Signals Magazine Issue 128

Bligh in the Pacific

Polynesian threads of European stories

Reefs and rock lobsters

Drawing an underwater world

A deadly stowaway

The Spanish flu 100 years on

Bearings

From the Director

IN LATE 1787, HMS BOUNTY SET SAIL from England for Tahiti. Commanded by William Bligh, the ship was to collect breadfruit plants intended as a new staple food for slaves working on sugar plantations in the British West Indies. This voyage failed, however, when 24 crew members mutinied on 28 April 1789. As several films have depicted, the mutineers spared Bligh but forced him and 18 loyal followers into a seven-metre launch, in which the castaways undertook an epic 6,400-kilometre voyage to safety.

Bligh’s behaviour as captain of both HMS Bounty and later HMS Director (1799), as well as his actions as the fourth governor of New South Wales, have been the subject of both praise and censure dating back to the mutineers’ trial in 1792. His reputation has been constantly questioned and often conveniently distorted – sometimes for judicial expediency and other times for mere popular entertainment. By the standards of his day, were these portrayals accurate or even fair? In our new exhibition Bligh: Hero or Villain?, we sort fact from fiction and explore parts of the story that have been forgotten by filmmakers and authors alike. Bligh’s tenacity and determination to overcome opposition were hallmarks of both his navy and public service careers, earning him both praise and loathing. As this exhibition shows, he certainly had many contradictory traits – egocentric, dutiful, hot-tempered, mercurial. In piecing together this complex character, the museum’s Head of Research, Dr Nigel Erskine, visited archives in both Australia and England, exploring family letters and Royal Navy and government correspondence.

The exhibition that Nigel has created, along with its accompanying catalogue, is less a journey through the tumultuous events of Bligh’s career than an exploration of what might have been Bligh’s thinking, planning, motivations and influences. Of course, looking back more than 230 years, it’s impossible to know these things for certain, but there are tantalising glimpses of Bligh’s character. Nigel’s research uncovered many letters from Royal Navy officers complaining of Bligh’s use of bad or colourful language, such as ‘dastardly villain’, ‘old thief’, ‘lubbers’, ‘infamous scoundrel’ and ‘audacious rascal’.

Nigel first encountered the Bounty story in 1987 when he visited Pitcairn Island while sailing across the Pacific with his wife. In the intervening years, he developed the expertise and knowledge that make him without doubt the world’s foremost authority on the Bounty and Bligh. With Nigel retiring this year, this wonderful exhibition and its catalogue are a fitting testimony to his prowess as both a scholar and maritime archaeologist, which will be greatly missed at the museum.

Director and CEO

Kevin Sumption psm

William Bligh, pencil and watercolour portrait by John Smart, c 1797. Bligh is about 44 in this image. © National Portrait Gallery, London

Contents

Spring 2019

Number 128 September to November sea.museum $9.95

Acknowledgment of country

The Australian National Maritime Museum acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the bamal (earth) and badu (waters) on which we work.

We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the land and waters throughout Australia and pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to elders past and present.

The words bamal and badu are spoken in the Sydney region’s Eora language.

Supplied courtesy of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Cultural warning

People of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent should be aware that Signals may contain names, images, video, voices, objects and works of people who are deceased. Signals may also contain links to sites that may use content of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people now deceased.

2 Reefs and rock lobsters

The underwater art of Roger Swainston

10 We will remember them

Material memory and the wreck of the merchant vessel SS Iron Crown

14 Capturing the home front

Documentary photographers of the Great Depression and World War II

18 PS Herald revisited

Recording a Sydney Harbour wreck using 3D photogrammetry

26 Bligh and the peoples of the Pacific

The Polynesian threads in European stories

30 A deadly shipmate

Remembering the Spanish influenza epidemic, 100 years on

36 The Spice Islands

Heaven for a historian

40 A sustainable museum

A new solar power system and other initiatives

42 Message to Members and museum events for spring

Your calendar of activities, talks, tours and excursions afloat

49 Member profile

John Jeremy, former Chief Executive of Cockatoo Island Dockyard

50 Spring exhibitions

Sea Monsters – Prehistoric ocean predators; Bligh: Hero or Villain? and more

56 Foundation

Reward programs for our donors

58 Collections

An encyclopedic display of fishing equipment

64 Collections

A Sikorsky S-70B-2 Seahawk helicopter now on display

66 Australian Register of Historic Vessels

The great Aussie tradition of DIY

70 Tales from the Welcome Wall

Swapping sunny Madeira Island for the Snowy Mountains

74 Readings

Underwater Sydney Inke Falkner & John Turnbull; Night Fishing Vicki Hastrich

77 Currents

Dr Sylvia Earle visits the museum; Elysium Arctic goes on display

Cover The Observatory, Point Venus, Otahytey [Tahiti], George Tobin, 1792. State Library of New South Wales (FL1606978)

Reefs and rock lobsters

The underwater art of Roger Swainston

Scientist and natural history artist Roger Swainston spends large portions of his working life under water, drawing the world’s coral reefs and studying and painting the creatures that inhabit them. Here he relates a typical day from one of his annual field trips, working on the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia.

Stonehenge, Ningaloo Reef, 2016. Drawn under water by Roger Swainston with graphite on translucent drafting film. 1800 x 3600 mm. All images © and courtesy Roger Swainston unless otherwise stated

NINGALOO REEF, CORAL BAY, EARLY MARCH: I’m woken before dawn by the piercing calls of the resident Magpie Larks and lie waiting for a few minutes until, like clockwork, the seagulls start up their neck arching and squawking to urge me out of bed and start the day.

The morning ritual. I put a coffee to percolate on the camp stove and begin going through my checklist: camera charged and housing sealed, new sheet in the drawing board, graphite crayons sharpened .... With the sun coming up I heave all the dive gear into the boat, run through the checklist one more time and head for the boat ramp.

Now it’s all about maintaining a certain rhythm; getting the boat into the water and not forgetting anything essential is a disciplined sequence much repeated. Concentrating on multiple little details, getting everything ready, anticipation starts to rise until I cast off and motor out into the bay. That abrupt separation from land always provides a moment of quiet elation.

Today I am working on a site about 30 minutes away and the trip out there is pure pleasure. I have the sea to myself this early and the boat hums along, planing over calm water in the windless early morning light. I check the water clarity, absorbing the breathtaking colours of the Ningaloo shallows, and judge the swell breaking on the outer reef to my left. Schools of Damselfish flee to left or right, and the occasional turtle basking at the surface wakes in fright and flaps panicstricken for the bottom.

I throttle back as I approach my destination. Known locally as ‘Stonehenge’, this circular cluster of ancient porite coral, in the lagoon just inside the main reef, is barely submerged at low tide. Surrounded by flat sandy bottom, a single colony of porite has grown ever outwards over many hundreds of years, sculpted by grazing Parrotfish, to form a broken ring some 15–20 metres across. I jockey the boat around to judge the drift, drop the anchor and cut the noise and vibration of the outboard. Sudden quiet. Gentle slap and clonk of the aluminium hull and the everpresent background rumble of surf on the outer reef. I’m right where I want to be.

It’s not always like this. Some days the south-westerly is already up and I’m drenched by the spray and slop, shivering before I’ve even rounded the first channel marker. Some days it’s a real effort to make myself push on, through nasty chop and strong winds. But one thing is always the same, that moment when I roll backwards over the side of the boat and I’m underwater again; free, weightless, I’ve crossed over into another universe, and it feels like coming home.

Today the conditions are close to perfect, and it’s time to gear up. I struggle into the wetsuit, manhandle the overweighted tank and buoyancy compensator (BC) assembly. Still going through mental checklists. I’m on my own out here and there’s no quick back-up, so double checking everything has become an ingrained habit. Ready at last, I roll backwards over the side into the water, the crash and fizz of bubbles and that welcoming thrill. I pull the weighted drawing board from the transom step and it takes me quickly to the bottom. Encumbered by the board and my underwater camera, I have to fin hard across to my daily vantage point on the sand. The enormous porite bombora, or ‘bommie’, fills my view.

I settle to the bottom, then relax and steady myself. I kneel on the sand and set up the drawing board. I vent air from the BC and the extra weights I’m carrying hold me down firmly in position. My breathing slows, I’m getting comfortable, constantly looking all around me. Who’s here this morning?

I have been returning to this exact spot every morning for two weeks, finding my knee prints on the sea floor and re-inhabiting them. I have come to know the residents of this bommie and learnt their daily routines. The school of Surf Parrotfish always streaming back and forth, the Coral Trout that lurks at the limit of visibility when I first arrive, comes in for a close look and then, satisfied with its investigation, vanishes for the rest of my stay. Groups of Surgeonfish drift to and fro, and the occasional Grey Reef Shark glides through to check me out. There are always a few newcomers passing by, while others, slow to reveal themselves, are only just now making themselves known to me.

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Roger Swainston working on drawings at Coral Bay Camp. Once finished, the drawing sheets are sealed with archival matt fixative, a transparent spray varnish. They are fixed onto the support panel with heat-activated glue, which allows the sheets to be placed and aligned very precisely and then fixed in place permanently by passing over them with a warm iron.

02

Clipperton Atoll, 2005: Roger draws under water on translucent drafting film, a tough waterproof sheet made from PET plastic with a matt surface. His drawing board is plywood with an overlay of white perspex for smoothness and brightness.

It’s a meditation, just the noise of my breathing, the steady din of bubbles rising past my ears, and the clicks and groans from the reef

An ongoing project is to create life-size portraits from live specimens of all the world’s 36 or so species of Rock Lobsters

The finished painting of a Saddleback Rock Lobster (Panulirus penicillatus), 2016. Acrylic on paper, 800 x 600 mm.

It’s time to start work, though, much as I would like to just sit and watch the passing parade. I find my balance, adjust my gear a little here and there, fish around for a graphite crayon in the BC pocket. I look up at the bommie flooded by morning light, down to the drawing board, up and back, find my starting point and begin. Almost immediately I’m totally absorbed by the process. The graphite goes on to the drafting film smoothly as I build the structure on my sheet, erase a line with a finger, fill in some detail, get down the edges of shadows before they migrate too far with the rising sun. It’s a meditation, just the noise of my breathing, the steady din of bubbles rising past my ears, and the clicks and groans from the reef. Time passes. It’s hard to maintain focus; always in the corner of my eye there’s some distracting movement or other. It could be a tiny Damselfish a metre away or a three-metre Tiger Shark in the distance. A flicker of movement draws my gaze downwards; a small Moray Eel has risen from its home in a lump of overgrown coral near my left knee to see what I’m doing. I don’t move as it peers curiously at me, undulating in the gentle surge. Sitting motionless for hours on end means that I quickly become part of life on the reef, just another strange sedentary visitor which most of the other residents come curiously to examine.

I once had a passing Oceanic Manta Ray brush my head as it floated over me, attracted by the odd white rectangle of my drawing board, and a sea urchin take an hour to inch its way across both of my fins. Clouds of Damselfish sometimes obscure my view and all manner of fish approach to assess me before returning to their routines.

Back to the drawing. Time passes, the page darkens and fills. Now and again I pause, to stretch cramped legs or to take up the camera and capture a passing fish. Every day at the same hour I take a series of close-up shots of the section of reef I am drawing, aides-memoire for detail and colour reference. I never use flash under water. I’m trying to capture what I see, what anyone would see, and using flash gives a beautiful but wholly unreal image of the reef. Photography is also a means of building a visual index of all the life on and around the reef. Many of my underwater drawings will eventually be used as the foundation for large-scale panoramic paintings – ecosystem portraits showing the reef and all its diversity, all the resident and transitory life going about its business.

After two and a half hours I’m getting a bit cold and cramped, and that’s about all I can squeeze from a single scuba tank. Back on the boat I lie down in the sun for a few minutes to warm up, eat a handful of dates, swig from my water bottle, then change the tank, gear up and roll over the side again for another session.

The shadows creep across the reef as midday approaches, my cut-off point. Once the sun has moved behind the reef all is in shadow and I can no longer continue. I pick up the drawing board and my camera from the sand beside me, inflate the BC until I lift off the bottom and begin to work my way back to the boat.

Getting back on board is the hardest part of the day. I’m tired and my legs and back are stiff from holding still for so long, often starting to cramp as I manoeuvre the awkward and heavy drawing board with its fragile drawn surface. By now the seabreeze is in and the boat is heaving and pitching in the chop. ‘Push through it’, I tell myself. I get all the gear back on board and wriggle and struggle out of the wetsuit before I take a breather. Then it’s time to fire up the outboard, haul the anchor and head for home.

I park the boat back at camp, wash down my gear and carefully hang up the drawing to dry. After a quick late lunch I download photos and then begin to work up the day’s drawing. Under water I indicated dense shadows with shorthand signs, so I fill these in now and complete areas of detail which I don’t have time to fully execute during the dives. I refine the edges of the drawing where this sheet connects to the pages already completed to be sure they align perfectly. I then overlap today’s drawing with tomorrow’s blank sheet and trace a twocentimetre-wide strip along the edge. This provides my starting points for the next day’s work, essential to enable continuity across the entire drawing.

I’m now two thirds of the way into the largest work I have undertaken. It will be more than four metres when complete, 28 sheets in all. Some of the sheets will take several dives to complete, and having been in and out of the water multiple times will occasionally finish up a bit the worse for wear. The graphite I draw with is fragile when wet, easy to erase with a finger under water; once dry, though, it is pretty resistant. The inevitable few scratches will just have to be part of the work. I work away steadily under my tarpaulin verandah, and then in the late afternoon I look up to see Matty the chef crossing the lawn towards me with an esky. He plonks it down in the shade and we pop the lid off to reveal one of the largest Rock Lobsters I’ve ever seen, and definitely the strangest looking. It’s an enormous Saddleback Rock Lobster, as they are known locally – Panulirus penicillatus to be scientific – dark green with deep burgundy legs and a massively broad carapace. I’m absolutely thrilled by this. Though broadly distributed, they are rarely encountered here on Ningaloo Reef. I’ve drawn and photographed this species before, from Clipperton Atoll in the far eastern Pacific and from southern Madagascar, but I’ve never seen a monster like this one.

I offer Matty a beer and we chat about the lobster’s capture while I pose the animal on a styrofoam box lid and spend the next half-hour photographing it extensively. This will certainly mean a change of plans. Tomorrow I will set it up in a life-like pose, surround it with ice and begin a detailed life-size drawing. That will take probably six to eight hours of concentrated work, so no boating or underwater drawing tomorrow.

When completed, this Saddleback Rock Lobster will be added to my ongoing project ‘Rock Lobsters of the World’, an undertaking to create life-size portraits from live specimens of the world’s 36 or so species. I have already painted nine species from various locations around the world.

Now even the most far-flung and isolated habitats show the effects of human intervention

01 Working on a canvas of Point Maud, Western Australia, 2019. Roger’s paintings are done later in his studio, on canvas using acrylic paint. The drawings remain as they are; he scans each sheet individually and transfers the basic outlines onto the canvas using a projector linked to his computer.

02 Drawing after a dive, Vanuatu, 2010. Image Xavier Desmier

Many of these were carried out over the past decade during voyages of exploration. As the expedition artist, side by side with scientific experts from around the world, I have been privileged to explore some of the most remote and untouched treasure troves of nature’s diversity. I have drawn and painted in the cloud forest of Santos Island in Vanuatu, dived for specimens on the extraordinary rocky reefs of southern Madagascar, explored the dry monsoonal forest of Mozambique and spent months on Clipperton Atoll, a speck of land in the far reaches of the eastern Pacific.

Over the years this privilege has been gradually overshadowed by the gathering clouds of massive change being wrought across the planet. Now even the most far-flung and isolated habitats show the effects of human intervention. Much of it we are all aware of – overfishing is everywhere, and plastic is now found throughout the food chain, not just washed up on the beach. Returning from a lengthy field trip throughout the south Pacific as far as Easter Island, in search of more Rock Lobster species, I was happy to have added five more to the growing collection, but sobered to see how diminished our underwater world is becoming. Everywhere I went, coral reefs are slowly dying and marine ecoystems are a long, long way off balance. Time is running out. We must all lend our weight in any way we can to push hard for change; simply maintaining the status quo will only ensure a rapid decline for all our oceans.

Ningaloo Reef seems so far to have been spared the worst of the dramatic declines we have seen elsewhere, such as along the Great Barrier Reef in recent years. In 2001, I began another project here; a series of five large-scale underwater drawings of the differing reef habitats in the Coral Bay area. Completed over the ensuing four years, they form the foundations for panoramic paintings that combine art and science in ways which will inspire and educate a wider public.

These paintings also serve as benchmarks for the health of the reef, providing an antidote to insidious bracket creep (a universal condition whereby subsequent generations are unaware of how much previously rich and diverse ecosystems have declined). Ningaloo Reef itself is still talked about in terms of its ‘pristine’ condition, when it is actually severely overfished and, in many ways, sadly diminished. Each year at the same time I return to these drawing sites, descending to the exact same spot from which I made the drawings to take a photomosaic of the same reef scene. Now into its 18th year, this sequence of photomosaics is building into a unique record of development and change on the reef. Parts of this sequence, alongside a painting and one of the underwater drawings, will be installed in the new Western Australian Museum to be opened in 2020. I am absolutely thrilled that the messages I have long wanted this work to carry will be brought to a vastly wider audience than I had hoped.

Back here at Ningaloo, where I work for several months every year, it is my time to be completely immersed in the wonders of the coral reef environment. A day such as today fills me to the brim with wonder at the complexity and perfection of the natural world, the miracle of our common and fragile existence.

As the evening draws down, the sea breeze dies away and the omnipresent thump and rumble of the outer reef return as the backdrop to a gentle clatter of caravan-park dinners under way. Time to reflect on the day and the visual and spiritual feast I have enjoyed, and to think of the coming tasks: the superb Rock Lobster which awaits my attention tomorrow, and the growing underwater panorama I am slowly building. And to marvel again at how lucky I am.

To see more of Roger Swainston’s work, visit the website www.anima.net.au

After an enormous explosion, the ship buckled, with no time for the crew to launch the lifeboats before the vessel sank

01

Captain

02

Finding the SS Iron Crown

While transporting ore from Whyalla to Newcastle during World War II, the merchant vessel SS Iron Crown was torpedoed by the Japanese. For several decades the site of its wreck a mystery, until its discovery on 16 April 2019. Curator Emily Jateff explores the fascinating history surrounding this merchant vessel and its material memory. We will remember them

Archibald McLellan was the master of SS Iron Crown at the time of its loss, and went down with his ship. Image courtesy Glenn McLellan

Survivors George Fisher and Bruce Miels on the deck of the SS Mulbera in Sydney on 6 June 1942. Image from the collection of George Fisher, courtesy Bree Fisher

SS IRON CROWN (originally Euroa) was an Australian merchant vessel launched at the Williamstown Naval Dockyard, Victoria, on 27 January 1922. The steel screw steamer was owned by the Scott Fell Shipping Company and contracted to the mining company Broken Hill Proprietary Co Ltd (BHP), to transport manganese and iron ore from Whyalla, South Australia, to Newcastle, New South Wales. On 4 June 1942 it was torpedoed by the Japanese Imperial Type B submarine I-27. It sank within minutes, along with 38 of its 43 crew members.

The vessel is one of four World War II losses in Victorian waters (the others being HMAS Goorangai, lost in a collision, and SS Cambridge and MV City of Rayville, lost to mines) and the only vessel torpedoed. It is representative of the vessels and lives lost during World War II to enemy action in Victorian waters, and highlights the significance of the merchant navy in the transportation and supply of materials during World War II and the number of its casualties as a result of enemy action.

The merchant navy in World War II

At the outbreak of World War II, merchant ships came under the control of the Shipping Control Board and complied with the requirements of the nation in supplying materials to troops and ports. Painted grey, and without nameplates, they loosely mimicked the defence vessels then patrolling Australian shores –but with very little in the way of armament or combat-trained crew. International law dictated that a merchant ship’s armament was: 1

… solely for the purpose of self-defence, [and] must only be used against an enemy who is clearly attempting to capture or sink the merchant ship… a vessel which makes a determined attempt to escape has an excellent chance of doing so.

Most vessels had a Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS) gunner on board and were outfitted with at least one 4-inch gun. Prior to 1942, they had no other form of defence and did not sail in convoy.

Japanese incursion in Australian waters

On 19 February 1942, the Japanese launched an aerial attack on the port city of Darwin in the Northern Territory. They aimed to bully Australia into surrendering by isolating it from the United States, and to prevent Allied forces using bases in Northern Australia as jumping-off points to contest Japanese action in the East Indies.

