast of Australia.

His crew left behind an inscribed pewter plate as a testimony of their arrival and departure. To commemorate this anniversary, the museum is hosting Dr Wendy van Duivenvoorde, senior lecturer in maritime archaeology at Flinders University.

Wendy’s talk will focus on ships of exploration and East Indiamen, including the archaeological remains of Western Australia’s Dutch East Indiamen shipwrecks.

Talk only: Members $10, guests $20. Bookings essential

10

08 Learn green-screen techniques and

more in our TV presenting workshop.

Photograph Annalice Creighton/ANMM 09 Convict tales on the Old Great North Road.

Photograph Sarah Brookes/OEH 10 Dirk Hartog plate, 1616. Reproduced courtesy

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

Members events SPRING 2016

A chance encounter roof projection Thursday 20 October Launch: 6.30–8.30 pm In collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney, the ANMM has produced a three-minute roof projection exploring the chance encounter that put the west coast of Australia on the map.

Following Dr Wendy van Duivenvoorde’s talk, enjoy drinks and canapés aboard HMB Endeavour. The celebration will continue on The Lookout, atop our new Waterfront Pavilion, for the launch of the museum’s latest show. Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Canberra.

Talk and launch: Members $65, guests $80. Bookings essential

11

Exclusive tour

Ships, Clocks & Observatory Hill stargazing 6–9.30 pm Friday 28 October A unique combination of a curator-led tour of ANMM’s Ships, Clocks & Stars exhibition and a stargazing visit to Sydney Observatory. Ships, Clocks & Stars tells the story of the quest to find longitude, a problem that had frustrated the greatest minds since the late 1400s.

Sydney Observatory was essential to shipping, navigation, meteorology and timekeeping, and to the study of the stars of the southern hemisphere. The observatory’s exhibition includes a Matthew Flinders chronometer and sextants as well as the world’s biggest clock, the Transit Circle Telescope. This special evening will conclude with stargazing.

Members: adult $80, child $55. Guests: adult $90, child $65.

Family $205 (two adults, two children). Includes entry to both museums, curator guides, transfers from ANMM to Sydney Observatory, light supper and glass of wine

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Stargaze the night skies at Sydney Observatory. Photograph courtesy Sydney Observatory

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

Members events SPRING 2016

Members Maritime Series

What happened to Cook’s ship Endeavour?

2–4 pm Thursday 3 November HMB Endeavour, in which James Cook surveyed the east coast of Australia in 1770, remains significant in our nation’s history.

It returned to England in 1771, but what happened to it after that?

For almost 20 years the museum has been working to find out, and recent research and archaeological fieldwork have brought us much closer to an answer. Join museum Director & CEO, Kevin Sumption, and Head of Research, Dr Nigel Erskine, as they discuss Endeavour after Cook and the museum’s ongoing collaboration with the Rhode Island Maritime Archaeology Project.

12

Members $10, guests $20. Includes afternoon tea

Family event

Remembrance Day 10.30–11.30 am Friday 11 November Join the museum and the NSW Commando Association to remember the men and women who served, and those who still serve today, in our Remembrance Day service beside the World War II commando raider Krait.

Free. Bookings not required 13

Book launch and author talk

False Flags by Stephen Robinson 2–4 pm Thursday 17 November The story of how Nazi ‘pirate’ raiders brought World War II to our doorstep, attacking our harbours and sinking unsuspecting merchant ships while masquerading as harmless freighters.

During extraordinary voyages that spanned the globe, they sank or captured 62 ships in a forgotten naval war now told in its entirety for the first time. False Flags is also the story of the Allied sailors who encountered these raiders and battled against a superior foe, as well those held captive aboard the raiders as prisoners of the Third Reich.

Members $10, guests $15. Includes afternoon tea

12 Etching depicting HMB Endeavour landing

at Botany Bay. Geoffrey Ingleton, 1937.

ANMM Collection 0004352 13 False Flags by Stephen Robinson.

Image courtesy Exisle Publishing

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MEMBERS SPRING 2016

Members events SPRING 2016

For your diary Expert-led Indonesian cruise

Spice traders to Bugis shipbuilders 11–22 January 2017 Explore Indonesia’s fabled Spice Islands in air-conditioned luxury on board Ombak Putih (‘White Wave’), based on a traditional Bugis–Makassan sail trader. This 12-day voyage explores spice plantations, colonial era forts and remote island communities accessible only by sea. Leading you from the Moluccas to Sulawesi is ANMM research associate in Asian maritime history, retired Signals editor Jeffrey Mellefont.

Members 20% discount (US$4860 + airfares). Read more on ANMM website: anmm.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/ maritime-tourism-helps-keeps-indonesian-traditions-alive/.

Or call Members office.

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Members 25th anniversary lunch

Shipwreck hunter David Mearns 11 am–2 pm Saturday 26 November This year we are celebrating 25 years since the museum opened with our 25th anniversary lunch for Members.

This is a historic event for both the museum and our Members.

To avoid disappointment, book early.

Our special guest speaker is shipwreck hunter, marine scientist, explorer and author David Mearns. Join museum Chairman, Peter Dexter am, and Director and CEO, Kevin Sumption, to hear about David’s adventures, his success in locating the wrecks of several ships lost during World War II, including HMAS Sydney, and the challenges faced during deep-water search and recovery. Enjoy the company of fellow Members and a delicious three-course lunch accompanied by specially chosen wines.

US-born David Mearns has found and filmed some of the world’s most famous and controversial shipwrecks, including notoriously elusive wrecks that others predicted would never be located.

David has earned a place in Australia’s military history by finding the wrecks of the country’s two worst maritime disasters – HMAS Sydney in 2008 and the Australian hospital ship Centaur in late 2009. In 2010 David was awarded an honorary Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to Australia by locating and filming these wrecks.

Members $105, guests $125. Includes three-course lunch and wine

14 Carley float from the wreck of HMAS Sydney,

one of many researched and discovered by David Mearns. Image courtesy WA Museum and Curtin University, © WA Museum

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > EXHIBITIONS > WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2016

Wildlife Photographer of the Year NATURE THROUGH THE LENS

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TRULY GREAT IMAGES OF NATURE can transform the way people look at the natural world, challenge opinion and stimulate debate. For more than 50 years, Wildlife Photographer of the Year has remained at the forefront of contemporary photography, championing ethical practice, while also recognising and awarding artistic composition, narrative form, technical excellence and truthful interpretation of the natural world.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition began in 1965, with just three categories and about 500 entries.

Even then, it was a leading event for nature photographers.

It grew in stature over the years, and in 1984 London’s Natural History Museum became involved, creating the competition as it is today.

01 David Doubilet (USA), Turtle flight

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > EXHIBITIONS > WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

Now, thousands of entries are received from almost 100 countries around the globe. The winning photographs, selected by a professional jury, range from intimate animal portraits to atmospheric landscapes, ground-breaking photojournalism and evocative abstract images.

For the first time, the Australian National Maritime Museum is hosting the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. It brings together 100 images across 20 categories, shot in all manner of environments: remote wilderness, vast oceans, bustling cities and back gardens.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.

Merchandise from the exhibition is available at The Store or online at store.anmm.gov.au

EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2016

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EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2016

Through a different lens – Cazneaux by the water 2 September 2016–5 February 2017 Photographer Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) is a giant in the history of Australian photography. In the early 1900s he became a passionate advocate for photography as art rather than a mechanical recording process. This exhibition of more than 50 original works presents a new dimension to Cazneaux’s work, reflecting how the water and Sydney Harbour offered him a space to explore mood, light, atmosphere and life in his signature pictorial photographic style.

Hartog 400th anniversary roof projection

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20 October–6 November 2016 The ANMM will mark the 400th anniversary of Dirk Hartog’s landing with a new roof projection, A chance encounter, showing nightly after dark from 20 October to 6 November 2016.

See also page 66 for details of an associated lecture on Hartog.

The roof projection is developed in collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney and supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Canberra.

Ships, Clocks & Stars: the Quest for Longitude Until 30 October

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For hundreds of years, European merchants staked their fortunes on long-distance voyages. Travel at sea was dangerous and safe passage relied on fair weather and effective navigation.

Unlike land, the sea has no fixed points to help seamen determine their position. This could lead to unnecessarily long voyages or the loss of ships, cargo and life.

This award-winning exhibition tells the story of the centuries-long search for longitude, and the solution that helped to reshape our understanding of the world.

Ships, Clocks & Stars: the Quest for Longitude has been produced by the National Maritime Museum, part of Royal Museums Greenwich, London.

Treasures of the American Collection Currently showing From the oldest, A Journal of a Voyage Around the World in His Majesty’s Ship The Endeavour, written by American James Magra; to the newest, a model of the Australian-designed Littoral Combat Ship being built by Austal in Alabama for the US Navy; and the borrowed, the ship’s bell and engine telegraph from USS Canberra; to the myriad blues of 27 ship and seascapes, this selection of objects acquired by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund explores the centuries-long maritime and cultural connection between Australia and the USA.

02 Study in curves (detail), Harold Cazneaux,

1931. ANMM Collection 03 Terrestrial table globe by Jacob Aertsz

Colom, c 1640. © National Maritime Museum, London

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2016

Crete 1941: Then and Now Currently showing A small exhibition at the museum looks at the Battle of Crete, fought during World War II in the Mediterranean. Using period photographs overlaid with her own images, artist Cheryl Ward has turned back the clock 75 years, returning Anzacs to the Acropolis and German paratroopers to the skies of Crete.

There is a unique quality to looking at a historic photo ‘in situ’.

What has changed and what has stayed the same? On Crete, what shone through to Cheryl Ward was the island’s survival and renewal. It brought home the efforts made by those who served so long ago.

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Wildlife Photographer of the Year Until 26 October This world-renowned exhibition features 100 awe-inspiring images, from fascinating animal behaviour to breathtaking wild landscapes.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is the most prestigious photography event of its kind, providing a global platform that has showcased the natural world’s most astonishing and challenging sights for more than 50 years.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.

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Munuk Zugubal – Saltwater Songlines Until 31 October For thousands of years Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have navigated across the lands and seas of Australia using paths called songlines or dreaming tracks. A songline is based around the creator beings’ formation of the lands and waters, and explains the landmarks, rock formations, watering holes, rivers, trees and seas.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people navigate by singing or dancing the path of the creator beings, passing down this knowledge from generation to generation. This exhibition, for NAIDOC Week, brings together artworks that express this traditional knowledge.

04 Then: German parachute troops over

Souda Bay during invasion, 20 May 1941.

Unknown photographer. Australian War Memorial AWM 128433. Now: Looking northeast across Souda Bay from hill above Souda, September 2015. Photographer Cheryl Ward.

