Signals, Issue 95 by Australian National Maritime Museum

Signals

June July August 2011 Number 95

Sail with us as HMB Endeavour makes its first-ever circumnavigation of Australia. Thursday Island Darwin Cairns Townsville

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From April 2011 to May 2012 the magnificent replica of James Cook’s HM Bark Endeavour is visiting major and regional ports around Australia. Experience the life lived by Australia’s early European explorers. Limited voyage crew and supernumerary berths are still available on some legs – numbers are strictly limited – book your place now! Bookings & information Telephone 02 9298 3859 Freecall 1800 720 577 www.endeavourvoyages.com.au

June to August 2011 Number 95

Contents

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Scott’s last Antarctic expedition Courage, tragedy and an incredible program of scientific research – Robert Falcon Scott’s last expedition is an epic tale, told anew in our next major exhibition

12 Prestige, passion and the great game The intriguing story of the published account of Baudin’s 1800–1804 expedition to Australia

21 Haughton Forrest – Maritime artist Tasmania’s maritime artist of the late 19th century

27 What’s on for Members and Visitors The winter calendar of tours, talks, seminars, activities afloat, exhibitions, school-term and holiday programs

37 HMB Endeavour – And the ship sails on Endeavour’s circumnavigation of Australia has begun!

40 Sewing a ship for Sinbad Building a replica of an ancient Arabian ship

46 Australian Register of Historic Vessels New additions to this important maritime database

cover: Robert Falcon Scott in Antarctic clothing. Licensed with permission of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. The major new exhibition, Scott's last expedition, opens at the Australian National Maritime Museum on 17 June, 2011. It is a collaboration between the ANMM, the Natural History Museum (London), Canterbury Museum, Christchurch (NZ) and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust.

Signals magazine is printed in Australia on Impress Satin 250 gsm (Cover) and 128 gsm (Text) using vegetable-based inks on paper produced from environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable forestry sources.

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48 Tales from the Welcome Wall The flight of a Jewish family from Egypt following the 1952 revolution

50 Collections – Beatrice Kerr The archive of a young Australian aquatic star of the Edwardian era

54 Readings Sydney Harbour reimagined Mr Bligh’s bad grammar

56 Currents

Indigenous Watercraft Conference in 2012 Australian Maritime Museums Conference Navy Family and Community Day Tayenebe Mother’s Day competition winner Lecturing on the Queen Mary 2

60 Bearings From the director Cert no. SGS-COC-006189

Scottâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last Antarctic expedition A tale of science and human endeavour

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Robert Falcon Scott’s last expedition to Antarctica is a compelling tale of courage, endurance and tragedy in the most extreme conditions. But, as Elin Simonsson of London’s Natural History Museum writes, the race to the South Pole is only one part of a bigger story.

In 1912, Robert Falcon Scott and his four companions – Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans, Lawrence Oates and Edward Wilson – died on their long, arduous return journey from the South Pole. Scott’s last diary, later found beside his frozen body, revealed their horrendous last weeks. Since then, perceptions of Scott as a person have varied greatly, from celebrated national hero to flawed leader. At the same time, the British Antarctic Expedition 1910, also known as the Terra Nova expedition after the ship that carried them to Antarctica, has become synonymous with the Pole journey and the tragedy that followed. But there was much more to Scott’s last expedition than the quest to reach the South Pole first. It had a full scientific program and more than 80 people involved in different stages of the expedition. Now, nearly 100 years on, Scott’s last expedition deserves to be looked at from new angles.

Exploring the last frontier When Terra Nova left Britain in June 1910, Antarctic exploration was by no means a new phenomenon. James Cook had first sailed across the Antarctic Circle in 1773 and, although he condemned the frozen world he found as fruitless to explore further, it was the beginning of Antarctic exploration. When British, French and American expeditions investigated the vast continent in the mid-19th century, they surveyed the coastline and Antarctica’s contours started to take shape on maps. While geographical exploration was the main focus of many of these earlier expeditions, many also conducted significant scientific investigations – they made observations in meteorology and magnetism, while naturalists studied the wildlife they encountered. Although knowledge about Antarctica was steadily increasing, at the end of the 19th century this vast continent was still largely a mystery, and was therefore declared a key area for discovery and scientific research. The Royal Geographical Society joined with the Royal Society to organise a British Antarctic expedition. Sir Clements Markham, president of the Royal Geographical Society at the time, personally selected as leader a promising young naval officer – Robert Falcon Scott – whom he felt had the desired qualities to command this British venture. Scott’s path as an Antarctic explorer was set. The British National Antarctic Expedition, sometimes referred to as the Discovery expedition after its ship, sailed south in August 1901. During their time in Antarctica, Scott and two companions

left: The Polar Party at the South Pole – (standing, from left) Lawrence Oates, Robert Falcon Scott, Edgar Evans; (seated) Henry Bowers (left) and Edward Wilson. Photograph licensed with permission of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge

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made an attempt to reach the South Pole and, although they did not make it, they managed to reach further south than anyone had before. After three years away, Discovery returned to Britain and the expedition was celebrated as a success.

Scott’s return to the south Scott never explicitly stated a motive for returning to Antarctica, but different reasons drove his ambition to go back, from a desire to build on the scientific work carried out by the Discovery expedition, to his aspiration of completing the journey to the South Pole. Three years after Discovery’s return, Scott wrote to the Royal Geographical Society announcing his plans for a second Antarctic expedition. Not long afterwards, Scott learnt that Ernest Shackleton, a member of his first expedition, was planning a similar venture and Scott’s Antarctic plans were suddenly threatened. Shackleton headed south in 1907, and during his time in Antarctica nearly made it to the South Pole, but made the decision to return before achieving his goal as he feared for his team’s safety. With the Pole still to be conquered, Scott began preparing for his expedition in detail. He stated reaching the South Pole as one of the main aims of the expedition, but Scott also had a real interest in science. It was important to him that the expedition carried out useful scientific work and so, alongside the goal to reach the Pole, he planned an ambitious program of scientific investigation and geographical exploration. It was an enormous operation and required detailed preparations, from planning the scientific work to acquiring all the provisions needed for the years in Antarctica. In 1909, Scott started looking for suitable team members to join him. He appointed his trusted friend from his first expedition, Edward Wilson, as the chief of scientific staff and Edward Evans, also with Antarctic experience, became Scott’s second-in-command. They had no problem finding keen applicants tempted by the prospect of an Antarctic adventure, and thousands of men applied to join them. Among those selected were several who had already been to Antarctica with Scott. An expedition such as this was also a great opportunity to carry out groundbreaking scientific research in an extremely remote location and, following Scott’s announcement that he would be returning south, several scientists expressed an interest in taking 4

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part. Scott was seeking a strong team to carry out the scientific program, and he selected participants on recommendations of scientific merit, personality and the ability to cope under extreme expedition conditions. Antarctica is one of the most hostile environments on Earth, and offers very little support to anyone who travels there. Although Scott and his team would be able to use some locally available foods – mainly penguin and seal meat – they would have to bring everything else with them. The survival foods associated with Polar expeditions of this time – high in fat and protein – were generally only eaten on sledging journeys. When Scott and the rest of his team were at base camp on mainland Antarctica, their diet would have been much more varied. The food supplies listed by the expedition storekeeper, Henry Bowers, give an interesting insight into the range of food items they brought with them: salt, sugar, different types of dried fruits, tinned meat and fish, large amounts of powdered cocoa, spices and herbs, tea and coffee, large quantities of flour and many different varieties of canned soup. They also took a lot of tinned vegetables, including beetroot, peas, asparagus and spinach; and for those special occasions, there was wine, champagne and brandy. They had to bring everything else they needed: a wooden hut for safe living quarters in the winter, skis, sledges, 19 ponies and 33 dogs for travelling across vast frozen landscapes, special polar clothing, tents and sleeping bags suitable for the freezing Antarctic conditions, and numerous instruments for navigation, surveying and meteorological observations. On 15 June 1910, Terra Nova was given an enthusiastic send-off as she left Britain. The ship was crammed full of supplies, and those on board had a long journey ahead. In October that year, Terra Nova arrived in Melbourne, where the expedition received generous funding from the Australian Government and recruited its second geologist, a young Australian named Frank Debenham. It was also here that Scott received the unexpected news that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, thought to be on his way to the North Pole, was in fact also heading for Antarctica and, ultimately, the South Pole. Despite this unwelcome news, preparations carried on as planned and Terra Nova finally headed towards Antarctica in November 1910, after a stop to take on final supplies in New Zealand.

With the Pole still to be conquered, Scott began preparing for his expedition in detail

In Antarctica On 9 December 1910, Scott wrote in his diary: ‘at six this morning bergs and packs were reported ahead’. Terra Nova had entered the pack ice surrounding Antarctica and, for many of the men on board, this was the first time they had seen these majestic ice-forms. It took nearly a month to get through the pack – longer than Scott had hoped – but on 4 January 1911 they finally arrived at what was to become the main base-camp for those who would stay on mainland Antarctica (the ‘Shore Party’). Scott named this area of Ross Island ‘Cape Evans’ after his second-incommand, Edward Evans, and this is where they set up the wooden hut that was to be their main living quarters during the dark, cold winter. Once the Shore Party and their supplies had been offloaded, Terra Nova returned to New Zealand for the winter. The ship would not come back for many months. Today, the Terra Nova expedition is primarily remembered for Scott and his famous journey to the South Pole, but the expedition achieved so much more. During their time in Antarctica, a large team of scientists succeeded in discovering new knowledge about the continent. Although not the first

left: Brittle star specimen collected by the expedition. The brittle star, Astrotoma agassizii, uses its long flexible arms to capture prey. It occurs throughout Antarctica and the Antarctic peninsula. The Natural History Museum, London 2011 right: Adélie penguin specimen collected by the expedition. Scott’s expedition collected thousands of marine and terrestrial zoological specimens, including this Adélie penguin, Pygoscelis adeliae, collected from Cape Adare by expedition member Murray Levick in 1911. The Adélie penguin is one of four penguin species that breed on the Antarctic continent. (Note: one specimen shown here, from three different angles). The Natural History Museum, London 2011 below: Terra Nova. H Ponting photograph, Canterbury Museum NZ, 19XX.2.432 overleaf: Scott writing in his area of the expedition hut, Scott’s cubicle. H Ponting photograph, Pennell collection, Canterbury Museum NZ, 1975.289.35

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Antarctic expedition to conduct scientific investigation, this was broader and more wide-ranging than any that had gone before, and both the Shore Party and the ship’s crew were involved. They studied Antarctic wildlife on land and in the sea, and collected thousands of zoological specimens. They surveyed new terrain, examined the geology and studied the formation of glaciers and land surfaces. They made observations of magnetism and atmospheric electricity, and recorded meteorological data in numerous locations. The scientists had to endure harsh Antarctic conditions to carry out their work – it was cold, windy and completely dark in winter – and this presented them with many challenges. Nothing illustrates this better than the ‘Winter Journey’: three men’s quest to collect Emperor penguin eggs in mid-winter led by the chief of scientific staff, Edward Wilson. A theory at the time proposed that by studying the embryo of an organism, it was possible to learn about the evolutionary history of that species. Since Emperor penguins were thought to be more primitive than other birds, Wilson believed that an evolutionary link between birds and reptiles could be established by studying the embryos of these penguins. But to retrieve the eggs, he would need to travel to the colony in the depths of the Antarctic winter. Wilson set off with two companions, and the five weeks that followed were horrendous. After enduring unimaginably low temperatures, blizzards and complete darkness to collect the eggs, they finally returned with just three specimens. Many years later, when the embryos were studied, the theory that had driven the quest to collect the eggs had been rejected. Today, the eggs and embryos are part of the Natural History Museum’s scientific collection and, as some of the earlier examples of Emperor penguin embryos collected, they have important potential for future scientific research. The Terra Nova expedition’s first year in Antarctica was busy. Not only was the full scientific program underway, but preparations for the long journey to the South Pole had also begun. Scott predicted that it would take almost five months to get to the Pole and back, and the journey required detailed planning. Food rations were tested, sledging equipment perfected, clothing altered and, in early 1911, a number of expedition members went on a preliminary trek to place stores along parts of the route. 8

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Their clothes were typical of those used by Antarctic explorers at the time and were designed to protect against cold and wind: layers of woollen and cotton clothing, with windproof jackets and trousers on top. They wore a variety of mittens, often in many layers to give extra warmth, and woollen and windproof balaclavas. Wired hoods and goggles protected faces from frostbite and snow blindness. It may seem surprising that the men on the Terra Nova expedition did not wear fur, but it was an impractical material for anything other than footwear and mittens. Hauling heavy sledges was hard physical work and fur would simply overheat the men. During the winter of 1911, 25 men stayed at the base-camp hut at Cape Evans where they shared one space that protected them against the extreme cold, darkness and wind outside. The hut was relatively comfortable and had everything they needed: laboratories, kitchen, a darkroom for the photographer, tables for eating and working, and bunks for sleeping. Apsley Cherry-Garrard later wrote in his book, The Worst Journey in the World: Whatever the conditions of darkness, cold and wind might be outside, there was comfort and warmth and good cheer within. Scott set off towards the South Pole on 1 November 1911, and his southern effort initially included 16 men transporting supplies, with two driving the dog teams, a team of 10 travelling with the horses, and four with the motor sledges. As they progressed, men gradually turned back, leaving just one smaller party of five (Scott, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans, Lawrence Oates and Edward Wilson) to complete the last stretch hauling their own sledges. Scott’s group arrived at the Pole on 17 January 1912, with the terrible realisation that the Norwegian team led by Amundsen had beaten them. After their incredible effort and endurance in the most extreme conditions, they were not the first humans at the Pole, and now they faced the long and exhausting return to base-camp. Scott wrote in his diary, ‘Now for the run home and a desperate struggle’. As they travelled north, they were slowed by unexpected cold, blizzards and sand-like ice that made hauling the sledges even more gruelling. Forced to reduce their daily rations, they began to starve. Exhausted and suffering from frostbite, they knew they might not

Food to nourish the expeditioners The meals at the base-camp hut were varied and even tasty. Food was an important and enjoyable part of the day, often fondly recounted by the men in their diaries. Breakfast would include porridge, bread and sometimes fried seal liver, followed by bread, cheese, jam and occasionally tinned meat for lunch. In the evening, three-course dinners were common and often included soup followed by fresh seal or penguin meat, then pudding, occasionally washed down with a glass of port. The expedition’s cook, Thomas Clissold, needed to be inventive with the ingredients, and fresh seal was served in many guises: seal soup, seal liver curry and seal steak and kidney pie.

By contrast, the food on the sledging journeys was perhaps less appealing and consisted of a high-energy diet of pemmican – a survival food made from large quantities of fat, powdered meat and sometimes dried fruit – biscuits, sugar and butter, with hot tea or cocoa to drink. Pemmican made up an important part of the sledging diet and the Terra Nova expedition had brought 1,600 kilograms of it to the Antarctic. On the journey to the Pole it would also be supplemented by fresh meat, as the ponies used for transporting some of the sledges would gradually be killed and eaten. Fresh food was thought important for avoiding the dreaded scurvy and the pony meat was an important addition to the daily sledging meals.

above: Scott’s birthday dinner, 6 June 1911. H Ponting photograph, Canterbury Museum NZ, 19XX.2.5073 left: Rowntree’s cocoa. Hot cocoa was a staple drink in the hut as well as on the arduous sledging journeys. Canterbury Museum NZ

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top: Scott’s hut at Cape Evans today, with Mount Erebus in the background. Photograph © New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust

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above: Inside Scott’s hut at Cape Evans today. Photograph © New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust. One hundred years on, the hut built by Scott and his team still stands. Since 1911 it has survived many Antarctic winters and endured countless blizzards that have scoured its outer wooden walls. Today, it is cared for on behalf of the international community by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust.

opposite: Scott’s Antarctic medal. This was the first Polar Medal ever issued, awarded to Scott for his leadership of the Discovery expedition, 1901–1904. The second bar was awarded to Scott after his death, for the Terra Nova expedition service in the polar regions. Canterbury Museum NZ

One hundred years on, the wooden expedition hut still stands at Cape Evans make it. Evans died one month after reaching the Pole, and four weeks later Oates walked into a blizzard, never to return. The three remaining men – Scott, Wilson and Bowers – carried on, but unusually cold temperatures slowed them even further, and violent blizzards finally trapped them in their tent. They were running out of food and fuel just 20 kilometres from a major supply depot, but they never made it. Aware of their fate, they wrote heartbreaking and powerful goodbyes to parents, wives and friends. Scott kept writing his diary until the very end. In one of his last entries, he wrote: Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. Back at the Cape Evans hut, the men were anxiously waiting for the Polar Party to return. They were expected in March 1912, but as time passed the men at base-camp had to face the terrible realisation that their companions might have died. The Australian geologist Frank Debenham wrote in his diary: It seems useless to hope any longer but whilst I cannot give up yet, we must face the fact that we have lost five of our strongest men. Life carried on despite their worst fears: more scientific work and another Antarctic winter at the Cape Evans hut. When light and warmer temperatures finally returned, a search party set off on 19 October 1912 to look for Scott and his men. On 12 November, they spotted a tent in the distance. Inside, they found the bodies of Robert Falcon Scott, Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers, frozen in their sleeping bags. Alongside them were their letters and diaries that told the story of what had happened. Edgar Evans and Lawrence Oates were never found, their bodies forever lost in the vast Antarctic wilderness. Terra Nova left Antarctica for the last time in January 1913, bearing the tragic news that Scott and his four companions had perished. And this is the point where the story of the Terra Nova expedition often ends when retold today. But, in

reality, it was far from over. With large quantities of scientific information and thousands of specimens to be examined and analysed, there was much more to be done.