On 3 March 1942, the Japanese navy attacked Broome in Western Australia, and from 31 May to 1 June, five Japanese Imperial submarines sat off Sydney Harbour and deployed three midget submarines to wreak disaster. HMAS Kuttabul was hit and sunk accidentally (the Japanese had aimed for USS Chicago), with 21 lives lost. All three Japanese midget submarines met their doom, with the M24 now located within a protected zone near Sydney. The Imperial submarines then shelled Newcastle and, on 3 June, attacked the SS Iron Chieftain east of Sydney.

Bad news travelled fast, and the crew of SS Iron Crown were en route to Newcastle from Whyalla when they heard of the loss of SS Iron Chieftain: 2

Rumour went around the ship that ... [Iron Chieftain had ] been torpedoed… and we knew that Sydney harbour had been raided … but you don’t think you’re going to be the next.

4 June 1942

On the morning of 4 June 1942, 60 kilometres south of Gabo Island, Japanese Imperial submarine I-27 launched a torpedo at the SS Barwon, narrowly missing it. An Allied Lockheed Hudson bomber was launched from shore and swept the area. Master McLellan of the Iron Crown was aware that a submarine was nearby, but had few resources to combat it. The ship’s crew were engaged in their regular daily activities when at about 4.45 pm, a torpedo hit the ship.

James Murdoch of SS Iron King , which was in the same area as Iron Crown, saw the latter go down ‘in a great ball of red iron ore dust’ as the submarine surfaced nearby. 3 With aerial support from the Hudson bomber, they opened fire at around 3,000 yards, forcing the I-27 to submerge and escape.

The 43 men on board SS Iron Crown were not so lucky. After an enormous explosion, the ship buckled, with no time for the crew to launch the lifeboats before the vessel sank.4

I thought I’d had it, I thought well this is it, I’m not going to make it ’cause it was like being in a washing machine, there was iron ore and everything and the water was all red.

Only five men made it off the ship: James Arthur Roach (Greaser), Alex Sabiston (Able Seaman), Neil McKelvie (Trimmer), George Fisher (Deck Boy), and Bruce Miels (Fourth Engineer). After floating for hours on a section of the chart room and wireless operator’s cabin, the men were rescued by SS Mulbera Safe on board the vessel, the survivors were told that the Japanese submarine had been sunk. Not until their arrival in Sydney on 6 June did they realise the I-27 had in fact escaped.

The Royal Australian Navy took immediate action, temporarily halting merchant shipping operations between coastal ports, and then introducing conveys to protect merchant vessels and revising guidelines to increase flexibility of movement while at sea. These measures limited attacks on merchant navy vessels throughout the remainder of the war.

Purposeful confusion surrounded the public details of the attack, with the Daily Mirror reporting the vessel had sunk off New South Wales. 5 At the time, the sinking of Iron Crown represented the greatest number of Australian merchant seamen lost in World War II – but this was not reported. Given this atmosphere, the families of SS Iron Crown had little information about where or how the ship sank and were able only to mourn those who were lost.

For 77 years, the ship slumbered.

RV Investigator voyage

RV Investigator is a full-service ocean-going science platform that is capable of 24-hour operations. The CSIRO Marine National Facility operates the ship and Australian researchers (and their independent collaborators) can apply for sea time through an independently assessed application process.

In April 2019, the Australian National Maritime Museum led a series of maritime heritage surveys on board RV Investigator in collaboration with Heritage Victoria. These surveys sought to locate, identify and image a series of high-priority shipwreck sites in Victorian waters.6

The water depth in the survey area for SS Iron Crown was at the mid to upper extent of the ship’s suite of multibeam echosounder (MBES) systems, so it was a perfect test case for the vessel’s high-resolution mapping capabilities. It would also be a significant find: Heritage Victoria and the Maritime Archaeological Association of Victoria (MAAV) listed the SS Iron Crown as one of the ‘top 20 undiscovered shipwrecks in Victoria’.

Finding the site

On the evening of 16 April 2019, Investigator arrived at the projected location of SS Iron Crown, 44 nautical miles (80 kilometres) south-southwest of Gabo Island. The survey area was based on archival research conducted by the Maritime Archaeological Association of Victoria and Heritage Victoria. We expected to spend the night searching, but midway along the second transect, we noted a feature in the MBES data that looked suspiciously like a shipwreck. It measured 100 metres in length with beam of 16–22 metres and profile of eight metres, sitting at a water depth of +/- 670 metres. Detailed MBES images of shipwrecks can be difficult to acquire in deeper waters, which meant we could use the on-board drop camera to investigate the site.

Iron Crown highlights the significance of the merchant navy in the transportation and supply of materials during World War II

SS Iron Crown bow section, as lit and imaged by the RV Investigator drop camera at 670 metres depth.

CSIRO/Marine National Facility 02

SS Iron Crown alongside SS Hagen, New South Wales, 1920s. Image Sydney Morning Herald/National Library of Australia nla.obj16196176

At 2 am, we deployed the drop camera, which collected footage of the stern, midship and bow sections of the wreck. These were compared with archival research and photos, and given the location, dimension and noted features, we identified the shipwreck as SS Iron Crown

Response

The discovery came just before ANZAC Day, and on our return to port at Hobart, there was great public interest. Families and communities across Australia were touched by the event and its aftermath. Descendants and relatives of crew members contacted the museum. Their gracious sharing of family histories and images provided valuable context on the human impact of shipwrecks during wartime – both at sea and at home.

Archibald McLellan was the Master of SS Iron Crown when it was attacked. Born in Balmain in 1884, he went to sea at 17 and fought overseas during World War I. Obtaining a position in the Australian merchant marine after the war, he quickly rose to the rank of commodore of the Interstate Steamship Company. His grandson, Robert McLellan, notes: 7

Just before he sailed on his last voyage during the dark days of WWII, he complained to his sister Jean Beveridge in Newcastle that he would be sunk by the enemy because of the absence of Navy protection.

On 4 June 1942, Archibald McLellan went down with his ship.

When 15-year-old Greg William Henry Rushford died at sea in 1942, he was an Ordinary Seaman. His mother received the telegram notifying her that a vessel was ‘missing owing to enemy action’ but had to travel to Newcastle to determine which of her three sons had been lost. Mrs Rushford was later sent a sympathy card from King George VI and awarded a war pension.

Lest we forget

The Australian National Maritime Museum collaborated with the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne and the Merchant Navy Association to host a memorial service on Merchant Navy Day (3 September 2019). Descendants and relatives of the captain and crew of SS Iron Crown, and representatives from various government and maritime organisations gathered at the Shrine of Remembrance to commemorate the merchant navy in World War II and the tragic incident of 4 June 1942. The event included a public lecture on the discovery of the SS Iron Crown and a memorial service at the Merchant Navy Tree. 02

When Fireman Frank Stewart was killed, his two children were orphaned. His son was just eight years old when he and his sister were placed in Largs Bay Orphanage in South Australia following their father’s death. The siblings were adopted separately and are yet to make contact.

One of the survivors was George Fisher, who was only 18 when Iron Crown sank. He joined the merchant navy shortly after his 18th birthday, and Iron Crown was his first post. Despite the horrific experience of its wrecking, within months he joined the Royal Australian Navy, and in his later years fought for recognition of his lost shipmates. As a chartered vessel, Iron Crown was not included in the list of vessels on the BHP Memorial erected in Newcastle in 1994. Fisher worked tirelessly until a memorial for his lost crewmates was erected at Mallacoota, Victoria, in 1999.

Material memory

Research is a large part of who we are and what we do at the museum, but just as significant is our role in locating and acquiring objects that speak to our collective history. Physical objects simultaneously hold individual and multidimensional threads of our past and can serve as baselines for re-interpreting histories. When these physical reminders are rare, as is often the case with shipwrecks lost in deeper waters, archaeology can serve as a mechanism for providing tangible links to the past. The shipwreck of SS Iron Crown reminds us of the role merchant ships played during World War II and its discovery helps provide closure for the relatives of those who were lost.

I am so happy that my father’s ship has at last been found. Thank you for all you have done.8

While research into its sinking continues, the location of SS Iron Crown is now a remote yet physical presence that stands testament to the high cost paid by the merchant navy and their families in World War II.

Thanks to State and Commonwealth legislation, SS Iron Crown was protected before it was ever found. All shipwrecks in Australian waters over 75 years of age are covered by the Commonwealth Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018 , which makes it an offence to damage or remove anything from the site. This protection is compounded by its location in deeper water, and, one hopes, by the circumstances of its loss.

1 Part I, Masters and Officers Handbook concerning the defence of merchant shipping, 1938 DMS 2V II 53 and DMS 3 III 65, National Archives, UK.

2 George Fisher, australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au/archive/ 216-george-fisher Archive 216 Date Interviewed 27 May 2003.

3 Transcript, reminiscences of Captain J Murdoch, 1999, from the collection of Robert McLellan.

4 George Fisher, australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au/archive/ 216-george-fisher Archive 216 Date Interviewed 27 May 2003

5 Daily Mirror, 6 June 1942.

6 Further details of the voyage are included within the ‘IN2019_V07 Voyage Summary and Scientific Highlights’ at mnf.csiro.au/Voyages/Investigatorschedules/Plans-and-summaries/2019.aspx .

7 Mallacoota Mouth, from the Archives of the Mallacoota and District Historical Society, Inc, 30 May 2019, compiled by Lindsay Carter.

8 Mary Boatfield (nee Griffiths), daughter of Edward John Griffiths, Trimmer.

This research was supported by a grant of sea time on RV Investigator from the CSIRO Marine National Facility.

The author wishes to acknowledge the descendants and families of the crew of SS Iron Crown, the CSIRO Marine National Facility, the ship’s complement of RV Investigator, Heritage Victoria and the Maritime Archaeological Association of Victoria (MAAV).

Portions of this article were previously published in The Conversation on 25 April 2019.

Capturing the home front

Stark images of difficult times

Opening in late October, Capturing the home front brings wartime images by Dorothea Lange and other World War II photographers to the museum as part of the ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ commemorative program. Richard Wood previews the exhibition.

My own approach is based upon three considerations: First – hands off! Whenever I photograph I do not molest or tamper with or arrange. Second – a sense of place. I try to picture as part of its surroundings, as having roots. Third – a sense of time. Whatever I photograph, I try to show as having its position in the past or in the present.

Dorothea Lange

FAMOUS AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER DOROTHEA LANGE established her reputation as a documentarian when commissioned by the United States government to travel the country in the 1930s to record and reveal the devastation wrought on Americans by the Great Depression.

Using available light and aiming for a candid record, she would make herself and her camera known to her subject and gauge their reaction before taking a picture or deciding to walk away. It’s the fleeting intimacy of these unplanned encounters that still engages us today.

Her photograph of Frances Owens Thompson, titled ‘Migrant mother’, humanised the plight of families travelling across the country searching for work and is now considered one of the 20th century’s most significant photographs. In 1936 Lange photographed 32-year-old Thompson and her children in a roadside ‘pea pickers camp’:

I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother in the sparse lean-to tent, as if drawn by a magnet.

The exhibition includes prints from the ‘Migrant mother’ series and other Great Depression images, which serve to introduce Lange’s wartime work documenting the home front as a staff photographer of the US Office of War Information (OWI).

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Dorothea Lange’s famous portrait of Frances Owens Thompson, titled ‘Migrant mother’. She and her husband and their seven children were migrant agricultural workers, without food and on the road searching for work.

Library of Congress LOC8b29525u

02

Dorothea Lange at work. Library of Congress LOC 8b27245a

It’s the fleeting intimacy of these unplanned encounters that still engages us today

01

William Russell putting the fourgallon (18-litre) monthly ration of petrol into a customer’s car, Drouin, Victoria. For the benefit of the American military, the petrol station’s sign translates ‘petrol’ into ‘gas’ and converts shillings and pence into the American equivalent. Photographer Jim Fitzpatrick. National Library of Australia nla. obj-147029034

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Toyo Miyatake by Ansel Adams, 1943. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division ID 00448u

In 1942, around 110,000 Japanese–Americans living along the west coast were compulsorily relocated to remote inland internment camps

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Internee Toyo Miyatake smuggled a camera lens and film-plate holder into camp and built a secret camera

Lange’s photographs of wartime Oakland and Richmond in California depict couples arguing in trailer camps, female shipyard welders, paperboys and 24-hour cinemas catering to exhausted shift workers. They capture the proud realities of the American home front and war effort on ‘main street’, in shipyards and on farms, to support the positive ‘war effort’ message promulgated by the OWI.

Lange’s pursuit of social justice through photography began during the Great Depression, but her unvarnished depictions of the forced internment of Japanese–Americans in 1942 proved controversial and were deemed unsuitable for public consumption during the war.

Under President F D Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 issued on 19 February 1942 (coincidentally, the day that Darwin was bombed), around 110,000 Japanese–Americans living along the west coast were compulsorily relocated to remote inland internment camps.

Lange’s photographs from early that year follow the internment process. They show hastily boarded-up shops, piles of luggage in the streets, bewildered and bemused families queuing to board buses to unknown destinations, and their early life behind barbed wire at the desolate and climatically extreme Manzanar camp in central California.

Her work was harsh and unflattering and the Office of War Information suppressed it.

Lange’s close friend and contemporary Ansel Adams also photographed the Manzanar camp in mid-1943. He published his work in a Museum of Modern Art (New York) exhibition and the book Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese Americans in 1944 – while war with Japan still raged – to great controversy and condemnation.

Lange and Adams photographed Manzanar as outsiders, but one man photographed it from the inside.

The exhibition includes works by Toyo Miyatake, a professional photographer and internee at Manzanar, who smuggled a camera lens and film-plate holder into camp and built a wooden box camera that he kept secret for nine months.

He eventually asked camp director Ralph Merritt if he could set up a photo studio. Merritt consented with the proviso that Miyatake could only load and set the camera; a Caucasian assistant would then snap the shutter, to avoid any potential accusation that an internee was taking pictures against the rules.

Miyatake was a student of seminal US pictorialist photographer Edward Weston. In an ironic contrast to Lange’s raw documentary style, Miyatake’s photographs emphasise tonality and composition and benefit from capturing life in the camp after things had settled down.

Complementing the American content of the exhibition are prints reproduced from Australian photographic collections of Japanese internment, industry, family and country life on our side of the Pacific.

These include evocative wartime photographs of Sydney Harbour by Sam Hood from the museum’s collection; William Cranstone’s modernist depictions of Australian wartime industry; Hedley Keith Cullen’s photos of Japanese internment at Barmera in South Australia, from the Australian War Memorial; and Jim Fitzpatrick’s idealised essay on wartime life in the Victorian country town of Drouin in 1944, from the National Library of Australia.

Twenty-five original Dorothea Lange prints in the exhibition are on loan from the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago, and the Estate of Katharine Taylor Loesch. Original Toyo Miyatake prints are on loan from Mr Alan Miyatake, Toyo Miyatake Studio. Other Dorothea Lange prints are reproduced from the Library of Congress, the US National Archives and Records Administration and the Oakland Museum of California.

Capturing the home front is part of the ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ commemorative program. Supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund.

PS Herald revisited

Photogrammetric 3D recording documents

one of Australia’s oldest paddle steamers

Maritime archaeologists from the museum and its long-term research partner Silentworld Foundation recently collaborated on a project to uncover the history of the paddle steamer Herald. Dr James Hunter, Kieran Hosty and Irini Malliaros gained new clues about its demise using photogrammetric 3D recording.

Imagery collected for P3DR purposes comprised 12-megapixel digital stills captured at two-second intervals

Isometric screen capture of the photogrammetric 3D model of PS Herald produced by the Australian National Maritime Museum/Silentworld Foundation team in 2018. The steamer’s boilers, engine and paddlewheel shaft are the only elements still visible above the seabed. Image Irini Malliaros and James Hunter

IN MID-MARCH, THE MUSEUM’S Dr James Hunter and Kieran Hosty teamed up with fellow maritime archaeologists Irini Malliaros and Paul Hundley, from the museum’s supporter and research partner Silentworld Foundation (SWF), to undertake a 3D photogrammetric survey of the shipwreck site of the paddle steamer Herald, located at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. The survey is part of an ongoing collaborative project between the museum and SWF called The Maritime Archaeology of Sydney Harbour. It uses Photogrammetric 3D Recording (P3DR) to document and interpret historic shipwreck sites within the harbour, which provides the benefit of maritime heritage preservation through digitisation. The project is also part of a broader initiative to test the utility of P3DR on shipwrecks located in low-to-moderate water clarity at depths exceeding 20 metres. The March visit was the second time the team attempted a P3DR survey of Herald (see Signals issue 117), but the results proved far superior due to improvements in equipment and technique.

A ‘well-known and fine paddle-wheel steamer’

Herald was a double-ended, side-wheel paddle steamer with a lengthy and celebrated history significant to Sydney, if not Australia as a whole. Its iron hull was assembled in three sections at the shipyard of Randolph, Elder & Co in Govan, Scotland, in 1854, loaded aboard the clipper barque Queen of the Isles in Glasgow, and shipped to Sydney. The engine and boilers, also built by Randolph, Elder & Co, accompanied the hull. Their designer, John Elder, was a pioneer in nautical engineering who invented the world’s first successful marine compound steam engine (also in 1854).

Assembled near the Pyrmont Gas Works on Darling Harbour and completed in May 1855, Herald was one of the earliest iron-hulled paddle steamers built in Australia.1 Its hull, assembled from iron frames and carvel-joined iron plates, measured 22.8 metres in length, with a breadth of 3.9 metres and depth of 1.7 metres. Herald ’s carrying capacity was 22 net tons (41 tons gross), and its engine generated 22 horsepower for its two side-mounted paddlewheels.

Following its launch, Herald commenced service for the North Shore Steam Ferry Company, operating mainly as a passenger ferry, but also towing sailing ships to and from Sydney Heads. Although Herald had an excellent operating record and reputation, the North Shore Steam Ferry Company went into dissolution in 1859, and the ‘well-known and fine paddle-wheel steamer’ was put up for sale at auction in September of that year. 2 The new owners, Messrs Smith and Evans, continued to operate Herald as a ferry on the same routes, but found it less profitable than they had hoped, and consequently rented it under charter to Captain George Hall and Sons. Captain Hall was so impressed with the vessel that he purchased it in November 1860 and nominated his son James Henry Hall as master and operator. The younger Hall held this position until his untimely death at the age of 24 in 1870.

Command of Herald then reverted to his father, who was the steamer’s master for the next 11 years and participated in several rescues within the harbour during that time. So prolific were his lifesaving exploits that he was awarded a ‘massive colonial gold ring’ by the city’s Cosmopolitan Club in 1876 for ‘saving about forty lives since [assuming] … command of the Herald ’. 3 He was also awarded a silver medal by the Shipwreck Relief Society of New South Wales in 1879 for rescuing the captain of the brig African Maid and his wife, when both accidentally fell overboard in December 1877. Herald was the vessel used in the African Maid rescue, and was presumably employed in most, if not all, of the others.

Tragically, the man who had saved so many lives at sea accidentally drowned in the Yarra River on 4 April 1881 while visiting a friend in Melbourne. In a bizarre twist, Herald had been bought at auction just two days earlier by Charles Livie, who employed Hall’s surviving son, George Hall Jr, as its master. The younger Hall remained in command of the steamer when it was again put up for auction and purchased by John Blue only seven months later in October 1881. Blue, the son of ex-convict and ferry operator William ‘Billy’ Blue (for whom the Sydney locality Blues Point is named), transferred title to his sons Samuel and George Ernest in August of the following year.

Herald ’s demise

Under new ownership, Herald ’s role expanded to include other operating areas and tasks. During the latter half of 1881, the vessel transported supplies and equipment, including ‘about five tons [of] machinery’ stowed on its deck, from Sydney to Botany Bay for the construction of a bay bridge associated with the Illawarra Railway.4 Despite having to endure ‘heavy seas and a strong south-west wind’ while also towing two punts and a boat, the heavily laden steamer delivered the material safely. 5

During the final two years of its life, Herald no longer functioned as a passenger ferry, but instead transported cargo throughout the harbour and towed sailing vessels to and from Sydney Heads. In this latter role the paddle steamer met its end ‘in a most extraordinary and unexpected manner’ in the early hours of 1 April 1884.6 Herald, with George Hall Jr at the helm and James Francks serving as fireman, had gone to the Heads to meet the schooner Malcolm and take it under tow. While lying ‘between 200 and 300 yards’ (180 to 270 metres) off North Head, the steamer’s starboard boiler suddenly ruptured with a sound ‘as loud as [a] pistol shot’, and the hull rapidly filled with water.7 Hall later testified that both boilers had been thoroughly cleaned and tested to 45 pounds of steam two months before the incident, and they contained 40 pounds of steam and their proper quantity of water when the rupture occurred. 8

Engine

Rupture in starboard hull plating

Failure point in boiler

The steamer’s starboard boiler suddenly ruptured with a sound ‘as loud as [a] pistol shot’, and the hull rapidly filled with water

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Annotated plan view of the Herald 3D model, showing features of interest. A wobbegong shark can also be seen at image right, between the port boiler and port hull plating.