Composite image by Cheryl Ward 05 Kulba Yadail (Old Lyrics) (detail),

Billy Missi. Estate of the late Billy Missi/ Licensed by Viscopy

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EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2016

ANMM travelling exhibitions

Voyage to the Deep Puke Ariki Museum and Visitor Centre New Plymouth, New Zealand Until 16 October This family exhibition for children under 12 encourages learning through interaction. It’s a hands-on experience with opportunities to touch, explore and play. Voyage to the Deep was inspired by 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, a fantastical novel written

by Jules Verne almost 150 years ago. Explore Verne’s imaginary, mythical world with us, and learn facts about the oceans today.

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War at Sea – The Navy in WWI National Wool Museum, Geelong, VIC 17 September–11 December The histories and stories of the Royal Australian Navy and its sailors, less widely known than those of the soldiers at Gallipoli and the Western Front, are told through first-hand accounts from diaries and journals, objects, film and interactives from the National Maritime Collection, the National Film and Sound Archives and the Australian War Memorial.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

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East Coast Encounter – re-imagining the 1770 encounter Pinnacles Gallery, Townsville, QLD 23 September–30 October 2016 Caboolture Regional Gallery, QLD 19 November–21 January 2017 In this multi-arts initiative Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, writers and songwriters re-imagine the encounter

by Lieutenant James Cook and his crew with Aboriginal people in 1770. This project has received administrative and financial support from Sunshine Coast Council, Museum and Gallery Services Queensland, The University of the Sunshine Coast, Arts Queensland and the Australia Council. eastcoastencounter.com.au

06 Detail from a diorama of Suvla Bay,

Gallipoli, made by Geoff Barnes.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM 07 Undiscovered 4 (detail), 2010 by

Michael Cook.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2016

Living Waters Oceanographic Museum, Monte Carlo, Monaco Until 30 September For tens of thousands of years, shells have sustained Indigenous Australians – as a food source, as tools for fishing, hunting or cutting, and as cultural objects. They have been at once practical, workable items and prized artefacts of beauty, imbued with cultural and spiritual narratives and significance.

The shell objects and artefacts in the exhibition Living Waters are by artists from three regions around Australia: the Kimberley in Western Australia, the Torres Strait Islands off the far north tip of Queensland, and Tasmania. Used in highly creative and versatile ways, shells continue to be important in contemporary Indigenous communities.

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08 Indigenous Western Australian incised

pearl shell pendant. ANMM Collection 00045196

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LAST WEEKS! MUST CLOSE 26 OCTOBER

42,000 entries. 96 countries. 100 awe-inspiring images.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.

KIDS* & MEMBERS FREE | BOOK NOW anmm.gov.au/wildlife *Kids FREE with paying adult. Excludes school and group bookings.

#WPY51 ©Audun Rikardsen (Norway) Deep sleeper

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A GIFT OF A POLAR SHIP PORTRAIT

FOUNDATION SPRING 2016

A gift of a polar ship portrait CAPTAIN JAMES FAIRWEATHER AND AURORA

The Australian National Maritime Museum was recently delighted to accept the gift of an important artwork depicting Aurora, a vessel that conveyed whalers to Arctic waters and early explorers to Antarctica, writes Senior Curator Daina Fletcher.

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01 Charlotte and Wendy Fairweather,

grand-daughters of Captain James Fairweather, master of steam yacht Aurora, with the portrait of Aurora which they have presented to the museum. Charlotte and Wendy grew up in Sydney with the painting, which had been passed down to their father. Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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FOUNDATION SPRING 2016

THE POLAR VESSEL AURORA is best known in Australia for its Antarctic adventures during expeditions led by Sir Douglas Mawson (1911–14) and Sir Ernest Shackleton (1914–17), but it had a long and equally colourful career in the Arctic ice.

There it was part of the prosperous but fading whaling and sealing industry, under the command of its second captain, James Fairweather.

A recent gift to the museum from Captain Fairweather’s granddaughters acknowledges Aurora’s significance to Australia’s maritime history. The work is a fine ship portrait in oil of Aurora rigged as an auxiliary barque and flying its identification flags WVSQ. Dated 1884, it is inscribed with the name of Fairweather, its master at the time. The unknown artist has signed with JWL or JLW.

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James Fairweather was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1853.

He spent ten years with the Tay Whale Fishing Company as master of the Active (1878) and the Thetis (1881), sailing every January to the sealing and whaling grounds off Greenland and the northwestern passages to hunt hood and harp seals for their oil and right whales for their bone. His elder brother was also a ship’s captain and in 1883 they swapped commands: Alexander in Thetis and James in Aurora, a 386-ton whaler built in Dundee in 1876.

A journal written by James’s ship’s surgeon, David Moore Lindsay, documents Fairweather’s time whaling and sealing.

A keen observer with an enquiring mind, Lindsay chronicles life on Aurora under Fairweather’s command.

He provides illuminating insights into the industry, its history, the organisation of the ship and crews, the conditions under which they sailed, their technical skills, superstitions, diet and daily routines. His accounts of hunting whales, seals, birds and polar bears may have been gripping in 1911 when published as A voyage to the Arctic in the whaler Aurora, but they are a slightly chilling read today, with their visceral descriptions and the acute impact on whale and seal populations.

The Fairweather family has given a copy of this rare publication to the museum.

On 31 January 1884 James Fairweather left Dundee with 65 crew for what would become an eight-month cruise, based in St John’s, Newfoundland, and to the Davis Strait.

Incredibly, for the sealing voyages out of St John’s they were augmented by 240 ‘sweilers’ – local Newfoundland men.

Only 50 metres long, Aurora was loaded to the scuppers.

Fairweather returned to St John’s with a catch of more than 28,000 seals, discharged the local sweilers and refitted the barque for the whaling voyage to the ice further north.

02 A portrait of Captain James Fairweather

from David Moore Lindsay’s book.

Fairweather signed up as an apprentice sailor aged 15, having lost his father when he was a year old. He and his brother Alexander both captained Aurora, Alexander from 1880 to 1882 and James from 1883 to 1888.

ANMM Collection

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FOUNDATION SPRING 2016

From May to August 1884 Fairweather’s crews killed ten right whales and three bottle-noses, yielding 105 tons of oil and 5 tons of whalebone (baleen).

A keen observer with an enquiring mind, ship’s surgeon David Moore Lindsay chronicles life on Aurora under Fairweather’s command

Fairweather commanded Aurora for several more years.

Much later, in August 1916, he was recalled to polar service at the age of 63. His mission, at the behest of the British government, was to rescue Ernest Shackleton’s 22 men marooned on Elephant Island after their ship Endurance was crushed by ice and sunk in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica.

His vessel was the famed Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott’s ship from the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–04.

It was to be the fourth vessel to attempt this rescue.

But to Fairweather’s great disappointment, Discovery never returned to Antarctica. When he arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 11 September 1916, Fairweather learned that Shackleton had rescued his own men in the Chilean vessel Yelcho. Fairweather was invalided home and Discovery returned to Europe under a different master, loaded with grain from Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile Fairweather’s former command Aurora, now 40 years old, was in the service of Shackleton’s supply party on the other side of Antarctica, in the Ross Sea. After an eventful 12 months – in which it broke its moorings, was beset by the ice, then broke free and limped to New Zealand – it was refitted and sailed back to McMurdo Sound

03 Page of a whaler’s log, reproduced in David

Moore Lindsay’s book. Vaughan Evans Library Collection

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A GIFT OF A POLAR SHIP PORTRAIT

in early 1917 to rescue Shackleton’s Ross Sea party. Later that year it disappeared in the Pacific while carrying coal from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Chile, South America, along with all hands – including boatswain James Paton, an Antarctic veteran who had recently been with the ship in Antarctica with Mawson and the Ross Sea Party.

James Fairweather retired to his birth town, Dundee, as head of a large extended family. There he worked on his memoirs, which he published privately for his family, and wrote occasional articles about his time in the whalers. He died in 1933.

The only known remains of Aurora are three anchors and some anchor cable lying at the bottom of Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica and a lifebuoy that was found washed up on the New South Wales coast, and is now in a private collection.

The Australian National Maritime Foundation supports the museum and its collection.

It is the museum’s fundraising organ, and has deductible gift recipient status, enabling it to issue tax receipts for donations and gifts in kind. Broadly, the foundation’s purpose is to support the acquisition, conservation and enhancement of the National Maritime Collection. For more information about donating or leaving a bequest to the foundation, please contact Andrew Markwell on 02 9298 3777 or email amarkwell@anmm.gov.au

FOUNDATION SPRING 2016

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MARITIME HERITAGE AROUND AUSTRALIA

SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > PRESERVING TACOMA

PORT LINCOLN

Preserving Tacoma

A NEW LIFE FOR A HISTORIC TUNA BOAT

Thousands of wooden fishing boats are slowly rotting in a quiet grave – a backyard, a muddy mangrove swamp or a lonely boatyard. One vessel saved from this fate by a group of volunteers is the MFV Tacoma, a South Australian tuna clipper from the 1950s, writes Ross Haldane, President of the Tacoma Preservation Society.

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01 Seven years in construction, Tacoma was

launched in 1951. The first purpose-built tuna boat in Australia, it pioneered the South Australian tuna boom. All images courtesy Tacoma Preservation Society

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GROUPS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD are boldly attempting to save out-of-work wooden fishing boats, battling nature, physics, chemistry, human neglect, the developer’s wrecking ball, or local authorities keen to remove a derelict eyesore from a park or prime waterside real estate. But doing this is much harder than it seems. Even institutions given custodianship of a noble vessel have to face the harsh reality that it will never go to sea again, and what that means for the boat’s future.

Lawyers at the ready, the boat’s destiny may be determined around a boardroom table. Perhaps a better fate would have been a body blow near a hidden reef, the splintering of timbers or a quiet sinking when the pumps could not save it.

Fishing boats are not as obviously lovable as their cousins, the classy yachts, due to the smelly, harsh nature of their work.

And, with the fishing industry taken over by a fleet of square, steel fishing machines bristling with hydraulics and electronics, many boats on which men once manually hauled in the nets have found themselves out of a career and facing an uncertain future.

The South Australian-based tuna clipper MFV Tacoma is an old fishing boat that a group of enthusiasts have decided to preserve. Tacoma worked as a tuna fishing boat from 1952 to 1968 and then fished for prawns until 2003.

Over its career, it hauled in shark, salmon, tuna and prawns worth about $100 million in today’s value. On board for that last trip were Robin Haldane, Andrew Haldane, Peter Schuurman and a deckhand. How do we know? Because it was filmed by a nearby boat and Tacoma’s log records this.

So Tacoma began its new life as an out-of-work fishing boat – the most dangerous job for any boat in Australia. Of the thousands of fishing boats around, only the couta boats of the Victorian coast, the pearl luggers and a smattering of cray boats have survived as unemployed fishing boats. Australia’s whalers, oyster dredges and fishing cutters are preserved in books and photos, and some of the few remaining examples are static displays, as at Cheynes Beach in Western Australia.