A long-lasting legacy Scott’s last expedition left a rich legacy that continues to inspire and inform today. The expedition photographer, Herbert Ponting, skilfully captured every aspect of their time in Antarctica: men at work, life at the hut, the beautiful Antarctic landscape and some of the earliest Antarctic wildlife photography. It is thanks to him that we have such a rich visual record of the expedition, and many of his photographs have now become iconic images of the expedition. The scientific work carried out on Scott’s last expedition made an important contribution to ever-growing knowledge of Antarctica. When Terra Nova returned from Antarctica, she carried hundreds of crates, jars and bottles containing thousands of zoological specimens. The specialists who later studied them discovered hundreds of previously unknown species. Other fields presented important discoveries, too. The studies of glaciers helped to advance knowledge about how they form, move and shape the landscape. And when the results from geological investigations were combined with newly-mapped land features and surveyed land, it allowed for a more detailed picture of the Ross Sea region – the area where the expedition was based – to emerge. In total, the scientific results from the expedition were published in 80 individual reports produced by 59 different specialists, covering zoology, geology, botany, meteorology, magnetism, glaciology and physiography. The zoological and geological specimens are now part of the Natural History Museum’s and the Canterbury Museum’s scientific collections and are available to scientists for research, today and in the future. As for Scott, he lives on through his remarkable diaries. He was a skilled writer who vividly described daily life in the Antarctic, but also produced gripping tales of human endeavour, and his words will continue to inspire those who read them. One hundred years on, the wooden expedition hut still stands at Cape Evans, now cared for by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, with large quantities of provisions and equipment left behind by the Terra Nova expedition still inside. It is an astonishing testament to Robert Falcon Scott and his last expedition. 

Scott’s last expedition opens at the Australian National Maritime Museum on 17 June, 2011. The exhibition is a partnership between the Natural History Museum, London, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust. The book, Scott's last expedition, published by the Natural History Museum, London, will be on sale at the ANMM Store ($25/Members $22.50).

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Prestige, passion and the great game Stories behind the printed word

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The fascinating story behind the published account of Nicolas Baudin’s 19th-century expedition to Australia is told here by Dr Nigel Erskine, ANMM curator of exploration and European settlement, who also describes the significance of this recent acquisition to the museum’s collection of exploration literature.

opposite: Australian animals enjoying the Empress Josephine’s garden. Detail from title page, Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes (Atlas par MM Lesueur et Petit). above: View of Sydney 1803. Plate XXXVIII, Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes (Atlas par MM Lesueur et Petit).

In March this year the museum made a highly significant addition to its collection of early exploration accounts when it acquired the handsome five-volume record of Nicolas Baudin’s 1800–1804 expedition to Australia, Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes. Consisting of four quarto volumes plus a magnificent folio atlas, the set joins accounts of the voyages of Bougainville, Cook, La Pérouse, D’Entrecasteaux, Vancouver and Flinders already in the National Maritime Collection, illustrating a growing European interest in Australia (New Holland) and the Pacific during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In an era of intense international rivalry, such voyages combined an Enlightenment thirst for scientific knowledge in fields such as botany, zoology and astronomy, with the realpolitiks of carving up areas of the southern hemisphere hitherto either unknown or of peripheral interest to Europeans. Endorsed by monarchs, sponsored by elite scientific societies, and equipped with the most advanced technology of the day, the great exploratory voyages of this period were akin to our own age of space exploration, with national prestige and mission success inseparably entwined. And just as television was the medium by which we witnessed man’s historic landing on the moon, so two centuries earlier the medium for communicating momentous events was the book – literally bound to impress and often with suitably grand format atlases of charts and views to convey the fine details of the latest discoveries. But Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes is more than just the official record of an expedition that rivalled Matthew Flinders’ exploration

on HMS Investigator – it also reflects an intriguing story of social and political upheaval in France at the turn of the 19th century. Baudin’s expedition to Australia should have been celebrated, but by the time the official account was finally published, he had become a casualty of history. To better understand his fall from grace, we need to place the voyage in historical context.

Early French expeditions In the new peace that followed protracted hostilities between France and Britain during the Seven Years War (1756–1763), both countries showed a renewed interest in exploring the Pacific. Initial voyages were made by Byron, Bougainville, Wallis and Carteret, before Cook’s three great voyages redefined the geography of the Pacific and Australia. For the first time since 17th-century Dutch voyagers had mapped the general outline of much of the north, west and south coasts of New Holland, most of the east coast had been revealed. But with significant gaps in the big picture and with the quality of mapping variable, some important questions still remained. These included the possibility of a great gulf dividing the continent; the relationship between Tasman and Furneaux’s charting in the south and Cook’s survey of the east coast; and the possible existence of potentially strategic harbours and rivers.

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La Pérouse and D’Entrecasteaux These mysteries might have been resolved by La Pérouse’s 1785 expedition, had he followed the instructions laid down by King Louis XVI. After passing through Endeavour (Torres) Strait and exploring the Gulf of Carpentaria, La Pérouse was instructed to: … run down the western coast and take a closer look at the southern, the greater part of which has never been visited, finishing at Van Diemen’s Land [Tasmania], at Adventure Bay … A Voyage Round the World … under the Command of J.F.G. de La Pérouse, Robinson; Edwards; and Payne, London, 1799

In fact La Pérouse never came close to undertaking this part of what was an extremely ambitious itinerary – most of the expedition was spent in the western and northern Pacific. Apart from a few weeks in Botany Bay, the expedition showed little interest in Australia and after sailing away in early 1788, any further opportunity was lost with the destruction of the ships on the reefs at Vanikoro (Solomon Islands). The disappearance of such a highprofile expedition (Louis XVI himself had taken a keen interest in its planning) demanded that every effort be made to discover what had happened and to search for any survivors. Once it became clear that La Pérouse was seriously overdue, the French government ordered a new expedition to the Pacific in 1792 under the command of Bruni D’Entrecasteaux. While this expedition failed to find any trace of La Pérouse, it did go some way to extending French surveys of Australian waters, particularly along the south-west coast and in southern Tasmania. During his voyage, La Pérouse had sent back progress reports containing sufficient new geographic information for publication of at least a partial account of his expedition. In the absence of any other demonstrable achievement, the National Assembly agreed in 1791 to publish this account, together with maps of the expedition, at the nation’s expense. Its editor conceived it as a work of national significance: The number, size, and beauty of the charts and other engravings, have induced me to unite them in a separate volume of a larger size. A national work, executed with such attention, appeared to me to merit this care for their preservation. Editor’s preface, p xi, English translation

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A model for just such a grand atlas was that produced for Cook’s third voyage, and no expense was spared in producing a suitably imposing (rival) work in honour of La Pérouse and the French nation. This intention is made clear by the title page’s elaborate symbolic references to the advancement of the several sciences of navigation, botany, astronomy and ethnography! The French publication set its own benchmark and D’Entrecasteaux’s expedition subsequently produced similarly exquisite large format works.

The Baudin expedition The next French expedition sent to investigate Australia sailed against a backdrop of dramatic political change. The final years of the 18th century saw France’s fortunes change dramatically with the catastrophic defeat of a French fleet by Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and the subsequent collapse of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign and designs on British India. The year 1799 also saw Napoleon established as First Consul in a move that strengthened his grip on power in France. Outwardly at least, this was not the ideal time to equip and send an expensive expedition around the world. Yet in spite of D’Entrecasteaux’s surveying achievements, many sections of the Australian coast remained to be charted in detail. The discovery of Bass Strait in 1798 had added further impetus, underlining the potential for expansion of European settlements in Australia. The nautical experience of Nicolas Baudin, the man who would lead this latest expedition, was not – like that of his predecessors La Pérouse and D’Entrecasteaux – purely naval. He had variously followed a career in the merchant marine, the French East India Company and the Austrian navy, punctuated by French naval service during the American War of Independence. As a result of several botanical collecting expeditions he had carried out for the Emperor of Austria, he was known to influential elements of the French scientific community and supported in 1798 in his application for a post in the French navy. Successful in this bid, Baudin lobbied for a French scientific expedition around the world. The Institut National recommended the expedition to Napoleon, who gave his support on the basis that the expedition was refocused solely on Australia. As a result Baudin

A model for just such a grand atlas was that produced for Cook’s third voyage, and no expense was spared in producing a suitably imposing (rival) work in honour of La Pérouse and the French nation

was appointed Post-Captain and given overall command of the expedition, the ships Géographe and Naturaliste and 256 men. The ships sailed from France in October 1800. Baudin may have been an experienced mariner, but he appears to have lacked the leadership skills so essential to the expedition’s success, and when they reached Mauritius (Isle de France) in March 1801, 10 scientific staff, four officers, six midshipmen and 40 seamen all abandoned the voyage. While the defection of senior scientists and officers seriously compromised the scientific integrity of the expedition, it also opened up opportunities for those who remained. Among these were zoologist François Péron and a young sub-lieutenant Louis de Freycinet, who would later share responsibility for publishing the official account of the voyage after Baudin’s death. The original plan called for Baudin to begin by surveying the south coast of New Holland; however, as it was winter by the time the ships reached Cape Leeuwin, he chose instead to turn north and begin investigating the west coast. With Baudin on Géographe and Jacques Hamelin captaining Naturaliste, they undertook collections and surveys at various points along the coast, particularly around Geographe Bay, Rottnest Island, Swan River and Shark Bay, as well as parts of the north-west coast, before rendezvousing at Timor. During this time the vessels were separated for long opposite: Advancing Science! Title page, Atlas du Voyage de La Pérouse, 1797.

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stretches, setting a model of poor coordination that would become a hallmark of the expedition. In November 1801 Géographe and Naturaliste sailed south from Timor, heading for Van Diemen’s Land where they explored parts of Storm Bay and the east coast before once again becoming separated. By late March 1802 Baudin had entered Bass Strait and commenced a westward survey of the south coast from Wilson’s Promontory, when he made the unwelcome discovery of HMS Investigator commanded by Matthew Flinders on 8 April. Flinders had arrived off the southwest corner of Australia four months earlier, and by the time of his encounter with Baudin he had completed surveys of the coast from King George’s Sound along the Great Australian Bight to Spencer Gulf and the Gulf St Vincent. Baudin continued his survey but was soon forced to break off in order to replenish the ship at Port Jackson where he planned to again rendezvous with Naturaliste. The two ships ultimately spent five months in Sydney Cove together, and Governor King proved a gracious host, arranging for repairs to the French ships and medical treatment for the numerous sick. It was also here that Baudin purchased the small schooner Casuarina, which he intended to use for inshore survey work in place of Naturaliste (later sent home). The officer put in command of Casuarina was Louis de Freycinet. In spite of his hospitality, Governor King was acutely aware that the French expedition might lay the foundation for a French settlement in Australia. So when Baudin’s ships left for Bass Strait, he sent Lieutenant Robbins in Cumberland to shadow their movements and forestall any such intentions by showing a British presence. Played out in a series of semifarcical flag-raising events, this exercise pre-empted the establishment of a permanent settlement in Van Diemen’s Land the following year. Whatever colonial ambitions the French might have had, Géographe and Casuarina were soon sailing west, continuing their survey of the south coast. In May 1803, Géographe and Casuarina anchored at Timor, having completed further surveys along the west coast. With many of the men sick, the expedition was exhausted, and after a brief attempt to continue working, Baudin gave the order to return to France. In poor health himself, he died at Mauritius in late 1803. When Baudin’s men finally returned to France in March 1804, they brought with them rich scientific collections and 16

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Embellished with elaborate cartouches (and heavy with symbolism and place names celebrating the Napoleonic regime), the charts are a testament to French interest in Australia in the early period of European settlement

above: Chart of New Holland by Louis de Freycinet (1808), published in the atlas Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes, 1812. far left: Le Wombat. Plate XXVIII, Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes (Atlas par MM. Lesueur et Petit). left: Portrait of Indigenous man from New Holland. Plate XIX, Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes (Atlas par MM. Lesueur et Petit).

observations, detailed surveys of the areas they had explored, notes on Indigenous culture and the state of the settlement at Sydney, as well as over 70 live animals and birds! The return of a major French scientific expedition should have been widely celebrated, but Baudin was dead and France was poised to invade England. Moreover, Baudin’s reputation had been tarnished by the unfavourable reports of several of his former officers and Napoleon’s support had waned. Given this turn of events, the job of collating the many facets of the voyage’s achievements seemed less than pressing. The task finally fell to François Péron, and the first volume of the account was published in 1807. Although Péron continued writing, when he died in 1810 the responsibility for completing the publication passed to Louis de Freycinet. Thus the complete five-volume account of the expedition (now with all mention of Baudin clinically removed) was progressively published between 1807 and 1812. The final splendid publication included two atlases containing exquisitely engraved portraits of Indigenous people, depictions of Australian animals, views of Sydney Cove and charts of the Australian coast. Embellished with elaborate cartouches (and heavy with symbolism and place names celebrating the Napoleonic regime), the charts are a testament to French interest in Australia in the early period of European settlement and represent a parallel achievement to the work of Matthew Flinders. 

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Rare atlases A conservator’s perspective

Access to the museum’s outstanding collection of rare early atlases represents an opportunity for our conservators to closely examine the materials and techniques used in traditional high-quality European bookbinding, explains senior conservator Caroline Whitley.

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Late 18th- and early 19th-century voyage atlases were produced in limited numbers, at great expense, and were typically published on behalf of a government or monarchy to record for posterity the glorious achievements of their country’s explorers, surveyors and scientists. Our collection includes navigational charts, coastal views, and ethnographic, botanical and zoological studies, all produced from intricately engraved or etched metal plates. The finest quality papers, inks and bindings were utilised, making these publications fitting acquisitions for great libraries, private collections and administrative archives. The period of production of our atlases generally coincides with the Industrial Revolution, when technological advances were transforming traditional manufacturing practices. Paper manufacture was one area affected by such change. The mid-19th century saw the introduction of cheap, poor quality wood-pulp papers for mass market consumption – newspapers, inexpensive books and wrappings not made to last. However the best quality paper continued to be handmade from cotton or linen rags, traditionally sourced from old clothing and even worn-out sails, softened by wind and rain, and bleached to a soft white by the sun. Part of the book-maker’s craft was to match the appropriate paper to the quality and purpose of a publication. For grand atlases, the choice of top-quality handmade paper was imperative. The terms ‘laid’ and ‘wove’ refer to two types of traditional handmade paper used in the atlases in our collection. From the

12th to the 19th century, laid paper was produced on a wire sieve held in a rectangular wooden mould to produce single sheets. The ‘laid’ pattern results from the close parallel lines of fine wire (20–40 per inch) bound together by the ‘chain’ lines running at right angles (usually about 1 inch apart). A vatman would dip the mould into a vat of diluted linen or cotton pulp, lift it out, then tilt it to spread the pulp evenly. As the water drained away, he would shake the mould in four directions to lock the fibres together, resulting in little or no grain (fibre direction). During the process, the slightly textured ‘laid and chain’ pattern of the wires is imparted to the sheet. Also characteristic of laid paper is its uneven deckled edges. The introduction of ‘wove’ paper was a later development of the mid-18th century. A wove mould consisted of a fine brass wire screen, woven on a loom in a similar manner to cloth. It produced a paper with a much smoother surface than a laid mould and the new technique was universally acclaimed. Occasional unintended consequences of the handmade process include the ‘papermaker’s tear’ – a droplet of water falling onto a newly made sheet, causing the wet pulp to thin and form a lighter spot – and a ‘cloudy’ formation, due to the uneven spreading of the pulp (when the fibre has not been beaten long enough or the pulp is not sufficiently agitated in the vat). Metal specks are frequently found in handmade paper. These are transferred from the wire mesh into the wet pulp and

result in unsightly brown inclusions that are prone to rust if exposed to damp conditions over time, resulting in a dark-brown spot with a paler brown halo. This corrosion is typical of the degradation that can affect works on paper. Standard preventive conservation practice for best long-term preservation is to store such items in a stable, dry environment. To create printed images such as those in our atlases, a drawing is first transferred and etched onto a metal plate. Next, a sheet of paper is dampened with water, then placed onto the etched metal plate and fed through a printing press. The compression of the paper fibres around the edges of the plate creates areas of weakness in the paper matrix. Repeated turning of a page over time can cause the paper to crease – or worse, tear – along these lines. Another form of degradation is brown staining caused by the offsetting and migration of oil-based printing ink (linseed oil and carbon pigment) through to the back of a sheet or onto an adjacent page. Although this type of damage is not easily reversed, it can be controlled by interleaving the pages with acid-free tissue. Soiling of pages from repeated page-turning can also occur. Over time, oils, moisture and grime from bare fingers can impregnate the paper, leading to discoloration and general wear-and-tear. Both laid and wove paper can be watermarked during the production process. A watermark is a distinguishing design formed of fine wire, and attached to the surface mesh of the mould. A raised surface impression occurs where the device is attached because the pulp is thinner there. Initially watermarks were simple geometric shapes; they subsequently evolved to include logos, trademarks, signatures and customs declarations. They could also indicate details of the maker, the grade of paper or the place and date of manufacture. We have found several interesting watermarks in our collection of atlases. When examining Atlas du Voyage de La Pérouse under transmitted light, the ‘chain and laid’ lines were clearly visible, together with the words ‘F. Johannot’ and ‘Annonay’ across many of the pages. The Johannots were a family of papermakers in Annonay, France, second only in prominence to famous paper-mill owners the Montgolfier brothers (best known for the first demonstrated flight of a hot-air – paper – balloon over Annonay in 1783). Other watermarks discovered in our atlases include a tower, a dovecote, and an ornate insignia of the letter ‘A’. All the atlases in our collection are outstanding publications. To make them available to the widest possible audience, the museum is currently digitising these works, with online access likely in the near future. 

above left: detail of a laid screen with watermark design from Tumba mill, near Stockholm, Sweden (the beehive is its symbol); right: close-up of a wove screen and watermarks. Courtesy of Simon Barcham Green opposite: Museum photographer Elizabeth Maloney examines an impressive example from the Museum’s rare atlas collection. below: Watermarks from Atlas du Voyage de La Pérouse seen through transmitted light. Note the papermaker’s ‘tears’: white circles where droplets of water have thinned the paper pulp. ANMM Collection

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Haughton Forrest Maritime artist

Haughton Forrest is one of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading 19th-century maritime artists. Geoffrey Ayling, principal researcher on the Forrest Research Project, tells the story of the artist's life.