Image Irini Malliaros and James Hunter

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James Hunter conducts a photogrammetric survey of Herald ’s starboard boiler. A lighting array was used to illuminate the wreck site and resulted in imagery that was a vast improvement over photographs collected by the team in 2016.

Image Irini Malliaros

Starboard boiler

Dislodged paddlewheel shaft

Port boiler Port hull plating

Hall attempted to steer Herald for the reef at South Head, presumably in an effort to beach the vessel, but the rapid ingress of water soon caused the hull to heel over enough that all steerage was lost. 9 Francks launched the steamer’s dinghy shortly before Herald foundered. Both men were able to scramble aboard the dinghy, and the crew of the passing steamer Kiama later picked them up. Hall subsequently testified before the Marine Board that it took three-quarters of an hour for the vessel to sink, and both he and Francks hypothesised that the rupture occurred at the bottom of the boiler and forced out the bottom of the hull.10

In a strange coincidence, Herald ’s loss occurred almost three years to the day after George Hall Sr drowned in the Yarra River.

The PS Herald shipwreck site

Although gone, Herald was far from forgotten, and remained in Sydney’s – and particularly the North Shore’s – public consciousness for decades after its loss. Articles about the vessel appeared in local newspapers in 1909 and again in 1950, and a parade float was specifically constructed in its honour in 1938 for North Sydney’s sesquicentenary celebrations.

The precise location and fate of the steamer itself, however, remained a mystery until 3 January 2013, when local shipwreck researchers Scott Willan and Andreas Thimms of NSW Wrecks (www.nswwrecks.info) discovered its wreck site in 27 metres of water near North Head. Willan pinpointed the wreck’s location after analysing magnetometer data collected by Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation in 2000.

At the time of discovery, an area of about three by four metres square was exposed above the seabed and comprised the tops of Herald ’s two boilers, as well as the upper surface of its engine. The paddlewheel shaft and one hub were also visible, and the shaft had shifted approximately one metre to starboard of the vessel’s centreline. The shape of the bow and stern were barely perceptible, but enough of the stem and stern posts were exposed for Willan and Thimms to obtain an overall preserved length of 23 metres and confirm the wreck site’s identity.

Maritime archaeologists from the then-New South Wales Heritage Branch (now Heritage and Community Engagement, Office of Premier and Cabinet) and the Australian National Maritime Museum inspected Herald on 7 January 2013.

2019 photogrammetric survey

Herald was first surveyed via P3DR by maritime archaeologists from the museum and Silentworld Foundation in November 2016. Parallel measuring tapes were installed at regular intervals across the site to serve as reference points, and digital imagery was acquired primarily in video form, with some still imagery also collected. Although the survey resulted in more than 100-per-cent coverage of Herald ’s visible components, most of the video footage was shot from plan view (that is, overhead). In addition, the wreck site was obscured by a combination of schooling fish, such as large numbers of eastern nannygai (Centroberyx affinis), and poor water clarity. This resulted in imagery that ultimately could not be aligned and combined into an accurate 3D composite model.

For the 2019 survey, each diver who entered the water was equipped with a camera and assigned a specific area of the site to photograph. Imagery collected for P3DR purposes comprised 12-megapixel digital stills captured at two-second intervals. Photographs were taken from multiple perspectives and distances, rather than from plan view and fixed distance, as occurred in 2016. The measuring tapes used during the earlier survey were abandoned because they required too

In the case of Herald, the 3D virtual models have provided an opportunity to closely and methodically inspect the entire wreck site within a significantly expanded timeframe

This screen capture of Herald ’s starboard boiler reveals the difference in colour and detail that results from the use of cameramounted lighting arrays. It also shows damage to the steamer caused by the failure of its starboard boiler on 1 April 1884. Image James Hunter

much valuable bottom time to install and were often moved or altered by current and surge. Lighting arrays were added to two cameras, which illuminated site features effectively and revealed their natural colour.

The refined methods and equipment, as well as better overall water clarity, resulted in imagery far superior to that collected in 2016. During data processing, more than 80 per cent of the collected images aligned successfully, generating a goodquality 3D model of the Herald wreck site. One major difference between the surveys was the elimination of schooling fish as a mode of failure during the modelling process. In 2016, the frame rate produced from digital video was frequent enough that schooling fish did not appear to move between individual images. As a consequence, the modelling software was largely unsuccessful in differentiating between the wreck site and the fish swimming around it, and could not align enough images to produce a useable 3D model. Images acquired at two-second intervals in 2019, by contrast, allowed for fish movement to create enough disparity between images that the software was able to identify and remove schooling – and even individual – fish. The notable exceptions were two wobbegong sharks (Orectolobus sp), which lay largely motionless among the boilers and were modelled along with the wreck site.

Failure point in starboard boiler

Hull breach

Herald ’s loss re-examined

Herald ’s 3D models have already proven useful in identifying processes that contributed to the formation of the shipwreck site. The overall appearance of the site has not changed markedly since its discovery in 2013. The tops of the boilers, upper surface of the engine and paddlewheel shaft are all still visible, while the tops of the stem and sternpost appear to have been buried by shifting sand. A line of preserved midships hull plating is visible just above the seabed next to both boilers, and approximately corresponds to the level of Herald ’s waterline. The remainder of the lower hull is buried, and likely still intact and very well preserved. By contrast, the hull plating above the waterline is no longer visible, and over time was probably weakened by corrosion and other natural processes until it collapsed to the sea floor and was eventually buried.

An advantage of P3DR is that it allows shipwrecks to be viewed in their entirety and inspected more closely – something that is not always easy to do in low-visibility environments with limited bottom time. In the case of Herald, the models have provided an opportunity to closely and methodically inspect the entire wreck site within a significantly expanded timeframe. This has revealed a number of clues that might otherwise have gone unnoticed and/or unrecorded.

For example, a gap in the hull plating next to Herald ’s starboard boiler was initially thought to be the result of corrosion. A review of the 3D models, however, has revealed the breach is approximately oval in shape, and that the edges of the hull plating surrounding it are bent slightly outwards. Further, the breach is located very close to a smaller, oval-shaped hole (also originally thought to be corrosion related) located on the upper surface of the boiler near its forward end. After considering the 3D imagery, the team now believes the latter opening is the point where the starboard boiler failed on the morning Herald sank, and the large breach in the plating at the waterline is where the resulting blast ejected one or more boiler fragments through the steamer’s hull. These findings argue against existing historical accounts of the incident, which state the failure occurred along the bottom of the boiler and caused a breach in the bottom of the hull.

Herald was a doubleended, side-wheel paddle steamer with a lengthy and celebrated history significant to Sydney, if not Australia as a whole

Other intriguing – and potentially important – clues to Herald ’s demise are the location and condition of the paddlewheel shaft. While it was already known that the shaft was dislodged and lying about one metre to port of the vessel’s centreline, the 3D models have revealed it has also been completely removed from its mountings and deposited some two metres aft of the engine. Further, the shaft has clearly been bent into a shallow ‘V’ shape. Taken together, these attributes reveal the shaft was subjected to tremendous force(s) that distorted and removed it from its original context.

The exact cause of the damage remains an open question, but an intriguing possibility is that the paddlewheel shaft was directly affected by the rupture of Herald ’s starboard boiler, which originally was located underneath it. The force of the blast could have dislodged the paddlewheel mechanism and either pushed the shaft towards the stern at the time of the rupture, or loosened it enough that it broke free and shifted aft when Herald struck the seabed. Another alternative is that the shaft was damaged and moved in consequence of a large anchor dragging through the site, but the relative lack of damage to the rest of the wreck – including the boilers and engine – seems to argue against this scenario.

Herald provides an excellent example of the ways in which P3DR may be used to archaeologically document and interpret a shipwreck site – even one that is relatively small and largely buried. The team continues to review the imagery collected during the March visit, and intends to conduct additional photogrammetric surveys of the site in future, with the goal of revealing more about this little steamer and its larger-than-life story.

The only known photograph of PS Herald, showing the paddle steamer in Sydney Harbour during the latter half of the 19th century. Image Stanton Library, North Sydney

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Paul Hundley of Silentworld Foundation for piloting their research vessel, Maggie III, and providing invaluable surface support during the P3DR survey of Herald.

References

1. Parsons, R 2000, Early Steam Ships in Australia, Ronald Parsons, Goolwa.

2. ‘The iron-built steamer Herald ’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 September 1859, p 10.

3. Australian Town and Country Journal, 19 February 1876, p 26.

4. ‘The Illawarra Railway’, Telegraph and Shoalhaven Advertiser, 25 August 1881, p 2.

5. Ibid

6. ‘Shipping’, Mercury, 8 April 1884, p 2.

7. ‘Marine Board: Foundering of the S Herald ’, Evening News , 8 April 1884, p 3.

8. Ibid

9. ‘Shipping’, Mercury, 8 April 1884, p 2.

10. ‘Marine Board: Foundering of the S Herald ’, Evening News, 8 April 1884, p 3.

Further articles about photogrammetric recording in Signals

Hosty, K 2017, ‘Lady Darling and PS Herald: new technologies help to record old wrecks’, Signals 117, pp 23–27.

Hunter, J, Hosty, K and Malliaros, I 2018, ‘Piecing together a puzzle: photogrammetric recording in the search for Cook’s Endeavour ’, Signals 125, pp 14–19.

Hunter, J and Woods, A 2018, ‘Imaging Australia’s first naval loss: the 2018 photogrammetric survey of submarine HMAS AE1’, Signals 124, pp 2–7.

Bligh and the peoples of the Pacific

The Polynesian threads in European stories

The museum’s new exhibition Bligh: Hero or Villain? urges us to think about the debates over William Bligh’s personality and career. In this article, curator Dr Stephen Gapps provides some context on an aspect often forgotten among the copious amount of literature, film and discussion around Bligh – the role of the peoples of the Pacific islands in this story.

Matavai Bay, Island of Otahytey [Tahiti] Sun set, by George Tobin, 1792. Image State Library of New South Wales FL1606990

While there were some friendly encounters that seemed genuine, the islands were in general wary of the arrival of European ships

HAVE YOU EVER READ AN ACCOUNT of William Bligh and the mutiny on the Bounty written from the perspective of someone from the Pacific islands? Or seen a film or exhibition on any of the European navigators and voyagers from the point of view of the people whose lives were transformed forever by their arrival? Almost all of our knowledge of Bligh and the story of the Bounty mutiny and subsequent open-boat voyage comes through the work of European and non-Indigenous Australian historians. Yet the experiences of Bligh and other voyagers were deeply tied up in how they were received by the peoples they encountered. Indeed, the routes, the maps and the knowledge gained during all of these 18th-century voyages were in many ways shaped by the Pacific islanders, rather than the other way around.

The Polynesian Triangle is a huge region of Oceania of more than 1,000 islands from Hawai’i in the north to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the east and Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the south-west. This vast space of ocean, islands and people was where the events of the mutiny, the open-boat voyage and the mutineers’ efforts to establish an island society all unfolded. The origins of Pacific islanders’ responses to Europeans can be seen in events as far back as 1595, when the Spanish navigator Alvaro de Mendana, on a search for the rumoured southern continent of Terra Australis, arrived in the Marquesas Islands. He was met by several hundred canoes and when conflict occurred, more than 200 Marquesans were killed.

The Europeans were often unaware that many major island groups across the Pacific were in regular communication with each other. One hundred and seventy-four years after the Spanish violence in the Marquesas Islands, Tupaia, a Tahitian priest and navigator with personal knowledge of more than 70 islands in the Pacific, joined the Endeavour voyage, in effect as a pilot. Tupaia recounted the events in the Marquesas to Cook. He drew a map with more than 130 islands on it for Cook, which Joseph Banks described as invaluable information. His map included the Marquesas Islands, and Tupaia described how, in the distant past, four of the islands were visited by ships similar to the British vessels. Cook and Banks took little notice of these oral histories and did not consider that this may have been the violent confrontation of de Mendana and the Marquesans –the Tahitians were, after all, so friendly towards the Endeavour crew in 1769 that it seemed they were not a violent people.

In fact the Tahitians were friendly for a very different reason than Cook’s ideas of their peaceful disposition. When Samuel Wallis had arrived there in the Dolphin in 1767, just two years before Cook, the Ari’i Amo (king) of Tahiti recognised that these voyagers were similar to the white people who had attacked the Marquesans. Around 100 double war canoes loaded with stones attacked the Dolphin for four days until Wallis ordered his crew to fire cannon into the Tahitian fleet and at villages ashore for good measure. The Tahitians rightly regarded this firepower as all but invincible and soon became hospitable. When de Bougainville arrived at Tahiti a year later, he called the Tahitians the friendliest and kindest people in the world, living in a paradise. He did not know that he had Wallis’ cannon fire to thank for his reception.

As most of us know from the many books and films on the topic, Bligh’s heroic open-boat journey began after the Bounty mutineers cast him and 18 other ‘loyalists’ adrift in the ship’s boat. Bligh hoped to find water and food on the nearby island of Tofua, and then planned to proceed to Tongatapu to seek help in provisioning the boat properly for a voyage to the Dutch East Indies. He had no thoughts of conducting a long open-boat voyage to Timor at that point. At Tofua, however, the initial wary welcome from the islanders turned to fierce resistance. Quartermaster John Norton was killed before the castaways’ boat was pushed out to sea, and Bligh and his remaining men only narrowly escaped a similar fate.

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Map of some of the Pacific islands known to Tupaia, with Tahiti in the centre, by Captain James Cook, who made his first exploration of the Pacific Ocean between 1769 and 1771. The chart is a copy of an original document by Tupaia.

Image © The British Library Board Add.21593 C

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Captain Samuel Wallis attacked in the Dolphin by Otahitians , artist unknown, c 1800. The painting on this folding screen was copied from an engraving in John Hawkesworth’s 1773 book of Pacific discoveries.

ANMM Collection 0006125

The Europeans were often unaware that many major island groups across the Pacific were in regular communication with each other

The islanders’ anger was not, as Bligh thought, merely due to the loyalists’ lack of muskets. Instead it seems to have been based on 180-year-old stories of previous visits by the Dutch, handed down over generations on the island. In 1616, Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire had ventured to several Tongan islands. They attempted to hail down a tongaiaki, a Tongan double-outrigger canoe that was voyaging between Tonga and Samoa, curious to see why and how it was so far out to sea. When the islanders ignored their strange commands to stop, the Dutch fired and killed several of them. Later, at Niuatoputapu Island, the Dutch came under attack from a fleet of 23 double canoes and 45 outriggers, incensed at the Dutch attack on the tongaiaki

Tofua is part of a group of islands in northern Tonga close to where the tongaiaki had been attacked by the Dutch many years earlier. When a group of white sailors landed at Tofua, the memory of the Dutch slaughter of their ancestors was, according to Pacific scholar Jean-Claude Teriierooiterai, foremost in these islanders’ minds. When they attacked and killed John Norton, Bligh – who had just four cutlasses and no muskets – decided to sail for Timor and not to make landfall on any inhabited island for fear of another attack. Bligh’s decision to sail on, undertaking what became the longest open-boat voyage in history, was not a free choice, but was forced on him by the Tofuans.1

While there were some friendly encounters that seemed genuine, the islands were in general wary of the arrival of European ships due to their initial violent contact with Dutch and Spanish vessels. The famous French navigator La Perouse visited Samoa in 1787, losing his second-in-command de Langle to an attack by the Tongans. In 1791 HMS Pandora (carrying as prisoners some of the Bounty mutineers) was also attacked by a strong fleet of canoes at Tutuila. And as Bligh himself had experienced first-hand as master of the Resolution on Cook’s third voyage, where he witnessed the death of Cook at the hands of Hawai’ians, Pacific islanders showed no mercy when they perceived the slightest European weakness.

The resistance of Pacific islanders was informed by their communication networks. Even the Bounty mutineers, when in search of a paradise to settle in far from British eyes, were met by an ambush from Tubuai islanders in war canoes loaded with stones. The mutineers fired on them as they sailed into the island’s lagoon, today known as Bloody Bay. Even when the mutineers built a small fort, the islanders resisted their settlement. Fletcher Christian and company ultimately left to search for Pitcairn Island, which they found uninhabited and where they formed their settlement.

The story of the mutiny on the Bounty did not take place on a blank canvas, but across a rich tapestry of thriving cultures that were ultimately forced by firearms to acquiesce to Europeans. The legend of Bligh’s navigation skills is a case in point. Cook and earlier voyagers all marvelled at the Polynesians’ navigation skills that could take them hundreds of miles from the nearest land and back again, precisely into safe harbours. Their knowledge of the night sky, in particular, astounded the Europeans. At a time when Europeans were still trying to solve the difficulties of accurate longitude, the Polynesians had been traversing oceans with pinpoint accuracy for centuries. The European surface grid of longitude and latitude was mirrored by Polynesian sky maps – tracking the route of certain stars and the rhumb lines of others meant Polynesian navigators could sail over horizons and return. European and Polynesian navigation systems are in fact quite similar; both systems ‘define positions on the surface of the Earth using two coordinates that vary at right angles to each other and use stars, and to a lesser extent the sun, to determine directions’. 2 Cook had learned Pacific navigation skills from Tupaia. Indeed, it is possible that William Bligh’s time with Tahitians and his navigation lessons from Cook himself contained some of Tupaia’s vast knowledge of the Pacific. 3

Most of the narratives of the Bounty tale with which we are so familiar are about the navigational achievements of the British, in particular William Bligh. The amazing, arguably superior navigational skills and knowledge of the Polynesians were all but wiped away from these stories as the Pacific was colonised by Europeans in the wake of Cook and Bligh. Lacking an expert Polynesian navigator on board, the Bounty mutineers were not aware of the many islands on Tupaia’s map that might have been better places for their reclusive settlement. With the revival of traditional boat building and voyaging among Polynesians in recent years, the profound influence of the peoples of the Pacific on the grand narratives of European voyages is slowly unfolding.

1 Jean-Claude Teriierooiterai, ‘Contextualising the Bounty in Pacific Maritime Culture’ in Sylvie Largeaud-Ortega (ed), The Bounty from the beach, ANU Press, Canberra, 2018, pp 21–65.

2 M Walker (2012) ‘Navigating oceans and cultures: Polynesian and European navigation systems in the late eighteenth century’, Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 42:2, 93–98.

3 Ibid

For more information about traditional Polynesian navigation, see Signals 111 (June–August 2015).

A deadly shipmate

Surviving ‘Spanish flu’ aboard HMAT Orsova

About 180,000 Australians returned home by sea in the year after World War I ended. Dr Peter Hobbins has researched the often-overlooked records of troopships that reveal their passengers’ everyday routines, conflicts and indiscretions. They also highlight the risks and frustrations posed by the deadliest pandemic of modern times: pneumonic influenza, or ‘Spanish flu’.

FRANK BELL’S WAR ENDED SPECTACULARLY. Just 10 days after the armistice of 11 November 1918, this Royal Australian Navy stoker bore witness to a dismally impressive sight. As he recounted in his diary, ‘we met & took under escort a portion of the German Fleet … consisting of 50 Destroyers, 8 Light Cruisers, 5 Battle Cruisers & 10 Battleships’. Frank’s own warship, the light cruiser HMAS Melbourne (I), was detailed to shadow a fellow light cruiser into captivity. As they swung into place beside SMS Nürnberg (II), Frank reflected that ‘It was a grand sight after 4½ years of war to watch the German ships go by in simple line ahead, & to realise that the war was really over’.1

Yet for Frank and 165,000 other Australian servicemen, the end of World War I did not mean instant repatriation. Rather, they joined a further 15,000 women (nurses, wives and sweethearts) in awaiting their turn for passage home. While some elected to pay their own fare aboard a commercial steamer, most travelled by troopship. Hired by the Commonwealth Government, military transports busily ferried Australians home until the process was completed in late 1919. This peacetime flotilla quietly conducted the greatest mass movement of people to Australia since the gold rushes of the 1850s.

These military personnel, believed to be members of the Australian Flying Corps, were photographed by Josiah Barnes while boarding RMS Orsova for overseas service in 1916. ANMM Collection 00027610

Approximately 15,000 Australians died from the disease – as many as were killed on service annually from 1914 to 1918

An infamous passenger

With a berth aboard a transport determined largely by the duration of military service, Frank was fortunate. Having enlisted in June 1913 – more than a year before hostilities commenced – the 28-year-old earned an early ticket home. 2 Accompanying Frank on his passage were men and women from almost every Australian Imperial Force (AIF) service, corps and battalion, representing diverse civilian trades and professions. On 8 January 1919, Frank joined 80 fellow sailors, over 1,300 soldiers, 55 officers and 10 nurses embarking on Hired Military Australian Transport (HMAT) A67.