As a preservation project, Tacoma had several helpful features.

It was only 52 years old, it was in good condition, it had good provenance and it was owned by the family that originally built it.

Life as an out-of-work fishing boat is the most dangerous job for any boat in Australia

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A boat in search of a home The first step was to decide who should own the boat – the local council, state or federal governments or a private sponsor.

We thought that Tacoma should be the people’s boat, and that the best long-term plan was to build a shed to house it.

It was agreed that the local council would be the most logical custodians, so a Tacoma Committee was formed, under the umbrella of the Port Lincoln City Council. After one year the council withdrew, recommending that a commercial option be looked at.

The next grand plan was for Tacoma to become part of a harbour development that would revitalise the Port Lincoln waterfront – a $50 million project, including a $6 million home for Tacoma. But that was a bridge too far, so it was back to the drawing board.

Frustration ensued. Nobody seemed to want the boat.

Should it be sold? The owners, three branches of the Haldane family, were getting a little tense.

Advertising nationally for tender offers resulted in several nibbles. Proposed fates included an abalone service vessel delivering supplies to a huge steel factory ship, or a squid boat.

The service ship option was seen as a suicide mission for a wooden vessel, and the other option was knocked on the head by the 91-year-old matriarch, Christina Haldane, who vowed that she would never let this beautiful boat, crafted by her husband Bill, become a squid boat.

Other options were canvassed, with similar luck.

The ANMM, with an already large fleet to look after, declined the opportunity to take on Tacoma, as did the Victorian town of Port Fairy, where Tacoma had been built from 1944 to 1951.

A plan to make the boat into a static display at the local Axel Stenross Maritime Museum was complicated and financially unviable. In desperation the mood turned dark. Taking the boat out and giving it a Viking burial – burning it – was mooted.

After all, the Haldanes are half Dane, and it would save everyone the worry.

Now, after three years, some important issues about putting boats ashore were arising. Seattle-based Joe Petrich, son of Tacoma’s designer and a naval architect himself, was consulted.

He noted that to look after a boat, you need the same number of crew whether the vessel is in or out of the water. The windiness of any potential site had to be considered – a wooden boat will de-salt itself in three years under windy conditions.

Vermin and public access also needed to be addressed, plus an effective cradle – boats are not designed to be out of water.

With the boat now on the slip, we began the smelly task of scrubbing three years of barnacles off the hull

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02

At this point the Tacoma Preservation Society emerged, after several glasses of wine and the sharing of bold ideas, with the faithful cry, ‘We must save the MFV Tacoma’.

A wonderful ragtag group stepped up: Derek, a Geordie; Pauline, the daughter of a Cape Horner Finn; Cecelia, from a farm in Kimba but originally from Sydney and a former ANMM Council member; Ib, a blown-away Danish marine scientist; Bazz, tuna fisherman and abalone chucker; Fran, TAFE HR/CEO; Carin, interior designer; and Ross, Haldane family member.

With the Tacoma Preservation Society (TPS) officially formed, we arranged ‘designated gift recipient’ status, so any donations could be tax deductible. We met with the owner family and proposed that, with a vessel management plan (VMP) in place, Tacoma be kept in the water and operating. The motion was passed and the vessel was gifted to the people of Australia.

The real work starts Having a VMP, as recommended by the ANMM, was a great asset but first it had to be written up – all 90 pages of it.

That proved not quite the burden we expected. We were given a template for the ANMM pearl lugger John Louis. What do a pearl lugger and tuna clipper have in common? Not much, at face value – but by replacing pearls with tuna and northern with southern, and with a visit from ANMM curator and VMP author David Payne, the VMP fell in place. It turns out that the process of looking after wooden boats and documenting their history and significance is common to most boats.

02 Roger Halliday from Flinders University wields

the touch-up brush.

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Tacoma’s first trip after its restoration was to the 2011 Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart, Tasmania

03

With the boat now on the slip, we began the smelly task of scrubbing three years of barnacles off the hull. But a more daunting task was approaching the Department of Transport for certification, as only they could pass the boat fit to carry passengers.

The first attempt at engaging with the department was, to put it in nautical terms, a shipwreck. But then a new light shone in the department in the form of a living person whom we will call Saint Adam.With his clear and practical vision, he both steered Tacoma through its survey minefield and, in the process, structured a historic vessels group to include paddle steamers, tugs and nine other vessels, all of which were to be treated differently. By organising this in such a way that the government would forgo any expense in survey costs, he has made a net saving to the group of some $100,000 over the time the policy has been place.

Tacoma’s first trip after its restoration was to the 2011 Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart, Tasmania. For this five-week, 2000-nautical mile undertaking, we needed all hands on deck to get the ship ready.

The mast was lengthened, the stern re-built, an Aga stove installed, a push-button head (toilet) with macerator put in, plus a hundred other jobs completed.

No one wanted to be heading into a westerly gale rounding Maatsuyker Island wondering if the bow would stand up, so it was refastened with some 400 three-inch silicon bronze screws costing $10 each.

03 All hands to the paint brushes: Kate and Anna

are the perfect height to paint the galley roof.

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Finally, with a hearty crew and three other vessels on deck, Tacoma departed for Hobart. Without the impetus to go to the festival, the Tacoma restoration would have taken another three years.

This Tassie trip inspired the ABC Landline documentary ‘Three Men and a Boat’, produced by Ian Doyle, which has been watched by some one million people and has sold more than $30,000 worth of DVDs. In 2016 Tacoma and its story will feature in the television program Coast, hosted by Neil Oliver.

Tacoma now plays an active part in Port Lincoln’s tourism industry in Boston Bay, undertaking day cruises, parties, weddings and the scattering of ashes; participating in the annual 04

04 Tacoma in Boston Bay, South Australia.

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Tunarama Blessing of the Fleet and charity days, raising more than $15,000 for local and other causes; making an annual wool pick-up from a local island; and, of course, setting off on our main feature trip, fishing with pole and line for tuna – all helping to keep Tacoma in its prime as an active working boat.

A community of supporters What have we learnt from the Tacoma project? Firstly, that activity begets activity. The Tacoma Preservation Society has spent some $300,000 on the vessel, and has been given many more thousands of dollars in in-kind support: paint, free slipping, life jackets, equipment transport, plus much more.

In our original planning, we anticipated (and hoped) that out of the sheds and hollows of Port Lincoln’s retired fishermen would come a band of hearty souls with the required skills of painting, rope work, boat handling and the many useful talents required to preserve and operate Tacoma.

Our expectations have been well met!

Tacoma has attracted an interesting, enthusiastic, cheerful and very active group. Most of our volunteers are over 60, and half of them are women, so it is not a ‘men’s shed’ thing.

Our working volunteers have a great variety of skills, and we find new skills with each new undertaking.

One of the big advantage of restoring and preserving a boat like Tacoma in its home port is the fantastic support we get from local businesses. The project so far has used some 70 local providers, including the usual suspects – the fuel and electronics providers, the welder, the engineer, the aluminium fabricator – but it’s fascinating how many services are needed to put together a project like Tacoma, and just how many willing, supportive people there are. To the above list we’ve added suppliers of fibreglass, sandblasting, chroming, compass adjusting and safety equipment – and the list goes on.

All of Tacoma’s paint has been provided by two national paint companies, and Doyle Media Services have made an amazing effort, showing huge dedication and professionalism.

To help grease all these providers, a steady supply of local Haldane wine has added to the negotiating power of the Tacoma team, not to mention the odd box of prawns.

Tacoma has always relied on the goodwill of those providing services. The boat’s original timbers were hand selected by a keen-eyed team in a Melbourne timber yard. To increase their powers of observation, a bag of crayfish would regularly arrive on the train from Port Fairy. It is amazing what trade can do to improve quality and produce lifetime friendships.

Tacoma has attracted an interesting, enthusiastic, cheerful and very active group of volunteers

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Next for Tacoma could be another Hobart trip, with Eden and Sydney in the planning, perhaps. But before we travel, there is the question of a permanent workable berth, and on the wish list, a shed. Tacoma currently operates out of some five sheds of varying suitability; a dedicated shed would set us up for the long term. Tacoma is not the only vessel we look after; there are also our 1944 banana boat surfboat, a flatty, a dinghy and, lurking in the wind, the cray boat MV Dolphin – all of them listed on the ANMM’s Australian Register of Historic Vessels.

And as Tacoma is the people’s boat, you can enjoy its story by joining an afternoon visit ($12 per head). These are programmed for two hours, but often continue longer when robust discussions take place in the galley over a cup of coffee.

Our signature events are our tuna-poling trips: a five-day voyage for the blokes and a two-day trip for women. The five-day trip into the Great Australian Bight is a re-enactment of a 1950s tuna trip; only the age of the crew has changed. Original crewmember Jack Bellamy rejoins the boat. At 82 years of age he is still a very impressive fisherman – to stand in the racks and pole a tuna with Jack is a privilege. And when you’re puffed, another person can take your place. These trips cost $2,000 per head.

The two-day trip, at $400 per head, is women only, plus four men to crew. Because of the limited time, catching fish is not guaranteed, but the trip will give you an idea of shipboard life.

So many more excuses to continue ‘messing about in boats!’

For more information, please go to tacoma.org.au

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > COURSES FOR HORSES

OUT OF PORT SPRING 2016

Courses for horses

THE CUMBERLAND ENTRANCE AND THE WRECK OF THE HYDRABAD The Cumberland Entrance is a tortuous passage through the northern section of the Great Barrier Reef. Kieran Hosty was among archaeologists from the museum who recently visited the entrance to search for the remains of the ship Hydrabad, which was wrecked there in 1845 while carrying horses to India.

01 Lee Graham from the museum’s Fleet section

swims along the very edge of the Cumberland Entrance searching for signs of the Hydrabad.

Photograph Xanthe Rivett, Silentworld Foundation

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OUT OF PORT SPRING 2016

WHEN THE FIRST EUROPEANS arrived at Sydney Cove in January 1788 and occupied the land of the Gadigal people, they established one of the most isolated European settlements on earth. Some 13,000 miles from England, it was contactable only by ship and only after a lengthy and hazardous voyage across the Indian or Pacific oceans or via Torres Strait and the Great Barrier Reef.

One of the more unusual and profitable exports was colonial horses

When the new penal colony at Sydney Cove suffered a series of crop failures, its governor, Arthur Phillip, was forced to look for alternative sources of food for the colony. He sent HMS Sirius on an eight-month voyage to Cape Town in South Africa for the necessary supplies. Then in August 1791 Lord Grenville, the Home Secretary, granted permission for the struggling colony to trade with Calcutta in India for necessary supplies such as rice, flour and livestock.