Yachts Passing an Anchored Barque, nd. Photograph courtesy of Jane Hyland and the Maritime Museum of Tasmania, Hobart

Haughton Forrest (1826â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1925) was a traditional romantic marine and landscape painter, who recorded 19th-century developments in ship design and the changing urban environment of early Hobart Town, Tasmania. When he died after a painting career of more than 80 years, it was frequently asserted that many memories of the heyday of sailing ships went with him. At the beginning of the 20th century, his work was overshadowed by other art movements such as French impressionism and modernism. However towards the end of that century, there was a resurgence of interest in Forrest among

investors seeking works demonstrating skills in composition, tonal range, colour harmony and, most importantly, the use of the interplay of light to achieve realism. Yet, so little was known of this talented artist that auction houses were not even sure of his correct name. Some resorted to inventing details, such as claiming that he was self-taught. They were aware that Forrest had emigrated from England to Tasmania in 1876, but little else was known about him. In the early 21st century, researchers on the Forrest Project, who were documenting the history in Jamaica of Haughton Forrestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great-grandfather Signals 95 june to august 2011

top: Haughton Forrest at the age of nine years (1835), painted by Princess Dubrovsky, a guest in the Forrest family home. Photograph courtesy of Mr John Innes, Sydney above: Studio portrait in 1852 of Lieutenant Haughton Forrest, No 7 Company, The Honourable Artillery Company of London. Photograph courtesy of Mr John Innes, Sydney

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Admiral Arthur Forrest, began a systematic study of the artist and assembled the Catalogue of Paintings by Haughton Forrest. Reviews of his exhibited works revealed that, by the latter part of the 19th century, Haughton Forrest had become one of Australia’s finest marine and landscape painters. His work has now been recognised by auction houses such as Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Shapiro, Deutscher, Bonhams and Leonard Joel as being among the important marine art of Britain and Australia. Admiral Arthur Forrest (c 1716–1770) was a national figure, particularly during the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), the result of his outstandingly successful naval engagements in the Caribbean against the Spanish and French. He married in the mid-1740s and had eight children, most being born at Emmer Green near Caversham in Oxfordshire, England. During the 1760s, however, he spent the majority of each year residing in a mansion at Kingston in Jamaica, from where he managed his estates and commanded the Jamaica Squadron. Only two of his children are known to have had children themselves. At the time of his death from a tropical disease in Jamaica, advice had just been received from the Admiralty of his appointment to the rank of Admiral. He was buried in the belfry of the Kingston Parish Church and his extensive estate was subsequently administered by a board of directors. It was not until 1802 that his grandson, Thomas Forrest (1782–1851), the father of Haughton Forrest, came of age and was appointed heir and managing director. Thomas Forrest maintained family residences in Jamaica, where he spent much of his time managing the estates. Like his grandfather, he regularly returned to Forest Lodge at Binfield (Berkshire) in England, where his wife Mary lived, although she gave birth to most of their 13 children at her parents’ home in Kensington. Haughton was the twelfth child, born at Boulogne-sur-Mer on 28 December 1826 when the family was touring France. He was baptised at the British Chapel at Pas de Calais, where the French recorder wrote his name phonetically as ‘Horton’, but his family wrote his name down as ‘Haughton’. It is important to note here that he is sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘James Haughton Forrest’, and his nationality as French, despite the fact that he had always been recorded as a British subject.

In 1835, the young Haughton appears to have had his first encounter with art when his portrait was painted by a Princess Dubrovsky, a guest in the family home. Around 1840 he was enrolled at a military school at Wiesbaden in Germany, which he attended for about 16 months. According to family folklore, when he left school his father had to discourage him from joining the German Army. Haughton remained in Germany until at least 1845, where he painted well-known German castles downstream along the Rhine and the Moselle Rivers, and scenes in France along the River Meuse. The earliest known Forrest painting, Rheinfels on the Rhine above St Goar, 1845, was until 2004 in the collection of the art historian Professor Bernard Smith, of the University of Melbourne. It clearly shows that at 19 years of age, Haughton had been taught the skills of composition, colour and interplay of light that would characterise his later body of work. It would appear that his German education also included training with a skilled exponent of traditional romanticism. Haughton may well have come under influences similar to those that inspired Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) in Germany and John Constable (1776–1837) in England to paint landscapes in what might be described as a ‘luminist’ style. These artists depicted light in different ways to enhance realism in their landscapes. The term ‘luminism’ was used a century later to describe the work of American artist Fitz Henry (Hugh) Lane (1804–1865) and, as a result, was claimed to have an American origin. Haughton appears to have spent the years between 1845 and 1853 in London, where he further developed his skills as a painter. At the time, he was serving in The Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) of London, the oldest and most senior territorial regiment in the British Army. In December 1848 he was promoted to Sergeant in No. 7 Company, and in February 1852 (the year after his father died), Haughton was given a five-year commission as a Lieutenant, and served with this rank in 1853. On 3 July 1854 he joined the Royal Monmouthshire Militia with the rank of Ensign, rising to Lieutenant in 1855. This was at the outbreak of the Crimean War, when he was recorded by his regiment as Lieutenant Forrest, the artist who painted the Royal Monmouthshire Regiment on parade at Pembroke Dock. Haughton resigned from the militia in 1856. He married Susan Henrietta Somerville (Bunce) (1824–1893)

By the latter part of the 19th century, Haughton Forrest had become one of Australia’s finest marine and landscape painters

on 30 September 1858 at Plymouth in Devon. Susan was the widow of a Commander in the Royal Navy and had two small children. Haughton’s interest in yachting was no doubt typical of the majority of the British public of his era. The famous cutter Arrow, was the focus of national attention. Until the 1850s it had been the fastest yacht in Britain for over 25 years. In 1851 Haughton painted Arrow more than once, in the colours of the Royal Yacht Squadron and of the Royal Thames Yacht Club. In August 1851, during the fateful International Race around the Isle of Wight, Arrow went aground. The yacht America, of the New York Yacht Club, won the race and thereafter began the longest-running international sporting contest, the America’s Cup International Challenge Yacht Race.

Haughton may have belonged to the Royal Thames Yacht Club and the Royal Harwich Yacht Club, where his friend James L Ashbury sailed his America’s Cup challengers, Cambria and Livonia. Haughton painted these yachts many times. He also owned his own yacht, Stephanlis, and once sailed it to relieve the plight of French sailors stranded on the stricken Marie Louise off the Mewstone ledges near Plymouth. He subsequently painted shipwreck and yachting events around the British coastline, from the Orkneys and the Shetland Islands, to the Western Isles and North Berwick, and from Harwich in the southeast, along the south coast to the Isles of Scilly. One of his earliest dated paintings, Wreck of the Lord Dumphries off Gabo, 1852, depicted an event in Australia long before he contemplated

top to bottom: HRH Prince of Wales sailing off North Head, Sydney Harbour, c 1901. ANMM Collection Sailing, Storm Bay, nd. ANMM Collection

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One of his characteristics was an attention to detail, similar to that of a scientifically-trained person

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the emigration that would provide better opportunities for his young family. On 9 November 1875, Haughton travelled with his wife and children on SS Kepler to the Port of Paranague in southern Brazil, with a view to settling in this newly developing country, where they had been offered a land grant of 60 acres. Many German families who eventually settled in South Australia were also attracted by the prospects at this Brazilian colony. But yellow fever, malaria and other diseases were endemic. Periodic outbreaks of yellow fever occurred and it was not unusual for thousands of people to die. Not surprisingly, in January 1876 the family returned to London and chose to take up the incentives for settlers with capital to emigrate to Tasmania, where Haughton’s artistic output increased. As half of Haughton’s paintings feature named sea-going vessels, shipwrecks and identified coastal

landmarks, he is justifiably described as a marine artist. A further third of his works depict Tasmania, particularly the Derwent River, Mount Wellington, Hobart Town and the scenery in isolated locations of the Tasmanian hinterland. One of his characteristics was an attention to detail, similar to that of a scientifically-trained person charged with precisely recording geological formations, plant and animal species. This was well illustrated in his painting, MacRobie’s Gully, nd, a scene in the foothills of Mount Wellington. He was not to know that in the 1950s, MacRobie’s Gully would become a teaching location used by the Botany Department of the University of Tasmania. Haughton correctly portrayed plant species growing on dolerite and acid mudstone, each of which had specific botanical characteristics. Haughton is particularly renowned for his accuracy when portraying named yachts at well-known locations. Four paintings in the collection of the Australian National Maritime Museum (Fairlie II, 1900s; HRH Prince of Wales sailing off North Head, Sydney Harbour, c 1901; Schooner on the Gordon River, Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania (attrib), 1896; Sailing, Storm Bay, nd) clearly illustrate the reliability of his depictions, in terms of both the vessels and prominent coastal landmarks. A painting in the collection of the Maritime Museum of Tasmania (Yachts Passing an Anchored Barque, nd, see page 21) depicts yachts and an anchored barque on the clearly recognisable Derwent River. It is estimated that perhaps 2,000 of Haughton Forrest’s traditional romantic works remain hidden from public view, in the homes of private owners for most of the last century. Haughton’s particular artistic strength was to faithfully depict detail and it is this which, over a century later, gives his paintings their historic value. Although when he died in 1925 taking with him many memories of the technology of the sailing ships of his era, they are captured for posterity in his paintings. 

top to bottom: Fairlie II, 1900s. ANMM Collection Schooner on the Gordon River, Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania (attrib), 1896. ANMM Collection

Haughton Forrest A closer view

Within months of his arrival in Tasmania, Haughton Forrest was exhibiting and selling his work, and from 1880 he became the colony's leading oil painter. Daina Fletcher, senior curator communities, takes a closer look at Forrest’s art during his years in Australia.

Haughton Forrest is one of the significant figures in Australian maritime art working in the late 19th century. Within a few months of moving to Tasmania in 1876, he was exhibiting his European shipwreck, harbour, yachtracing, pilotage and fishing scenes in Hobart shop windows and representative exhibitions, selling them by art union and public subscription, and working from old sketchbooks. His work was immediately recognised by the Hobart Mercury (19 October, 1876) as:

His individual works reveal a studied hand, reworking rigging lines, perhaps shaping a sail or a yacht’s bow in the quest for accuracy

good amateur work … exceedingly good drawing … the chief merit of the picture is the semi-transparent green of the foam crested breakers. Forrest had a delicate brush, and many of his marine works are indeed luminous. He painted in oils, on artist’s board and canvas. Alongside his European work he embraced the Tasmanian landscape, painting views around Hobart, Launceston, the might of the Flying Squadron, the Gordon River, Cape Pillar, yachting scenes, and commissioned views of ships plying Tasmanian waters. He was nothing if not prolific. In these early years, Forrest’s chief competitor was the more imaginative William Piguenit, but when the latter left for Sydney in 1880 Forrest became the pre-eminent oil painter in the colony of Tasmania. His marine works are infused with light, subtle colour, picturesque convention, fine brushstrokes and detailed accuracy – he was an artist who brought his midcentury European vision to his adopted home, looking perhaps for the European in Tasmania. One of the fillips to his success was teaming up with young Scottish photographer John Watt Beattie in an enduring partnership that was to promote and encourage Forrest’s prolific output. Haughton Forrest travelled rarely, but worked from sketchbooks and photographs – especially those by Beattie, who went

on expeditions around Tasmania, giving Forrest access to these remote landscapes. Beattie, in turn, made photographic copies of Forrest’s more picturesque work, which he sold from his studio in Hobart. This is a key to understanding and appreciating Forrest’s brush and his oeuvre today: the still quietude in many of the land and seascapes; the perhaps formulaic views of treacherous English and Scottish scenes; the allure of capturing and owning distant landscapes – the ports of the Gordon River on the west coast, for instance, were inaccessible to few bar the timber-getters in their trading ketches. His individual works reveal a studied hand, reworking rigging lines, perhaps shaping a sail or a yacht’s bow in the quest for accuracy. They invite you in; they are beautiful to view. The same consideration is wrought on the sea and landscapes. It is hard to imagine Forrest painting from nature, although several oil sketches exist that reveal a lively hand as well. Overall, though, Forrest’s prolific output reveals a schizophrenic edge. While individually the works are charming, viewed as a whole they are somewhat repetitive – beguiling yet familiar. He painted scenes over and over, and reused elements of past work. Scottish yachts become English cutters, which become Tasmanian schooners or ketches transposed onto

an adopted landscape, which, too, is borrowed and modified. In Schooner on the Gordon River, Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania (attrib), 1896, in the museum’s collection, the mouth of the river has been adapted from the coastline of the Scottish Isle of Arran, decluttered of Scottish fishing craft. The Tasmanian ketch (schooner) depicted here is over-sized, much larger than any craft working in Tasmania at the time. Examination of other works shows the same topsail schooner in various guises, represented as a racing schooner at Cowes (in 1871), as the Duke of Rutland’s schooner off Bute, Scotland (in 1873), and in the Harbour at Arran and on an anonymous lake (no date). We seem to have seen many of Forrest’s ketches, schooners and yachts somewhere before. His work is freshest when taking commissions, painting ship portraits in which the need for accuracy is paramount, as in Fairlie II, 1900s, in the museum’s collection. And in many works he captures the atmosphere – the squall coming down the Derwent River, the following seas around Cape Pillar. It is derivative perhaps, but alluring nonetheless. In January 1878, the critic from the Mercury noted in his review of a marine view of craft off the Cornish coast: It has been objected to Captain Haughton Forrest’s paintings that they have too much sameness, one to another, and we are ready to admit this as a drawback; but any connoisseur in art viewing this picture by itself could not fail to admit that, whether or not it bears much resemblance to previous productions by the same hand, it displays a considerable amount of artistic ability. Haughton Forrest was a prolific artist who brought established European traditions of marine painting to Tasmania and produced many appealing views of his adopted homeland and its maritime life. His works are held in public and private collections in Australia and overseas.  Signals 95 june to august 2011

EAST TIMORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TIES TO CHINA JULIAN ASSANGE BALI 9

Mark Davis takes you behind the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most important stories on Dateline. Sundays at 8.30pm on SBS ONE. sbs.com.au/dateline

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More than six million people have crossed the world to settle in Australia. Was your family among them?

To honour our unique heritage, the National Maritime Museum has created the Welcome Wall to record your name in bronze and your stories for future generations. The Welcome Wall honours our immigrants, however they travelled, wherever they landed and wherever they live today. An ideal tribute to loved ones that will last forever. Call 02 9298 3777 or visit www.anmm.gov.au/ww to register your name today.

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Members News Members enjoyed a trip to Canberra to visit the Australian War Memorial and National Museum of Australia in March. Pictured are Members Graham and Roslyn Hunt with the curator of the exhibition Not Just Ned, Richard Reid.

Members’ children enjoyed a fun ‘Ghost, Pizza and Pyjama Night’ at the museum recently, featuring a tour of the ships after dark, including the replica of the 1606 VOC ship Duyfken.

A winter’s round-up of events Welcome to another quarter of exhibitions, activities and events for you to enjoy. We never let the winter chill slow us down, so do make plans to visit us over the cooler months. See the following pages, or our website, for details of all events.

There have been a few changes in and around the museum forecourt recently, and a new café-restaurant will be opening on the waterfront later this year. You will love this new space, and when you treat yourself to some fine food and wine there, don’t forget your Member’s discount! Our next major exhibition – Scott’s last expedition – opens on 17 June. You won’t want to miss this exhibition, which commemorates the centenary of Scott’s second, and last, Antarctic expedition. The exhibition was developed by the Natural History Museum, London, the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch (New Zealand), and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, as a major international travelling exhibition, opening in Sydney. Don’t miss our special Members preview on Wednesday 15 June. We’ll be celebrating the centenary of the RAN with a special Navy Family and Community Day at the museum on Sunday 12 June – a fantastic day for the whole family (check our website for all the details). In July the museum will host a seminar

exploring 100 years of the RAN, and our traditional annual Navy mess dinner in the HMAS Vampire Wardroom will also be held in July. Members have the chance to visit Spectacle Island, depository of RAN heritage items, for a tour with the RAN’s museums director, and a cruise to rediscover our forgotten shipyards. We also have an exciting schedule of talks, lectures and films, including a seminar on the role of the Dutch explorers and the Duyfken, and a documentary screening and talk on the Duyfken (the Duyfken replica is currently at the museum for an extended stay and Members can board this beautiful ship for free). Later this year, the museum will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its opening (on 29 November 1991). Stand by for some fantastic events and activities to celebrate our 20th birthday. We will also be contacting many of you shortly as we undertake a survey of our Members. Your feedback and suggestions will help us serve you better. You’ll be able to respond online or by post, so we would greatly appreciate you taking a few minutes to complete it. On behalf of the Members team, I look forward to seeing you at the museum very soon. Adrian Adam, Members manager

Members explored the history of the Sydney Sea Pilots at a seminar in March. Speakers included Captains Joseph Crumlin, Ted Liley and Rowan Brownette, and the audience heard stories of Pilot ships and the famous Captain Cook Pilot steamers (such as the one pictured right) of yesteryear.