More commonly known by its peacetime name, RMS Orsova, this was an impressively modern liner of 12,036 tons. Clyde-built for the Orient Steam Navigation Company, the ship first sailed to Australia in 1909. 3 Featuring electric lighting, ventilation and clocks, the steamer also boasted two electric plate-washers and an electric potato-peeler. Despite these labour-saving facilities, Orsova still required a crew of 336 hands, meaning that more than 1,800 people were pressed aboard as the transport sailed southward on that January afternoon a century ago.4

Another infamous passenger also lurked aboard as Orsova departed chilly Liverpool. Emerging in early 1918, a highly infectious and terrifyingly virulent strain of influenza rapidly blossomed into a pandemic – known as ‘Spanish flu’. While its origins remain contested (it potentially arose in China, France or the USA), the disease did not emerge in Spain. First spanning the northern hemisphere, then leaping across the southern continents and oceans, the infection transmuted into a far deadlier form as the war drew to a close, just as millions of troops shipped home from Europe and the Middle East. By mid-1918, medical authorities recognised that this was no normal flu. In addition to respiratory symptoms, victims suffered from fever, headaches, bodily aches and exhaustion. Formally known as ‘pneumonic influenza’ because its severe form led to pneumonia, the malady was characterised by a blue or plum colour in the patient’s cheeks, a stage that proved staggeringly fatal. Within two years the pandemic caused at least 50 million fatalities – three times the 17 million who had died over four years of war.

Scrutinising the sick list

Alarmingly for military authorities, patients most likely to die from Spanish flu were aged 20 to 40 years, otherwise healthy and predominantly male. This demographic matched perfectly the majority of sailors and soldiers who had shipped off to war. 5 While exposure to the earlier or ‘first phase’ of the infection may have helped Australian troops and seamen survive the deadlier ‘second phase’, bitter experience proved that an outbreak aboard a packed troopship could have desperate consequences.6

Just a day after sailing, temporary Sergeant Kenneth Higgs of the 17th Battalion was admitted to Orsova ’s hospital with influenza. The transport’s senior medical officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Glen Knight, would have carefully scrutinised each morning’s sick reports for further cases. These cards – just a small part of the voyage’s abundant records held in the National Archives of Australia – catalogued a suite of suspicious signs and symptoms, from coughs and colds to headaches and fever. Most, however, did not appear to herald pneumonic influenza.7

Higgs recuperated and was discharged on 12 January. Just two days later, though, Private Claud Fitzmaurice of the 40th Battalion was admitted for ‘pneumonia’. His case proved so severe that Fitzmaurice was evacuated to a hospital ashore when Orsova berthed in Port Said, Egypt, on 19 January. 8

The voyage newspaper, the Orsovanir, suggested that an ‘influenza hoax’ may have terminated shore leave for the remaining diggers, prompting a plentiful chorus of curses. 9 Although the transport took on 70 malaria patients in Port Said, the time spent coaling apparently did not transmit a more vicious variant of influenza to the men and women aboard.

Orsova ’s passage across the Indian Ocean was largely unblighted by infection, with only two further cases of influenza severe enough to require hospitalisation. Other maladies emerged, however, as befitted a population comprising mostly men who had lived hard and rough for four years. Ailments recorded in the transport’s medical files included rash, scabies, chancre (syphilis), gonorrhoea, constipation, dyspepsia, rheumatism, lumbago (back ache), headache, sore feet, malaria and enough toothache to keep the ship’s three dentists busy.10

Other aches were more emotional, however. After they crossed the equator, one battle-worn digger was moved to confess in Orsovanir that ‘Last night I saw again, after four years, the Southern Cross. There was a salty moisture in my eyes that wasn’t sea spray’.11

All soldiers and naval ratings were required to breathe in an irritant vapour of zinc sulphate, intended to disinfect their airways

Irritations and detentions aplenty

Conversely, the transport’s records also reveal high-spirited and culturally insensitive hijinks in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where religious idols were stolen from the city’s museum. They also document a string of disciplinary hearings. Soldiers were not the only servicemen to ‘play up’ at sea; punishment records for Melbourne during Frank Bell’s time aboard reveal that his fellow stokers were regularly disciplined for cussing, gambling, drinking and attempting to smuggle alcohol aboard.12

Disciplinary powers of a different kind were invoked when the troopship approached the Western Australian coast. While stringent nationwide quarantine had kept pneumonic influenza out of Australia throughout 1918, the malady came ashore in Victoria in mid-January 1919 – about the same time as Orsova departed Liverpool. Despite the subsequent spread of ‘Spanish flu’ to other states, Commonwealth authorities allowed no relaxation in maritime quarantine.

‘Arrived Freemantle [sic] but find to our disappointment that there is a great Flu scare throughout Aussie’, remarked Frank on 10 February. Three cases of mild influenza among the passengers prompted local authorities to impose a sevenday quarantine on the transport. This order extended to detention for all 123 Western Australian troops going ashore.13 Learning that ‘no leave will be given any where & … all troops will be quarantined in their respective ports’, Frank ironically lamented that this was a ‘good welcome home after 4 years’.14

Proximity to Australia now changed both the atmosphere and the routines aboard Orsova. After leaving Fremantle, an inhalation chamber was erected aft. All soldiers and naval ratings were required to breathe in an irritant vapour of zinc sulphate, intended to disinfect their airways. The sheer number of passengers, Dr Knight reported, ensured that it ‘was impossible to spray every man daily’.15 Despite a shortage of thermometers, daily temperature parades were also instituted to detect early cases of fever that might signify influenza.

By the time HMAT Orsova moored at Adelaide’s Largs Bay on 18 February, the transport’s nominal period of quarantine had expired. Unfortunately, a fresh inspection detected two more cases of influenza. With the affected men hospitalised, another week’s quarantine was imposed on the vessel. This edict also meant that the 151 healthy passengers disembarking in Adelaide went straight into detention, as did 477 Victorian troops two days later. On arrival at Point Nepean Quarantine Station, two soldiers were again in the ship’s hospital with influenza. Only after dropping the Tasmanian contingent of 76 men in Hobart was the ship deemed free from the disease.

By the time Orsova sailed into Sydney Harbour on 25 February, the second week of quarantine had lapsed.16 Frank groaned:

So as we came thro’ the long looked for Heads, there was great speculation as to which way she would steer, round towards Watsons Bay or round to the Quarantine. Our hearts sank into the region of our boots as she steered round to quarantine.

Despite their routine of temperature inspections and inhalation treatment, the Sydney contingent – including Frank – was condemned to seven days at North Head Quarantine Station. HMAT Orsova departed the next day to deposit its final complement of 278 men in Brisbane on 28 February. Reflecting the transport’s records – if not the frustrations of the quarantined veterans – the officer in command of the troops asserted that the ‘health of all on board was splendid, and in my experience I never before was on a healthier troopship’.17

01

Through its career as HMAT A67, RMS Orsova ferried troops, nurses and wounded between Australia, the Middle East and Europe. After being torpedoed by a German U-boat and nearly sinking in March 1917, the steamer was only returned to service in January 1919. ANMM Collection ANMS0413[034]

02

Commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy in 1913, HMAS Melbourne (I) took part in the 1914 campaign to capture the German colony of Nauru and ended World War I on patrol in the North Sea. Frank Bell served as a stoker on Melbourne throughout the war. Gift from Kim Andrews, ANMM

Within two years the pandemic caused at least 50 million fatalities – three times the 17 million who had perished over four

The infection transmuted into a far deadlier form as the war drew to a close, just as millions of troops shipped home from Europe and the Middle East

The risk of pneumonic influenza posed both a significant danger and a major inconvenience for many of the 180,000 Australians who were repatriated in the year after the armistice of 11 November 1918. This vessel is unidentified in the original photograph – can readers assist with its name? Image courtesy National Archives of Australia, A7342, ALBUM 1

An unhappy homecoming

That officer’s enthusiasm was not shared by the 536 Sydney personnel who landed at the Quarantine Station. As Frank remarked, it was hardly a happy homecoming. The men ‘had good cause to be indignant when we arrived at the camp & found the state of things there’. While they were willing to live in tents one more time, most were disgusted by the filthy state of the eating utensils provided at the Quarantine Station. ‘It was a good welcome back after being away 4 years to have things to eat with that I would not give to a pig’, Frank scolded.18

Within hours, nearly 400 personnel who had disembarked from Orsova gathered in strength, determined to march out of the Quarantine Station and into the city. This was not the only such ‘mutiny’ prompted by returning troops quarantined at North Head due to influenza, but it represented both a serious challenge to military authority and a significant hazard to the metropolis. Although Sydney had been declared infected by ‘Spanish flu’ nearly a month earlier, it had not yet become an emergency. While cases were escalating, the disease appeared to be under control thanks to stringent civic health regulations. Not until those ordinances were relaxed in March 1919 would residents feel the full impact of the pandemic.19 A breakout from North Head by hundreds of Orsova men in late February would have posed a crisis to both public health and public order.

In the end, the men were placated by a sympathetic officer, who agreed to address their grievances. They gradually dispersed, grumbling but resigned to one more week of detention, daily temperature parades and visits to the station’s inhalation chamber. The men’s frustrations were eased by fresh food and regular rations of beer, alongside swimming and North Head’s glorious views of Sydney Harbour.

On 3 March, Orsova ’s Sydney contingent was at last released from quarantine. Catching the ferry to Woolloomooloo, Frank reported to the naval base on Garden Island before being sent on extended leave. His final day in the Royal Australian Navy was 17 May 1919 – nearly six years after he enlisted. The last entry in Frank’s wartime diary eulogised that ‘now we all go our own way, but they will always look back and say, ah well, they were the best mob, the old Navy cobbers’. 20 Heading home to suburban Ashfield, he survived the influenza emergency and lived until 1961.

Unfortunately for Australia, the maritime arrival of pneumonic influenza in 1919 led to what could be deemed another phase of the war, albeit against a new enemy. Throughout that year, some 15,000 Australians died from the disease – as many as were killed on service annually from 1914 to 1918. This new front line was fought in the nation’s cities and towns, and contested at border quarantines between the states. As our often-overlooked troopship records attest, this battle at sea also embroiled sailors, soldiers, nurses and civilians returning home on military transports.

References

1. Frank Bell, Diary, 21 November 1918, State Library of New South Wales, MLMSS 4663/2.

2. National Archives of Australia (NAA), A6770 Bell Frank Bathurst. Frank’s transcribed service record is on ‘Discovering Anzacs’, a National Archives of Australia initiative: discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/browse/person/774993.

3. Peter Hobbins, Ursula K Frederick and Anne Clarke, Stories from the Sandstone: Quarantine Inscriptions from Australia’s Immigrant Past (Crows Nest: Arbon Publishing, 2016), pp 180–201.

4. A Souvenir of the First Peace Voyage of the RMS Orsova (On the High Seas: Fred Werth, 1919), np.

5. NAA, MP367/1 527/21/1077.

6. G Dennis Shanks, et al , Journal of Infectious Diseases 201 (2010): 1880–89; G Dennis Shanks, et al , Lancet Infectious Diseases 11 (2011): 793–9.

7. NAA, MT1384/1 ORSOVA FEBRUARY 1918 JANUARY 1919 and MT1384/1 ORSOVA FEBRUARY 1919.

8. NAA, MT1384/1 ORSOVA JANUARY 1919 PART 2.

9. The Orsovanir (sn: Orsovanir Press, 1919), p 9.

10. NAA, MT1384/1 ORSOVA FEBRUARY 1918 JANUARY 1919 and MT1384/1 ORSOVA FEBRUARY 1919.

11. Orsovanir, p 10.

12. NAA, A7111 HMAS MELBOURNE 1915.

13. [Troopship records, 1914–1918 War] Orsova: Liverpool January 1919 for Australia, Australian War Memorial (AWM), AWM7 ORSOVA 6.

14. Bell, Diary, 10 February 1919.

15. AWM, AWM7 ORSOVA 6.

16. Bell, Diary, 25 February 1919.

17. NAA, MT1384/1 ORSOVA JANUARY 1919 PART 2.

18. Bell, Diary, 25 February 1919.

19. Peter Hobbins, ‘An Intimate Pandemic: The Community Impact of Influenza in 1919’, Royal Australian Historical Society, rahs.org.au/anintimate-pandemic-the-community-impact-of-influenza-in-1919/.

20. Bell, Diary, 17 May 1919.

Dr Peter Hobbins is a Senior Communications Officer with the National Archives of Australia. This article appears with thanks to collections staff at the National Archives of Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, the Australian War Memorial and the State Library of New South Wales.

The Spice Islands

Heaven for a historian

Jeffrey Mellefont , former editor of Signals and now an Honorary Research Associate, reports on life after a career at the Australian National Maritime Museum, including cruises as a guest lecturer through the historic Molucca Islands in Indonesia.

WHEN FOUNDING STAFF MEMBER Lindsey Shaw and I retired six years ago, with some 55 years’ experience of the museum between us, management created the new position of Honorary Research Associate for us. This position has given us opportunities to continue contributing to the museum’s programs in our specialist fields: in Lindsey’s case, naval history, and for me, Asian – particularly Indonesian – maritime heritage. An ongoing project for me as an associate is cataloguing a large archive of Indonesian research on offer to the museum, and I continue to write occasionally for Signals (which I launched back in 1989, early in my career at the museum).

Most fun, for this retired worker in maritime history, has been representing the museum as an occasional lecturer for a number of organisations offering knowledge-based or ‘cultural tourism’ cruises through Southeast Asian waters. These have included one-time museum sponsor APT and Cairns-based Coral Expeditions, on their boutique mini-cruise ships that are more like luxurious mega-yachts. But most memorable of all have been cruises through Indonesia’s Molucca Islands with Australians Studying Abroad, on board the converted timber sail-trader Ombak Putih (‘White Wave’) operated by SeaTrek Bali. This luxurious pinisi-style ketch is built and crewed by Makassan and Bugis seafarers whose ancestors had pre-European trade contact with northern Australia.

Our cruises through the Moluccas also have strong significance for Australia’s settlement history. Here, and nowhere else on earth, the medieval world’s rarest and most precious commodities – the spices clove, nutmeg and mace – had evolved on just a few of the volcanic islands that we visit.

These remote islands were the starting point of ancient trade networks that carried the unbelievably costly spices to distant markets in China, India, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

In earlier times these spices changed hands often, as they were traded from one ancient sea port to another. By the time they reached Europe their price had multiplied exponentially while their origin was a mystery, veiled in legend, jealously guarded

Here, and nowhere else on earth, the medieval world’s rarest and most precious commodities – the spices clove, nutmeg and mace –had evolved on just a few volcanic islands

01

Fort Tolucco, guarding the clove island of Ternate, was built in 1540 by Portuguese leader Francisco Serrão, and taken over by the Dutch in 1610 to hold off their Spanish rivals. Image Jeffrey Mellefont

or simply unknown. This added to the spices’ mystique and cost. In medieval Europe, where cloves and nutmeg were believed to have magical properties, including protection against plague, they became the ultimate symbol of status and prestige. Only the wealthiest elites could afford them.

It was the quest to find their source and control their lucrative trade – along with other luxuries from the East such as pepper, silk and sandalwood – that led to Europe’s maritime expansion beginning 500 years ago, first by the Portuguese and Spanish, then the Dutch and the English, with their great, rival, heavily armed East India trading companies. The first Dutch and English landings on Australia, not far to the south, were an almost accidental by-product. Both Willem Janszoon and William Dampier approached our shores from the Moluccas.

On these cruises we visit beautiful, shady plantations of nutmeg trees on the Banda Islands and admire groves of shapely clove trees on Ternate or Tidore, enchanted by their heady aromas which can reach us before we even step ashore. We are at the very heart of tumultuous historical events that played out over the last half a millennium and shaped the modern world we know. The Moluccas, now so sleepy and remote, were once at the centre of it all.

On island after island where we step ashore in the Moluccas, the events of the following centuries have left their mark. They were turbulent times as Europeans wove a web of shifting alliances pitting one local sultan against another, sidelining earlier foreign traders such as the Arabs and Chinese while plotting and fighting against fellow-European rivals.

One enduring legacy of this period lies in the mix of Christian and Muslim villages that we visit, reflecting whether Catholic, Protestant or Islamic traders left their influence. Another is the forts we encounter, from tiny fort Tolucco begun by the Portuguese on Ternate to the hilltop bastions of Dutch Fort Belgica on Banda Neira. Near Ambon, seaside Fort Durstede and its adjacent museum tell the story of local hero Kapitan Pattimura, who seized this fort in a brave rebellion against Dutch colonial masters in 1817. He had served with the English who briefly occupied the East Indies after the Napoleonic Wars.

An ambitious national and provincial heritage project from the early 1990s rescued many of these abandoned stone forts from a state of advanced decay. Crumbling structures have been stabilised and restored. Landscaping the surrounds with gorgeous tropical gardens set against stunning island seascapes, as with Spanish forts Torre and Kastela on Tidore, has made them truly beautiful places to visit. Remote historical names – Ferdinand Magellan, Willem Janszoon, Jan Pieterzoon Coen, Sir Francis Drake, William Dampier, Alfred Russel Wallace –come to life as we unfold their stories, often in the exact places where these great figures set foot.

Well-preserved history lies thickest in the Banda Islands. Here we visit the tiny nutmeg island of Rhun, sensationally traded for Manhattan Island (where New York now stands) in a treaty between Dutch and English rivals 350 years ago. Banda Neira has Indonesia’s best-preserved colonial architecture, a rare landscape of Dutch forts, houses, churches, spice warehouses, barracks and offices, telling stories of enterprise and exile, conflict and cruelty.

Author Jeffrey Mellefont tries his hand at a Moluccan kole-kole dugout outrigger canoe of Taliabu Island. Image Eva Villagrassa Aurinlara

Among many examples of

Banda’s present peace, tranquillity and warm welcome belie a violent past, when native Bandanese and Dutch intruders massacred each other on different occasions and pretexts. But perhaps most poignant is a tragic historic document etched by hand into the centuries-old window pane of the Dutch governor’s palace. It’s a cry of loneliness and despair by an employee of the colonial government, Charles Rumpley, scratched into the glass (perhaps with his diamond ring) on 1 September 1831. The following day he hanged himself. It’s in French, and visitors who speak the language always try to decipher the painfully inscribed stanza for themselves. In translation it reads:

When comes the time that shapes my good fortune?

When strikes the bell that sounds the hour?

The moment when I will see again the shores of my country, The bosom of my family whom I love and bless?

Banda Neira has Indonesia’s best-preserved colonial architecture, a rare landscape of Dutch forts, houses, churches, spice warehouses, barracks and offices

colonial architecture is this Dutch administrative building in the port at Banda Neira. Image Jeffrey Mellefont

Be part of a unique celebration of over 100 classic and wooden boats from around Australia. Register your vessel today at sea.museum/cwbf

Festival Dates Fri 1 – Sun 3 May 2020

A sustainable museum

Over the past decade, the museum has worked hard to make its day-today operations more sustainable and environmentally conscious. Facilities and Sustainability Manager Rene Hernandez outlines some recent projects.

The museum now consumes about 22 per cent less electricity than it did ten years ago

01 The completed solar panel array.

02 Technicians install some of the 812 panels on the roof of the Wharf 7 building.

03 The new cooling tower being installed. Images Rene Hernandez/ANMM

MUSEUMS REQUIRE LARGE AMOUNTS OF ENERGY

– only hospitals consume more. Museums are difficult places to air condition, with large open spaces and constantly opening doors through which climaticised air can escape and unconditioned outside air can enter. Most of the energy used by museums goes toward climate control, for both the comfort of visitors and the preservation of objects on display and in storage. During the last ten years, the museum has developed and implemented various strategies to reduce energy and water consumption and its overall carbon footprint. As a result, the museum now consumes about 22 per cent less electricity than it did ten years ago, and 27 per cent less water than it did three years ago – even though the museum’s visitor numbers have increased by 88 per cent in the decade since 2008.

In 2017, the Australian National Maritime Museum received a grant of $13.9 million from the Public Service Modernisation Fund (PSMF), to be spent over three years on projects to support sustainability. In addition, the museum created a new role, Facilities and Sustainability Manager. The museum recently created a sustainability strategy and formed a dedicated team to focus on it. The team’s main goal is to take a holistic approach to further reduce the museum’s environmental impact.