From these tentative beginnings trade between India and Sydney evolved, leading to dozens of ships a year sailing between the colonies carrying all manner of cargo, including foodstuffs, ceramics, cloth, shoes, alcohol, spices, tobacco, leather, iron, coal, timber and seal skins.1

Horse trading One of the more unusual and profitable exports was colonial horses. The horse trade between Sydney and Calcutta had been slowly developing ever since 1822, when the Australian colonial merchant John Macarthur (1767–1834) presented Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Governor General of India from 1813 to 1823, with a New South Wales stallion.

02 'Tween decks of a horse-ship loaded

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for India, Engraving from the Illustrated Australian News, 4 October 1882. ANMM Collection 00006032

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Originally known as New South Walers or Walers (after the colony of New South Wales), the Australian colonial horses gained a reputation for sturdiness, stamina and the ability to cope with a harsh climate. By 1834 the demand for these horses had developed to such an extent that the East India Company was sending military officers to Sydney on behalf of artillery and cavalry units in India to purchase horses directly from breeders in New South Wales and to arrange shipment of the animals back to India.

In September 1845 The Sydney Morning Herald reported that in that year, 950 horses (valued at more than £30,000) had been assessed by the East India Company as being suitable.

They were subsequently exported from the colony on 12 ships.

One of these ships was the Hydrabad which, after taking on board 25 passengers, 118 horses and 275 tons of Newcastle coal, departed Sydney on 3 May 1845 bound for Calcutta.

This 602-ton, three-masted wooden ship, built in 1843, was owned by famous 19th-century shipowner Duncan Dunbar, who in August 1844 chartered the vessel to the British government for the transportation of 260 convicts to Norfolk Island. After discharging them, the ship sailed on to Sydney, arriving on 4 March 1845.

While in Sydney, Captain Robertson decided to take advantage of the growing trade in horses between Sydney and India.

He converted the Hydrabad’s wooden internal compartments – which had formerly housed the male convicts and their guard – into horse stalls and installed forced air pumps to ventilate the lower hold and ’tween decks of the ship.2

03 Thousands of fish are attracted to the nutrient

rich waters of the Cumberland Entrance.

Photograph Xanthe Rivett, Silentworld Foundation

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Nothing more was heard of the Hydrabad until Lieutenant Aird of HM Cutter Prince George reported that the Hydrabad, along with the Coringa Packet, had been wrecked in Torres Strait.

Newspaper and survivors’ accounts vary, but it appears that Captain Robertson, originally intending to enter the Great Barrier Reef via the Raine Island Entrance, was forced by contrary winds further north, and he decided to use the little-used and much more difficult Cumberland Entrance, a passage some seven kilometres long and 800 metres wide.

Almost immediately the ship struck a submerged reef, around 5.15 pm on 25 May 1845. After a desperate 12 hour-battle the vessel was abandoned. It eventually sank in 15 fathoms (27.5 metres) of water, almost in the middle of the Cumberland Entrance and some seven nautical miles from Mer (Murray Island). The survivors took to the ship’s boats and first headed for Booby Island and then Port Essington before being rescued by the crews of HM Ships Fly, Shamrock and Hebe.

Sadly, all 118 horses on board were drowned, trapped in their stalls below decks.

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Given the remoteness of the Cumberland Entrance, the wreck site has never been found. The vessel sank in deep water on a sandy bottom – conditions that are very favourable for the preservation of archaeological material – so if located, the wreck could provide excellent comparative archaeological data on mid-19th-century English shipbuilding, along with additional information on early trade between New South Wales and India.

Searching for Hydrabad Thanks to the generosity of our sponsor and research partner, the Silentworld Foundation, archaeologists from the museum were given the opportunity early this year to visit Cumberland Entrance and carry out a detailed search for the remains of the ship.

Arriving mid-January, we observed that Cumberland Entrance is bounded by a reef six kilometres long to the north and another 4.5 kilometres long to the south. The passage separating them varies in depth from 97 metres at its north-eastern end to 35–40 metres at its south-western end.

Although the main Cumberland Entrance through the Great Barrier Reef is quite distinct – an 800-metre-wide band of deep, dark blue water threading its way between the light blue–green water marking the edges of the northern and southern reefs – we found a similar-looking deep-water passage a few hundred metres to the south of the actual entrance. This we designated the Southern Cumberland Entrance.

04 Jacqui Mullen from the Silentworld Foundation

on the edge of the reef inspecting a soft coral – possibly a Dendronephthya carnation, or Carnation tree coral. Photograph Xanthe Rivett, Silentworld Foundation

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As some newspaper accounts at the time of the wrecking stated that Captain Robertson might have entered a false passage close to the real Cumberland Entrance, we decided to survey the more sheltered southern entrance first.

We visually searched the edges of the reefs for any telltale shipwreck signs, such as straight lines, circles or bright, unusual colours

With the expedition vessel, The Boss, anchored in the southern passage, the survey team – Frits Breuseker (Seasee Pty Ltd), Trevor Marcusson (Silentworld Foundation) and I – readied the survey vessel, Maggie II, for action, loading laptops, batteries, differential GPS, magnetometer, tow cables, safety gear and additional fuel.

On the southern side of the southern entrance, Frits and I deployed the magnetometer and Trevor started running a series of tightly spaced search lanes, circumnavigating the southernmost reef, working outwards from the shallow breaking edges of the reef towards the deeper water of the passage.

For various reasons, we could only tow the magnetometer at about four knots, so, after completing five 2,500-metre-long search lanes, it was well after dark and time to head back to The Boss.

The next day sea conditions had moderated enough to allow us to put in teams of divers to visually search the edges of the reefs for any tell-tale shipwreck signs, such as straight lines, circles or bright unusual colours – white possibly indicating the presence of lead, or bright green possibly indicating copper, bronze or brass. The dive teams reported back that the area had very strong tidal currents of two to three metres per second, due to the restrictions caused by the relatively narrow passages.

This forced them to work with the current, as swimming against it was impossible.

Over the next few days, the magnetometer survey party surveyed both the northern and southern reefs of the Cumberland Entrance, locating very few magnetic anomalies in what appears to be a magnetically ‘quiet’ area. They then commenced a series of north–south survey runs between the two reef systems across the deeper parts of the entrance.

The dive teams, too, searched the edges of both sides of the passage from two metres down to 20 metres, looking for any material that might be associated with the Hydrabad.

Finally, after four days and many kilometres of survey, at the western end of the Cumberland Entrance the team located a series of more than 20 significant and repeatable magnetic anomalies in 35 to 39 metres of water. The linear nature of the run of anomalies from the south-east towards the north-west was also encouraging. This pattern might represent a spill of magnetic material such as anchors, iron cable and ship’s

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fittings as the vessel drifted north-west under the influence of the prevailing wind and tide. Via side scan sonar, several interesting lumps were also observed on what was a relatively flat and featureless sea bottom.

The following day, the magnetometer team confirmed the repeatability and size of the magnetic anomalies and reported that they appear to be confined to an area some 150 metres long by 50 metres wide.

Given the maximum depth of water (39 metres), the limited bottom time (seven minutes) and the required surface interval, it was only possible for us to inspect five of the strongest anomalies. These were buoyed, and descent lines rigged up, before divers were deployed in pairs – first Frits and Xanthe Rivett (Silentworld Foundation), then Lee Graham (ANMM) and Grant Luckman (Department of the Environment), and finally Trevor and me.

When Trevor and I hit the bottom at 37 metres it was dark and gloomy (sunlight drops away remarkable quickly even in the clear waters of the northern Great Barrier Reef), with a very strong current pushing us towards the west. Armed with a metal detector and a trail line we pulled ourselves eastward along the sea bottom, working hard against the current.

After five frantic minutes of searching, out of the gloom we spied a ledge of rock some two metres high and 50 metres long, on top of which appeared to be the outline of a large ship’s anchor thickly encrusted with coral growth. Fighting the current, we managed to swim to the object and scan it with

05 Magnetometer plot of Cumberland Entrance

showing the northern reef and the magnetic anomaly area in the centre of the entrance, January 2015. Image courtesy Seasee Pty Ltd

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the metal detector. It gave off a very slight but encouraging magnetic signal, indicating the presence of iron – but not enough for an object such as a 1,000-kilogram anchor.

Unfortunately, before we could investigate further our bottom time was up and we had to begin our careful ascent to the surface some 37 metres above us. The other teams of divers all reported similar results – dark, deep water, strong current – but no physical signs of wreckage.

It was a disappointing result, but we now know that a series of significant magnetic anomalies lies beneath the waters of Cumberland Entrance, and their most likely source is the wreck site of the Hydrabad. Hopefully in the near future we will have another opportunity to investigate this remote part of the northern Great Barrier Reef and finally locate and survey the former immigrant ship, convict transport and horse carrier the Hydrabad.

Notes 1 Erskine, Nigel, ‘East of India – Forgotten trade with Australia’, Signals 103 (June–August 2013), pp 1–13.

2 The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 March 1845.

References The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 August 1845; Port Phillip Gazette, 23 August 1845; South Australian Register, 24 September 1845 www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/society_art/races/walers, accessed 15 August 2015 Linder, M; anmm.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/happy-birthday-to-australian-horses, August 2012 tynebuiltships.co.uk/MiddleDock.html, accessed 26 February 2015; Welford, Richard (2013), Men of mark twixt Tyne and Tweed (Vol 3), pp 670–71, Forgotten Books, London (original work published 1895)

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > A FLEET OF FLYING FISH

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A fleet of Flying Fish AUSTRALIAN REGISTER OF HISTORIC VESSELS

ANMM.GOV.AU/ARHV This online national heritage project, devised and coordinated by the Australian National Maritime Museum in association with Sydney Heritage Fleet, reaches across Australia to collate data about the nation’s existing historic vessels, their designers and builders, and their stories.

01 01 Flying Fish IV takes a wave back to shore

– the classic pose for an Australia surf lifesaving craft. Photograph courtesy Port Elliot Surf Life Saving Club

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Surf clubs and surfboats began as something unique to Australia’s way of life and both are internationally recognised as part of our modern culture. They have a proud history of development from the early 1900s, writes Curator of Historic Vessels David Payne.

WITHIN THAT BROAD narrative are surf craft with individual stories showing a very strong connection to their club, community and region. Flying Fish IV is one of those, a timber surf lifesaving boat built in South Australia in 1968 by the late Arthur ‘Snow’ Wallace for the Port Elliot Surf Life Saving Club (PESLSC). It is now the club’s only remaining wooden surfboat and has much to tell.