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left: photographer A Adams/ANMM

Members events Calendar Winter 2011 June Sunday 12

Navy Day special: RAN centenary lecture & sunset ceremony

Wednesday 15

Preview: Scott’s last expedition

Sunday 26

Talk: ‘The De Freycinet atlases’

Thursday 30

Cruise and tour: John Oxley and heritage shipyard

July Sunday 3

NAIDOC Week talk: ‘Aboriginal odysseys’

Friday 8

Special: HMAS Vampire wardroom dinner

Sunday 17

Special seminar: ‘100 years of the RAN’

Thursday 21

On the water: Spectacle Island naval heritage tour

Sunday 24

Talk and film: 1606 and 1770: A tale of two discoveries

August Friday 5

For kids: Pirate, pizza and pyjama night

Sunday 7

Talk: ‘The Queen Mary 2’ with Warwick Abadee

Friday 12

Lunchtime curator talk and tour: Scott's last expedition

Sunday 21

On the water: ‘Lost shipyards of Sydney’ with Greg Blaxall

Sunday 28

Special: Duyfken and the Dutch explorers

How to book

Booked out?

It’s easy to book for these Members events… have your credit card details handy:

We always try to repeat the event in another program.

• book online at www.anmm.gov.au/ membersevents

Cancellations

• contact the Members office: phone (02) 9298 3644 (business hours) or email members@anmm.gov.au Bookings strictly in order of receipt • if paying by mail after making a reservation, please include a completed booking form (on reverse of the address sheet with your Signals mailout) with a cheque made out to the Australian National Maritime Museum • if payment is not received seven days before the event your booking may be cancelled

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If you can’t attend a booked event, please notify us at least five days before the function for a refund. Otherwise, we regret a refund cannot be made. Events and dates are correct at the time of printing but these may change…if so, we’ll be sure to inform you. Parking Wilson Parking offers Members discount parking at nearby Harbourside Carpark, Murray Street, Darling Harbour. To obtain a discount, you must have your ticket validated at the museum ticket desk.

RAN sunset ceremony

Navy Family and Community Day special RAN centenary lecture and sunset ceremony 4–5.30 pm Sunday 12 June at the museum As part of a special Navy Day at the museum to celebrate the centenary of the Royal Australian Navy, join John Perryman CSM, Senior Naval Historical Officer at the RAN Sea Power Centre, for a special lecture on ‘The genesis of the RAN’. Followed by refreshments and a formal RAN Band sunset ceremony in the museum forecourt and on HMAS Vampire. Members $10, general $15. Children free. Includes refreshments and Coral Sea wines. The first 50 bookings will receive a copy of a special RAN publication marking the centenary

EMAIL BULLETINS Have you subscribed to our email bulletins yet? Email your address to members@anmm.gov.au to ensure that you’ll always be advised of activities organised at short notice in response to special opportunities.

right: © New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust bottom right: Plate XXXVIII, Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes. ANMM Collection

Scott's base camp hut at Cape Evans today

The De Freycinet atlases

Coastal steamship John Oxley

Preview Scott’s last expedition

Talk ‘The De Freycinet atlases – Nicolas Baudin’s Australian expedition, 1801–1804’

Cruise and tour John Oxley and heritage shipyard

6–8 pm Wednesday 15 June at the museum When Captain Robert Falcon Scott set out on his second expedition to explore Antarctica – the ‘British Antarctic Expedition 1910’ – he could not have predicted it would be his last. He died on the return journey from the South Pole two years later. Public perceptions of Scott have varied greatly over the years, from national hero to flawed leader, and discussions of what really happened on that ill-fated journey still captivate our imagination. To commemorate the centenary of the expedition and celebrate its achievements, the Natural History Museum (London), the Canterbury Museum (Christchurch, NZ) and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, have collaborated to create an international travelling exhibition that explores the expedition from exciting new angles. Join ANMM senior curator Lindsey Shaw for a special introduction to this outstanding exhibition. Members $15, general $20. Includes Coral Sea wines and refreshments

2–4 pm Sunday 26 June at the museum In October 1800, Nicolas Baudin sailed from France in command of a voyage of exploration with two ships – Géographe and Naturaliste. With 22 scientists and artists on board, including Louis de Freycinet, the expedition went on to survey much of Australia’s western, southern and northern coastlines. Notably, Baudin’s voyage coincided with that of Matthew Flinders on HMS Investigator. Although Flinders’ charts have come to be accepted as the more detailed and accurate of the two, Baudin’s work was published three years earlier and so offers the first comprehensive surveys of the Australian coast. Recently acquired by the museum, the de Freycinet atlases are a significant addition to the museum’s collection of early French exploration. ANMM curator Dr Nigel Erskine tells the story of the French voyages and conservation manager Jonathan London speaks about the preservation of these fragile objects.

1.30–3.30 pm Thursday 30 June at Rozelle Bay Owned and currently being restored by the Sydney Heritage Fleet (SHF), John Oxley was built in 1927 in Scotland and was used as a pilot vessel in Moreton Bay and as a buoy tender and lighthouse tender along the Queensland coast. The vessel continued in service until 1968 and was officially donated to the SHF in 1970. Take a cruise to the dockyard and tour John Oxley with SHF representatives, view the restoration works and hear about the plan to bring the vessel back to her former glory. Members $35, general $45. Involves some climbing and negotiating ship ladders. Children under 16 years must be accompanied by an adult. Meet next to HMAS Vampire for return cruise to the SHF shipyard

Members $15, general $20. Includes Coral Sea wines and refreshments

View of Sydney 1803 (detail), from the De Freycinet atlas

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Members events

Mari Nawi: Aboriginal Odysseys

Vampire wardroom dinner

Spectacle Island

NAIDOC Week talk ‘Aboriginal odysseys’

Special HMAS Annual HMAS Vampire wardroom dinner

On the water Spectacle Island naval heritage tour

6–9.45 pm Friday 8 July on HMAS Vampire

9 am–1 pm Thursday 21 July on the harbour

Celebrate HMAS Vampire’s naval service with our annual traditional Navy dinner in the wardroom. This event falls on the anniversary of the Royal Assent given to the Australian Navy by King George V in 1911. Your dinner president will be a former Commanding Officer of Vampire. Experience the passing of the port, the loyal toast and more – all in the best naval tradition.

Spectacle Island lies in the main channel of the western part of Sydney Harbour off Drummoyne, and is historically significant as Australia’s oldest naval explosives manufacturing and storage complex. Originally built to store government gunpower, the island was converted to store naval munitions in 1893, featuring jetties, an internal railway system, and later a repository of RAN heritage items. Take a guided tour of the island followed by a light lunch and refreshments on the lawns.

2–4 pm Sunday 3 July at the museum Hear historian Keith Vincent Smith reveal the significant role that Aboriginal men – and some women – played in Australia’s early maritime history. The talk will focus on Indigenous people who sailed on English ships from Port Jackson to destinations around the world between 1790 and 1850. With remarkable resilience, they became guides, go-betweens, boatmen, sailors, sealers, steersmen, whalers, pilots and trackers, highly valued for their skills and knowledge. These seafarers faced cruel seas, adverse winds and treacherous currents. Some survived shipwreck or were marooned for months without supplies on isolated islands. Members $15, general $20. Includes Coral Sea wines and refreshments

Members $110, general $120. Includes pre-dinner cocktails and canapés on the deck and three-course meal. Strictly limited places due to size of the wardroom. Black tie, evening wear. Partners welcome.

Members $55, guests $65. Meet next to HMAS Vampire ticket booth

Special seminar 100 years of the RAN 1.30–5 pm Sunday 17 July at the museum

BOOKINGS AND ENQUIRIES Booking form on reverse of mailing address sheet: phone 02 9298 3644 fax 02 9298 3660 (unless otherwise indicated). All details are correct at time of publication but subject to change.

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In July 2011, it will be 100 years since ‘his Majesty the King [was] graciously pleased to approve of the Permanent Naval Forces of the Commonwealth being designated the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and of the ships of that Navy being designated His Majesty’s Australian Ships’. To mark this historic centenary, join us for a special seminar exploring 100 years of the RAN. Speakers will include Captain Paul Martin RAN (Rtd) and RADM James Goldrick AM CSC RAN, representing the Naval Historical Society, and naval architect John Jeremy. Members $30, general $40. Includes afternoon tea and evening reception with Coral Sea wines and canapés

100 years of the RAN

Duyfken replica

Queen Mary 2

Lost shipyards of Sydney Harbour

Talk and film 1606 and 1770: A tale of two discoveries

Talk ‘The Queen Mary 2’ with Warwick Abadee

On the water ‘Lost shipyards of Sydney’ with Greg Blaxall

2–4 pm Sunday 24 July at the museum

2–4 pm Sunday 7 August at the museum

10 am–1 pm Sunday 21 August on the harbour

In March 1606, Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon on the Duyfken became the first known European to set foot on the Australian continent, making landfall at Cape York in Northern Queensland. Why then do so many people believe that James Cook was the discoverer and founder of Australia? View this new documentary as it explores the story of these two European seafarers, then hear filmmaker John Mulders reveal the story behind the making of the film.

Warwick Abadee, a museum founding volunteer, recently delivered a series of enrichment lectures aboard Cunard's Queen Mary 2, during her voyage from Cape Town to Sydney. Warwick will speak about the experience and also present an illustrated talk revealing the fascinating timeline of these colossal vessels through world history.

Sydney harbour west of the Harbour Bridge was once a bustling industrial waterway with thriving shipyards, docks and slipways along its rivers and coves. Most of these have long since disappeared. Join author and historian Greg Blaxall as we head up river west of the Bridge to explore our shipbuilding past and see what little remains of the once vibrant ship construction and maritime industry.

Members $15, general $20. Includes Coral Sea wines and refreshments

Members $55, general $60. Includes light lunch and refreshments. Meet next to HMAS Vampire ticket booth

Members $15, general $20. Includes Coral Sea wines and refreshments alongside Duyfken

Lunchtime curator talk and tour Scott’s last expedition

For kids Pirate, pizza and pyjama night ages 5–12 5.30–9 pm Friday 5 August at the museum The kids will enjoy a pirate-led torchlight tour of Vampire, Duyfken and the museum after dark with our resident pirate, Grognose Johnny. There’ll be pirate craft activities, then they can tuck into a pizza dinner, roll out a sleeping bag, grab a pillow and lie back to watch the fabulous family movie Pirate Kids: Blackbeard's lost treasure. Member child $25, general $35. Includes torchlight tour, pizza and refreshments, movie and craft activities. Please bring a torch, pillow or sleeping bag, and dress in pyjamas or similar. Children will be fully supervised (parents and carers not required to stay)

12–1.30 pm Friday 12 August at the museum Come and view this international travelling exhibition that explores Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s tragic second expedition to Antarctica, from which he never returned. Join ANMM senior curator Lindsey Shaw for a talk and guided tour of this outstanding exhibition. Members $10, general $20. Includes Coral Sea wines and a light lunch

Special Duyfken and the Dutch explorers 1.30–5 pm Sunday 28 August at the museum Join three eminent speakers as we explore the brave new world of early Dutch exploration that culminated in the arrival of Duyfken in Australian waters. ANMM curator Dr Nigel Erskine will discuss artefacts from the wrecks of the Batavia (sunk in 1629), the Vergulde Draeck (1656), the Zuytdorp (1712) and the Zeewijk (1727). Spice Islands author Ian Burnet will talk about the origins of the Dutch East India Company, how it grew to hold a monopoly over the spice trade, and the reasons behind the Duyfken’s expedition and the later Tasman expedition. Then Gary Wilson, former master of the Duyfken replica, will talk about the ship and some of its historic world voyages. Members $30, general $40. Includes afternoon tea, refreshments and Coral Sea wines alongside Duyfken

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Navy Family and Community Day

Movie – Scott of the Antarctic

Kids on Deck – Sailor styling

Navy Day Navy Family and Community Day

Movie screening Scott of the Antarctic (1948)

Kids events

9.30 am–5 pm Sunday 12 June

7–9 pm Wednesday 22 June

Join us in celebrating the centenary of the Royal Australian Navy with our free family and community day. Held in association with the Navy, see divers rappelling from a Sea King helicopter, test yourself on a flight simulator, and watch clearance diver tank displays.

This classic film follows Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated attempt to be first to the South Pole. Join Scott and his expedition on this epic trek across the Antarctic. Shot mostly on location in Norway, the film is largely faithful to actual events.

During school term

There’ll be performances by the RAN Band, kids’ activities, showbags and more, plus discounted entry to HMAS Onslow, HMAS Vampire and tall ship Duyfken.

This is an outdoor screening, so rug up in your best woollies, beanies and scarves to fully appreciate Scott’s journey. Bring along your friends and family to keep you warm as you brave the elements!

FREE. Discounted vessel entry (per vessel): adult $5, child $2, family $7. Members and Defence personnel and their families FREE

$25/Members $20. Bookings essential 9298 3655 or bookings@anmm.gov.au

Family fun Sundays Kids on Deck Re-imagine, re-use, re-cycle, create! ages 5–12 11 am–3 pm (hourly sessions) every Sunday during term (except 12 June, see below) Construct a spectacular underwater garden sculpture, print your own reusable bag or make a woven turtle. Investigate endangered marine environments and discover all kinds of cargo traded across the world through interactive games. $7/child or FREE with any purchased ticket. Adults/Members FREE

Navy Day Kids on Deck Sailor styling ages 5–12 11 am–3 pm (hourly sessions) Sunday 12 June Join the Navy Day celebrations in Kids on Deck – there’ll be flag face painting, temporary tattoos and rope making. You can decorate a 3D navy vessel and learn flag waving as well! $7/child or FREE with any purchased ticket. Adults/Members FREE

Program times and venues are correct at time of going to press. To check programs before your museum visit call 02 9298 3777. Navy Day: HMAS Vampire and HMAS Onslow

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far left: Sea King helicopter and RAN divers conduct a winching. Courtesy RAN

What’s on winter 2011 Events

Kids events

Kids on Deck – Epic explorers!

Youth workshop – Submarine spies!

Open age workshop – Scott’s socks!

Free family movie

1.30 pm every Sunday during term

2 pm daily during holidays

Visit www.anmm.gov.au for full program

Open age workshop Scott’s socks! A wild woollen knit-a-thon

Mini Mariners

Youth workshop Submarine spies!

ages 2–5 + carers 10–10.45 am and 11–11.45 am 2 sessions every Tuesday during term May – Pirates Ahoy! June – Fun in the Sun $7/child. First adult/Members FREE. Booked playgroups welcome. Bookings essential 9298 3655 or bookings@anmm.gov.au Please note this program is not offered during the school holidays and for safety reasons is held inside the museum

Activate! Winter holidays 3–17 July Kids on Deck Epic explorers! ages 5–12 10 am–4 pm (hourly sessions) daily during holidays Venture into uncharted territory this winter! Sledge-race through the Antarctic in interactive games. Craft a weather-balloon mobile, design a flag, paint souvenir tiles, pull together a giant puzzle and send us tall tales about your expedition for our postcard competition. $7/child or FREE with any purchased ticket. Adults/Members FREE

ages 8–14 10 am–1 pm Thursday 7 or Friday 8 July

ages 8–adult 1.30–4.30 pm Friday 8 July 10 am–1 pm or 1.30–4.30 pm Friday 15 July

Explore the museum’s submarine HMAS Onslow. Create top-secret tools including a periscope, telescope and night-vision goggles in this experimental art and science workshop.

Young and old can join in an afternoon of knitting madness! Tour Scott’s last expedition. Learn to knit crafty shapes and Antarctic-inspired wearables with Reef Knot artists, Michelle McCosker and Alasdair Nicol.

$25/Members $20 (includes all workshop materials). Bookings essential 9298 3655

$25/Members $20. Bookings essential 9298 3655

Youth workshop Photo story – Cockatoo Island adventures! ages 8–14 9.30 am–12.30 pm or 1.30–4.30 pm Thursday 14 July Ferry out to the spectacular shipyards of Cockatoo Island for an adventurous photography workshop. Go on a photo chase across the island. Build skills in using professional photographic equipment as you explore this fascinating maritime location. $45/Members $40 (includes a CD with all your photos). Bookings essential 9298 3655

Special group rate for school holiday activities For 10 or more children, $7/child for a fully organised program of activities including: • all museum exhibitions • all children’s daily activities • entry to destroyer HMAS Vampire and submarine HMAS Onslow • FREE entry for 2 adults/ 10 children • FREE bus parking NB $4 extra/child for 1874 tall ship James Craig Bookings essential. Book early to ensure your space! Ph 9298 3655 Fax 9298 3660 Email bookings@anmm.gov.au

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Scott’s last expedition

Surf and snapper – Photographs by Jeff Carter

David Moore – Portraits of a shipping company

Scott’s last expedition

Surf and snapper – Photographs by Jeff Carter

David Moore – Portraits of a shipping company

Until 19 June 2011 Tasman Gallery

In the USA Gallery

17 June–16 October 2011 Gallery One, North Gallery and South Gallery When Captain Robert Falcon Scott set out on his second expedition – the British Antarctic Expedition 1910 – he could not have predicted it would be his last. He died on the return journey from the South Pole two years later. Public perceptions of Scott have varied greatly over the years, from national hero to flawed leader, and discussions of what really happened on that ill-fated journey still captivate the imagination.