Two major initiatives funded by the PSMF grant are the upgrade of the museum’s HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) system and the installation of solar panels. The main gallery of the Australian National Maritime Museum was designed for the museum’s original purpose of housing the America’s Cup winner Australia II. Air control in such a tall, large space, in what is a relatively lightweight building with limited insulation, is a particular challenge.

Until now, the museum has used seawater for heat rejection in its HVAC system. Work is currently under way to replace the seawater heat exchanger with a cooling tower system, which is expected to begin operating in October this year. This new approach will reduce any medium- to long-term impact that the temperature of the returning condensed water may have on Darling Harbour’s marine fauna and flora. The new cooling tower system also uses far less energy than the seawater system.

In June 2019, we finished installing a 235-kilowatt solar panel system on the museum’s Wharf 7 building. This is our administrative wing, housing most of the museum’s staff, plus workshops, a loading dock and several object storage warehouses. The system comprises 812 lightweight (5.5-kilogram) solar panels made of a composite material used in the aviation industry, but which have the same power output as conventional glass-and-aluminium ones weighing 20 kilograms. This ground-breaking solar panel is called the ‘eArche’ and was developed by renowned Australian solar scientist Dr Zhengrong Shi of SunMan Energy Co Ltd.

The new solar panel system – the largest lightweight solar panel array in Australia – will reduce Wharf 7’s electricity bill by about $50,000 a year, which equals some 25 per cent of the building’s annual consumption.

Other projects that align with the museum’s sustainability plan have involved installing water-efficient fixtures during renovations to the bathrooms and parents’ room, and upgrading the main electricity switchboards, which had reached the end of their life. As the museum continues to renovate the site over the next few years, sustainability and cost reduction will be integral to our planning.

Message to Members

An enticing new season

Spring has arrived, and we have plenty of ways to help you shrug off the winter blues at the museum.

OUR SPRING PROGRAM includes cruises, films, talks and our ever-popular anniversary lunch. The latest in our cruise series is Shipwrecks of Sydney Harbour, on which you’ll see beyond the waterfront mansions and modern cruisers of Sydney Harbour to the historic vessels that lie beneath its waters. Led by Dr James Hunter, the museum’s Curator of RAN Maritime Archaeology, you’ll discover shipwreck remains and view exciting and rarely seen underwater footage.

At the museum we are always looking for new and innovative ways to share maritime stories. This quarter we are trialling a new Ocean Films program, which we hope will become a monthly event to complement our very successful Ocean Talks series on Thursday nights. The first film, The Weekend Sailor, tells the story of 1973’s inaugural Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race (now the Volvo Ocean Race) and the unlikely yacht and crew that won it.

Our newest exhibition this quarter, the family-friendly Sea Monsters, ties in with the Ocean Talk for November with world-renowned palaeontologist Dr Espen Knutsen. Espen is Senior Curator, Palaeontology, at the Queensland Museum Network, based at the Museum of Tropical Queensland campus in Townsville. He travels the world searching for evidence of prehistoric predators, and will introduce us to some of these incredible creatures and share some of his adventures.

You should also have received an invitation to our 28th annual anniversary lunch. The keynote speaker will be Ian McPhedran, defence writer, war correspondent and author of eight books, including The Amazing SAS, The Smack Track, The Mighty Krait and Where Soldiers Lie. Enjoy the company of fellow Members and friends, take part in an exclusive prelunch tour of legendary WWII commando vessel MV Krait, and hear Ian’s fascinating stories. Don’t miss out – this is one of our most popular events of the year.

I would also like to bring your attention to the Welcome Wall. A new panel will be produced soon, and as a Member you will get priority placement. If you wish to register your interest, please contact us, noting your member number.

Don’t forget that museum membership entitles you to a range of benefits, including discounts at the Brandenburg Orchestra and access to other national cultural institutions such as Questacon. Please see our website for details.

Finally, we will be planning more events and cruises, so make sure you look out for these in our regular Member emails. If you are not receiving these emails do contact the Members’ office on 02 9298 3646.

I look forward to seeing you at the museum over the coming months. As always, we would love to hear your feedback or any suggestions about your membership or your museum experience. Oliver Isaacs , Manager Members

Ian McPhedran, guest speaker at this year’s Anniversary Lunch, on assignment. Image courtesy Ian McPhedran

Museum’s Anniversary Lunch

Ian McPhedran will tell unknown stories of RAN battles along the infamous ‘smack track’ drug-smuggling route and about Operation Jaywick on MV Krait.

This year marks the 28th anniversary of the opening of the Australian National Maritime Museum, and we’re inviting you to help us celebrate at our annual Anniversary Lunch.

Join our Chairman John Mullen and Director Kevin Sumption PSM for drinks and canapés, followed by a three-course lunch by award-winning caterers Laissez-Faire, with matching Tyrrell’s wines.

You’ll enjoy the company of fellow members and friends of the museum, take part in an exclusive pre-lunch tour of legendary WWII commando boat MV Krait, and hear fascinating stories from keynote speaker Ian McPhedran – an awardwinning author, defence writer and war correspondent.

Ian McPhedran will reveal the navy’s war in the Arabian Gulf, chasing down drug smugglers, pirates and terrorists

Saturday 23 November 2019

11.30 am–2.30 pm

Members $120

General $135

To secure your seat, book online at sea.museum/lunch by Friday 15 November

Image by Pixabay

Museum events

Spring 2019

September

For carers with children 0–18 months

Seaside Strollers tours and play

12.30–2 pm

Saturday 14 or Tuesday 17 September

Tour: Bligh: Hero or Villain? ; play: Sensory Jungle theme

Family Torchlight Tour

Pirate Recruits

6–7.30 pm Saturday 21 September

Join your character guide for a treasure hunt, creative capers, light refreshments and more

On the water

High tea on an Edwardian steam yacht

11 am, 1 pm or 3 pm 22 September

Enjoy a unique, intimate high tea on the stunning steam yacht Ena

October

One-day workshop

Claymation Creations

10 am–4 pm

Tuesday 1 or Wednesday 2 October

Kids aged 8–14 can learn to produce their own stop-motion and clay animations inspired by our exhibitions

Two-day film workshop

Monster Mash

10 am–4.30 pm

Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 October

Kids aged 8–14 can learn film-making techniques and create and star in their own imaginative thriller

Harbour cruise

Shipwrecks of Sydney Harbour

8.30 am–1 pm Thursday 10 October

Cruise to the sites of four shipwrecks, inspect exposed shipwreck remains and view underwater footage

November

Ocean Films

The Weekend Sailor

6–8 pm Wednesday 6 November

The inspiring true story of the unlikely victor of the inaugural Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race

Ocean Talks

Hunting Prehistoric Sea Monsters

6–8 pm Thursday 7 November

Renowned palaeontologist Dr Espen Knutsen speaks about his adventures and discoveries

For carers with children 0–18 months

Seaside Strollers tours and play

10.30 am–12 pm or 12.30–2 pm

Monday 11 November

Tour: Capturing the home front ; play: Colour and Shape theme

On the water

High tea on an Edwardian steam yacht

Bookings and enquiries

Booking form on reverse of mailing address sheet. Please note that booking is essential unless otherwise stated. Book online at sea.museum/whats-on or phone 02 9298 3646 (unless otherwise indicated) or email members@sea.museum 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. Members are advised to check our website for updated and new event information.

Date for your diary

Access program

Sensory-Friendly Sundays

8.30 am–12 pm Sunday 8 December

Enjoy a comfortable environment for people with a variety of sensory differences

Access program

Sensory-Friendly Sundays

8.30 am–12 pm Sunday 13 October

Enjoy a comfortable environment for people with a variety of sensory differences

On the water

High tea on an Edwardian steam yacht

11 am, 1 pm or 3 pm 20 October

Enjoy a unique, intimate high tea on the stunning steam yacht Ena

For carers with children 0–18 months

Seaside Strollers tours and play

10.30 am–12 pm or 12.30–2 pm

Monday 21 October

Tour: Sea Monsters; play: Under the Sea theme

11 am, 1 pm or 3 pm 17 November

Enjoy a unique, intimate high tea on the stunning steam yacht Ena

Access program

Sensory-Friendly Sundays

8.30 am–12 pm Sunday 10 November

Enjoy a comfortable environment for people with a variety of sensory differences

Annual event

Museum’s Anniversary Lunch

11.30 am–2.30 pm

Saturday 23 November 2019

With keynote speaker Ian McPhedran, award-winning author, defence writer and war correspondent

Harbour cruise

Shipwrecks of Sydney Harbour

8.30 am–1 pm Thursday 10 October

Beneath the waters of Sydney Harbour lie the remains of historic vessels, each with its own fascinating tale to tell.

Led by the museum’s Curator of RAN Maritime Archaeology, Dr James Hunter, you’ll cruise to the sites of four shipwrecks, inspect exposed shipwreck remains and view underwater footage. The cruise will focus on the wrecks of Middle Harbour and Sydney Heads, where James will share the fascinating and dramatic stories that led up to these historical vessels’ last moments.

Member $125, general $149, family $470. Includes morning tea and lunch

Ocean Films

The Weekend Sailor

6–8 pm Wednesday 6 November

Who would you expect to win a gruelling round-the-world ocean race – professional sailors in specially designed yachts, or a weekend amateur with a crew of family and friends?

In 1973, the United Kingdom organised the first head-to-head, round-the-world sailing race, inviting expert international crews to compete against each other. The Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race (now the Volvo Ocean Race) was born, and took the sport to its limits.

Britain’s Royal Navy purchased six yachts to train 800 men, then chose the best four 10-man crews for each leg of the race.

Ocean Talks

Hunting Prehistoric Sea Monsters

6–8 pm Thursday 7 November

Millions of years ago, the Earth’s oceans were home to some of the largest, fiercest and most successful predators ever. While dinosaurs ruled the land, huge prehistoric reptiles hunted in the depths of the oceans.

Don’t miss out on this rare chance to hear from renowned palaeontologist Dr Espen Knutsen, who travels the world searching for evidence of these prehistoric predators. He’ll introduce us to some of these incredible creatures, share a few of his adventures and reveal insights into exciting discoveries he’s made.

On the water

High tea on an Edwardian steam yacht

11 am, 1 pm or 3 pm 22 September, 20 October and 17 November

Treat yourself or someone special to a unique, intimate high tea on the stunning steam yacht Ena, built in 1900. Enjoy a set selection of finger sandwiches, petit fours, sweet and savoury pastries, scones with preserves and clotted cream, tea, coffee or a glass of Australian sparkling wine.

Bookings essential via Eventbrite. Standard high tea $65 pp, Champagne high tea $95

At the other end of the scale, an inexperienced Mexican called Ramón Carlín signed up with his yacht Sayula II. His crew was his wife, friends and rebellious teenage son – and they beat every competing nation.

This documentary tells the inspiring true story of a most unlikely victory.

Adult $35, Member/concession/child aged 4–15 $20, child under 4 free. Includes postfilm canapés and, from 5 pm, entry to the exhibition Sea Monsters – Prehistoric ocean predators . Cash bar available. Bookings advised Ramón Carlín (in hat) and Sayula II crew. Still image from The Weekend Sailor

Espen has described five new species of Jurassic marine reptiles and hunted monsters in Australia, the Arctic, the Netherlands and USA.

Member $20, general $35, concession/ students $20. Ticket includes light refreshments and the opportunity to view the exhibition Sea Monsters – Prehistoric ocean predators. Cash bar available Artist’s impression of a Kronosaurus attacking an Elasmosaurus . ANMM image

Annual event

Museum’s Anniversary Lunch

11.30 am–2.30 pm

Saturday 23 November 2019

This year the museum marks the 28th anniversary of its opening, and we’re inviting you to help us celebrate at our annual Anniversary Lunch.

Join the museum’s Chairman, John Mullen, and Director, Kevin Sumption PSM, for drinks and canapés followed by a three-course meal and matched wines in our Lighthouse Gallery. You’ll enjoy the company of fellow Members and friends of the museum and take part in an exclusive pre-lunch tour of legendary World War II fishing boat MV Krait . Hear fascinating stories from keynote speaker Ian McPhedran, an award-winning author, defence writer and war correspondent. He’ll discuss Krait and Operation Jaywick and relate stories of the navy’s war in the Arabian Gulf, chasing down drug smugglers, pirates and terrorists along the infamous route known as the ‘smack track’.

Members $120, general $135. Includes three-course lunch and wine

MV Krait, December 2018. Image James Horan Photography

Kids

and family programs

Spring holiday programs

29 September–13 October

Make a splash at the museum these school holidays with exhibitions, vessels, hands-on workshops, themed creative activities, 3D films and more. It’s a whole day of fun for the entire family!

Inspired by our new Sea Monsters exhibition, there’s a plethora-saurus of things to do every day, including art-making, scientific experiments and dress-ups in Kids on Deck, exploring touchable objects and artefacts at the Cabinet of Curiosities, relaxing with a film screening, taking a kids’ activity trail, and more.

See sea.museum/schoolholidays for full program details

Cabinet of Curiosities touch trolley Creature Feature

11 am–12 noon and 2–3 pm daily in school holidays

Explore wonderful and curious scientific objects and creature specimens related to prehistoric oceans and ancient reptiles in this hands-on discovery device in our galleries.

Included in any museum entry

Image Geoff Magee

Kids on Deck

Prehistoric Aquatic

10.30 am–4 pm daily in school holidays

Play, create and discover at Kids on Deck with art-making, interactive games and dress-ups! Be inspired by prehistoric ocean creatures. Cast your own mini sea monster fossil, or make a dramatic diorama, an origamisaur or prehistoric creature prints. Play with science experiments and dress up as your favourite sea monster.

Included in any paid ticket. Members free. No bookings required

Image Geoff Magee

Under 5s activities

Spring tours

10 am or 11 am Tuesdays 1 and 8 and Saturday 12 October

Explore amazing creatures that live under the sea through movement, songs and story time in a fun and interactive learning program especially designed for toddlers (duration 30 minutes). Afterwards head to Kids on Deck for crafts and messy play. For ages 18 months to 5 years.

Child $10, adult $8. Included in Big Ticket. Members free. Includes entry to kids’ activities and 3D cinema. Bookings essential at sea.museum/under5s

Creative workshop for 8–14 years

Claymation Creations

10 am–4 pm Tuesday 1 or Wednesday 2 October

Discover how to produce your own stopmotion and clay animations inspired by our exhibitions on show in this fun-filled one-day workshop. Create your own animation to share and have your work featured on the museum’s YouTube channel.

Members $60, general $70. Bookings essential at sea.museum/youth ANMM image

Access program Sensory-friendly Sundays

8.30 am–12 pm Sundays 13 October, 10 November, 8 December

Enjoy a comfortable environment for kids and adults with a variety of sensory differences. Our Sea Monsters exhibition and activity areas will be open extra early for a quieter experience and modified to suit people on the autism spectrum and with a range of differing abilities. Our trained staff and volunteers will be on hand to facilitate creative activities.

Members and children under 4 free, child 4+ or adult $12 (includes access to special exhibitions and kids activities all day). Bookings essential at sea.museum/ whatson/events

For carers with children 0–18 months Seaside Strollers tours and play

Take an educator-led tour through new exhibitions and enjoy delicious catered treats from Yots Café, adult-friendly conversations in the galleries and baby play time in a sensory space. Strollers, front packs, baby-slings and breastfeeding welcome.

12.30–2 pm

Saturday 14 or Tuesday 17 September –tour: Bligh: Hero or Villain? ; play: Sensory Jungle theme

10.30 am–12 pm or 12.30–2 pm

Monday 21 October – tour: Sea Monsters; play: Under the sea theme

10.30 am–12 pm or 12.30–2 pm

Monday 11 November – tour: Capturing the home front ; play: Colour and Shape theme

Two-day film workshop for 8–14 years

Monster Mash

10 am–4.30 pm

Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 October

Create and star in your own imaginative thriller inspired by classic thrillers and our new Sea Monsters exhibition. Learn clever techniques in green-screen, scripting, directing, acting and special effects in filmmaking as you produce your own creative digital stories. Have your finished work displayed for family and friends in a specialevent cinema screening.

Members or early bird (before 2 October)

$140, general $160. Bookings essential at sea.museum/youth

Term-time

family programs

Mini mariners

10–10.45 and 11–11.45 am every Tuesday during term time and one Saturday each month

Enjoy creative free play, craft, games, dress-ups and story time in our themed activity area. Ages 2–5 + carers

Saturday 14 September – Alphabet Animals

Saturday 26 October – Under the Sea Saturday 16 November – Pirates Ahoy!

Members free, child $10, adults $8 (includes cinema). Booked playgroups welcome. Online bookings essential at sea.museum/under5s

Image Geoff Magee

Adult $20, Member adult $15, babies free. Includes morning/afternoon tea and exhibition admission. Bookings essential at sea.museum/strollers

Can’t make a session? You can now book a Stroller Tour on demand for your group for $230 per group (maximum 15 adults per group). Includes morning or afternoon tea and exhibition entry. Enquire about your preferred date online at sea.museum/ strollers

Family events

Kids on Deck Sundays

11 am–3 pm every Sunday during school term

Play, create and discover at Kids on Deck with art-making, interactive games and dress-ups.

Sundays in Term 3 –Imagination and the Sea Sundays in Term 4 –Prehistoric Aquatic

Included in any paid admission. Members free ANMM image

Activity trails

Available every day

9.30 am–5 pm

Explore our family-friendly exhibitions Wildlife Photographer of the Year (until 26 September) or Elysium Arctic with fun and creative activity trails.

Free with museum entry ANMM image

Stay up to date with the full program of family events and activities by subscribing to our monthly newsletter at sea.museum/kids

Hands-on science

Underwater drone challenge

11 am–3 pm every Saturday and Sunday in term time; daily during school holidays

Discover what’s under Sydney Harbour without getting wet! Learn to pilot an underwater drone. Show off your gaming console skills in the outdoors and challenge family and friends to see who’s the best u-drone pilot! Then at home, relive your explorations with video footage from your dive. For ages 9 and above. Suitable for wheelchair users.

Bookings essential. Session times and prices at sea.museum/drone

Family Torchlight Tour

Pirate Recruits

6–7.30 pm Saturday 21 September

Join your character guide for one of our all-time favourite after-dark tours through the galleries. Enjoy a treasure hunt with Captain Grognose Johnny, creative capers, light refreshments and exclusive after-hours access to the museum’s new exhibition Bligh: Hero or Villain? For ages 4 to 12 and adults.

Members $15 adult, $20 child; general $20 adult, $25 child. Bookings essential at sea.museum/ schoolholidays

A passionate interest in ships and the sea

Member profile John Jeremy AM

When and why did you become a member?

I became a member around the time the museum opened. I believed that Australia needed a national maritime museum because it is a maritime nation dependent on the sea for our imports and exports and our security. It is important that future generations of Australians understand those maritime connections.

I joined because I wanted to be part of the museum community. Fortunately, my background and experience have enabled me to be of assistance to the museum on a number of occasions over the years. Perhaps that work has helped earn my place on the list of Honorary Life Members!

Do you have a nautical background?

From a very early age I have had a passionate interest in the sea and ships, particularly naval. I started work as an apprentice draughtsman at Cockatoo Island in January 1960 and studied naval architecture part time. I soon progressed in management roles and eventually, in 1981, became the chief executive of the dockyard.

Cockatoo Island Dockyard had a remarkable role in the maritime and naval development of Australia. In addition to a wide range of commercial ship repair and engineering work, the dockyard completed many naval ship refits and, for the last decades of its life, was responsible for the refit, maintenance and modernisation of the Royal Australian Navy’s submarines.

From my early days on the island I became very interested in the dockyard’s history, which was unknown to most people. When it closed after 134 years of operation, I was largely responsible for saving the records of the dockyard and the ships built and repaired there, which are now held at the National Archives of Australia.

Since the dockyard’s closure I have also completed three published books on its history and work. I was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in January 2015 ‘for the preservation and celebration of naval and maritime history.’

What’s your favourite aspect of museum membership?

Being part of the museum community, keeping in touch with the activities of the museum and being able to make a useful contribution from time to time.

If you had to sum up the museum in three words, what would they be?

I don’t think that’s possible!

Why did you join the new Captain’s Circle museum supporters’ group?

Despite government funding, the museum can never have enough money, particularly for special projects. The Australian National Maritime Foundation is a good way of raising capital for these purposes. The creation of the Captain’s Circle group provided the opportunity to make a commitment to contribute to the Foundation.

What else would you like to see the museum doing?

Like all museums, the Maritime Museum faces a number of challenges in the modern world. New ways of engaging with the public are needed, making use of the new technology we all share. Another major task of this national museum is to reach out to Australians everywhere. The technology we are surrounded with today may well make this challenge easier to meet.