Technologically, it stands out as a rare example of craft built by a smaller regional builder from the era of the all-timber surfboats and well-known builders such as Clymer and Towns in New South Wales. ‘Snow’ Wallace was a boatbuilder of small commercial, sailing and recreational craft in the Port Adelaide region up until the 1970s. Over the years, the crafting of all-timber surfboats became his specialty. Operating from a tin shed in Yeo Street, Semaphore, he used his own unique ‘cold moulding’ process, making his own glue on the family stove. According to legend he went to Burnside, cut down an Australian silky oak tree (Grevillea robusta), packed it on a trailer and took it back to Yeo Street to use in the construction of Flying Fish IV. The hull has three laminates and is a wonderful example of cold moulding a hull. The inside and outside panels are silky oak, laid at right angles to each other, while the centre laminates run fore and aft and are Australian cedar (Toona australis). Panels were cut to different lengths depending on the required curvature. Each piece was numbered to allow for assembly then re-assembled until a perfect fit was achieved by hand-planing each panel to conform precisely to the next.

Finally, they were glued and stapled together. The staples were left in until the glue had dried and a row of the staple holes can be still be seen as faint dark spots in the timbers.

The social story of this craft is large and represents a strong and enduring connection to regional history. The original Flying Fish was an English barque from Portsmouth. In 1860 it was at anchor in Horseshoe Bay at Port Elliot awaiting a small cargo of wheat and wool. Overnight a tremendous storm hit and the ship dragged its anchor and foundered against Commodore Point. A young farmhand, Agen Dent, swam through heavy storm surf with a rope that was made fast to the stricken ship,

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allowing all on board to reach the shore safely. Legend has it that he was taught to swim by the local Ngarrindjeri people.

The vessel was completely wrecked. The remains still lie there and occasionally, when sand levels and tides allow, swimmers can see them protruding from the sand a short distance offshore.

When the PESLSC was formed in the early 1930s, the flying fish was adopted as an icon and significant spirit and the name used for the club’s surfboats. The current boat is Flying Fish XIII.

After fibreglass became the material of choice for surfboats in the 1960s, all-timber surfboats became redundant

After fibreglass became the material of choice for surfboats in the 1960s, all-timber surfboats became redundant and many were used by clubs across the country to fuel bonfires at end-of-season celebrations. The early timber surfboats at PESLSC, the original Flying Fish then Flying Fish II and Flying Fish III, were lost to the club. Flying Fish IV was retired in 1986 after 18 years of competition and patrols with PESLSC and pushed off to one side in the clubhouse, where it spent the next 25 years as a storage place for other things with no particular place to go.

In 2011 the club started to restore the boat in recognition of the club’s heritage and the story of the many Flying Fish. In 2012 and 2013 the boat did several calm-water demonstrations on the River Murray at Goolwa, as well as a static display at a surfboat carnival in Moana, South Australia. Early in 2014 it was noticed that random laminates on the outside of the hull had lifting edges. There were also other soft patches. A wooden-boat expert was engaged and 18 affected sites were repaired. As the club did this work it became evident that the original, 48-year-old glue was ageing and losing strength.

Consequently, Flying Fish IV will remain in a delicate state and require special care, but for the foreseeable future the club will continue to demonstrate Flying Fish IV at selected calm-water displays. To that end it competed in races on the River Murray during the 2015 Wooden Boat Festival at Goolwa. Here it was noticed by the ANMM and an ARHV nomination was completed, which brought out more stories about its life at Port Elliot.

Club life member Christopher Tapscott recalled the launching of Flying Fish IV. He was there as a teenager: I have in my possession the original cork from the champagne bottle used to launch the Flying Fish IV in 1968. I was right in front of Mrs Basham as she broke the bottle against a weightlifting bar placed in front of the boat. I grabbed the cork. I can be seen in the photos of the time as, I guess, a 13- or 14-year-old.

I wrote on the cork at the time and have kept it ever since.

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In 1974 he also helped another club member, Alistair Wood, to row out a big sea anchor off the Murray River mouth in Flying Fish IV, which nearly brought about its demise.

Alistair wrote:

Svalan was the first yacht of Sydney journalist Sheila Patrick, a pioneer for women in yachting

I was a professional fisherman who plied my trade by launching large gill nets manually into the surf near the Murray mouth.

This was always a very hit-and-miss technique. So I devised a hare-brained idea of holding a net offshore overnight with a sea anchor. It comprised a railway wheel with a structure of piping. It was loaded into the stern of Flying Fish IV beneath the sweep; I was crammed in there somewhere as well.

We headed out into a sea that was challenging to say the least, dragging out anchor lines from the shore. They were a terrible drag on the boat and Tappy [Chris Tapscott] & co slaved over the oars to get us out beyond the first break, where we ran out of rope. Two men getting the anchor overboard was a struggle, as Flying Fish IV yawed and plunged as seas rolled through.

It was only by pure fluke it didn’t tear a jagged hole out of the stern and send Flying Fish IV and all her men to the bottom.

Four more craft powered by oar were also nominated to the register during this round – the flood boat Noah joins its sister vessel Shoalhaven on the register and is a comparison to the Clarence River flood boat. Ulla Gundah adds another Gladstone skiff to the five already listed, while the Clarence River fishing punt develops the ARHV’s collection of simple flat-bottomed fishing craft that existed throughout the country.

Victoria is one of the many surviving 40-foot workboats, but its story of working in north-east Victoria on freshwater lakes is an intriguing one for a workboat that started out in World War II. Olga began operating in Strahan, Tasmania, in 1925, and underwent many modifications as time passed, but its current owner is working to bring it back to its original motor-launch configuration.

Sailing craft are regular additions to the register. Brigand dates back to the 1890s and Goolwa. Rhythm represents the Rainbow class of dinghies that many youngsters learnt to sail on in the 1950s and 60s, in this instance the Calvert family who are well known in Tasmania. Svalan was the first yacht of Sydney yachting journalist Sheila Patrick, a pioneer for women in yachting in the same period. The steel yacht Athena showed how some clever thinking, design and construction in the early 1960s by amateurs and semi-professionals came up with a much cheaper ocean-racing yacht that could still be competitive.

Regardless of age, all of these craft can still go out sailing.

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All images courtesy of the boats’ owners

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Search the complete Australian Register of Historic Vessels at anmm.gov.au/arhv NAME

DATE

BUILDER

TYPE

CODE

01

Olga

1923

Harry Grining

Launch

HV000697

02

Svalan

1949

Alf Jahnsen

Yacht

HV000699

03

Noah

1889

John Hawken

Flood boat

HV000702

04

Athena

1961

J Jarrett and H Blake

Yacht

HV000703

05

Flying Fish IV

1968

Arthur Wallace

Surf lifesaving boat

HV000705

06

Rhythm

1957

Athol Rowe

Sailing dinghy

HV000706

07

Victoria

1944

Botterill & Frazer

Workboat

HV000707

08

Clarence River fishing punt

1958

Ex Duarte

Fishing punt

HV000708

09

Ulla Gundah

c 1930s

Unknown

Rowing skiff

HV000709

10

Clarence River flood boat

c 1900s

Unknown

Flood boat

HV000710

11

Brigand

1890

Fred Potts

Yacht

HV000712

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > SPIRIT FIGURES FROM ARNHEM LAND

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains images of deceased persons.

Spirit figures from Arnhem Land EXPRESSIONS OF YOLÅŠU ART AND CULTURE

A contemporary Aboriginal artwork recently bought by the museum has links to the cosmology of the people of Arnhem Land and to their relationships with their Makassan neighbours from Indonesia.

It was inspired by a fragment of early film showing the dances of the region, writes Indigenous Programs Assistant Helen Anu.

01 A group of Mokuy by Nawurapu

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Wunungmurra, displayed at Yirrkala, NT. Photograph Donna Carstens/ANMM

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IN 2015 THE ANMM PURCHASED new works titled Mokuy

by Yolŋu artist Nawurapu Wunungmurra. The acquisition comprised 34 carved wooden figures produced at the Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts Centre in Yirrkala, Arnhem Land.

These contemporary carvings are the artist’s interpretation of the spirit figures known as mokuy. They speak of cycles, comings and goings, life and death and the strong tradition and culture held within Yolŋu customs.

Mokuy is a ghost or the sinister spirit of a deceased person

Yolŋu are Aboriginal people from northeast Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Yolŋu worldview sees every species of plant, animal, fish or bird or any place or person as belonging to one of the two balancing halves of the world, the clans making up the two moieties that define all Yolŋu relationships to people and country – Yirritja and Dhuwa. The sacred art of this region, known as Miwatj, details the spiritual forces behind the ongoing Creation and the continuing identity of the fresh and saltwater country of the area.

Mokuy is a ghost or the sinister spirit of a deceased person.

It lives near the burial ground and is believed to harm those who venture too near. These mortuary figures of mokuy made in eastern Arnhem Land are derived from square-sectioned and painted grave-post figures called wuramu. These in turn were influenced by the grave posts of the Makassans, traders from Sulawesi in present-day Indonesia, who visited the shores of Arnhem Land for some 400 years up to the beginning of the 20th century.

The artist, Nawurapu Wunungmurra, is the eldest son of senior Yirritja moiety elder the late Yanggarrny Wunungmurra, who was the first Aboriginal artist to bring a case of copyright infringement – Yanggarrny Wunungmurra v Peter Stripes (1983) Federal Court, unreported, which he won.

In 1997 Yanggarnny Wunungmurra was the Overall First Prize winner of the Telstra National Aboriginal and Islander Art Awards. Nawurapu was trained in the school of his father from an early age, first assisting him and then, as his own spiritual authority increased, in his own right.

After his father’s passing, Nawurapu stepped into this senior role with his brothers. His ceremonial responsibilities have required him to move between the homeland centres of the Miwatj region, north-east Arnhem Land and central Arnhem Land. He has lived in Yirrkala, Gurrumurru, Gangan, Gapuwiak and Wandawuy in recent years.

In 2010 Nawurapu followed in his father’s footsteps, and entered his mixed media work Mokuy in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. Nawurapa took out first prize in two categories: New Media and People’s Choice.

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For the judges, the installation was a stand-out piece in an exhibition of works by 96 finalists. The Mokuy spirits appeared to float theatrically in dancing poses just above the floor onto which archival footage of traditional ceremonial dances was projected, as if they were incarnations of dancing spirits illuminated by the spirits of dancers past. As they turned with the air in the room, they gave a sense of watching the viewer’s every move, as if they were trying to communicate.

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The artist says of this work: The mokuy [spirits] come in together, Dhuwa and Yirritja to the sacred ground called Balambala, past Gangan, the other side for all the mokuy to get together. The spirits go there and that’s where they make the yidaki [didgeridoo] sound … different sounds for Yirritja and Dhuwa. The Yirritja and Dhuwa play yidaki to call in the mokuy to the same ground Balambala. The Yirritja mokuy come in on the birds, djilawurr [scrub fowl] and bugutj-bugutj [banded fruit dove]. The Dhuwa mokuy they come in from rangi side [saltwater].