Seventeen evocative photographs show the Sicilian fishing community in Ulladulla (NSW) long-line fishing for snapper, alongside more iconic images of Australian beach culture – swimming, surfing and sun baking.

To commemorate the centenary of the expedition, the Natural History Museum (London), Canterbury Museum (Christchurch, NZ) and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust have collaborated to create this groundbreaking exhibition, which goes beyond the powerful stories of the struggle for survival and the journey’s tragic outcome, to explore the expedition from new angles and celebrate its achievements.

In celebration of NAIDOC Week, eight lino prints by Billy Missi, a Torres Strait Islander artist, will be on display. Through his artwork Billy expresses the importance of his cultural heritage and kinship, and demonstrates how the teaching of the elders has sustained his people to survive for many generations in the Torres Strait.

NAIDOC 2011 – the works of Billy Missi

World-renowned Australian photographer David Moore was commissioned by Columbus Line to create photographic portraits of their shipping activities. The company began operations between North America and Australia/New Zealand in 1959 and was the first company to regularly schedule a containerised shipping service.

22 June–18 September 2011 Tasman Gallery

NAIDOC 2011 – the works of Billy Missi

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below left: Billy Missi, Mudhaw Warul (Sheltered Turtles Behind the Reef) 2007. ANMM Collection. © Billy Missi far left: © Scott and the Polar Party at the South Pole. Scott Polar Research Institute centre: Jeff Carter, Tribal gathering, Wanda Beach 1961 left: Courtesy Hamburg Süd

Exhibitions

below right: Baru (Crocodile) 2005. Nancy Gaymala Yunupingu. Reproduced courtesy artist and Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre above right: Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation far right: Stewart Lee, 1955. Reproduced courtesy Sydney Lee

Exhibitions

Visiting vessel Duyfken replica

Sydney Heritage Fleet's 1874 tall ship James Craig

On their own – Britain’s child migrants

VOC jacht Duyfken 1606

Barque James Craig, 1874

ANMM travelling exhibitions

Inspect the replica of Duyfken (Little Dove), the Dutch East India Company ship that made the first recorded European visit to the Australian continent, making landfall on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula in April 1606. The little scout ship or jacht was commanded by Willem Janszoon, who also made the first chart of mainland Australia. The Duyfken replica was built in Western Australia and launched in 1999, and has since re-enacted Janszoon’s original voyage of discovery. It is now on display at the museum while Endeavour is circumnavigating Australia.

Daily Wharf 7 (except when sailing)

On their own – Britain’s child migrants

Duyfken replica tour included in the museum’s Big Ticket package (Members FREE)

Open to the public during port visits. Limited berths still available on some legs. See our ad for more information about the voyage of a lifetime!

Sydney Heritage Fleet’s magnificent iron-hulled barque is the result of an award-winning 30-year restoration. Tour the ship with various museum ticket packages (discount for Members). The ship sails alternate Saturdays and Sundays. Check www.shf.org.au for details

HMB Endeavour replica Circumnavigating Australia until May 2012

18 June–24 September 2011 Migration Museum, South Australia From the 1860s until the 1970s, more than 100,000 British children were sent to Australia, Canada and other Commonwealth countries through child migration schemes. The lives of these children changed dramatically and fortunes varied. Some forged new futures; others suffered lonely, brutal childhoods. All experienced dislocation and separation from family and homeland. A collaboration between the ANMM and National Museums Liverpool, UK

Sail Away program Freshwater Saltwater – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prints Until 7 August 2011 Tweed River Art Gallery NSW Vivid representations of marine life and environments celebrate Indigenous culture and the struggle of these communities for justice and land and sea rights.

Freshwater Saltwater – Indigenous prints

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The Duyfken replica

Tu Do at the museum’s wharf

Dunbar shipwreck artefacts

Duyfken

Immigration

Maritime archaeology

Years 2–12 HSIE, History

Years 9–10 History, English

Years 5–11 History, HSIE, Science

In 1606, the Dutch East India Company ship Duyfken made the first recorded European visit to the Australian continent, landing on Cape York Peninsula. Duyfken, meaning 'Little Dove', was commanded by Willem Janszoon, who also made the first chart of mainland Australia. The Duyfken replica was built in Western Australia and launched in 1999, and has since re-enacted Janszoon’s original voyage of discovery. This program is ideal to combine with a tour of our Navigators – defining Australia exhibition.

Designed for students learning about post-WWII immigration, this program is divided into three sections: an introduction to immigration history, the study of a particular migrant group, and 1970s boat people. Topics include child migration, Japanese war brides, and Tu Do, a Vietnamese refugee boat that arrived in Darwin in 1977. The program is a hands-on experience with students rotating through all components in the museum and at our wharf (where Tu Do is moored).

Explore the nature and practice of underwater archaeology and research the past through shipwreck stories. Investigate the role of archaeologists, curators and conservators through a hands-on workshop and a tour of archaeological displays in the museum. Programs are available for primary and secondary students, and the Senior Maritime Archaeology program relates to the NSW Preliminary Course in Stage 6 Ancient History.

Ship only $8 per student Ship and Navigators tour $12 per student

Navigators

Shipwrecks, corrosion and conservation

Years 3–10 HSIE

Years 11–12 Chemistry

The exhibition Navigators – defining Australia investigates early contact with the Australian continent. On this guided tour students encounter stories of non-European traders, examine traditional and scientific navigation techniques, and consider the influence of early European explorers. To complement this tour and gain an insight into pre-19th century life at sea, students can also board the restored 1874 trading vessel James Craig.

This program relates to the NSW Stage 6 Chemistry syllabus and includes a multi-media presentation on metals conservation, an experiment-based workshop and a tour of shipwreck-related material in the museum’s galleries. Students can also visit our Navy destroyer HMAS Vampire and submarine HMAS Onslow. Comprehensive notes are supplied.

Navigators tour $6 per student Navigators and James Craig $10 per student

Workshop and tour (2–2½ hour program) $12 per student

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$20 per student (4 hours – minimum numbers apply) Over 30 programs are available across a range of syllabus areas for students K–12. Options include extension workshops, hands-on sessions, tours with museum teacher-guides and harbour cruises. See the Schools link on our website (www.anmm.gov.au) for details of all programs. Bookings essential phone 02 9298 3655 fax 02 9298 3660 or email bookings@anmm.gov.au

Prices vary according to age group (please see website for details)

Pyrmont walk Years 7–12 History, Geography Led by a teacher-guide, students explore this inner-city suburb from the perspective of changing demographics, construction, planning and development. This program is suitable as a site study for Stage 4 History and for Stages 5 & 6 Geography. A harbour cruise examining change and development along the waterfront is also available. Guided tour (cruise extra) $12 per student (Years 7–10) $15 (Years 11–12)

Transport Years K–2 HSIE, Science Students tour the museum identifying various forms of transport connected with water – sailing ships, rowboats, ferries, tugs, a Navy destroyer, water traffic and even a helicopter! An optional cruise by heritage ferry takes in industrial, commercial and passenger transport systems on the harbour. Guided tour (cruise extra) $6 per student

far left: Courtesy Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation centre: photographer A Frolows/ANMM left: ANMM Collection

For schools

HMB Endeavour And the ship sails on

The voyage around Australia of the Endeavour replica is now well underway. Here’s an update on all the news about the start of this epic journey. above right: HMB Endeavour replica in full sail en route to Brisbane. Photograph courtesy Ship's photographer. below: During the preparations for the circumnavigation, members of the Shipwrights and Boatbuilders Association of NSW inspect the Endeavour in dry dock.

On 15 April Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir ac cvo, Governor of New South Wales, and over 100 guests joined us in launching the first-ever circumnavigation of Australia by our replica of HMB Endeavour and to wish the crew well on their travels. The ship’s departure followed months of planning and preparations. Before she threw her lines and set sail, Endeavour had been treated to an extensive sixmonth refit, which included replacing the entire 17 kilometres of rope used in the standard rigging of this 44-metre vessel, as reported by ANMM leading hand, shipwright and rigger Anthony Longhurst, in Signals 94. It was the first time this had been done since the ship was launched in 1993. And so began, with a loud blast of the cannon, an amazing 13-month voyage of more than 8,000 nautical miles around Australia. As she circumnavigates the continent, Endeavour will welcome 800 voyage crew, visit 18 ports and open to the public in 15, and host thousands of visitors and school students, who’ll experience the ship exactly as if Cook and his crew have just been there: in the Great

Cabin, charts will be spread out midconsultation, meals will be half-eaten in the mess deck, and bunks will be ready for a good night’s sleep. The Endeavour circumnavigation is one of the most ambitious outreach programs ever undertaken by the museum, said museum director MaryLouise Williams at the launch: The museum constantly strives to take its facilities, services and ideals out across the country to share with all Australians. This voyage gives us the opportunity to build relationships and work with remote and regional communities, and with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, to encourage mutual understanding of our shared history and, in particular, our shared maritime history. We’ve developed a significant partnership with the Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) to provide 39 berths on various legs of the voyage to Indigenous Australians, encouraging them to be part of the experience and to develop new skills that may lead to future employment opportunities. Signals 95 june to august 2011

It’s particularly rewarding to see that a vessel designed in the 18th century can have a scientific application today

Special guest at the launch, Senator the Hon Mark Arbib, Minister for Indigenous Employment and Economic Development, described this initiative as: … a fantastic opportunity for 39 dedicated young Australians from remote and regional communities. Their time on the Endeavour will teach them invaluable skills for the future. The Indigenous crew members will be trained in sailing and navigation techniques, resulting in long-term job opportunities across multiple fields. Following their voyage, DEEWR will work with the young sailors to help them find suitable employment. The crew of Endeavour were particularly moved by a special blessing from local Indigenous elders Norma Ingram and Uncle Max Eulo at the departure ceremony. Uncle Max presented voyage captain Ross Mattson with a message stick from the local traditional owners of the land on which the museum is built, to carry throughout the voyage and present to the traditional owners of the land in each port the ship visits. Shaped like a boomerang, the stick is inscribed ‘in recognition and friendship’. Local Aboriginal training vessel Tribal Warrior then led Endeavour out onto the harbour to send the ship on its way. The original HMB Endeavour, captained by James Cook, led to the eventual European settlement of Australia. And for many Indigenous Australians, it remains a symbol of invasion and dispossession. However, unlike the original, the Endeavour replica and the museum are working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to ensure that this journey is one of friendship and reconciliation. Through this voyage, the museum is also developing a number of significant relationships with various organisations and community groups to expand the reach of the project. 38

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One such program is with the Bureau of Meteorology. Endeavour is now a member of the Bureau’s Australian Voluntary Observing Fleet, and part of a network of approximately 90 vessels in Australian waters who regularly make and transmit important observations of weather conditions while at sea – such as barometric pressure, sea state and swell. The Bureau has supplied Endeavour with the necessary meteorological equipment, including a Stevenson screen, digital barometer and a dedicated software program to enable the crew to monitor and report on conditions every six hours. This information will be used to inform long-term climate profiles and seasonal climate forecasting and to assist in the detection of global climate change. The crew will also be deploying four drifting buoys – two off the Great Barrier Reef and another two off the north-west cape of Western Australia. Endeavour is particularly well placed to launch these buoys as the ship will be sailing into areas not often frequented by other vessels in the Voluntary Observing Fleet. Once launched, the buoys will join 1,000 others operating around the world as part of a global observing system. The buoys transmit information on surface pressure, surface temperature and current movements, which can then be accessed by all meteorological agencies around the world to inform weather and ocean forecasting. Mary-Louise Williams observed that: It’s particularly rewarding to see that a vessel designed in the 18th century can have a scientific application today. In many ways the replica is continuing that tradition of scientific discovery begun on board the original Endeavour more than 240 years ago. We are also developing a comprehensive online education program that will be a great resource for schools, teachers and students throughout the circumnavigation and beyond. Using the latest technology, the website will feature interactive tools and diverse material from museums, libraries, community groups and organisations around Australia on a range of themes relevant to national and state curricula. By coincidence, as the Endeavour replica sails along the Australian coast, she will be joined, in space, by the space shuttle Endeavour on its final mission. The space shuttle was named after Cook’s famous vessel of discovery following a naming competition among

schoolchildren. Despite their obvious differences, the two Endeavours share more than just a name – they also share the same spirit of exploration, discovery and adventure. Ship’s captain Ross Mattson, and space shuttle captain Mark Kelly, have corresponded on the eve of both voyages to reflect on their similarities and to wish each other, as Captain Kelly wrote, ‘safe voyage, with fair winds and following seas’. He added: We are certain that humanity will continue in the quest for new knowledge and new capabilities. There could be no finer examples of that quest than our two Endeavours. In May 1992 the space shuttle Endeavour carried a trunnel (a hard wooden pin used for fastening timbers together) into space on its inaugural mission. This nail then became the last trunnel hammered into the Endeavour replica, and today it is still visible in the Great Cabin – forever linking the 18th-century sailing ship to the 20th-century space ship. But the differences between the two Endeavours are highlighted by the following statistics: HMB Endeavour will take over 13 months to circumnavigate Australia, and will average just over 4.5 km/hr throughout the journey; whereas the space shuttle Endeavour will orbit the earth every 91 minutes, travelling at 28,000km/hr (about 10 times faster than a rifle bullet)! 

Endeavour is being sailed by a professional crew of 16, assisted by 40 paying crew. Limited voyage crew and supernumerary berths are still available on some legs of the journey. If you’ve always dreamt of sailing the oceans in the 18th century, and would like to learn how to set sails, steer a bark and navigate using sextants and charts, freecall 1800 720 577 or visit www.anmm.gov.au to apply.

The Endeavour voyage is a major undertaking by the museum and has in part been made possible by the involvement of these partners: Significant voyage partners Toshiba The History Channel Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Voyage partners Caltex Carnival Australia Australian Maritime Safety Authority NSW Maritime DMS Maritime Taronga Conservation Society Australia Media Partners The West Australian Austereo Channel Nine

opposite, top to bottom: Indigenous elder, Uncle Max Eulo, presents Endeavour captain Ross Mattson with a message stick to carry throughout the voyage and present to the traditional owners of the land in each port the ship visits. Traditional smoking ceremony before Endeavour sets sail. Representatives of the 13 Endeavour voyage partners, with museum director Mary-Louise Williams (front row, third from right) and Lisha Mulqueeny (front row, right), head of the museum’s Commercial Services branch, watch the ship’s departure. Photographer Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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Sewing a ship for Sindbad Our 2010 exhibition Sons of Sindbad – the photographs of Alan Villiers introduced us to the great Arab sailing fleets of the 20th century. Guest lecturer at last year’s Classic & Wooden Boat Festival, Nick Burningham, spoke about Villiers, dhows and their antecedents. This article, about building a replica of an ancient Arabian ship that plied its trade in our near-northern region, is drawn from his lecture.

opposite: Jewel of Muscat, the replica of a 9th-century ship that plied the trade route between China and the Middle East, under full sail on its voyage across the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. Photographer Robert Jackson

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In the seaways to Australia’s north, mariners making a passage between the Java Sea and the South China Sea must thread a course through the reefs and rocks that surround Belitung Island, located between the large islands of Sumatra and Borneo. In 1997, local fishermen diving for trepang (sea cucumbers) on Belitung’s north coast discovered a coral concretion that was identified as a 9th-century shipwreck. The experienced Australian maritime archaeologist Dr Mike Flecker was brought in to direct and record the excavation. He soon recognised that while the cargo was from China, the ship’s structure – of planks sewn together and stitched to the frames – revealed that the vessel originated from somewhere far across the Indian Ocean: Arabia, Persia or India. It is the only wreck of an ancient dhow ever discovered. The technique of sewing the planks together is recognisable as one that has persisted until recently in isolated locations on the shores of the Arabian Sea, and is still used in parts of southern India and Sri Lanka. Enough of the ship’s structure remained to show the outline of its design. The length of the keel, the angle that the stem raked forward and the girth (the measurement around the outside of the hull planking at the widest point) were all clear. Some features, such as a full-length keelson (a timber doubling the keel on the inside of the hull) and sister keelsons, were surprising. These are generally thought of as historically modern innovations. Ten tonnes of lead ballast sat on the keelson, a practice that I thought had started with racing yachts in the 19th century. The way that the hull had been preserved in the seabed was unusual and fortuitous. Usually, if any part of a sunken ship remains, it is just the bottom of the hull – the portion that was rapidly buried in fine silt in which there is no oxygen to support organisms that attack timber. The shape of that buried section is

preserved, but the exposed upper hull quickly decays. On the Belitung wreck, however, the stitching that held the hull together probably failed within a year or two of the sinking, allowing the flattening and burying of the hull planks under the weight of its own cargo. In this way much of the hull was preserved like a pressed flower – but all the shape was lost. Analysis of the timbers showed that the deck beams were teak (Tectona grandis) that probably came from India. Since Arabian and Persian ships were often built using timber from Indian jungles, this did not help to pinpoint where the ship was built. However, the identification of the planking and other major components as Afzelia africana, a timber sourced from Africa, ruled out Indian shipbuilding and hinted at an amazingly integrated Indian Ocean and Asian world of the 9th century. We see African and Indian timber, Arab-Persian shipbuilding techniques, a shipwreck at Belitung, and the presence of materials such as dammar resin and perhaps paperbark fibre that suggested the ship had been operated and maintained in South-East Asia for some years. My close involvement with the Belitung wreck began when His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman generously decreed that a replica of the Belitung ship would be built and sailed to Singapore as a gift to celebrate ancient and enduring links of trade and friendship. He would name her Jewel of Muscat. Working with Dr Mike Flecker and Dr Tom Vosmer, who would direct the construction in Oman, I set out to reconstruct the lost shape of the original ship. There were interesting clues and an intriguing paradox. The girth was apparently too great for the length. Great girth in cargo vessels, as in Sumo wrestlers, generally equates with obesity and great mass. A fat and heavy sailing vessel requires a lot of power to propel it. This means the sails and rig will impose