Finally, a museum such as this must have a healthy and relevant program of research — there remains much to learn about our maritime history.

Sea Monsters –Prehistoric ocean predators

From 26 September

Millions of years ago, Earth’s oceans were home to some of the largest, fiercest and most successful predators ever. While dinosaurs ruled the land, huge prehistoric reptiles hunted in the depths. Our new exhibition Sea Monsters – Prehistoric ocean predators allows you to meet them.

As well as featuring ancient reptiles and their modern successors, the exhibition also uniquely reveals the behind-thescenes stories of how it was created: the illustrators and sculptors whose talents helped resurrect them, from traditional mould making and casting, to cuttingedge VR sculpting, photogrammetry and 3D printing.

We partnered with Queensland Museum, borrowing their expertise and specimens, and we’re trialling including some younger voices too, with three very enthusiastic ‘kid curators’ bringing their take on the topic.

There are so many fascinating stories and discoveries, from the so-called ‘impossible fossil’ to new underwater robots inspired by the unique swimming motion of plesiosaurs. With real fossils from Australia and overseas, full-size replicas of huge specimens, interactive exhibits and a 180-degree audio-visual projection, the exhibition is packed with amazing things to discover. Awesome.

A Mosasaur attacking a shark. ANMM image

Capturing the Home Front

From late October

This exhibition presents original Depression and World War II photographs by Dorothea Lange on loan from the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, including unvarnished depictions of the forced internment of Japanese–Americans from coastal California to inland internment camps.

Complementing Lange’s images are works by Japanese–American internee Toyo Miyatake and a selection of home front photography by Sam Hood, William Cranstone, Jim Fitzpatrick and Hedley Cullen reproduced from Australian collections.

See page 14 for more information.

Elysium Arctic

Now showing

Elysium Arctic follows a team of worldrenowned explorers, photographers and scientists into the icy regions of the High Arctic. Led by acclaimed wildlife photographer Michael Aw, the Elysium team produced a series of artworks showcasing the extreme beauty of the polar north.

Elysium Arctic captures the uniqueness of the Arctic environment at a time when climate change is threatening its very existence. Michael Aw believes that art can inspire action on climate change. Explore the magic of the High Arctic and see for yourself.

Elysium Arctic is the museum’s newest outdoor exhibition, located outside Wharf 7.

An iceberg sculpted by wind and water, 2015.

Image by Gillian Clark

Kanalaritja: An Unbroken String

Until 16 February 2020

Developed by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) and funded by Visions of Australia, this community-driven project celebrates the survival and transfer of Indigenous knowledge across generations via shell stringing. The exhibition is a tribute to the ancestral women who against all odds continued shell stringing as an act of resistance and cultural defiance. Most of all, it pays homage to the women of Cape Barren Island, who have preserved this tradition to the present day.

Bamal-Badu

Now showing

Darling Harbour is called Gomora in the Sydney Aboriginal language and is part of the traditional lands (bamal, or earth) and waters (badu) of the Gadigal people. Bamal-Badu is a digital art installation that acknowledges the long history of the place where the museum is located and honours and respects the Aboriginal people who lived and continue to live around Sydney Harbour. The installation will take visitors on a virtual journey through the lands and waters of the traditional owners of the Sydney Harbour area and emphasise the importance of acknowledging and respecting our First Peoples.

Bamal Badu is a collaboration with Aboriginal digital artist Brett Leavy of Virtual Songlines .

Bligh: Hero or Villain?

Now showing

William Bligh is almost universally portrayed as a villain in movies and books, but does this view stand scrutiny today? Bligh: Hero or Villain? challenges this popular narrative, looking beyond the Bounty mutiny to explore the many sides of this infamous maritime figure. Come and judge for yourself – but be prepared for surprises!

Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

Massim Kenu – drawings of the unique outrigger canoes from the Solomon Seas

Until 29 September

The Massim culture of Papua New Guinea is home to a unique variety of colourful outrigger canoes used for trade, and which are vital to the significant inter-island and community exchange of precious artefacts known as kula. This exhibition displays beautiful large-scale drawings of the canoes’ construction and layout by Curator of Historic Vessels David Payne.

Special 3D film screenings

11 am, 2 pm and 3 pm daily

Currently screening:

Oceans 3D: Our Blue Planet takes you on a global odyssey to discover the largest and least-explored habitat on earth.

Earthflight 3D follows various bird species on their seasonal journeys. Embrace the thrilling feeling of being plunged into the centre of the flock! Narrated by Cate Blanchett.

Sea Monsters 3D uses ultra-realistic computer animation to transport you back to the Late Cretaceous period, when the oceans were dominated by giant marine reptiles. Screening from 27 September

Included in any paid entry. Please check availability at sea.museum/3dcinema as sessions may occasionally be cancelled due to event bookings

The Art of Navy

2–30 October

Commissioned by the Royal Australian Navy in 2019, The Art of Navy features original photographic works by Ralph Kerle, a Sydney-based artist whose studio is his kayak. Kerle capture moments in time when nature coalesces into visual abstraction on the surface of the water. The photographs are designed as peaceful meditations on the way we engage with the environment in which we live and how we think, see and communicate our sense of being in it.

The photographs capture reflections of naval vessels in the waters surrounding Sydney’s naval bases.

The Antarctica VR Experience

Until 13 October 2019

Explore Antarctica in this immersive virtual experience. With 360-degree camera control and stunning 4K, high-resolution vision, experience a day in the life of Antarctic scientists as they research this mysterious continent. See first-hand the work that goes into understanding climate change, managing ecosystems, researching sustainability and conserving wildlife.

ANMM image

Bob Oatley ao bem: the sailors’ champion

From late November 2019

A small exhibition highlighting the achievements of Bob Oatley (1928–2016), businessman, winemaker, keen sailor and philanthropist.

Oatley, known widely for his record-breaking Sydney to Hobart race super-maxi Wild Oats XI, made a profound contribution to the development of sailing as both a social and competitive sport in Australia, championing new technologies, new events and the sport in general.

The Fragile Edge (detail), 2019. This and other photographs by Ralph Kerle are on display in The Art of Navy. Image courtesy Ralph Kerle

ANMM Travelling Exhibitions

Container: The box that changed the world

Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo NSW

Until 13 October 2019

Fremantle Maritime Museum WA 1 November 2019–14 April 2020

Dedicated entirely to the history and impact of the humble shipping container, this exhibition goes beyond the corrugated steel to reveal the fascinating story of this revolutionary maritime invention. Housed entirely within specially modified 20-foot containers, it explores the economic, geographic, technical, environmental, social and cultural history and impact of containerisation.

Australian Sailing Hall of Fame 2019 panel display

Various dates and venues

This graphic panel exhibition features the stories of the inaugural inductees into the Australian Sailing Hall of Fame. These greats of the sport have produced some of Australia’s most memorable sporting moments – in the America’s Cup, the Olympics, blue-water racing and world sailing.

The Australian Sailing Hall of Fame touring exhibition is developed by the Australian National Maritime Museum in partnership with Australian Sailing

Guardians of Sunda Strait panel display

Various dates and venues in Australia and the USA

On the night of 28 February–1 March 1942, HMAS Perth and USS Houston fought bravely and defiantly against overwhelming odds – outnumbered and outgunned by a large advancing Japanese naval force – as they approached Sunda Strait. Both ships sank that dreadful night in the Battle of Sunda Strait. This exhibition is part of the ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ program.

Created by the Australian National Maritime Museum’s USA Programs supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund

Massim Kenu – drawings of the unique outrigger canoes from the Solomon Seas

Opens 24 October 2019

Massim Museum in Alotau, Papua New Guinea

The Massim culture of Papua New Guinea is home to a unique collection of colourful outrigger canoes used for trade, and which are vital to the significant inter-island and community exchange of precious artefacts known as kula. Reproductions of drawings by museum curator David Payne depict the intriguing construction of these canoes, their sail and rig layout and the fine detail of their wonderful carvings.

Clash of the carriers: Battle of the Coral Sea panel display

Various dates and venues in Australia and the USA

Fought between combined United States and Australian naval and air forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy, this was the world’s first sea battle between aircraft carriers. Literally ‘fought in the air’, it was also the first naval battle in which opposing ships neither saw nor fired on each other. This exhibition is part of the ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ program.

Created by the Australian National Maritime Museum’s USA Programs supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund

Indigenous Watercraft panel display

Various dates and venues around Australia

Since the First Fleet, 10 million people have settled in this country and made Australia home. With them have come 270 languages to join the estimated 250 Australian Indigenous languages and more than 600 dialects. Discover the different words to represent unique Indigenous watercraft specific to particular areas all around the country.

James Cameron –Challenging the Deep Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand

Until 9 February 2020

In an exhibition that integrates two worlds of modern museums – the power of the artefact and the thrill of experience – visitors will encounter the deep-ocean discoveries, technical innovations and scientific and creative achievements of underwater explorer James Cameron. Created by the Australian National Maritime Museum’s USA Programs supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund

Submerged banner display

Various dates and venues

The Australian Maritime Museums Council (AMMC) and the Australian National Maritime Museum partnered to develop the graphic panel display Submerged: stories of Australia’s shipwrecks. Content was developed by AMMC members at maritime heritage organisations across the country, and merged into a nationally touring display by the museum. This display is supported by Visions of Australia

Homefront panel display

Various dates and venues in Australia

Banner display developed and written by students from schools in Australia, the USA and Japan. The exhibition will tour schools who have registered with our ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ program, which is supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund.

Banner and panel displays

There is no cost to host the majority of travelling graphic panel displays. For bookings and enquiries, please contact touringexhibitions@sea.museum

Sail the replica HMB Endeavour as part of the Encounters 2020 program

30 voyages around Australia on sale now

sea.museum/encounters2020

Enriched by generosity

Donations and bequests assist the museum

The museum is always deeply grateful for the generosity of its supporters, particularly those who donate funds, documents or artefacts or who remember the museum in their estate. Marisa Chilcott outlines some of the recent projects and acquisitions that such gifts have enabled.

The museum places great importance on sharing Indigenous maritime heritage

The finished Bluebird model. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

PASSIONATE SUPPORTERS who have included the museum in their estate planning have allowed us to make numerous significant acquisitions over the years.

Most recently, Helen Jones and Gavin Jones have been working with the museum specifically to document and compile the history of Australia’s Bluebird yachts, in accordance with the wishes of their late father, Dr Keith Jones. (For more details, see Signals 125.) One of the first steps was to commission a model of a Bluebird yacht, which has been carefully crafted by the experienced and skilled volunteers of the Sydney Heritage Fleet.

For those who are considering a gift, we can ensure that your legal representatives receive the correct wording to include in documentation. Those who include the museum in their estate planning and inform the Foundation Manager are recognised for their intention to support the museum and are acknowledged as major benefactors.

For more details, please contact Foundation Manager Marisa Chilcott on 02 9298 3619 or email marisa.chilcott@sea.museum

A new welcome to the museum

Museum visitors are now welcomed on site by an absorbing video installation by historian and artist Brett Leavy. Through his digital mapping and creation of historic virtual environments, Brett brings to life the land and lives of First Nations people before colonisation. The museum places great importance on sharing Indigenous maritime heritage, and many generous supporters donated to the museum’s mid-year appeal to help us expand on this focus. Brett and his work are respected nationally, and his installation is proving popular, particularly with our younger visitors. We are seeking support for this new acquisition and recently welcomed a generous donation from the Turnbull Foundation.

SY Ena’s boiler gets a helping hand

Thanks to the support of Jennie and David Sutherland, SY Ena will continue to be an inspiration for generations to come. Sutherlands’ foundation generously pledged $50,000 recently to start repair work on Ena ’s boiler. An additional donation is pledged for the New Year. At 120 years of age, SY Ena requires long-term planning to keep it ‘ship shape’.

The boiler replacement requires detailed planning. Old-school engineering such as Ena ’s requires boiler-making skills that few companies now have, and the preferred manufacturer for the replacement boiler is based in Goulburn, NSW. With such expertise in rare supply, there is always a queue of projects waiting their turn.

This major project, like many at the museum, could not be achieved without the support of generous donors such as Dr David and Mrs Jennifer Sutherland and their Foundation.

The museum must raise more than 40 per cent of its income each year, so this support is greatly appreciated and vital in ensuring that historic vessels remain on the water to be enjoyed for many more years.

The Captain’s Circle

Captain’s Circle Members have enjoyed a number of exclusive opportunities in recent months, including a private tour of the exhibition Bligh: Hero or Villain?, a bespoke tour of HMAS Hobart and a tour of Spectacle Island. A special early Christmas celebration is also planned in December aboard our glamourous steam yacht Ena.

For more details about joining this prestigious group, please see sea.museum/support/donate/ captains-circle or contact Foundation Manager Marisa Chilcott on 02 9298 3619.

01

Scene from Brett Leavy’s video installation in the museum’s foyer, which depicts Aboriginal life around Sydney Harbour before European settlement. Image courtesy Brett Leavy

02

Brett Leavy and supporter Lucy Turnbull at the launch of his video installation for the museum’s foyer. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

Hook, line and sinker

A reminder of old Sydney

A recent gift to the museum is a small masterpiece of Victorian-era manufacturing that evokes a bygone era when Sydney was a vibrant working seaport. By Senior Curator Daina Fletcher.

TODAY AN OYSTER BAR HAS CONNOTATIONS of elegance and refinement, with plush chairs, fine dining and attentive waiters – but in the 19th century, its ambience was quite different. Oyster bars lined many of Sydney’s main streets and were mostly the haunts of the working men of the city’s seaport. Oysters then were common fare.

Evidence suggests that some saloons were busy commercial premises selling their mostly male customers a range of sea-related goods such as fish for the home table, prawns, bait, even fishing hooks and tackle.

A fascinating artefact recently given to the National Maritime Collection evokes something of the oyster bars of old Sydney and reminds us of the entrepreneurial spirit of a 19th-century immigrant, Danish sailor Frederick Christensen.

A refined yet impactful piece, this encyclopaedic display of fishing equipment is artfully arranged in a glass-fronted timber showcase. It was made by William Bartleet & Sons, the needle and hook manufacturer established in 1750 in Redditch, England, then the world centre for the manufacture of such goods.

The piece was designed as a fine promotional item for display at international trade fairs, and in the early 1890s it was exhibited by Frederick Christensen in his oyster saloon in George Street in Sydney’s Rocks area, on the western bank of Sydney Cove. He and his neighbours – grocers, fruiterers, shipping agents, butchers, glass and earthenware merchants, clothiers and outfitters, bootmakers and publicans – all serviced a bustling port population.

Christensen’s premises would have been a busy focal point for mercantile life, with ships’ crews, passengers, wharf workers, merchants, traders and travellers coming and going all day, every day. All needed feeding and supplies.

Frederick Christensen first visited Sydney in the 1860s as an able seaman. In May 1863 he was convicted of desertion in the Water Police Court and sentenced to six weeks’ hard labour in gaol.1 Through the 1860s he appears on crew lists on vessels arriving in Sydney until his marriage in 1870 to Mary Anne Tubberdy (or Tauberdy), an assisted immigrant from Ireland.

A shark-fishing party off Sydney Heads caught species including blue pointer, grey nurse and tiger sharks with hook, harpoon and lance

Harpoons, lances, hooks, flies, sinkers and lures: the paraphernalia of fishing proudly displayed in the Bartleet and Sons case. ANMM Collection Gift from Christine Fraser. Image Andrew Frolows

From 1875 Christensen appears in directories in northern George Street, Sydney, as an oyster dealer and fishmonger –one of 25 in the city’s streets. Sold freshly shucked or unshucked, Sydney rock oysters (Saccrostrea glomerata) or mud oysters (Ostrea angasi ) were harvested from the intertidal zones of the harbour and the waterways, mudflats and mangrove swamps around Botany Bay, the Cooks and Georges rivers and further afield. 2 These fertile oyster beds, which had been supplying people for tens of thousands of years, were disappearing by the late 19th century as a result of population spread, disease, harbour and river pollution and over-harvesting – the shells for quicklime for construction mortar and the oysters for food. When Christensen established his business in the early 1870s, a new fish market had opened at Woolloomooloo Bay, and he maintained a close commercial relationship with it. He owned boats and frequently advertised hauls of fresh prawns and bait in the Sydney Morning Herald

By 1883 he was a regular at the early morning markets, and was named by a writer for the Australian Town and Country Journal as among the 75 per cent of foreigners – primarily Hungarians, Jews, Greeks and Italians – who would jostle with the auctioneer for species such as Tuggerah whiting, snapper, squires, sea mullet, jewfish, garfish, flounder and black bream. Their market haul would then be ‘basketed away … to sell at a considerable profit several hours later’. 3

In 1890, a newspaper article named Christensen’s of George Street as the place to go for specialised equipment and proper hooks for shark fishing, which it described as ‘a sport for emperors’. A fishing party mentioned in the article caught species including blue pointer, grey nurse and tiger sharks with hook, harpoon and lance.4 While shocking today, in the 1880s, day trips to fish for shark were growing in popularity and Christensen was involved in such excursions, selling tickets, bait and Bartleet hooks and tackle.

The Bartleet display case advertises shark hooks amid the range of tackle for sale on Christensen’s premises. It worked beyond mere advertising or promotion by associating him and his business with one of the finest hook manufacturers in the world, with representations of the company’s gold-medal awards incorporated into the display. The piece, and its context, are worth exploring in more detail.

An impressive feat of craft and design, the case is more than a metre square. Encircling its centre are hooks, harpoons and lances – those lethal instruments of the shark hunt to be wrestled into action with the muscle of a leather palm guard. In contrast, the finest of hooks and most delicate of fishing flies crown the display; metal minutiae for the sensitive, skilful hands of the recreational river fisher, a pastime that was growing in popularity with the introduction of salmon and trout to the colonies from the 1860s. Heavy hook chains are similarly juxtaposed with lightweight silk and hemp line. Each group of hooks, lines and flies is identified.

The work was almost certainly produced for display in the Jubilee International Exhibition in Adelaide in 1887 and the Centennial International Exhibition in Melbourne in 1888. 5

The extent of Bartleet & Sons’ use of such display cases for promotional and commercial purposes beyond this is not known. Did the company produce variations for businesses such as Christensen’s, or was this, as assumed, a unique item that Christensen procured from the Melbourne exhibition?

The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences was given a similar fishing display from Bartleet’s in 1884, while Museum Victoria holds a gothic-inspired needle display that was exhibited at the 1888 Melbourne exhibition.

The Maritime Museum’s display comprises sought-after items of fishing tackle that match the description of those from Bartleet’s comprehensive entry in the Centennial International Exhibition published in the Argus in October 1888:

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This photo is though to show Frederick Christensen (centre) in front of his rooms at 151 George Street, Sydney, in the 1890s. Courtesy Christine Fraser

Oyster bars lined many of Sydney’s main streets and were mostly the haunts of the working men of the city’s seaport

Lower George Street, Sydney, c1880. Image courtesy Property NSW

01 Life in the New South Wales oyster fisheries: from the everyday mundanity of collecting oysters to the artistic licence of attack by giant octopus. Wood engraving by A M Ebsworth published in The Australasian sketcher with pen and pencil, 14 March 1883.

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‘Scenes from the Sydney Fish Market’, published in Australian Town and Country Journal, 15 September 1883.

The fertile oyster beds of Sydney and its surrounds had been supplying people for tens of thousands of years

Of fishhooks no less than 1,253 different sorts are exhibited, among which are specimens of the turn-down-eyed hooks made solely by the firm under the instructions of Mr Cholmondeley Pennel, the author of many standard works on fishing and now greatly used by anglers at home. Some Mayfly hooks are also to be seen here … and a variety of other hooks from the tiniest trout hook to an implement big enough to kill a tunny fish or a shark.

In the same case is included a very complete collection of tackle and other appliances for fishing every kind of waters. Among these may be noticed the ‘Archer’ spinner, made in three sizes for pike, salmon, and trout, and capable of being used with almost every kind of natural bait, while for sea fishing the spinner is mounted with brass swivels and japanned trebles. Besides this there are other kinds of spinning bait, such as ‘angel’ and ‘phantom’ minnows and spoons, artificial grasshoppers, caterpillars, bees, wasps, beetles, and every kind of lure for the most dainty or crafty of fishes.6

The needle and fishing tackle market was competitive, and Bartleet & Co entered their work in Australian exhibitions alongside that of their competitors from Redditch: J James & Son, S Allcock & Co, and Henry Milward & Sons (the company that, in the 20th century, was to buy Bartleet’s). All four companies were presented ‘first order of merit’ awards. Integral design features of the piece are eight gold medals, or copies of them, that were presented to the firm in Adelaide and Melbourne. The South Australian Advertiser noted in 1887 that Bartleet & Sons had obtained 11 gold and prize medals for excellence, commencing with the first London Exhibition of 1851. This display case boasts of ‘15 gold & prize medals’ in gold lettering across its timber gable – including the awards from Adelaide and Melbourne, no doubt.