In early 2013 Nawurapu’s right leg was amputated below the knee as the result of an injury, but this did not stop him from creating his art. He continues to harvest timber from the bush in remote areas and work with it. Nawurapu is highly regarded as a leading artist of the region and a renowned contemporary carver and storyteller of mokuy.

A language of dance In the Yolŋu conception of life, the spirit is eternal. We all have a spirit and once our bodies die that spirit’s journey continues.

Ceremonies are still practised that guide and protect the spirit’s journey to the reservoir of souls, particular to that clan identity from which it emerged. Once it is ready it will identify a new set of parents and announce its impending arrival to the families through some occurrence or manifestation in the environment.

In this way the cycle continues and repeats endlessly.

The Makassans also entered Yolŋu cosmology. The grief that people feel in death is equated in Yolŋu songs with the sadness felt when the Makassans left north-east Arnhem Land on the south-easterly Dhimurru wind each May/June. The imagery of the setting sun striking the clouds on the horizon and colouring them pink is like the departing spirit and is equated with the red sails of the visitors’ prahus disappearing over the horizon. A life is over. A season is finished. Families are separated. These emotions are in the songs of the Dhalwangu people and in the dances shown in the fragment of film.

02 One of the 34 carved wooden Mokuy

(Spirits) by Nawurapu Wunungmurra, 2015, recently acquired by the museum.

ANMM Collection 00054657

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Yolŋu worldview sees every living thing or place as belonging to one of the two balancing halves of the world

03

The footage the artists used in the installation to accompany the mokuy was captured in the 1920s and unearthed from the University of Melbourne Archives in 2009. Its subject could not be identified by the National Film and Sound Archive, so it was sent to The Mulka Project, an archive of Yolŋu cultural knowledge. There its mystique would slowly be revealed by chance almost 100 years after it was recorded.

What had been a silent film without either an obvious story or identifiable individuals caught the eye of artist Nawurapu Wunungmurra. He saw the distinct nature of the storytelling as significant of the Yirritja moiety dances. In the footage he identified three very specific dances of his people (Dhalwangu clan). In consultation with his community, Nawurapu identified the flickering projection as his ancestors dancing to their choreography. The film was given a title in the Yolŋu language: Dhalwangu Bunggul (Dhalwangu dance).

He pointed out the dances of guluwidjbidj (curlew) being hunted by rifle. He also saw ‘flag raising’ dance actions that are integral in Yirritja moiety funerals, and which equate with a sail being set and the departing Makassan spirit taking its leave. This is testament to the closeness of the relationships over centuries between Yolŋu and Makassans, which were not just economic but intimate and heartfelt.

The film’s soundtrack incorporates a single-stringed instrument played with a bow. In Bugis (a language of Sulawesi, Indonesia), it is known as sindrilik. In the third dance depicted in the film, the dancers imitate the playing of the sindrilik using a stick.

These motions, according to Nawurapu, are dances of the ‘foreign people’ (the Makassans), which the Yolŋu would perform in celebratory preparation for the annual return

03 The oldest surviving black-and-white film

of the ceremonial dance Dhalwangu Bunggul, filmmaker unknown. Duration 4:10 (frame 1:32). Reproduced with permission of Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts Centre, Yirrkala, Arnhem Land

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of the Makassan prahu. It seemed clear that the protagonists were performing dances relating to outsiders (Makassans) for the filmmaker, who was also an outsider and whose identity remains unknown.

So, after almost a century, a formerly unidentifiable fragment of film that appears to pre-date any settled European presences in eastern Arnhem Land is given a name, a connection to place and peoples, and the opportunity for an artist to unravel dimensions to its connections across the seas.

Notes Anthropologist Donald Thomson and mission superintendent Wilbur Chaseling collected sculptures from Yirrkala during the 1930s. Thomson expert, Lindy Allen of Museum Victoria, is certain that it would not have been Donald Thomson who captured this film.

The museum wishes to thank the Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts Centre for their permission to use and share images and cultural descriptions for publication.

Sources Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts centre NATSIAA 2010 press coverage Judith Ryan, Senior Curator, Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Victoria: ngv.vic.gov.au/ essay/lipundja-and-unknown-yolngu-artist-mokuy-figures

04 Nawurapu Wunungmurra’s Mokuy,

winner of the Telstra New Media Award in 2010. Image courtesy Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > AUSTRALIA VIA THE CAPE

Australia via the Cape APARTHEID, ACADEMIA AND DUTCH-AUSTRALIAN CONNECTIONS

Teenaged sweethearts Klaas and Aafke Woldring have been together for more than 60 years, with their union taking them from the Netherlands to Australia via South Africa and Zambia. Curator Kim Tao traces their story.

01 Klaas and Aafke Woldring on their

wedding day, the Netherlands, 1959.

All images reproduced courtesy Klaas and Aafke Woldring

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In one of history’s great migrations, more than six million people have crossed the seas to settle in Australia. The museum’s tribute to all of them, The Welcome Wall, encourages people to recall and record their stories of coming to live in Australia

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WELCOME WALL SPRING 2016

KLAAS WOLDRING was born in July 1934 in the university city of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. Aafke van Oostrum was born in Utrecht, in the central Netherlands, in October 1936 and was then adopted by a farming family in Munnekezijl, near Groningen. Both Klaas and Aafke were young children when Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, marking the beginning of their country’s involvement in the Second World War.

Klaas will never forget travelling through the once-great German cities of Bremen and Hamburg and seeing them reduced to rubble

During the Nazi occupation, Klaas’ family spent most of their time in Wassenaar and The Hague, where their house in the Bezuidenhoutkwartier was bombed on 3 March 1945.

He remembers the Germans launching long-range V-2 rockets against Allied targets in London, and also the Dutch famine during the winter of 1944–45 (known as the ‘Hunger Winter’).

In the final months of the war, Klaas lived with his grandparents in Groningen, and endured the onslaught that destroyed half the city in April 1945. Later that year, after the conflict had ended, he was fortunate to be sent on a children’s health transport to Vejle, Denmark, to recuperate for six months under the care of foster parents. Klaas will never forget travelling through the German cities of Bremen and Hamburg and witnessing the once-great centres reduced to rubble as far as the eye could see.

Aafke spent most of the war years at her family’s farm in Munnekezijl, apart from a six-month stay at a sanatorium where she was treated for tuberculosis. Tragically her mother died from the disease in 1943. Aafke has vivid memories of the Nazi soldiers confiscating their farm supplies and searching for her father, who often went into hiding to avoid being sent to Germany. Her proudest memory was when the Canadians liberated Groningen in April 1945 and her father was the only person in the whole village who could speak English.

Klaas and Aafke met in July 1953, on Klaas’ 19th birthday, and were married in October 1959. In the same year, Klaas completed a diploma in hotel management in The Hague, while Aafke trained in Amsterdam as a registered nurse. She later gained her qualifications in midwifery in Scheveningen, a beachside suburb of The Hague. Shortly after their marriage, in the face of some difficult family circumstances, Klaas and Aafke decided to leave the Netherlands. They considered several options, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, but eventually settled on South Africa because of its interesting history and diverse cultural heritage.

There had been a Dutch presence at the Cape of Good Hope since the 17th century. In 1652 the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) established a victualling station at Table Bay to supply fresh meat, fruit and vegetables for ships sailing from the Netherlands to the

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East Indies (now Indonesia). The Dutch-speaking settlers at this station, which became Cape Town, were the forebears of the Afrikaner communities in South Africa.

Klaas and Aafke spent two and a half years in South Africa, during which time they had two children, Hans (born in Durban in 1959) and Eke (born in Cape Town in 1962). This period had a powerful and enduring effect on their lives. Klaas and Aafke were strongly opposed to apartheid, the system of racial segregation introduced by the governing National Party in 1948, and they were involved in campaigning against the policy for many years.

In 1962 Klaas secured a job as an assistant manager at the new Ridgeway Hotel in Lusaka, capital of the mineral-rich former British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia (which would become the independent Republic of Zambia in October 1964, under the leadership of Kenneth Kaunda). Although it was a time of uncertainty, particularly for British colonial public servants, the local Zambian population was optimistic about their future.

Klaas remembers playing soccer in the country’s new first division league, which included matches with former England international Jackie Sewell, who had been engaged by the City of Lusaka Football Club as a coach and marquee player.

In 1963 the young family moved north to jointly manage the new Elephant’s Head Hotel in the lead and zinc mining town of Broken Hill (now Kabwe), which was named after a similar mine in far western New South Wales. A year later Klaas and Aafke were invited to take a five-year lease on the hotel, but declined as they felt it was too great a financial risk. In 1964 the couple met some Australian auditors from the Broken Hill mine, who were guests at their hotel. The auditors told them

02 Klaas Woldring (back row, far right) with

classmates at Hotelschool The Hague, 1959.

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about Australia’s successful mass migration program, and how the Dutch were held in high regard. With their encouragement, the family submitted an application to the Australian High Commission in Pretoria, South Africa, underwent a medical examination and completed the formalities for their third migration.

In May 1964 the family joined a long list of passengers in Durban awaiting the sea passage to Sydney. It was only on the morning of their departure that they were able to confirm a cabin for Aafke, Hans and Eke on the Shaw Savill liner Northern Star. A few days later, Klaas boarded a flight from Johannesburg to Sydney, where he found casual work in the banquet department of the Chevron-Hilton Hotel in Potts Point. The voyage for Aafke and the children took nine days from Durban to Perth, and three days from Perth to Sydney.

On the ship, Aafke met Englishwoman Patricia Wilce, who was also travelling with two children. Aafke’s and Patricia’s husbands met them on arrival in Sydney and the two couples remain friends today.

During their first six rainy weeks in Australia, the Woldring family stayed at a holiday apartment in Albert Gardens, Manly. They later paid a deposit on a two-bedroom flat in the beachside suburb of Coogee, where they lived until 1970.

The family immediately felt at home in Sydney and was relieved to discover that people rarely discussed politics or race.

However they noticed that Australians had little awareness of the situation in South Africa, until the cancelled cricket tour of 1971 opened up the public debate on apartheid. Australia went on to play an important role in the dismantling of the policy, through universities, trade unions and the political intervention of leaders such as Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke.

Prompted by his experiences of apartheid, Klaas embarked wholeheartedly on the study of government, race relations and political economy. In 1968 he gained a Bachelor of Arts (through part-time study via distance education) from the University of South Africa, while also employed full-time at the reception desk of the Chevron-Hilton. Klaas went on to complete a Master of Arts in Political Science (Comparative Federalism) at the University of Sydney in 1969, followed by a PhD on the international relations of Southern Central and Eastern Africa at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 1974. He also tutored in political science at UNSW from 1970 to 1975. At the same time, Aafke obtained further qualifications in nursing and worked as a sister at a baby health clinic.