The way that the hull had been preserved in the seabed was unusual and fortuitous

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The shipbuilding traditions of Arabia were dynamic and innovative

above: A specimen of Afzelia africana – the species used for the Belitung ship’s planking – in the savannah of Ghana. Photographer Nick Burningham opposite: Researchers working on the Belitung ship replica studied stitched-plank boatbuilding traditions surviving in modern India. Photographer Jeffrey Mellefont

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big loads on the hull, and that is not what one wants if the hull is fastened entirely by stitching of coconut fibre. The Belitung shipwreck had no nails, no dowels, no fastenings of any kind other than stitches. In designing the replica we needed to combine the known girth with a shape that would be inherently strong, spread the stresses imposed by wind and wave, and would be easily propelled. The plank-shell of the hull had been flattened on the seabed without any obvious tearing apart of the plank seams – something that is only possible with certain types of hull shape. Much of the cargo, and the stem, had fallen to one side. The keelson had also subsided away to one side of the keel and the centre-line, lying over at a large angle. All these clues, and the lead ballast, pointed to a sharp V cross-section shape. The joinery where the hull planks were notched into projecting deck beams helped confirm this shape. Such a cross-section might be seen as surprisingly modern and yachtlike, yet there were sewn-plank sailing boats built with just that kind of shape until the 1930s on a remote part of the Kenyan coast. They were roughly built and looked primitive, but they were known to sail amazingly well. A design was developed on paper and also through computer modelling; it was then refined and tested by sewing a scale model. It had to be a design that could be sewn without what shipwrights call ‘edgespringing’ the planks. Edge-springing would put unacceptable loads on the stitching. We needed a design that would fit together in an easy and natural way. Some details, including the rig, could not be derived from the shipwreck. There was a general expectation that

an ancient ‘dhow’ would carry tall scimitar-shaped lateen or settee sails like the ocean-going dhows recorded in the photographs of Alan Villiers and others in the first half of the 20th century. But the shipbuilding traditions of Arabia were dynamic and innovative. The big dhows that Villiers saw were, in all likelihood, no more like medieval dhows than James Craig and the other squareriggers that he sailed in were like Viking longships. The iconography (old drawings, murals, bas-relief carvings) show us that pre-modern dhows carried rectangular sails, and in the Middle Ages they were set as square sails. I had learned something of how quickly dhow design could change when I researched and built a set of dhow models for a new maritime museum in the Sultanate of Oman. When Villiers was in Kuwait in 1939 there were only three of the lordly baghlas with their magnificently carved and decorated sterns still in use, and they were decrepit. Yet the earliest photographs of baghlas at Kuwait, from about 1900, suggest that the Kuwaiti baghla was then a recent development, still evolving from the 19th-century Indian kotias. In 1917 the first big boum – the type of ship on which Villiers voyaged – was built for longdistance trade. It was a new idea. They were graceful and sailed well, but lacked the decorated stern; and within three decades they had replaced the renowned baghlas as the prestige dhows of Kuwait. We gave Jewel of Muscat, the full-size replica of the Belitung ship, a two-masted rig. The full-length keelson meant that masts could be stepped almost anywhere along the vessel’s centre-line. The steering mechanism was also a question of conjecture. There are no depictions of dhows contemporary with the Belitung wreck. Earlier depictions show rudders mounted on either side of the stern – on the quarters, as mariners say. Such quarter-mounted rudders are sometimes described as ‘steering oars’ but they rotate on their longitudinal axis so they are really rudders. Later medieval depictions of Arabian ships show the rudder mounted on the sternpost. Indeed, Arabs and other seafarers of the south-west Asian region seem to have adopted the sternpostmounted rudder at an earlier date than Europeans. Written descriptions of seafaring indicate that the helmsman used ropes to control the rudder, and some depictions show the ropes or yoke lines running to a tiller pointing aft from the

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rudder. That steering system was retained on Omani fishing boats such as the bedan until a few decades ago. We decided on a belt-and-braces approach and gave Jewel of Muscat both quarter rudders and a rudder mounted on a tall extension of the sternpost like a bedan. In Arabia and in Europe there was a long transition from quarter rudders to sternpost rudders, during which ships carried both – though they were unlikely to have used three rudders simultaneously. Jewel of Muscat’s crew reported that the quarter rudders were easier to use and more effective than the sternpost rudder, an interesting piece of experimental archaeology and a surprising result. The voyage from Oman to Singapore started in mid-February 2010, perhaps a little too late in the north-east monsoon season. Certainly Jewel of Muscat was becalmed off Muscat for days before taking a tow into the Arabian Sea. The crossing to Cochin in southern India was fairly slow. Stronger winds and squally conditions gave a better passage round to Galle, Sri Lanka. There the rather unsatisfactory masts were replaced by two stouter teak masts, made from magnificent trees felled in the jungle by local foresters supervised by head shipwright Babu Sankaran and Luca Belfioretti, who had been responsible for sourcing timber from India and supervising the ship’s construction in Oman. The whole process, from finding the tall, straight trees, to stepping the finished masts, complete with modern navigation lights and aerials, was done in a few days of intense work. Those big, new, unseasoned masts were heavy and put quite a load on the hull – especially when Jewel of Muscat ran into the edge of a tropical cyclone while crossing from Sri Lanka to Malaysia. On 17 and 18 May she was logging up to nine knots under a storm sail with big seas on the beam, quite a severe test for any traditional sailing vessel. Fortunately the Omani and Indian shipwrights and stitchers had done a superb job. Sewnplank vessels cannot be caulked. The seams between the planks where water might leak in are covered by the stitching and fibrous, oil-soaked wadding. The planks must be perfectly shaped and fitted together so the hull is tight like a barrel. In principle the sewn construction is very strong. There are more than 100,000 stitches holding the planks together, plus all the lashings that hold the frames to the planking. Every one of those stitches is 44

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We decided on a belt-and-braces approach and gave Jewel of Muscat both quarter rudders and a rudder mounted on a tall extension of the sternpost

carefully tightened using levers. The overall effect is strong and unyielding, but when running at nine knots in a storm one cannot ignore the fact that individual stitches of coconut fibre string are not very strong, and if one or two were to fail a point of weakness would develop and the whole hull might start to rip apart. Jewel of Muscat arrived safely in Singapore on 3 July 2010, having visited Penang and Port Klang en route. She was ceremonially gifted to Singapore by Captain Saleh al Jabri and His Excellency Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Albusaidi, Secretary General of the Oman Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ď Ž

Nick Burningham has been a researcher and consultant on many historic replica projects, with a particular focus on ancient and Asian seacraft. Prior to the Jewel of Muscat project he worked for the Sultan of Oman teaching young Omani museum workers how to make scale models of Arabian dhows.

above: Design drawings for Jewel of Muscat with its two-masted square rig based on that of an Arab craft, the mtepe, which persisted in East Africa until the 20th century. left: The author lecturing at the museum about 20th-century forms of Arabian shipping, as recorded by Australian photographer Alan Villiers. Comparisons with 9th-century precursors reveal some continuities but many changes. Photographer J Mellefont/ANMM opposite top: The author sewing the model of his reconstructed design for the Belitung ship. Photographer Bill Brown opposite: Jewel of Muscat during a late stage of construction in the Sultanate of Oman. Its stitched hull is being treated with a traditional antifouling of lime and oil. Photographer Alessandro Ghidoni

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Historic Australian Register of Historic Vessels

Paddles, sails and steamers Another 14 craft were approved for listing on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels when the ARHV Council met early in 2011. Among the diverse selection are some of the wonderful Indigenous craft that are gradually being added to the register, says ARHV curator David Payne. indigenous watercraft are the original craft of this country, shaped from local materials by communities using their own handmade tools. The register is gradually building a picture of the diverse nature of these craft by adding examples from collections around Australia. Four craft from Queensland Museum were nominated, and they highlight vessels from north-east Queensland. The Mornington Island raft is a rare example of this specialised, small raft. It is made from bundled logs and branches to form a tapered platform with a paperbark seat. These craft were propelled with mangrove wood paddles shaped from the buttress roots. The skinbark canoe from Mapoon on the west coast of Cape York represents their community’s traditional method of making a bark canoe from a single sheet of material. For support there is a simple cross bracing and tie system for framing along the hull. By contrast, the Mapoon double outrigger shows a strong influence from the Torres Strait island area to the north, where advanced versions of these craft regularly crossed the Strait between the many islands. This influence is also obvious in some of the connection details on the Gunggandji single outrigger, which comes from near Cape Grafton on the east coast of Cape York. The fascinating hollowed-out log shape with blunt ends

above: The platform ends of this hollowed-out Gunggandji single outrigger from the east coast of Cape York are believed to be where the hunter stood ready to strike his prey.

is a simple interpretation of the more advanced craft used further up the coast and into the Strait. The curious platform ends are understood to be where the hunter stood ready with his spear or harpoon. Penghana and SY Preana are both from Tasmania. Penghana was built in 1958 in Hobart as a fishing boat. It was later used as a fisheries inspection vessel, then adapted further to become a floating schoolroom for Woodbridge School. SY Preana is a steam yacht from 1896, built by Robert Inches who had the premier boat yard at the time. Converted to run on an oil motor in the 1930s, it fell into disrepair in the 1990s until bought by the current owner, who has returned it to its original glorious arrangement and profile. PS Industry and PS Marion are steamdriven, paddle steamers from the Murray River. Both have been extensively restored so they can continue to tell the heritage story of the paddle steamers that opened the region to settlers and commerce. The ferry Baragoola was also a steam-driven ship when first launched in 1922 from the famous Morts Dock and

Engineering yard at Balmain. It is the largest remaining example of a craft from this yard and is currently being restored to working order. Two RAN 27-Foot motor whalers are displayed aboard HMAS Diamantina at the Queensland Maritime Museum, and represent different construction methods and their use in conjunction with naval vessels. The first (2717) is a clinker hull, while 2703 is a moulded wooden hull shape. The latter was stationed aboard Diamantina for many years in the 1960s. Gretel II is one the country’s most famous racing yachts. This was stateof-the-art, leading-edge design and construction in 1970, and it came close to capturing the America’s Cup that year. The stunning profile of the era has been recaptured in a recent restoration that has Gretel II out sailing again, and the yacht was a stand-out feature at the museum’s Classic and Wooden Boat Festival in October 2010. Altair and Endeavour represent the 21-Foot Restricted Class, whose heyday was from the 1920s until the mid-1950s, with fierce racing for the coveted interstate trophy, The Forster Cup. A number of the old 21s have ended up in Goolwa, South Australia. Their history keeps sailing on as they race again on Fridays and Saturdays now that the water is flowing once more. 

www.anmm.gov.au/arhv This online national heritage project devised and coordinated by the Australian National Maritime Museum reaches across Australia to collate data about the nation’s extant historic vessels, their designers, builders and their stories. 46

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RAN Motor Whaler 2717

Mornington Island Indigenous raft

1965

HV000213

Builder

Royal Australian Navy, Garden Island Dockyard

Builder

unknown

Type

27-Foot motor whaler

Type

Indigenous watercraft

Baragoola 1922

HV000409

Builder

Morts Dock and Engineering

Type

Manly Ferry

RAN Motor Whaler 2703 1961

HV000413

Builder

Royal Australian Navy, Garden Island Dockyard

Type

27-Foot motor whaler

Gretel II 1970

HV000437

Builder

Billy Barnett

Type

International 12-metre class racing yacht

HV000441

Mapoon Indigenous outrigger canoe c 1896

HV000442

Builder

unknown

Type

Indigenous watercraft

Gunggandji Indigenous outrigger canoe c 1915

HV000443

Builder

unknown

Type

Indigenous watercraft

Mapoon Indigenous skinbark canoe c 1935

HV000444

Builder

unknown

Type

Indigenous watercraft

PS Industry

PS Marion

1911

HV000438

1897

HV000446

Builder

A J Inches

Builder

A H Landseer

Type

Paddle steamer

Type

Paddle steamer

Penghana

Endeavour

1958

HV000439

1946

HV000447

Builder

R F Hickman Pty Ltd

Builder

J J Savage

Type

Fishing boat, fisheries inspection vessel and school research vessel

Type

21-Foot Restricted Class yacht

SY Preana

Altair

1896

HV000440

1947

HV000448

Builder

Robert Inches

Builder

J J Savage

Type

Steam yacht

Type

21-Foot Restricted Class yacht

All photographs are reproduced courtesy of the vessel owner

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Welcome Tales from the wall

The Egyptian Diaspora

left: Bert and Dinah Danon, centre, on their wedding day. On the left are Jacques and Jeanette Danon, and on the right, Gay and Eli Danon. The photograph was taken at the reception venue (the Australia Hotel, Martin Place). The wedding dress worn by Dinah was handmade by her mother. Photographer Gwen Field below left: This silver goblet is one of the few family heirlooms that the Danons were able to smuggle out with them when leaving Egypt. It is inscribed with a prayer in Hebrew and the wedding date of Jacques and Jeanette Danon, Bert's parents.

In the late 1950s the Danon family left Egypt, their homeland, behind. They knew that if they stayed, they would be persecuted for their European heritage and Jewish faith, as Egypt underwent massive change and upheaval. Australia proved an ideal choice for the family, as Veronica Kooyman, our Welcome Wall coordinator, writes.

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In the early 20th century, Egypt was a melting pot of cultures and religious faiths living in harmony. Its strategically important assets brought significant trade through the region, and there was a roaring tourist industry due to a worldwide fascination with Egyptology. Jacques and Jeannette Danon married in Cairo in 1926 and had two sons: Eli in 1931 and Albert (Bert) in 1935. Jacques worked as an accountant and, by European standards, they were a middle-class family; by Egyptian standards they lived a high life. The Danons were of Spanish and Italian heritage. Throughout Bert’s youth, Jewish families with European ancestry became increasingly aware that their days in Egypt were numbered. The formation of the State of Israel in 1948 acted as a catalyst to anti-Semitic demonstrations and violence in the region, including the burning of synagogues. Growing political tensions between Egypt and Britain over rights to the Suez Canal resulted in spates of anti-Western riots on the streets of Cairo. In 1952 tensions exploded when the Egyptian royal family was ousted and Cairo burned. A new republican government, led by Muhammed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, took control. It heavily encouraged the Jewish population, particularly those of European descent, to leave Egypt.

The Danon family first looked to migrate to England, until the British consul advised against this move, describing Britain as a ‘spent country’ after World War II. At the time, Australia was strongly promoting immigration, due to its low population (decimated by two World Wars) and the need to expand its labour force. One of Eli’s school friends had migrated there and was prepared to sponsor Eli. In January 1956, Eli disembarked from SS Orontes in Sydney. Back in Egypt his parents and younger brother were about to experience a fresh outbreak of violence and hostilities. In July 1956, Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal and an international crisis broke out. French and British forces bombed Cairo in an attempt to force the hand of the United States. The Danons lived near Cairo’s central station in an area that was heavily bombed. Bert, then aged 20, vividly recalls the air raid shelters, and the added impetus to leave quickly. In Sydney, Eli had begun the sponsorship process for his family. At the time, Bert was halfway through his pharmacy studies at the University of Cairo. When he and his parents left Egypt, they were only allowed to take some clothes and five Egyptian pounds, and their bank accounts were frozen. They smuggled out some family heirlooms in their packed clothing,

The museum’s tribute to migrants, The Welcome Wall, encourages people to recall and record their stories of coming to live in Australia

Bert’s exit visa was stamped by the Foreign Department: ‘One way out never to return.’

knowing they would be imprisoned if caught. They were among the lucky ones who left the country virtually without incident. Others were thrown in gaol and tortured for their Jewish faith and European heritage. Bert’s exit visa was stamped by the Foreign Department: ‘One way out never to return.’ In April 1957, after more than six weeks on SS Australia, the family disembarked in Pyrmont – where the Welcome Wall stands today – and were reunited with Eli. They rented two rooms in Tamarama for three months, then moved to a small unit in Summer Hill, where they lived for three years before buying a property in Bondi. Bert applied to the University of Sydney to complete his pharmacy studies, and was assisted in his application by Professor Wright, head of the department. In 1957 there was a flu epidemic in NSW, and Bert picked up a temporary job for a month at a pharmacy in Young – the boy who grew up in Egypt had his first, unforgettable experience of frost. Bert’s father Jacques continued to work as a clerk and accountant, and Eli had a job as a sales manager for truck company International Harvester. The cultural transition from Egypt to Australia was perhaps most difficult for their mother Jeannette, who was particularly upset to see her sons washing their own car, when previously servants had done this work for them. Bert completed his studies in 1960. He did part of his work experience at a pharmacy in Hurlstone Park, where he was the target of thinly-veiled racism, was called ‘gyppo’ and was underpaid for his work. But Bert kept his characteristic dignity throughout the experience.