Beyond its aesthetic appeal, the beauties of this display case are its strong provenance and links to the working life of Sydney and the oyster rooms of fishing tackle supplier Frederick Christensen.

Christensen’s business was so successful that by the time he died in 1894, he held properties in Cumberland Street (The Rocks), Randwick and Balmain. After his death his third child, 17-year-old Frederick Jr, carried on the business, but only for a few years. A Nicholas & Co operated the saloon from 1896 until about 1912, when it was converted to a butchery.

This striking display case, a gift to the museum from Frederick Christensen Sr’s great-granddaughter, remains a testament to his enterprise. At its new home it enables us to explore the age of industry, the practice of fishing, and above all the seafood habits of Sydney’s colonial population.

1 Sydney Morning Herald, 16 May 1863, p 4.

2 Heather Hunwick 2018, The food and drink of Sydney: A history, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, p 110.

3 ‘Early morning experiences of Sydney’, Australian Town and Country Journal, 15 September 1883.

4 ‘A day’s sharking at Sydney heads’, The Illustrated Sydney News , 3 April 1890, pp 29–30.

5 W Bartleet & Sons had two exhibits at the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition of 1888. The first was listed as ‘Needles, sewing-machine needles, needle cases, crotchet hooks, fish hooks, fishing tackle’, and the second ‘Needles and sewing machine needles’ (pages 447 and 466, Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne 1888–1889, Official Record MV). collections.museumvictoria.com.au/ items/1332487.

6 Argus , Tuesday 23 October 1888, p 58.

Hello, Tiger!

A new RAN helicopter goes on display

The museum recently welcomed a new addition to its Navy Gallery – a Sikorsky S-70B-2 Seahawk helicopter that served in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) between 1988 and 2017. By Dr James Hunter.

THE MUSEUM’S SIKORSKY S-70B-2 SEAHAWK replaces the Westland Wessex Mk 31B helicopter that has been on exhibit since 1991 and was recently transferred to the collection of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. A derivative of the US Navy’s SH-60F Seahawk, the S-70B-2 was designed by Sikorsky to meet RAN specifications for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and anti-surface surveillance and targeting (ASST) operations. It was one of 16 ordered for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and constructed at Sikorsky’s plant in Stratford, Connecticut. Upon delivery to Australia in 1988, the helicopter was given the RAN serial number N24-006 and code 875. It officially commenced service with the Fleet Air Arm’s 816 Squadron in July 1992 and was given the call sign ‘Tiger 75’.

816 Squadron was originally a British Royal Navy anti-submarine warfare squadron founded in 1939. Re-established as an RAN unit in 1948, it has operated a variety of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Personnel and aircraft from 816 Squadron have served in the Second World War, Korean War, Gulf War and War in Iraq, as well as military operations in Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Fiji and the Horn of Africa. Seahawk helicopters currently form the backbone of the Fleet Air Arm, and have been the RAN’s primary helicopter asset since the late 1980s. While primarily engaged in ASW and ASST roles, RAN Seahawks can also conduct an array of secondary missions, including search and rescue, logistics support, personnel transport and medical evacuation.

The S-70B-2 model was introduced at a time when the RAN’s fleet of Westland Wessex 31B helicopters was being decommissioned, so they were in essence a next step in the evolution of the Fleet Air Arm’s helicopter inventory. Westland Sea King Mk 50 helicopters were acquired by the RAN in the 1970s to assume the anti-submarine role held by the Wessex during the height of the Cold War. Subsequently, the RAN’s anti-submarine and search-and-rescue roles were split between the Wessex and Sea King aircraft during the 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Following their introduction in the late 1980s, the Seahawk S-70B-2s assumed both roles – and others – and became the Fleet Air Arm’s ‘all-rounder’.

Over the course of its 29-year career, Tiger 75 was deployed numerous times to the Middle East and other international trouble spots, and was involved in the rescue of three crew aboard a Yemeni dhow held hostage by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa in 2011. Most notably, it was one of two Seahawks that participated in search-and-rescue operations during the ill-fated 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Tiger 75 was parked on the tarmac at Nowra’s HMAS Albatross on the night of the disaster, from where it embarked to perform multiple search-and-rescue missions, including the recovery of surviving crewmen from the sunken sloop Winston Churchill.

Tiger 75 was also the last S-70B-2 variant to complete an operational deployment, when it returned to Albatross on 29 August 2017 after completing a nine-month tour of the Middle East aboard the Anzac-class frigate HMAS Arunta (II). It was formally retired from service shortly afterwards and repainted in its current tiger-stripe scheme (which was originally used during its delivery to Australia) in November 2018.

All sixteen S-70B-2 variants have now been retired and are being replaced by the MH-60R, an updated version of the Seahawk that commenced service in 2013.

Nova Systems is a proud sponsor of the newly installed Seahawk aircraft at the Australian National Maritime Museum. A 100 per cent Australian-owned company, Nova Systems is a leading professional service provider delivering maritime capability to Australia and New Zealand and internationally.

Nova has more than 450 Australian employees, including several ex-Royal Australian Navy members who remember with pride their operations, support and maintenance of Seahawk aircraft over the past 25 years.

Lockheed Martin is a proud sponsor of the Sikorsky S-70B-2 Seahawk helicopter. In developing the S-70B-2 Seahawk for Australia, Sikorsky integrated the capability of the Super Searcher radar, magnetic anomaly detector, sonics processing for both active and passive sonobuoys, forward-looking infra-red (FLIR), electronic support measures and the Mk46 anti-submarine torpedo but allowed the aircraft to be quickly configurable for utility and vertical replenishment operations both on land and at sea.

Tiger 75 was one of two Seahawks that participated in search-and-rescue operations during the ill-fated 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race

The Sikorsky S-70B-2 Seahawk helicopter known as Tiger 75 installed some eight metres above the ground in the museum’s Navy Gallery.

The tail rotor is attached to the Seahawk in the museum’s loading dock before installation.

‘Do it yourself’ A great Australian tradition

The Australian Register of Historic Vessels lists almost 700 craft, with a modest number representing the do-it-yourself era of Australian boatbuilding. Curator of Historic Vessels David Payne profiles three of the most recent additions, Jeshan, Native and Kotare.

Jeshan at anchor in Moorea, Tahiti.

Image courtesy Julia Hazel

Despite the scepticism of bystanders – who predicted rapid rusting of Jeshan’s thin steel plate – and after more than four decades of active use, the boat remains in excellent condition

ALMOST 700 VESSELS make up the Australian Register of Historic Vessels (ARHV), and three of the latest listings join the amateur-built craft already on the register.

Having made clothes for her dolls and later for herself, Julia Hazel thought, why not build a boat? Constructed in 1975–76, her yacht, Jeshan, is one of the first ocean-going amateur-built yachts built by a woman in Australia – perhaps even worldwide. For Bryan Cronin, building his International 12 Square Metre class Native was simple; the real fun came in designing and making every fitting. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous Australian Bluebird class was designed for the amateur builder and became the most popular ‘do-it-yourself’ (DIY) sloop. Kotare is widely recognised as the last amateur-built example of a Bluebird.

Jeshan is an 8.5-metre-long steel multi-chine sloop, with a fin keel and skeg rudder. It was built on the shoreline of Oyster Cove in Balls Head Bay on Sydney’s Parramatta River. Jeshan ’s design came from a blueprint prepared by Julia’s long-time friend John Hurst, who had been designing boats as a hobby for many years. Searching though his pile of various drawings one day, Julia particularly liked the ‘36-foot yacht’ lines plan he was preparing for himself. Julia, who was in her 20s at the time, recalls remodifying the design and building it from scratch:

‘John, if I scale this design down to 28 feet, will you re-calculate the keel and sailplan for me?’ With his agreement, I laboriously calculated 28/36 for all dimensions, then lofted the lines full size, ordered a small pile of steel and began building frames. Not the recommended way to go, and I knew that at the time. Looking back, I’m just thankful it all turned out well!

How did Julia’s interest in building a yacht start? In an interview for the Australian magazine in March 1989, she recalled:

I remember a chance introduction to sailing and how I immediately loved it. I was already longing to travel to faraway places, so why not sail off to see the world? It seemed such a romantic idea. Problem number one was how to get a boat. I had nowhere near enough money to buy one nor the patience to save up for years. There had to be some other way. Beg? Borrow? Steal? Unpromising, all of them. But at about age six I had learnt that one way out of the I-want-but-no-money dilemma was to make things myself. I had made clothes for my dolls then, and for myself later. I had built some simple bookshelves. Why not build a boat? Steel, I had read, was the cheapest and strongest construction material, so I decided I would simply order some and begin. But the ordering was quite difficult.

Suppliers kept saying things like, ‘Just get your husband to give us a call, love, and we’ll get it all sorted out’. Husbandless, I persisted, and ended up contemplating an insignificant bundle of steel in the middle of a rented patch of gravel. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I realised how little I knew about my new tools and materials. I wished I had borrowed my brothers’ Meccano sets instead of playing with dolls.

Jeshan demonstrates that full steel construction (deck, hull and keel) can be used successfully for a vessel considerably smaller than the traditional lower size limit of about 10.5 metres for steel sailing boats. To reduce the boat’s weight, Julia used a thin steel plate compared to the conventional standards for construction at the time, installed light transverse frames, omitted chine bars and eliminated a potentially heavy cabin structure – there was no engine and no freezer. When launched, Jeshan floated to its designed waterline.

Despite the scepticism of bystanders – who predicted rapid rusting of Jeshan ’s thin steel plate – and after more than four decades of active use, the boat remains in excellent condition. The simple and amateur-built sailing boat has performed very well and is still in its original configuration. Jeshan reflects the original thinking of both Julia and John, which enabled its light and unconventional construction on a restricted budget.

Jeshan represents a largely undocumented and short-lived boom in DIY yacht building in Australia. While the amateur builders of the 1970s came from many different walks of life, they typically had little money, no privately owned land, no professional construction experience and no yacht club connections. They often clustered together at under-utilised industrial sites where outdoor working space could be rented at a modest cost. Numerous vessels were started in a burst of enthusiasm, but the path to completion invariably proved longer and more challenging than expected. Nevertheless, over time many amateur-built yachts were completed successfully and went on to cross oceans, anchor in exciting and remote places and realise the dreams of their original builders – as Jeshan did for Julia.

While Jeshan was all steel, the metalwork was in the fittings on Native, a wooden racing dinghy from the International 12 Square Metre class, or ‘heavy-weight’ Sharpie as it was sometimes called locally. It was built in 1946 by its first owner, Bryan Cronin, a patternmaker who decided to make all the fittings himself. According to friends and family, Bryan was given invaluable advice on the fittings from Ron Allatt and Stan Lenepveu –the pair who were later responsible for establishing the worldfamous Australian-based boat-fitting company Ronstan in 1953. The fittings on Native were drilled out to make them lighter, and many resemble Ronstan items that are still being manufactured. More than 70 years later, Native ’s unique homemade fittings remain in place. The only modification is the plywood and fibreglass pivoting centreboard, but this will be replaced with a five-millimetre steel plate centreboard built to original specifications.

Native also achieved unusual fame, appearing in the 1959 feature film On the Beach, starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, which was filmed in and around Melbourne. Native ’s boomerang insignia and its sail number V50 can be clearly seen in the background in one of the scenes.

The Bluebird class was the product of Sydney naval architect Ken Watts. During World War II, Watts considered what sort of simple yacht he could build when the war ended – resulting in the Bluebird. While he never built one himself, Watts created a design for a small yacht that could be amateur-built in plywood, allowing sailors to own a yacht easily and enjoy sailing during economically depressed times.

From 1947 the little chine sloop became one of the most popular ‘build-it-yourself’ types of design ever produced in Australia. Starting as a plywood stock plan design, it evolved with the times, becoming a production fibreglass hull and deck that you could finish off.

Kotare is a fine example of the Bluebird and widely recognised as the last amateur-built plywood version of this popular class. The original owner and builder, Robert Brown, began construction in his Melbourne backyard in the late 1970s and saw it launched in 1982. With its current owner, Kotare now sails with the last remaining active fleet of Bluebirds in Williamstown on Port Phillip, Victoria. Robert Brown kept the plans he bought and used to build the sloop and has kindly passed them to the museum as a valuable example of the DIY era, noting in personal correspondence to Julia Hazel: I always regarded the Bluebird as Australia’s own Folkboat, being as prolific as they were. They are a seaworthy little boat and I did single hand Kotare off shore [ie, sail it solo] to King Island about 10 years ago, but I have heard of others being sailed much longer distances.

The Bluebird class has a proud history of introducing sailing to many who would have been unable to afford a yacht unless they built their own boat – a DIY tradition that lives on in Australian garages and backyards today.

This online, national heritage project, devised and coordinated by the Australian National Maritime Museum in association with Sydney Heritage Fleet, reaches across Australia to collect stories about the nation’s existing historic vessels and their designers and builders. Search the complete Australian Register of Historic Vessels at sea.museum/arhv

Love and sacrifice From Madeira Island to the Snowy Mountains

Seventy years ago this October, work began on Australia’s largest engineering project – the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. Curator Kim Tao shares the story of Portuguese newlyweds José and Maria Coelho, who swapped sunny Madeira Island for the isolation of the Snowy Mountains.

ON 17 OCTOBER 1949, THE FIRST BLAST WAS FIRED in the town of Adaminaby in southern New South Wales, signalling the start of construction on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. This ambitious project was designed to divert water from the Snowy River and some of its tributaries, westward through the Great Dividing Range, to provide irrigation water and generate hydro-electric power. The Snowy scheme employed more than 100,000 people over a 25-year period and is often regarded as the birthplace of multicultural Australia. Two thirds of the workforce were either displaced persons or assisted immigrants from 32 countries, including Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Norway, Yugoslavia and Portugal.

José Cristino Fernandes Coelho (1925–2019) emigrated from the island of Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, known for its mild climate. He was born and raised in a farming family in Lombo das Terças, in the coastal village of Ponta do Sol (meaning ‘Point of the Sun’). As a teenager, José was awarded a scholarship to study Latin, mathematics and religious studies at the Franciscan Mission School Montariol, located in the ancient city of Braga in northern Portugal. This instilled in him a lifelong love of learning and teaching, and he went on to run a small primary school in Ponta do Sol. In August 1956, José married Boaventura-born nurse Maria Amélia Andrade (1932–2015) in Funchal, the capital of Madeira.

Shortly after their August wedding, José embarked for Sydney from the port of Funchal. Maria would follow eight months later, once her husband had established himself. With a suitcase each and hearts filled with hope, the newlyweds endured many hardships in migrating to Australia. José travelled on the

Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes cargo–passenger ship Calédonien, which operated regularly between France and its island outposts in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The vessel sailed via the Panama Canal and made port calls in Fort-deFrance, Pointe-à-Pitre, Papeete, Port Vila and Nouméa. While in Papeete, Tahiti, José was surprised to find a very important passenger on board – French general Charles de Gaulle, leader of the French Resistance during World War II, and later President of the French Republic.

José took several photographs of de Gaulle in Tahiti, including one showing the general in conversation with a Catholic priest, and another one of him delivering a speech. On the back of the latter photograph, an impressed José wrote: ‘de Gaulle giving a speech about freedom without pomp and ceremony and without chairs’. José respected the humble leadership qualities displayed by de Gaulle during the Second World War, particularly as Portugal had suffered harshly under the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar since the 1930s.

For José, migrating to Australia was as much about political freedom as it was about finding the sort of leadership he admired in Charles de Gaulle.

José docked at Sydney’s Woolloomooloo wharf on Calédonien in September 1956, while Maria arrived in Sydney aboard a Qantas flight in May 1957. Twenty-four-year-old Maria, who did not speak any English, had bravely travelled on her own from Portugal. Among her possessions was an unsent postcard of Rome, on which she had written a few lines to her new husband, as well as the word ‘Bangkok’ – likely to have been a refuelling stop for the Qantas VH-EAN aircraft.

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The Snowy scheme employed more than 100,000 people over a 25-year period and is often regarded as the birthplace of multicultural Australia

01 Maria and José Coelho on their wedding day in Funchal, Madeira, 1956. All images reproduced courtesy Rose Hills.

José Coelho is farewelled by his teaching colleagues in Ponta do Sol, Madeira, prior to his departure for Australia, 1956.

José and Maria’s early years in Australia were incredibly challenging. Their first accommodation in Sydney was a small share house in inner-city Darlinghurst, where they had to contend with bedbugs and the loss of their privacy. José found work as a labourer with Utah Construction at St Marys in Sydney’s west, and then as a labourer at the University of Sydney.

In January 1958, José and Maria moved to the town of Cooma, some 100 kilometres south of Canberra. José worked as a labourer on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, based at Island Bend – one of the 16 major dams built for the Snowy scheme, along with seven power stations, 145 kilometres of tunnels and 80 kilometres of aqueducts. The work was physically demanding, dirty and dangerous (121 workers died during the construction between 1949 and 1974), and the climate inhospitable. Living conditions in the temporary camps were primitive. José and Maria had very little money and they could only afford to live in a caravan in Cooma. Maria, who was by then expecting her first child, got a job as a nurse at a small clinic in the town. She was forced to stop working in the later stages of her pregnancy, as she was no longer able to lift her patients.

In the winter of 1958, Maria gave birth to a son, John Cristino, at Cooma Hospital. John was one of more than 500 babies born in Cooma that year – a record number that was attributed to the beginnings of the Snowy scheme. Every morning, Maria would wake to find her newborn son’s nappies frozen on the washing line. She and José had traded the temperate climate of Madeira for the freezing cold of the Snowy, but they were in search of a new life. There was no doubt that these difficulties inspired their dream of having their own home.

Although José was grateful to have secured employment on the Snowy scheme (which by 1959 had reached its peak workforce of 7,300), he found the manual labour to be demoralising. His greatest passion was teaching, fostered during his scholarship with the Franciscan monks in Portugal. After a year in Cooma, José and Maria decided to return to Sydney with baby John. In Sydney, Maria gave birth to a daughter named Rose in 1960, while José found work as a community Portuguese language teacher at St Peter’s Church in the inner-city suburb of Surry Hills.

José and Maria worked hard to put down a deposit on a small terrace house on Phillip Street in Waterloo, then considered a slum suburb bordering working-class Redfern. The area was known for its Indigenous history and this led to a painful encounter with racism and the vestiges of the White Australia policy. While Maria had a fair complexion, José was dark-skinned. One day, after they had moved into their Waterloo terrace, the police knocked on the door and asked Maria, ‘Why are you [a white woman] living with a black man?’ This incident served to further undermine José’s already fragile sense of belonging.

Maria and José had traded the temperate climate of Madeira for the freezing cold of the Snowy, but they were in search of a new life

José and Maria endeavoured to give their two children, John and Rose, a better life. Despite their educated backgrounds in Madeira, they took on various menial jobs in Australia – Maria as a cleaner juggling three shifts per day, and José as a labourer, tram conductor, delivery truck driver and taxi driver. In 1967 they finally earned enough money to buy their beloved house in the Sydney suburb of Rosebery. The family relocated there after the state government instigated its slum clearance scheme in Waterloo in the 1960s, during which historic terrace houses were replaced with new high-rise public housing.

In the 1980s, when Maria was in her 50s, she started running marathons and playing the flute. She enjoyed these hobbies until a chronic lung condition (bronchiectasis related to exposure to tuberculosis) took hold. Maria had contracted the disease while working as a nurse in Funchal. Nevertheless, in her 70s, she acquired a busking permit from Sydney’s Waverley Council and performed at Oxford Street Mall in Bondi Junction. Maria was a strong and compassionate woman, and always appreciated the fact that she could pursue hobbies that might not have been possible had she lived all of her life on Madeira Island. She eagerly embraced the outdoor lifestyle of Australia, while also preserving the best of her own culture – the Portuguese language, Catholic faith and the emphasis on family.

In the 1980s, Maria helped to put José through the University of Sydney. He gained his teaching qualifications and achieved his dream of becoming a primary school teacher. Maria and José also encouraged their two children to obtain tertiary qualifications. Their daughter Rose studied arts and law at the University of New South Wales and became an artist, while their son John graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Technology Sydney and became an electrical engineer. Sadly, John died of leukaemia in 2001, aged 41. Maria Coelho died of bronchiectasis in 2015, aged 83.