She gave birth to two more children in Sydney, Karin (born 1969) and Oliver (born 1971). The Woldring family became naturalised Australian citizens in 1969.

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The family immediately felt at home in Sydney and was relieved to discover that Australians rarely discussed politics or race

03 Aafke Woldring at Lismore Base Hospital,

NSW, 1984.

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In 1975, the family of six relocated to Lismore in north-eastern New South Wales, after Klaas was appointed as a lecturer in political and administrative studies at the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education. When the college was upgraded to Southern Cross University, Klaas was promoted to senior lecturer and then associate professor. Aafke continued her work as an early infant sister in the Northern Rivers region.

In the early 1980s, the family returned to Zambia, where Klaas taught for two years as a senior lecturer at the University of Zambia. In the 1990s, he became the head of the School of Management and Marketing at Southern Cross and chair of the Business Faculty Board. He retired in 1999 as an associate professor and took on various part-time teaching appointments at the University of Western Sydney, Macquarie University and the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA).

One of Klaas’ fondest recollections from his distinguished academic career is the difficulty that many Australian students had with pronouncing or spelling his name. He delighted in commencing each year by showing some 50 different misspellings of his name on an overhead projector, which led the students to contribute further variations. Aafke had the same problem with her name and recalls how some of the new mothers who visited her baby clinic would memorise her name as Agfa. When they forgot, they would call her ‘Kodak’.

04 Woldring family portrait in Lismore, NSW,

1978.

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Klaas and Aafke, who have nine grandchildren, now live on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Having encountered very few Dutch immigrants during their time in Lismore, they have become involved with organisations like the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre (DACC), which is based at Holland House in the Sydney suburb of Smithfield. Klaas is currently the secretary of the DACC, having served as president from 2007 to 2011.

As keen supporters of the Dutch community in Australia, Klaas and Aafke registered their names on the Welcome Wall to commemorate their own part in the nation’s migration history following their journey via the Cape.

The Welcome Wall It costs just $150, or $290 for a couple, to register a name and honour your family’s arrival in this great country. We’d love to add your family’s name to The Welcome Wall, cast in bronze, and place your story on the online database at anmm. gov.au/ww. Please call our staff during business hours with any enquiries on 02 9298 3777.

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READINGS SPRING 2016

Exotic visions

ART OF THE FRENCH VOYAGES TO POLYNESIA

AS THE ENGLISH TITLE of this book indicates, its subject is the art of the French voyages to French Polynesia, with a focus on mainly official naval expeditions from Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s ‘discovery’ of Tahiti in 1768 to the publication of Abel Aubert Du Petit-Thouars’s Atlas de zoologie and Atlas de botanique in 1846.

In the preface the author writes: ‘The inspiration for this book derived from a similar study I conducted some years ago on the artwork from the French voyages to New Zealand.’

The reference is to Hemming’s The Art of the French Voyages to New Zealand 1769–1846 (Auckland Heritage Press, 2000), which was followed in 2005 by a similarly focused essay, ‘Nine Days in Nouvelle-Cythère: The Origins of French Artwork in the Pacific’ (in Pacific Journeys: Essays in Honour of John Dunmore, Victoria University Press).

Christine Hemming is a doctor in the history of anthropology and specialises in the iconography of Pacific voyages of exploration. A short note inside this book’s dust jacket states that the images in the book are also intended for use in the internet site Viatica Pacifica for the Centre of Research on the Literature of Travel (CRLV) at the Paris–Sorbonne University.

Hemming’s aims in the current book were twofold: ‘Firstly, to bring to wider attention the French contributions to exploration of the Pacific, overlooked and little known in a largely Anglophone region and, secondly, to make accessible to the peoples of the Pacific selections of the most attractive and most important images documenting their cultural and natural heritage’.

The book is written in French and English, with text in each language either on alternate pages or running in parallel columns on a single page. After the rather lengthy acknowledgements, it gets down to business with a historical background that defines the geographic extent of French Polynesia, and the origins of Polynesian migration in the Pacific generally and in the five island groups of French Polynesia specifically. Following is an outline of Polynesian society, culture and religious beliefs at the time of the first encounter with Europeans, during Samuel Wallis’s visit to Tahiti (HMS Dolphin) in 1767.

L’Art Des Voyages Français en Polynésie 1768–1846 / The Art of the French Voyages to French Polynesia

By Christine A Hemming, published by Somogy éditions d’art, Paris, 2013.

Bilingual French–English, hardback, 276 pages, illustrations, bibliography.

ISBN 9782757207208

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The images in the book are also intended for use in the internet site Viatica Pacifica, hosted by the Paris-Sorbonne University

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The book then follows a chronology of French voyages, with a brief outline of expeditions led by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, Étienne Marchand, Louis Isidore Duperrey, Abel Aubert Du Petit-Thouars (first voyage), Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville, Cyrille Pierre Théodore Laplace, and Abel Aubert Du Petit-Thouars (second voyage).

I had not come across Marchand before but his charts literally put the Marquesas Islands on the map for France and his inclusion definitely meets the author’s first aim in writing the book. Most of the other French voyagers are better known but it can be seen that this is a book of very specific focus and, I believe, specialist interest.

An initially confusing aspect of the work is the numbering of illustrations. For example the first illustration (opposite the Contents page) is listed as Planche (Plate) 15; the second (on page 10) as Planche 8, and so on. It is not until you reach the list of annotated plates between pages 94 and 153 that a systematic approach is revealed.

The information about each plate includes title, medium, dimensions and attribution, but only initials indicating the institution that houses it. For those who, like me, are interested, you must turn to the last page of the work to find this information.

I was also curious as to whether the 60 plates selected for this publication actually meet the second aim of the book. I believe that original images represent primary evidence and are of greater importance than secondary engravings or lithographs in documenting cultural heritage. Indeed it is a point that

01 Marquesan man. Original pencil sketch

of a young warrior of Nuka Hiva, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Chartres, France 02 Native of Nuka-Hiva. Hand-coloured

lithograph of the above sketch, as prepared for publication. From Dumont d’Urville, Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l’Oceanie, Atlas pittoresque, National Library of Australia

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Hemming acknowledged in her previous work in 2000 (cited above, p 80), writing about the publication of voyage atlases: Preparation for engraving or lithography was undertaken by professional artists, mostly attached to the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. Sometimes the image captured faithfully by the artist on the spot was distorted in the process.

A comparison of Plate 28 Marquesan man (pencil drawing attributed to Ernest Goupil) with Plate 29 Native of Nuka-Hiva (hand-coloured lithograph) illustrates the point – with artistic additions of war club and conch shell, and the details of the tattoos subdued by the colouring. Plates 30 and 31 provide a similar process of evidential loss.

Happily the problem is diminished by the inclusion of truly outstanding original illustrations such as the beautiful watercolour Method of Beating Cloth on Tahiti Island (Plate 14), pencil sketch War Canoe (Plate 27) and crayon drawing Four People in the middle of a Village in Nuku Hiva (Plate 57).

It is to be hoped that when the Viatica Pacifica site is finally launched, many more such unique works will be available to all people interested in the history and culture of our Pacific region.

By Dr Nigel Erskine Reviewer Dr Nigel Erskine is the museum's Head of Research.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > LIFE DEDICATED TO HERITAGE PRESERVATION

CURRENTS SPRING 2016

A life dedicated to heritage preservation

VALE WARWICK TURNER 6 NOVEMBER 1941–20 JULY 2016

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On Monday 20 July 2016, Warwick Turner, the principal founder of today’s Sydney Heritage Fleet, crossed the bar at the age of 74.

The news of Warwick’s passing in Echuca, where he lived for many years, has saddened many people who knew him through his passions for steam, history and heritage.

Warwick developed his enthusiasm for preserving steam technology at an early age and his interests in steam ranged over road, rail, paddock and water in the form of traction engines, steam trains, steam rollers, steam trucks and, of course, marine steam. Early on, Warwick and his wife, Lesley, bought the old Burnaby Bolton model steam engineering business and operated this from a small shop in Woolloomooloo, Sydney.

01 Warwick Turner on the Murray River near

Echuca, South Australia. Photograph courtesy Riverine Herald

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News in the early 1960s that Sydney’s Maritime Services Board planned to replace its VIP and vice-regal steam launch Lady Hopetoun with a modern motor launch prompted the young Warwick to lobby to save the steamer. In December 1965 he and a small band of like-minded colleagues founded the Lady Hopetoun & Port Jackson Marine Steam Museum – now Sydney Heritage Fleet (SHF), and early in 1966 Lady Hopetoun became theirs. It remains the fleet’s flagship to this day.

Throughout his lifetime’s contribution to heritage activities, Warwick had a clear vision of the value of heritage

Two years later, veteran 1902 steam tug Waratah joined the fleet, followed in 1970 by the 1927 buoy tender and pilot steamer John Oxley and the tall ship James Craig in 1972.

Later, Warwick again made his mark as director of Lachlan Vintage Village and then Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement, both major outdoor museums, and in Echuca with his steam saw mill. Throughout his lifetime’s contribution to heritage activities, Warwick had a clear vision of the value of heritage. In 2010, Warwick was the ANMM/SHF Phil Renouf Memorial Lecturer.

Warwick purchased the magnificent steam yacht Ena in 2014 and lovingly maintained it until it was bought by its current owner earlier this year. It was his desire that it would be a regular feature on Sydney Harbour. This dream is now a reality as SY Ena is a long-term visiting vessel at the museum, where it will be enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year.

Alan Edenborough

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01 Indigenous

Sea Rights flag flies in Sydney To mark Reconciliation Week, on 27 May the museum hosted a flag-raising ceremony to fly the Blue Mud Bay Sea Rights Flag for the first time in Sydney. On July 2008 the High Court of Australia confirmed that traditional owners of the Blue Mud Bay region in north-east Arnhem Land, together with those of almost the entire Northern Territory coastline, have exclusive access rights to tidal waters overlying Aboriginal land. Associated with the flag are the important Saltwater Bark paintings by the Yolŋu people, held in the museum’s collection. These barks were significant in the legal recognition of Indigenous sea rights.

Community member Donald Nuwandjali Marawili, the designer of the Blue Mud Bay Sea Rights Flag, is pictured (centre) at the ceremony with yidaki (didgeridoo) player Djuwakan Marika (left) and ANMM staff member Donna Carstens, Manager, Indigenous Programs. Photo Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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ANMM receives national awards The museum is proud to have received several awards at the Museums Australasia Conference in Auckland, New Zealand, on 17 May. It won a prestigious Museums and Galleries National Award (MAGNA) for its online educational game The Voyage, in the Interpretation, Learning and Audience Engagement category. The museum’s Action Stations experience was Highly Commended in the Permanent Exhibition or Gallery Fitout category. The museum also received two Museums Australia Publication Design Awards for the new Action Stations website and the invitation to the opening of the exhibition Shackleton: Escape from Antarctica.