The family today, 20 February 2011. Back row from left, son-in-law Jacques Levy and wife Joanne, grandson Joshua, Bert, Dinah, Jeremy and wife Shana. Front row left to right, grandsons Toby, Jordan and Liam. Photographer Justine Perl Photography

In 1961 Bert and Eli went into business together, opening their first pharmacy in Villawood. Eli was the financial backer and Bert travelled to Villawood seven days a week for three-and-a-half years to ensure the business grew. In 1964 they sold this pharmacy and opened another in Kingsford, where they stayed for 15 years, before moving to Market Street in the Sydney CBD, where they remained for over 20 years. Their CBD pharmacy was the first to have a sizeable one-hour photography mini-lab in the city. In total, Bert ran his own business for more than 40 years, enjoying the friendliness and rapport with his customers. In 1964 also, Bert married Dinah Carpenter, whom he had met through the tight-knit local European and Jewish community. She too had migrated to Australia with her family from Cairo. The Carpenters were of English and Austrian heritage – their ancestors had gone to Egypt in search of work five generations earlier. Dinah’s father Herman had worked for BOAC and through this job had met many Australian parliamentarians who convinced him to move his family to Australia. Herman, his wife Sabina and their three children arrived in Melbourne in 1951 to start a new life. Ten years later, on a holiday to Sydney, Herman and Sabina fell in love with the city’s cosmopolitan atmosphere and moved their family to Sydney, where Dinah and Bert soon met. Bert and Dinah have always been active in their local communities, giving much of their time to contribute to important programs. Bert has been active on the Synagogue Board since 1967 and has been involved with the Bondi chapter of Rotary since 1983. In 2010 he received

the prestigious Paul Harris Sapphire Award for his many years of service to the community. Bert also became involved as a volunteer with this museum, and for the past six years has been an invaluable member of the Welcome Wall office. Dinah has been involved for over 20 years with the National Council of Jewish Women, which actively works for local and overseas charities. She was president of the council for six years and is currently its national vice-president. Bert and Dinah have two children, Joanne and Jeremy. Both are successful professionals and have also provided Bert and Dinah with four grandsons. During our time chatting about Bert’s life and experiences, I commented on how much he has given to our society through his generous voluntary work. His response was that he loved this work because it gave him an avenue for giving back to the community, in return for Australia’s gifts to him. He has never returned to Egypt.  The names of the Danon and Carpenter families were unveiled on the Welcome Wall in 2006.

The Welcome Wall It costs just $105 to register a name and honour your family’s arrival in this great country! We’d love to add your family’s name to The Welcome Wall, cast in bronze, and place your story on the online database at www.anmm.gov.au/ww. So please don’t hesitate to call our staff during business hours with any enquiries on 02 9298 3777.

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Collections

Beatrice Kerr The most graceful lady swimmer

The museum recently acquired the Beatrice Kerr collection, which tells the story of a young Australian aquatic star who toured England and Australia from 1906 to 1911, as senior curator communities Daina Fletcher writes.

It is September 1906. Standing in a clingy woollen swimming-costume on a wooden plank high above the North Pier at Blackpool, England, is 17-year-old Australian swimmer Beatrice Kerr. Spectators jostle to get a better look. The band plays and she dives gracefully into the cool waters below. The crowd applauds. She calmly climbs out of the water and continues her routine: somersaults, the stand-sit-stand dive, the running-buck dive, the back-front dive, the wooden soldier and the spinning top. Her bag of tricks also features the waterwheel, walking the plank and the back stand-sit somersault. And she demonstrates swimming and life-saving techniques. The museum has recently acquired an archive of material relating to Beatrice Kerr (1887â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1971), which includes rare photographs of these diving performances â&#x20AC;&#x201C; amazingly candid action shots showing the young aquatic performer at work, along with the more routine posed studio portraits. From 1906 to 1911 Australian swimmer Beatrice Kerr toured England performing in these vaudeville-style aquatic events. She had a regular engagement at the Blackpool pier, gave occasional performances at Brighton Palace Pier, but also toured the north country, promoting her appearances either with a kangaroo embroidered on her swimsuit, or in a silver-spangled fish-scale suit. Living out of a suitcase, she performed at swimming carnivals 50

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Collections opposite: Poster from the Burslem Ladies' amateur Swimming Club's first Annual Gala, UK, 1908. ANMM Collection right: A series of images of Beatrice Kerr diving from Blackpool’s North Pier, c 1906. ANMM Collection

for local communities, for the police, fire brigades and at various swimming club gala carnivals where Oxo (the reduced beef stock) was supplied free of charge to warm the swimmers and promote the product. In early 2009, our curators were researching the history of swimwear fashion and the lives of early Australian swimmers and aquatic performers. Inquiries yielded a treasure trove and, 100 years after Kerr was thrilling the crowds in Blackpool, a significant cache of personal papers and photographs – folded into a battered metal suitcase formerly belonging to the champion Miss Beatrice Kerr – found its way into the National Maritime Collection, donated through the Australian Government Cultural Gifts Program by the Williams family, descendants of Beatrice Kerr. It is a magnificent personal and family archive of photographs, postcards, handbills, posters, advertisements, newspaper clippings, selected letters, journals, appointment books, contracts and accounting books. Altogether, this collection of more than 400 items gives us a glimpse into the world in which Beatrice Kerr, the young Victorian swimming champion, made her mark as a professional performer. We see what a novelty swimming was in Edwardian England – Beatrice on the diving board is as entertaining as a vaudeville performer. In the early 20th century swimming became hugely popular in England and even more so in Australia, and the life-

saving and learn-to-swim movements were also growing. It was a time when young swimmers could earn money showing how it was done. It’s hard to imagine swimming stars holding such a billing on entertainment programs today. Kerr was one of a number of Australians and north Americans who performed in the United Kingdom, alongside carnival acts that included strongman Stephen P Cohen and others whose portraits appear in her papers. Beatrice Kerr kept all her handbills, posters, advertisements and reviews. The collection reveals her hectic touring schedule after she arrived in London in July 1906. She immediately secured a contract at Blackpool, performing with David Billington, the newly professional British mile world record champion, who also swam in Melbourne. The contract shows the conditions of employment: the provision of a dressing room; permission for her manager to charge spectators a performance fee (two shillings); and the monies she earned for a performing season (16 pounds, 10 shillings and two pence). The collection also includes press previews of the ‘Australian Lady champion of fast swimming and ornamental diving and swimming’, and reviews of ‘the plucky young lady whose graceful disportations in the briny never fail to attract attention’. We see Beatrice as a schoolgirl champion in Victoria, her success in the Williamstown and Albert Park Lake Ladies Swimming Clubs, and her primacy in the 50-yard, 100-yard and half-mile distances, for which she won 44 prizes including bangles, hairbrushes, opera glasses and cruet sets (for finishing first, second or third). The collection also records her crossing paths with older sensational Sydney swimmer Annette Kellerman who, while performing at Princes Court Baths in Melbourne, awarded Kerr the first prize in diving at the 1905 Australian championships. Kerr went on to take Kellerman’s place performing at the Baths the following season after the older swimmer had left for England. We see Beatrice’s tour to Adelaide, Wallaroo, Fremantle, Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill, where we learn that the local silver-mining community gifted her the Signals 95 june to august 2011

Collections Sewn into a hessian sack, she was doused with petrol, set alight and dropped into the water

right: Beatrice Kerr in her silver fish-scale suit, c 1906. ANMM Collection

spectacular silver fish-scale suit she wears in her promotional photographs. We learn that the Australian press ordained her worthy to take up Kellerman’s mantle and that when in London, Beatrice challenged Kellerman to a swimming race. Despite a number of swimming challenges issued by Beatrice from 1906, the canny Kellerman never accepted. What other stories does this collection yield? We see the spectacular program Beatrice performed when she introduced the Monte Cristo Fire Bag trick in Adelaide. Sewn into a hessian sack, she was doused with petrol, set alight and dropped into the water, whereupon she freed herself to great applause. Although she performed this stunt a number of times on her Australian tour, it doesn’t appear on her program lists in England – not surprisingly, I suppose. In England in the 1900s, men and women could not bathe together at the same time or in the same place in public baths, yet this era saw Beatrice, and other competition swimmers, performing and competing in front of mixed crowds in clingy racing-suits. It was a time of transition. The collection shows Beatrice performing both at the opening of the new Melbourne City Baths in 1904 (with its separate baths for men and women, Turkish and slipper baths and laundry room), and at the inauguration 52

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of high-class mixed baths in Adelaide in 1912, upon her return to Australia. In this archive, we see the closeness and camaraderie of the swimming and sporting fraternities in Australia, the United Kingdom and north America. Letters, social cards, autographs, portraits, citations in books on the art of swimming, scrapbooks and clippings attest to this. We read of the success and tragic death of Australian champion Barney Kieran, who spectacularly claimed many British and world records, and we can chart the swimming strokes used, such as Kieran’s Australian crawl gradually supplanting the Trudgen stroke. We see the rise of younger Australian swimmers like Frank and Lily Beaurepaire, Cecil Healy, and Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie – who both went on to win gold and silver medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games, the first Olympic Games at which women were allowed to compete. What do we see of the character and inner life of Beatrice Kerr, the swimmer and aquatic performer who spent more than six years at her craft? We see her youthful diary entries; the dried flyingfish wings she pressed into her shipboard diary en route to England; her clipped notes on her performances – ‘performed the Monte Cristo Fire Bag trick tonight’, she wrote in one brief entry. We see her enthusiasm for the sport of swimming

in general and we are witness to her grace and skill as a performer. Her personal interests were broad, from the design of the baths she swam in, to the costumes she wore. We also see evidence of a heart condition in a doctor’s certificate from 1907 excusing Beatrice from performances. Beatrice did not campaign for the 1912 Olympic Games. In late 1911, she made her way back to Australia to marry and start a family. Her rival Annette Kellerman moved to America and became a silent movie star and women’s health advocate. All early Australian female swimmers contributed to raising the profile and popularity of swimming. As T W Sheffield, Canadian swimming and life-saving instructor wrote in his 1909 book, Swimming: Miss Beatrice Kerr is the best and most experienced lady diver in the world being closely followed by Miss Annette Kellerman, who is one of the neatest trick swimmers and divers … no doubt keen interest taken by the public … has led ladies to take up the art more vigorously. For the museum this is a fabulous collection that charts one woman’s spectacular achievements in an era now long gone. After conservation treatment, the Beatrice Kerr Collection will provide a rich resource for research and exhibition. 

Photos: bottom Blumenthal Photography; top Wyatt Song, Moments in Time

Enjoy your wedding ceremony or reception at our unique waterfront setting. Located on the western shore of Darling Harbour, the venues have splendid city skyline and harbour views. Enjoy pre-dinner drinks on the decks of the HMAS Vampire before moving into the glassed Terrace Room.

Laissez-faire Catering, renowned for their innovative cuisine, along with delivering service of the highest standard, are the venue’s exclusive caterers. T +61 2 9298 3625 venues@anmm.gov.au www.anmm.gov.au/weddings

new venue new menu The museum is pleased to announce that Laissez-faire Catering is now the exclusive caterer for museum functions and events. Sydney-based Laissez-faire Catering has over 22 years’ experience providing delicious food, innovative design, flexible menus, professional staff and peace of mind for clients. With the brand new waterside café due to open in 2011, it is exciting times ahead for Sydney’s newest waterfront venue. For enquiries: T: +61 2 9298 3625 venues@anmm.gov.au www.anmm.gov.au/venues

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Readings Sydney Harbour reimagined Slowly but surely, I found myself becoming entangled in the long threads of four people’s lives played out in a single day

Five Bells By Gail Jones, Vintage Books 2011, softcover, 216 pp, ISBN 978 1 86471 060 1. RRP $33.00

Time that is moved by little fidget wheels Is not my time, the flood that does not flow Between the double and the single bell Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells From the dark warship riding there below, I have lived many lives, and this one life Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells. Kenneth Slessor’s poem ‘Five bells’ was first published in 1939 in the small paperback Five Bells: XX Poems. Norman Lindsay provided drawings. It was written as an elegy to Slessor’s friend Joe Lynch who had drowned in Sydney Harbour in 1927. But it is really a meditation that radiates out through the harbour and into the melancholia of Australian modernity. ‘Five bells’ is one of those formative experiences. To me, ‘Five bells’ is Sydney Harbour. It is the real harbour, the deep, dark underbelly that never sleeps with its ‘ …Harbour-buoys/Tossing their fireballs wearily each to each’. It is the murky, muddy bottom that holds the bones of people like Joe Lynch, and the weighty memories of millions of Australians who have worked, lived, loved, laughed and died on the harbour – ‘memory, the flood that does not flow’. Titling a novel after the poem ‘Five bells’ must have been rather daunting. Like the immense presence of Sydney Harbour itself that Slessor so eerily evokes, Gail Jones’s novel carries the burden of one of the greatest works of Australian modern poetry on its shoulders. I looked out of my window in the dark At waves with diamond quills and combs of light That arched their mackerel-backs and smacked the sand . . . And tried to hear your voice, but all I heard Was a boat's whistle, and the scraping squeal Of seabirds' voices far away, and bells, Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out. 54

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Gail Jones’s Five Bells is set in and around Circular Quay and, at first glance, appears to deal with the iconic maritime landscape of Sydney Harbour – and in many ways it does. Jones carefully draws upon the everyday imagery of things so familiar to Sydneysiders that, in many ways, we might almost forget their existence as we pass them by, leaving them for tourists to gawp at. As someone who has lived in Sydney for most of my life, it was with some slight interest that I picked up Five Bells. How presumptuous! How could someone possibly capture the essence of my city, my quay, my harbour? I wasn’t going to like this book. In fact, after the first few pages I felt totally justified. I didn’t like it. There are nods to Sydney as the cultural melting pot in the four main characters, which are just too neat. Sydney Harbour seemed to be a tourist cliché. But then I read on and, slowly but surely, I found myself becoming entangled in the long threads of four people’s lives played out in a single day which, like all our days, is about the constancy of the past in the present – and often the weighty, dark past that a settler–migrant society carries with it.

Five Bells is a surprise. It wraps around you, and the apparently banal plot – four different people heading to Circular Quay on a Saturday morning – becomes a gripping device. What will unite them, if anything indeed will? Jones’s novel treats history and memory, both personal and collective, with skill and respect. We tend to forget that the shiny harbour waters of a gorgeous Sydney day can so quickly become, as Slessor wrote, a ‘rip of darkness’. It may not quite have the depth of analysis that could have made this an even more powerful work, but I believe Slessor would forgive Jones the indulgence of referring to his ‘Five bells’ and might even see it as a wonderful extension of his original meditation. 

Readings Mr Bligh’s bad grammar In Bligh’s Hand: Surviving the Mutiny on the Bounty By Jennifer Gall, National Library of Australia 2011, softcover, illustrated, 234 pp, ISBN 978 0 64227 705 3. RRP $35.00

Just before Sun Rise the People Mutinied seized me while asleep in my Cabbin tied my Hands behind my back – carried me on Deck in my Shirt – Put 18 of the Crew into the Launch, & me after them and set us a drift … Thus wrote Lieutenant William Bligh, on 28 April 1789, in his first entry of a notebook record of a remarkable openboat voyage over 3,600 miles from the Friendly Isles (Tonga) to Timor. In fact, Bligh’s brief account of the mutiny is one of the more florid moments in his notebook, which is otherwise full of ration portions, navigational calculations, observations, the odd sketch map and a log of the voyage. When Bligh and 18 other crew from HMS Bounty were cast adrift in the ship’s 23-foot launch, among the many items the strangely generous mutineers provided Bligh with were the ship’s log and journal. The precious journal was stored out of the elements, but Bligh also needed a small book for daily calculations and notes which he could later transfer to the journal. He quickly ‘appropriated’ midshipman Thomas Hayward’s signals book and kept it, as Bligh recounted, ‘in my bosom’. It was only later in his 1792 published account, A Voyage to the South Sea, that Bligh turned his hand to a more detailed, satisfactory and self-satisfied version of events. The notebook was written in the incredibly cramped, cold, damp, intensely hungry and miserable conditions of an open boat where, at one point, Bligh euphemistically records that no-one on board had ‘evacuated’ in 18 days. The notebook was a precious piece of navigational equipment and a valuable resource to be used carefully and sparingly. Bligh’s writing is pared back to the bare bones of necessity – his spelling and grammar is, understandably, to be forgiven.

Bligh’s notebook allows us to better understand the voyage on a human scale. It is remarkable simply for its concerns with a ‘teaspoonfull of Rum’ or a ‘morsel of Bread’. It also reminds us that Bligh was very much preoccupied with scientific observation, desperate to be considered alongside the great Pacific explorer–scientists. On such an epic voyage of endurance, when writing space, time and energy was at a premium, his notebook still often included information on geography, flora and fauna. Reading Bligh’s words, rather than those of historians, also reminds us why he was forced to go all the way to Timor. With only four cutlasses aboard, he was essentially ‘bounced’ across the Pacific by ‘Natives in great number’. His voyage serves to remind us that without muskets, the power relations between Europeans and Indigenous peoples in the Pacific were dramatically reversed. The notebook, regarded as one of the National Library of Australia’s ‘great treasures’, had remained in the hands of Bligh’s descendants until purchased by the library in 1976. This 2011 publication is not the first detailed treatment of the notebook itself. It is an abbreviated version, with only a selection of pages and sections reproduced and transcribed. John Bach’s comprehensive 1986 transcription and facsimile, The Bligh Notebook, remains the authoritative reference work.