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Reflecting on her family’s life in Australia, Rose Hills (née Coelho) says:

I had great parents who suffered many losses, leaving family behind in Madeira and not being able to afford expensive plane fares to return until the mid-1980s. They lost part of their identity and lost their only son. What lives on in me is the love of Portuguese music and language [José started teaching Rose in 2005, when he was diagnosed with sarcoma. He died in May 2019, aged 93]. Most of all they encouraged and supported me to get three university degrees. They were fantastic grandparents to my children, making up for my own lonely childhood when John and I were left home alone before and after school, so that they could work unqualified shift jobs.

Rose registered her parents’ names on the Welcome Wall to acknowledge their love and selfless sacrifice, and to honour their memory for her two sons.

Welcome Wall back in action soon!

Do you already have an inscription on the Wall? Check our website for updates on the new login process and new features.

Do you wish to put an inscription on the Wall? If you have already registered your interest, we will be in touch soon. For more information, go to sea.museum/welcomewall

José and Maria Coelho with their newborn son John in Cooma, New South Wales, 1958.

Maria and José Coelho in Sydney, 1970s.

Colourful diversity

A profile of Sydney Harbour

Only by better understanding Sydney’s marine environment – and how it interacts with the people and processes of this humming economic hub – can we protect and nurture it into the future. Dr Emma Johnston, AO, Foreword UNDERWATER SYDNEY presents a holistic assessment of the underwater world of Sydney Harbour. It encompasses environments, flora and fauna, threats, challenges and accomplishments. This is delivered in an engaging tone that encourages residents and visitors to strap on their own mask and fins and dive right in.

As divers, educators and scientists, the authors of Underwater Sydney draw upon their own extensive experience and a wider community of scientists to explore and illuminate the flora and fauna that reside within Sydney Harbour. Chapters are presented as the six major marine environments: intertidal rocky shores, underwater forests, sponge gardens, beaches and seagrass meadows, mud and mangroves, and ‘novel’ habitats. The final three chapters address ocean travellers and visitors, the future of Sydney Harbour, and underwater photography. The book concludes with a call to arms now common to environmentally focused publications: ‘What can I do?’

Intertidal rocky shores are one of the most accessible environments. Covered and uncovered by the tides, they present an array of molluscs, including chitons, periwinkles, limpets, oysters and winkles. Less visible to the naked eye are the softbodied or nocturnal intertidal animals: sea slugs, sea cucumbers and brittle stars. Rock pools are delicate droplets of coastal biodiversity and home to algae, sea lettuce, anemones, fish, crab, whelk, octopus and sea stars.

Much of Sydney Harbour’s coastline comprises rugged, dramatic cliffs dropping precipitously to the sea. Sprouting along these surfaces are forests of sponges and algae (such as kelp and crayweed) that are home to fishes, lobsters and our colonial namesake, the clever little Port Jackson shark. In the deeper waters of the harbour (60 metres at its deepest point) live the sponges and soft corals normally – and erroneously – associated only with the temperate waters of the northern (and more famous) reefs. Sydney’s deepwater reefs are as vibrant and complexly connected as their more temperate cousins.

Along our beaches are washed-up seaweeds, grasses and other refugees from the underwater forests and sponge gardens below the surface. These layered aquatica create homes for burrowing molluscs. Just offshore, eelgrasses, strapweed and paddle grasses sway gently in the coastal currents and shelter crustaceans and fishes, while also serving as one of the few high-capacity natural environments for taking up and storing carbon dioxide.

A school of old wives (Enoplosus armatus), Clovelly. Image John Turnbull

The future of Sydney Harbour is linked to the future of our oceans

Underwater Sydney

By Inke Falkner and John Turnbull, published by CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2019. Paperback, 158 pages, photographs, references, index. ISBN 9781486311187.

RRP $40 / Members $36

Along the many bays, ancient mangrove forests spiderweb their root networks throughout the sediment to stabilise shorelines and counteract coastal erosion. Fish lay their eggs within the watery shadows while birds, snakes, snails and crabs flit between. Sadly, mangroves and their adjacent saltmarshes are easy prey to coastal development.

Novel habitats are artificial, purposely built or serendipitously utilised by a variety of resident or invasive species. On the negative side, artificial structures can either inhibit or replace natural environments. On the plus side, eco-engineering of 3D-printed seeding structures, such as seawall tiles developed by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS), operate as sympathetic safe houses for baby oysters, increasing their chances of regenerating historic oyster beds.

The future of Sydney Harbour is linked to the future of our oceans. If we overfish stocks, ignore rising sea levels and coastal erosion, and choose not to limit run-off or waterborne pollution, then we have to accept the significant environmental transformation of the harbour. The strengthening East Ocean Current now pushes greater volumes of warm water further south and temperate species are along for the ride. Incursion of new species to our harbour will create its own local opportunities and challenges. This book notes the positive steps taken by various government, academic and community leaders working to combat or adapt to these changes.

Background

At the end of the last glacial maximum (10,000 BP), Sydney Harbour was a very different place. Shorelines were about 30 kilometres further offshore until rising temperatures and thawing sea ice slowly raised the water level to something approximating current levels. The East Australian Current (EAC) flows in a southerly direction past our coast, bringing warm water into the harbour and mixing with offshore winds to push cold, and more nutrient-rich, waters up and out to sea. The constant cyclical action of water regeneration fosters a surprising array of resilient species. Those of us who are lucky enough to live here often take for granted the diversity of marine lifeforms in our harbour. We know the water is relatively clear and blue, see it every day on our ferry trips to work and our walks across the bridges and along the waterfront. We recognise that it is now generally healthy and teeming with life, but rarely question how that came to be.

In the mid-20th century, Sydney Harbour was a cesspool. Before the Clean Waters Act 1970, polluting industries and sewage discharge dumped toxic wastes directly into the water. Significant remediation has lessened the impact, but the legacy remains: sub-surface sediments still contain traces of heavy metals, chemicals and nutrients, and fishers stay on the lookout for temporary and localised bans on recreational fishing due to elevated dioxin levels in fish. There is also a new threat: plastics.

Underwater Sydney is a coffee table book in the best sense – written for a lay audience, but not lacking in scientific rigour. It would be equally at home on display or in the side pocket of your ute as a pre-snorkel reference guide. The layout is excellent and easy to follow, and of particular note is the separation of chapters by unique harbour environments and their inhabitants, with a natural flow to ‘big picture’ issues in later chapters.

The only quibble is that the underwater photography section feels like an afterthought. Nonetheless, it provides clear –if brief – pointers for taking underwater photographs on your own. Enthusiasts are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that they visit a healthy spot for photography. Otherwise, they may be disappointed!

Turnbull and Falkner are both Sydney-based marine scientists; Turnbull is a marine ecologist and Falkner worked for SIMS and is experienced in science communication. They know their stuff, and back up their arguments with gorgeous images of nudibranchs, cuttlefish and our own weedy sea dragons. It is a bonus that these photographs are mostly courtesy of scientists currently conducting research within the harbour, giving credible weight to the species identifications, and reassurance that conservation science investigations continue.

Underwater Sydney is in good hands.

Reviewer Emily Jateff is the museum’s Curator of Ocean Science and Technology.

Hastrich’s strength is an extraordinary command of the English language, which she uses to turn ostensibly ordinary life experiences into rich and emotive reading

What lies beneath

Life, art and fish

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE A BOOK TO READ? Are you first drawn to the cover image and the blurb, checking to see if the content might interest you, or if you think you’ll relate to the book so that by the end of it you feel a part of the story?

Night Fishing – stingrays, Goya and the singular life is such a book. The cover draws you in, but it’s a memoir unlike any I’ve read. In this series of 13 essays – one of which gave birth to the book’s title – author Vicki Hastrich challenges her readers to keep up with her as she jumps from place to place, mixing stories of her past and present with personal reflections and, in one essay, a dream. It can be confusing at first, until you fall into the flow of the style.

While each essay stands easily on its own, there is also a thread weaving throughout the collection – that of Hastrich’s modest family holiday house on the New South Wales central coast and its importance to her life and relationships. The house is the mainstay – and is just as much a character in the book as the author herself. A fishing expedition often heralds one of Hastrich’s mental meanderings, from going out in the family dinghy as a child, through to snippets of her present life. Some of the essays include brief historical accounts of subjects as diverse as the visual arts and the naming of a type of stingray. You may not be able to tell a Picasso from a Pissarro, but you will come away from reading Night Fishing with a better understanding of the art that inspires the author, and how to land that big fish (or not, as happened when one escaped her hook). Anyone who has walked a dinghy out through the shallows to launch it will feel the seaweed and the mud. Hastrich’s strength is an extraordinary command of the English language, which she uses to turn ostensibly ordinary life experiences into rich and emotive reading.

Night Fishing: stingrays, Goya and the singular life

By Vicki Hastrich, published by Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2019. Hardcover, 264 pages, ISBN 9781760875503.

RRP $30.00

Take, for example, her description of a day’s fishing:

It’s not strictly pretty out here today: the water’s browny grey and, in the last of the light, rain-bearing clouds gather. I should go soon, but I’m still pulling in snapper … In the submerged terrain of down there are myriad pink flashes. The current, like a square-dance caller, sends them one way without warning, then spins them to scatter, before summoning a swift regroup.

In Night Fishing , Vicki Hastrich has exposed her own personal fears and perceived frailties without any sign of ego, giving her readers an endearing warts-and-all account of her life.

As a writer who has a vivid imagination and is a brilliant wordsmith, Hastrich no doubt also delivers in the fiction that she’s published already and which – by her own admission –she is keen to re-visit.

Reviewer Randi Svensen is a maritime writer and author of Wooden Boats, Iron Men: the Halvorsen story and Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage

Elysium Arctic

Focus on ocean conservation

We welcome Dr Sylvia Earle

The museum was delighted to welcome legendary oceanographer Dr Sylvia Earle in August as part of the museum’s Science Week and Sydney Science Festival program.

Dr Earle, marine scientist Professor Emma Johnston AO and multi-award-winning international nature photographer Michael Aw presented a talk titled State of our Oceans. They offered an insight into current scientific research and observations on what is actually happening in the big blue, what we can expect for the future, and what each of us can do about it.

The economic and social survival of the world is inexplicably linked to the health of the seas that surround us. From rubbish to run-off, human impact is having an effect on the long-term protection and management of these irreplaceable environments and the resources they provide. Dr Earle notes:

The most important thing for people to know about the governance of the Arctic is that we have a chance now to act to maintain the integrity of the system or to lose it. To lose it means that we will dismember the vital systems that make the Arctic work. It’s not just a cost to the people who live there. It’s a cost to all people everywhere. It is the worst of times, but it is the best of times because we still have a chance. Our past, our present, and whatever remains of our future, absolutely depend on what we do now. The talk was made possible thanks to the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

Elysium Arctic on show

A stunning new open-air exhibition coordinated by Michael Aw is now on display on the museum’s foreshore. Elysium Arctic is a series of photographic artworks by international nature photographers that documents the polar north, depicting majestic icebergs and glaciers, playful wildlife and stunning views of land and sea. Mr Aw observes: Human impact on the ocean is increasing every year. Global climate change and acidification reduce ocean productivity, overdevelopment and pollution contaminate the sea, and an increasing demand for food causes over-harvesting of the world’s fisheries. Addressing these issues requires a combination of exploration and quantitative analysis to understand the underlying processes controlling diversity and productivity of ocean life.

Elysium Arctic also records the devastating impact of climate change in the earth’s northernmost regions. Michael Aw believes that art can inspire people to take action against climate change and save some of the most vulnerable places on earth.

The exhibition is free to view in the forecourt of the museum’s Wharf 7 building. In accord with its sustainable ethos, the fully recyclable forest-like pillars that display the images will be re-used for future free outdoor exhibitions and are powered by solar lighting for evening viewing.

The exhibition is proudly sponsored by Aurora Expeditions.

Stories Stefania Kubowicz

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ANMM

From left: museum Director and CEO Kevin Sumption PSM , Dr Sylvia Earle and Michael Aw, with Mr Aw’s portrait of Dr Earle, taken at Svalbard in 2015. Image Kate Pentecost/ANMM

Elysium Arctic is a free outdoor exhibition located on the museum’s waterfront. Image Andrew Frolows/

Acknowledgments

The Australian National Maritime Museum acknowledges the support provided to the museum by all our volunteers, members, sponsors, donors and friends.

The museum particularly acknowledges the following people who have made a significant contribution to the museum in an enduring way or who have made or facilitated significant benefaction to it.

Honorary Fellows

RADM Andrew Robertson

AO DSC RAN (Rtd)

John Mullen

Peter Dexter AM

Ambassador Christine Sadler

Major Donors – SY Ena Conservation Fund

David and Jennie Sutherland Foundation

Honorary Life Members

Dr Kathy Abbass

Robert Albert AO RFD RD

Bob Allan

Vivian Balmer

Vice Admiral Tim Barrett AO CSC

Maria Bentley

Mark Bethwaite AM

Paul Binsted

Marcus Blackmore AM

John Blanchfield

Alex Books

Ian Bowie

Ron Brown OAM

Paul Bruce

Anthony Buckley

Richard Bunting

Capt Richard Burgess AM

Kevin Byrne

Cecilia Caffrey

Sue Calwell

RADM David Campbell AM

Marion Carter

Victor Chiang

Robert Clifford AO

Helen Clift

Hon Peter Collins AM QC

John Coombs

Kay Cottee AO

Helen Coulson OAM

Vice Admiral Russell Crane AO CSM

John Cunneen

Laurie Dilks

Anthony Duignan

Leonard Ely

Dr Nigel Erskine

Dr Kevin Fewster AM

Bernard Flack

Daina Fletcher

Sally Fletcher

CDR Geoff Geraghty AM

Tony Gibbs

RADM Stephen Gilmore

AM CSC RAN

Paul Gorrick

Lee Graham

Macklan Gridley

Sir James Hardy KBE OBE

RADM Simon Harrington AM

Gaye Hart AM

Peter Harvie

Janita Hercus

Robyn Holt

William Hopkins

Julia Horne

RADM Tony Hunt AO

Marilyn Jenner

John Jeremy AM

Vice Admiral Peter Jones AO DSC

Hon Dr Tricia Kavanagh

John Keelty

Kris Klugman OAM

Jean Lane

Judy Lee

Keith Leleu OAM

Andrew Lishmund

James Litten

Tim Lloyd

Ian Mackinder

Casimiro Mattea

Jack McBurney

Bruce McDonald AM

Lyn McHale

Arthur Moss

Patrick Moss

Rob Mundle OAM

Alwyn Murray

Martin Nakata

David O’Connor

Gary Paquet

Prof John Penrose AM

Neville Perry

Hon Justice Anthe

Philippides

Peter Pigott AM

Len Price

RADM Neil Ralph AO DSC

Eda Ritchie AM

RADM Andrew Robertson

AO DSC RAN (Ret)

John Rothwell AO

Kay Saunders AM

Kevin Scarce AC CSC RAN

David Scott-Smith

Sergio Sergi

Mervyn Sheehan

Ann Sherry AO

John Simpson

Shane Simpson AM

Peter R Sinclair AC KStJ (RADM)

Peter John Sinclair AM CSC

John Singleton AM

Brian Skingsley

Eva Skira

Bruce Stannard AM

J J Stephens OAM

Michael Stevens

Neville Stevens AO

Dr Andrew Sutherland AM

Hiroshi Tachibana

Frank Talbot AM

Mitchell Turner

Adam Watson

Jeanette Wheildon

Mary-Louise Williams AM

Nerolie Withnall

Captain’s Circle Members

Dan Janes

Jonathon Casson

Mark Bethwaite AM

John Jeremy AM

Dawn Bradner

William Hopkins OAM JP

Louise Taggart

David Mathlin

Hon Margaret White

Arlene Tansey

Jeff Hughes

Judy Lee

Jaz Stephens OAM

David N Blackley

Peter Poland

Campbell Edmondson

Nick Yates

Martin Rathbone

Peter Dexter

Doyle Cook – Port Kembla

Gateway

Honorary Research

Associates

Lindsey Shaw

Jeffrey Mellefont

Paul Hundley

Rear Admiral Peter Briggs

Ian MacLeod

Spring in Store

Bligh: Hero or Villain?

Catalogue of the museum’s exhibition Bligh: Hero or Villain?, examining Bligh’s tempestuous and controversial life through objects and artworks.

$20.00 / Members $18.00

HMAS Bounty ship in a bottle

Miniature handmade replica of the ill-fated Bounty, built in the traditional manner. Wooden hull with cloth sails and extensive rigging. Length 16 cm.

$39.95 / Members $35.95

Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

Modern classic novel that reprises the eventful and tragic voyage of HMS Bounty in 1788–89, which culminated in a mutiny against Captain William Bligh.

$35.00 / Members $31.50

Dinosaurs of the Deep

The Western Interior Seaway, which once bisected North America, teemed with predatory creatures. This book brings its ancient marine animals to life. $39.95 / Members $35.95

Geoworld Sea Monsters Excavation Kit – Mosasaurus skeleton

Contains gypsum brick from which to extract scientifically accurate replica fossil remains, plus tools and instructions. Model length 36 cm. Ages 4+.

$20.00 / Members $18.00

Wild Age – Sea Monsters

Contains statistics of every known prehistoric creature that roamed our seas before and during the age of dinosaurs, plus little-known facts. $30.00 / Members $27.00

Oasis insulated bottle

Or shop online at store.anmm.gov.au

Double-wall insulated stainless steel, 500 ml capacity. Tight-fitting twist cap with silicone seal. Stays cold for up to 24 hours and hot for up to 12 hours. $29.95 / Members $26.95

The Florilegium

This beautifully produced book celebrates 200 years of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, showcasing their richness through the eyes of 64 exceptional botanical artists. $49.95 / Members $44.95

Signals

ISSN 1033-4688

Editor Janine Flew

Assistant editor Laura Signorelli

Staff photographer Andrew Frolows

Design & production Austen Kaupe

Printed in Australia by Pegasus Print Group

Material from Signals may be reproduced, but only with the editor’s permission.

Editorial and advertising enquiries

signals@sea.museum – deadline midJanuary, April, July, October for issues March, June, September, December

Signals is online

Search all issues at sea.museum/signals

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Back issues $4 each or 10 for $30

Extra copies of current issue $4.95

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2 Murray Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia. Phone 02 9298 3777

The Australian National Maritime Museum is a statutory authority of the Australian Government

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Benefits include four issues of Signals per year; free museum entry; discounts on events and purchases; and more. Visit sea.museum or phone 02 9298 3646. Corporate memberships are also available.

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ANMM Council

Chairman Mr John Mullen

Director and CEO Mr Kevin Sumption PSM

Councillors

Mr David Blackley

The Hon Ian Campbell

Hon Justice S C Derrington

Mr John Longley AM

Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead AM RAN

Ms Alison Page

Ms Arlene Tansey

Dr Ian Watt AC

The Hon Margaret White AO

Australian National Maritime Foundation Board

Chairman Mr Daniel Janes

Director Mr Peter Dexter AM

Director Mr Rob Mundle OAM

Director Ms Arlene Tansey

Ex officio Chair Mr John Mullen

Ex officio Director Mr Kevin Sumption PSM

American Friends of the

Australian National Maritime Museum

Chair Peter Collins AM QC

Director Robert Moore

Foundation partner ANZ

Major partners

Nine Entertainment

NSW Ports

Partners

ACFS Port Logistics

AMSA

Aurora Expeditions

Colin Biggers & Paisley

Commonwealth Superannuation

Corporation

Destination NSW

Douglas Fabian Productions

DP World

Laissez-Faire Catering

Lockheed Martin

Maritime Container Services

National Geographic/Fox

Nova Systems

Ovolo

Royal Wolf Holdings Ltd

Shipping Australia Limited

Smit Lamnalco

Sydney by Sail Pty Ltd

Sydney Morning Herald

Transport for NSW

White Umbrella

Signals is printed in Australia on Hannoart Plus Silk 250 gsm (cover) and Hannoart Plus Silk 115gsm (text) using vegetable-based inks.

Congratulations to Michael O’Leary, who won the Signals 127 caption competition with this entry: ‘My faith is strong, but the lifeboat is always nearby.’

TruSTed parTNer iN The deLivery oF MariTiMe CapabiLiTy

Nova Systems has a proud track record of supporting the largest Maritime acquisition programs. This has involved providing Systems engineering, Logistics, System Safety, Test and evaluation and project Management to programs such as Sea1000 Future Submarine, Sea4000 air Warfare destroyer, and the rNZN protector remediation and aNZaC platform Systems upgrade.

Nova Systems is a proud sponsor of the newly installed Seahawk aircraft at the australian National Maritime Museum.

Nova contact: General ManagerMaritime & Future Systems - Lee Kormany

Telephone: +61 8 8252 7100

Nova Syst ems