Action Stations was also a winner at the 2016 NSW Architecture Awards, winning the Small Project Architecture category and being commended in the Public Architecture category.

Pictured at the MAGNA ceremony are Michael Harvey, Assistant Director, Public Engagement and Research; Dr Lynda Kelly, Head of Learning; and Deanna Varga, Assistant Director, Commercial and Visitor Services.

ANMM photograph

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Celebrating 25 years of the USA Gallery On 28 July the museum celebrated 25 years of the USA Gallery with the launch of the Treasures of the American Collection exhibition. His Excellency John Berry, US Ambassador to Australia, and Hugo Llorens, US Consul General, were the guests of honour at the special event.

It was a special night for Ambassador Berry, who met Russ Dority, the Australian son of a US servicemen with a connection to the ambassador’s father. Russ recently donated a stirring telegram displayed in the exhibition, which was received from Admiral R K Turner on 6 August 1942 by his father’s ship USS Helm, part of Allied navy Task Force 62. This was on the eve of the Guadalcanal Campaign, in which Ambassador Berry’s father, a US marine, fought. Pictured are Richard Wood, ANMM Manager, USA Programs; Paul Sparke of ANMM sponsor Austal; ANMM Director and CEO, Kevin Sumption; Ambassador Berry; and Hugo Llorens.

Photo Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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Catalyst grant funds virtual excursions Students in remote and regional Australia can now experience what life would have been like for James Cook and his crew on board HMB Endeavour thanks to the funding of virtual excursions to the museum.

The Australian government has given the museum $230,000 to conduct 900 classes for 32,000 primary and secondary students across Australia in 2016 and 2017.

The classes address the curriculum priorities of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The technology for the virtual excursions on the ship was developed by the CSIRO in conjunction with the museum and with funding from the Department of Communications and the Arts. Panoramic cameras installed throughout the ship allow students to take a live tour and control what they see, zooming in to explore botanical specimens similar to those collected by Joseph Banks or learning about pulley systems. A museum educator uses a tablet to guide students around the ship and responds to their questions.

Education is one of the museum’s core priorities.

Museum Director and CEO, Kevin Sumption, says: ‘As a national institution our mandate is to share Australia’s maritime history with people across the country.

This may well be one of the most important projects the museum has ever undertaken because it gives children in remote and regional Australia the opportunity to engage with one of Australia’s most important maritime stories.’

ANMM photograph

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Tenacious in Sydney Harbour The museum welcomed the world’s biggest operative wooden ship in July when tall ship Tenacious sailed through Sydney Heads following its epic nine-month, 18,000 mile voyage from the UK.

The unique ship sails with a special social inclusion mission, allowing people living with a disability and able-bodied people to come together to sail a tall ship as equal members of the crew. On its spectacular entry into Sydney Harbour, it was greeted by local Sydney tall ships James Craig and Southern Swan, and led

by Sydney Port Authority’s fire tug Shirley Smith.

Tenacious will be a regular visitor to the museum over the next 10 months in between voyages to Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart and Geelong. Photo Andrew Frolows/ ANMM

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Welcoming Bailey Haggarty In late June the museum welcomed an unusual employee – a two-year old border collie who is our new Assistant Director, Seagulls.

He came to us from Australian Working Dog Rescue, tasked with repelling the seagulls that make an unsightly mess on the museum’s wharves and vessels. In the short time he has been here, gull numbers have reduced considerably, as have the number of hours museum staff have to spend cleaning up after them. Bailey makes his rounds with the museum’s security staff, and when he’s off duty he lives in their office, where he has round-theclock company. His playful ways are a big hit with his human colleagues. Dog lovers can follow his antics on the museum’s blog and Facebook page. Photo Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > UNLOCKING THE COLLECTION

Unlocking the collection

GET A CURATOR’S-EYE VIEW OF OUR OBJECTS

YOU CAN NOW PLAY CURATOR with more than 40,000 objects from the National Maritime Collection. Using your favourite digital device you can search, browse, share, tag and give a star rating to the objects that intrigue you. Each object has its own page and description, and many have images.

You can share your thoughts, feelings and expertise by commenting on objects and uploading additional relevant content, such as photographs, from wherever you are in the world. Your contributions will enhance the information we have on the collection and help others to discover it via a simple Google search.

The project is a joint enterprise between the museum’s digital outreach team – who provide the online communication and technical expertise – and the museum’s registration, photography and curatorial teams who provide object data and images, the collection management system and curatorial expertise. We’re using eMuseum, an industry standard product developed by US company Gallery Systems – a leader in collections software and services whose clients include some of the world’s most prestigious museums, such as The J Paul Getty Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The content you contribute will help us learn which objects you like, are curious about and want to see more of, and provide valuable additional information.

Another benefit of the new online collection database is the application programming interface (API) or ‘discovery layer’ that comes with it. The discovery layer will allow the museum, and interested third parties, to easily integrate collection content into new – and hopefully unexpected – digital applications that contextualise the collection and expand the museum’s reach and reputation. A good example of what can happen when cultural institutions have a publicly accessible discovery layer is Forte, the National Library of Australia’s sheet music collection iPad app. The app was instigated by a member of the public who had been working on his own project in the library’s public

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reading rooms and had used the sheet music discovery layer as a large dataset to help him solve a problem he was working on. The result – a prototype iPad app that allowed users to search the sheet music collection – formed the core of Forte.

With the museum’s collection at 140,000 objects and still growing, the project is very much a work in progress.

The museum’s specialist photographers are capturing high-resolution images of key objects so you can view them in more detail online, while the registration and curatorial teams are also enhancing the information about specific collection objects.

To check out the collection, just type collections.anmm.gov. au into your web browser and search or browse the online database. We’d love to know your thoughts on the online collection – just email web@anmm.gov.au.

Richella King for the digital team

TRANSMISSIONS SPRING 2016

SIGNALS > NUMBER 116 > THE STORE

SEE WHAT’S IN STORE SUBMARINE SOCKS Put your best foot forward in these bamboo–cotton socks.

Strong, soft and durable, perfect for all those who go down to the sea in ships.

$16.95 / $15.26 Members

ANCHOR CUFFLINKS A great gift idea for the boating enthusiast, to help him dream of the sea when he’s stuck on dry land.

$35.00 / $31.50 Members

MORRIS SEAWEED PATTERN SCARF Long, feather-light and beautifully soft silk chiffon scarf with hand-rolled hems.

Classic Seaweed pattern by famed British designer William Morris.

$89.95 / $80.96 Members WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR PORTFOLIO 25 This powerful collection of pictures features all the winning photographs from the competition.

$55.00 / $49.50 Members

REPLICA NAVAL CANNON A 1/12 scale replica of a classic 18th century naval cannon.

With 10-inch (25 cm) elevating barrel, wooden trunk carriage and rotating wheels with real rope breaching.

ALPHA, BRAVO, CHARLIE Extraordinary visual reference introducing maritime communication through nautical flags, Morse code, the phonetic alphabet and semaphore signalling.

$199.95 / $179.96 Members

$26.95 / $24.26 Members

GOLD POCKET WATCH A stunningly crafted Hunter pocket watch and Albert chain, inspired by John Harrison’s revolutionary marine chronometer H4.

FLAGSHIP The third in Mike Carlton’s series of Australian naval military histories, an enthralling tour de force by an author at the height of his power.

$395.00 / $355.50 Members

$49.95 / $44.96 Members

Shop online at store.anmm.gov.au 9.30 am–5 pm 7 days a week | 02 9298 3698 store.anmm.gov.au | Members’ discounts

Books DVDs & CDs Brassware Models Gifts Prints Posters Toys Shirts Hats Scarves Souvenirs

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SIGNALS Signals ISSN 1033-4688 Editor Janine Flew Staff photographer Andrew Frolows Design & production Austen Kaupe Printed in Australia by Ligare Book Printers Material from Signals may be reproduced, but only with the editor’s permission.

Editorial and advertising enquiries signals@anmm.gov.au Deadline mid-January, April, July, October for issues March, June, September, December Signals is online Search all issues up to 109 (December 2014) at anmm.gov.au/signals. Issues 110 onwards available via the App Store Signals back issues Back issues $4 each or 10 for $30 Extra copies of current issue $4.95 Call The Store 02 9298 3698 Digital Signals Available on iPad from the App Store.

Type 'Signals Quarterly' and follow the prompts.

First edition free, subsequent editions $1.99.

All editions are free to Members – contact members@anmm.gov.au for your coupon code Australian National Maritime Museum Open daily except Christmas Day 9.30 am to 5 pm (6 pm in January) 2 Murray Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia.

Phone 02 9298 3777. The Australian National Maritime Museum is a statutory authority of the Australian Government.

Become a museum Member Benefits include four issues of Signals per year; free museum entry; discounts on events and purchases; and more. See anmm.gov.au or phone 02 9298 3646. Corporate memberships also available.

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ANMM council Chairman Mr Peter Dexter am faicd Director and CEO Mr Kevin Sumption Councillors The Hon Ian Campbell The Hon Peter Collins am qc Prof Sarah Derrington Ms Maria Teresia Fors Rear Admiral Stuart Mayer csc and Bar Mr John Mullen The Hon Margaret White ao Foundation partner ANZ Major partners Austal Nine Entertainment Returned and Services League of Australia (Queensland Branch) Partners AccorHotels’ Darling Harbour Hotels AMSA APN Outdoor Australian Government International Exhibitions Insurance (AGIEI) Program BAE Foxtel History Channel IAS Fine Art Logistics Laissez-Faire Royal Museums Greenwich Royal Wolf Holdings Ltd Southern Cross Austereo Sydney by Sail Pty Ltd United Technologies Founding patrons Alcatel Australia ANL Limited Ansett Airfreight Bovis Lend Lease BP Australia Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation Doyle’s Seafood Restaurant Howard Smith Limited James Hardie Industries National Australia Bank P G, T G & M G Kailis P&O Nedlloyd Ltd Telstra Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics Westpac Banking Corporation Zim Shipping Australasia

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Ships, Clocks & Stars: the Quest for Longitude Produced by

Proudly sponsored by Principal sponsor

Exhibition produced by the National Maritime Museum, London

Supporter

Presenting partner

Catering partner

Ships, Clocks & Stars was supported by the Australian Government International Exhibitions Insurance (AGIEI) Program. This program provides funding for the purchase of insurance for significant cultural exhibitions. Without AGIEI, the high cost of insuring significant cultural items would prohibit this major exhibition from touring to Australia.

War at Sea: The Navy in WWI travelling exhibition

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Australian National Maritime Museum Partners 2016