Bach’s publication is in black and white, however, while Gall’s version is in fullblown and somewhat overly-graphic colour. Its selected, digitally-photographed notebook pages show the sea-stained, blotted and difficult-to-read handwriting, and are accompanied by transcriptions. Gall provides an overview of the events that Bligh glossed over and the pages that she has not included. This is all accompanied by perhaps too many images from the plethora of imagined and somewhat fanciful scenes of events from the mutiny and voyage, produced after the event. Considering the vast amount of books, film and other cultural production about the infamous Bligh, does Jennifer Gall’s version of Bligh’s notebook add anything to our understanding of the mutiny, the loyalists, or indeed of the element of the story that has, ever since, plagued historians’ accounts – understanding Bligh ‘the man’? Gall is not Greg Dening, whose meticulous and evocative writings stand as the pinnacle of attempts to understand Bligh and the context of the Bounty mutiny, and to comprehend why it is we want to understand Bligh. In Bligh’s Hand feels somewhat padded-out with images and graphics. Yet if one wants to dip into Bligh’s notebook in full coffee-table-book colour, without the boring bits and rigorous detail, then this publication is perfect. While there has been much written – arguably too much written – on Bligh and the mutiny on the Bounty, there is still much to be discussed, learnt and analysed from the wanderings, musings and stories of the exchange of ideas and culture that was the imagined, exotic South Seas in the great age of European exploration and encounter. Bligh’s notebook is one of the more authentic documents of this period and, in its compelling realism, provides an unusual insight into European hierarchy, power and survival in the Pacific. 

Both reviews by Stephen Gapps, curator of environment, industry and shipping

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Currents Conference on Indigenous watercraft in 2012 Next year, the Australian National Maritime Museum will host a two-day national conference focusing on the wide variety of traditional watercraft designed, made and used by Australia’s Indigenous peoples. The conference will run from 30 May to 1 June 2012. Since the early colonial mariners arrived in their Mari Nawi (large canoes), the watercraft of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people have been sidelined from Australia’s maritime history and heritage. Yet many early European observers remarked on their utility – how the craft were ‘most perfectly adapted’ to their functions. And early colonial maritime imagery often depicted Aboriginal people fishing from their canoes.

A selection of watercraft from the Australian National Maritime Museum’s collection. Photographer Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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The craft were ‘most perfectly adapted’ to their functions

The range and diversity of traditional watercraft, however, were rarely noticed by the Europeans. In fact, there is a surprising and widespread variation in type, materials and construction technologies, such as rafts and outriggers with sails. Yet there has been no significant typological study of traditional Indigenous watercraft across Australia, and no survey of craft that remain in

museum and other collections today. There is no national picture of such a significant area of more than 40,000 years of Australia’s maritime history. This, the first major conference on the watercraft of the First Australians, seeks to bring together practitioners and a range of institutions, groups, communities and individuals interested in the history, conservation, construction, interpretation and presentation of Indigenous watercraft in Australia. Highlights will include demonstrations and talks by traditional canoe-builders and people engaged in reviving traditional canoe-building practices and knowledge. The conference will seek a range of papers, presentations, displays, demonstrations and performances as part of an exploration of the history, diversity and significance of Indigenous watercraft. It will be an important and vibrant exploration of a wonderful array of traditional craft – from the bound barkand-reed canoes of Tasmania and the flat bark canoes of the Murray–Darling, to the fan-shaped Bardi rafts of northwestern Australia and the double outriggers of Torres Strait – and of their continuity and revival. Papers, presentations and practical demonstrations are invited on, though not limited to, the following topics: canoe stories; canoes in fishing, trade and travelling; canoes in art and film; European views of Indigenous watercraft; Indigenous voyagers and voyaging; recreations, replicas and re-enactments; distribution and styles of watercraft; regional variations; identifying and recording craft; rafts, outriggers and canoes; construction and design; canoe archaeology; canoe trees; watercraft in museum collections; repatriation, access and conservation; issues in conservation, interpretation, education and public engagement; canoe building; techniques and materials; canoes and community.  A call for papers and presentations will be made this month. For further information please contact Daina Fletcher, senior curator communities, email dfletcher@anmm.gov.au or phone +612 9298 3777.

Currents The AMMC meets at Mannum

The annual conference of the Australian Maritime Museums Council (AMMC) was held from 23 to 26 March at Mannum, South Australia, on the lower reaches of the now flooding and rapidly flowing Murray River. Over 50 delegates attended, representing museums in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. Why was Mannum chosen as the location for a maritime museum conference? The township played a vital role in the development of the inland river system – the Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers – and in the use of paddle steamers as an efficient means of transporting provisions to inland settlers, squatters and miners and carrying out their produce. It was here, in 1852, that William Richard Randell began building the first river steamboat on the Murray River, Mary Ann, which went on to make the first steam-powered voyage on the Murray on 18 March 1853. Mannum continued to function as a significant centre for riverboat building and repair, especially after Randell purchased the ‘largest (timber) floating dock in the southern hemisphere’ (as described at the time) there, and converted it to a fixed dry dock. The dock still exists today and – together with PS Marion (a restored 1900s paddle steamer) and the original boiler

from the Mary Ann – is one of the most impressive objects in the collection of the Mannum Dock Museum of River History, host of the 2011 conference. The main theme of the conference was ‘Building support’. Three sessions, each with three speakers from diverse backgrounds, developed this theme in relation to communities, business and government, and audiences. For example, the second session opened with a presentation by Rob Kerin, former Premier of South Australia and now Chair of the SA Regional Development Board, who provided an insight into how that state has developed a model to encourage business and government support for museums. Then Alan Edenborough from Sydney Heritage Fleet spoke on the different ways of ‘doing heritage business’ in NSW and Victoria. The final presentation of the session was by Peter Abbott, manager of Warrnambool’s Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum, who outlined the strategies employed by that museum to ensure that it was included in the Victorian regional tourism action plan. There was a session devoted to conservation and another on volunteer management in the form of an interactive workshop, with representatives from museums with significant volunteer numbers responding to questions from the floor.

The final session involved ten short presentations by delegates from around the country. Topics included the restoration and operation of PS Oscar W, the $14.2 million revitalisation of the Port of Echuca, a project to digitally record the offsets of Tasmanian heritage vessels, and an update on the campaign to save the clipper ship City of Adelaide. The conference was preceded by a welcoming cruise on PS Marion, a short cruise on PS Oscar W on her arrival from Goolwa, and a bus and boat trip to view the magnificent limestone cliffs on the river at Big Bend, followed by a countrystyle barbecue. It was all a great success, with expectations high that the 2012 conference, to be hosted by the Lady Denman Heritage Complex at Huskisson (on the NSW South Coast), will be even better. The executive committee has already begun work on developing the proposed theme, ‘Shipwrecks’. The AMMC is open to staff, members and volunteers of maritime museums and other similar organisations, and is dedicated to the preservation of Australia’s maritime heritage.  Peter Rout, assistant director, ANMM

above left: Delegates onboard PS Oscar W. above right: PS Marion at Mannum.

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Currents Navy Family and Community Day

Lecturing on the Queen Mary 2

Join us in celebrating 100 years of the Royal Australian Navy at our free Family and Community Day on Sunday 12 June, from 9.30 am to 5 pm. Held in association with the Navy, there’ll be Sea King helicopter and fast-roping demonstrations, flight simulators, clearance diver tank displays, performances by the RAN Band, kids’ activities, showbags and more. 

Recently I was asked if I’d be interested in being a guest lecturer in maritime and Australian history aboard the Queen Mary 2. This was for 17 days during her 2011 world voyage of 103 days from New York, for the South Africa/Australia leg in February 2011. It proved to be a memorable experience, culminating with the widelypublicised arrival in Sydney, where the ship led her new, smaller sister Queen Elizabeth, then on her maiden voyage to Australia, into the Harbour. The last time the original Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were in Sydney waters was in 1941, when they passed one another off the Heads, carrying Australian troops to the Middle East. Good-sized audiences and the strong feedback following my lectures were pleasing. My subjects included the navigators/explorers of Australia; the golden years of the famous flying boats; and the history of the ship from the earliest days of civilisation. Many superlatives have been written about the one-of-a-kind Queen Mary 2. To my knowledge, it is the fastest passenger carrier afloat, with a top speed of 30 knots. On several stretches this greyhound of the seas was making 28 knots, with the ability to reverse at 19 knots. At 149,000 gross tons and with (only) 2,600 guests, the Queen Mary 2 has been designed as a liner especially able to negotiate the challenging weather conditions encountered in the North Atlantic, but is also readily adaptable to worldwide voyaging. 

FREE. Discounted vessel entry (per vessel): adult $5, child $2, family $7. Members and Defence personnel and their families free.

Tayenebe Mother’s Day competition To celebrate Mother’s Day and the final week of the Tayenebe exhibition, we asked our visitors to share something special their mothers had taught them. We received over 100 entries and our judges had a tough time deciding upon a winner. The entries were displayed in the museum foyer over the Mother’s Day weekend and online, via our social media outlets. Congratulations to Merran Hughes of NSW who won the competition, with her entry: ‘My mother taught me to look into a rockpool and see a whole universe.’ Merran won a Mother’s Day Gift Pack that included a Tayenebe catalogue, a gift card, a Family Museum Big Ticket, and a luxurious beauty pack created by Thulli Dreaming. 

Currents

Warwick Abadee Warwick Abadee – a founding volunteer guide and guest speaker at the museum since its opening – will be giving a talk at the museum about the Queen Mary 2 on Sunday 7 August, 2–4 pm. All are welcome to attend.

top to bottom: Sea King helicopter and RAN divers conduct a winching. Courtesy RAN Tayenebe weaving workshop participants at the museum. Photographer Merinda Campbell/ANMM Warwick Abadee at the podium on the Queen Mary 2

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Sponsors Endeavour to shine at Perth 2011 Endeavour, the magnificent replica of Captain James Cook’s ship, HMB Endeavour, was escorted out of Sydney Harbour by a fleet of Olympic-class Laser yachts to mark the vessel's flagship role in Fremantle during the Perth 2011 ISAF (International Sailing Federation) Sailing World Championships in December. In each port before her arrival in Fremantle, Endeavour will help promote the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships and the Olympic sport of sailing. Ten Olympic-class world titles are being contested in Perth and the contest will also decide 75 per cent of national qualifications to compete in the London 2012 Olympic Games. Endeavour’s visit will add grandeur to the Sailing World Championships, with the wooden replica providing a dramatic contrast to the modern fibreglass and carbon-fibre Olympic-class boats. During the Fremantle visit, Perth 2011 (the Championship’s organising body) is organising day sails, corporate dinners and cocktail parties on board Endeavour, which will give guests the chance to learn about life on an 18th-century vessel. John Longley, Event Director for Perth 2011, oversaw the building of Endeavour and her first circumnavigation of the globe, and is delighted that the people of Western

Perth 2011 Lasers farewell Endeavour. Photographer Richard Palfreyman, Perth 2011

Australia will have an opportunity to once again connect with the ship. He said: It’s over ten years since the ship was last seen in the waters off Fremantle, so this visit will be the first time that many people see this magnificent sailing ship. Guests to the ship during the Sailing World Championships will feel like they’re in a ‘virtual museum’, as the ship is built to the exact specifications of Captain James Cook’s original. Working with the Australian National Maritime Museum, Perth 2011 is a significant event partner in the circumnavigation voyage. As part

Museum sponsors Major sponsors

Founding patrons

Austereo Blackmores Ltd Channel Nine Lloyd’s Register Asia Olbia Pty Ltd SBS

Alcatel Australia ANL Limited Ansett Airfreight Bovis Lend Lease BP Australia Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation Doyle’s Seafood Restaurant Howard Smith Limited James Hardie Industries National Australia Bank PG, TG & MG Kailis P&O Nedlloyd Ltd Telstra Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics Westpac Banking Corporation Zim Shipping Australasia

Project sponsors Akzo Nobel AMSA APN Outdoor Carnival Australia Coral Sea Wines Defence Maritime Services Pty Ltd Perth 2011 Silentworld Foundation Sydney by Sail Thales

Foundation sponsor ANZ

of the arrangement with the museum, Perth 2011 agreed to charter Endeavour for the three-week period of the ISAF Sailing World Championships. The sailing world turns to Perth in December, as 1,400 athletes from 80 nations compete for the 10 Olympicclass world titles. Spectators will be able to watch much of the sailing action close to shore, and the championships will be covered live on national and international television.  For further information on the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships please visit www.perth2011.com.

Corporate Members Partners in the HMB Endeavour circumnavigation 2011–2012 Significant voyage partners Toshiba The History Channel Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

Voyage partners Caltex Carnival Australia Australian Maritime Safety Authority NSW Maritime DMS Maritime Taronga Conservation Society Australia

Media Partners The West Australian Austereo Channel Nine

The program provides Corporate Members privileged entry to the museum’s unique environment for corporate hospitality. Three membership levels each provide a range of benefits and services: Admiral three-year membership $10,000 one-year membership $4,000 Commodore three-year membership $5,000 one-year membership $1,850 Captain three-year membership $1,800 one-year membership $700

Captain Memberships Asiaworld Shipping Services Pty Ltd Australia Japan Cable Ltd Defence National Storage-RPA Google Australia HMAS Creswell HMAS Kuttabul HMAS Newcastle HMAS Vampire Association Maritime Union of Australia (NSW Branch) Maritime Workers Credit Union Maruschka Loupis & Associates Penrith Returned Services League Sydney Ports Corporation Regimental Trust Fund, Victoria Barracks Royal Caribbean & Celebrity Cruises Svitzer Australasia Sydney Pilot Service Pty Ltd

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Bearings As we go to press, preparations for our next major exhibition, Scott’s last expedition, are well underway, ahead of its opening on 17 June. This travelling exhibition is a collaboration between this museum and our partners the Natural History Museum (London), Canterbury Museum (Christchurch, New Zealand) and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, and will open its international tour here in Sydney. Our special guest at the opening is Canterbury Museum’s director, Anthony Wright. Even after experiencing the devastation of the Christchurch earthquake earlier this year, Canterbury Museum has continued its partnership with Scott’s last expedition. For that we are immensely grateful, and filled with respect for the director and the organisation he leads. We are delighted to welcome Anthony Wright to the opening of Scott’s last expedition, which looks at Robert Falcon Scott’s second, and final, voyage to Antarctica, from new angles. While we gain financial support for our work from a variety of sources – such as our sponsors and audiences – major projects, and collaborations such as Scott’s last expedition, also rely on the support offered by state and federal funding. We have recently been informed that government agencies such as this museum will have to tighten their budgets even further over the next two years, due to the Federal Government’s efficiency dividend. As a result, in some cases we will struggle to maintain some of our projects, and in other cases we will have to cut back on their scale. We will also have to consider reintroducing charging to our galleries and our exhibitions. However, the museum’s major national outreach program – the circumnavigation of Australia by our replica of HMB Endeavour – is now well underway. Endeavour’s first port of call was Brisbane, where it attracted record crowds of 8,937 people over 11 days. We will be working with communities and other museums around the country to ensure that Australians have the chance to experience the Endeavour. This new Endeavour voyage will also offer 39 berths across

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from the director, Mary-Louise Williams

various legs of the voyage to young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from remote and regional communities, to help them develop new skills that will result in long-term employment opportunities. We thank the federal Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations for its support of this program. We are also fortunate to have a number of sponsors generously supporting the circumnavigation. And for Sydney-based readers who may be missing Endeavour in Darling Harbour, in its absence the replica of the VOC’s scout ship Duyfken is at the museum. It’s not exaggerating to say that Cook’s voyage on the Endeavour was the 18thcentury equivalent of our modern-day voyages into space to discover more about our universe. In an amazing coincidence, our Endeavour circumnavigation corresponds with the final launch and mission of NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour in 2011. Both captains – on the ocean, Ross Mattson, in space, Mark Kelly – have found common ground. Captain Mattson wrote to Captain Kelly: Our two vessels share more than just a name. Our respective Endeavours also represent opportunities for learning and furthering our understanding of the future and the past. Captain Kelly replied: We both believe in the human imperative to explore … We are proud that our space shuttle shares its name with your sailing vessel and all that it represents. In a similar spirit of discovery, the Spanish oceanographic research vessel Hesperides has been undertaking its ‘Malaspina expedition’ (named after Alessandro Malaspina, the late-18thcentury leader of Spain’s first scientific expedition circumnavigating the globe). In early April we welcomed to the museum scientists and crew from the Hesperides, then on its last leg home to Spain. Along with the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish Consulate and the Spanish National Research Council, the museum co-hosted a symposium on the expedition’s findings relating to the health of our oceans and signs of climate change.

Captains of the two Endeavours: Ross Mattson (top), captain of HMB Endeavour replica, photographer Andrew Frolows/ANMM; and NASA astronaut Mark E Kelly (above), captain of space shuttle Endeavour, photo courtesy NASA.

International cooperation and collegiality will also come to the fore at the International Congress of Maritime Museums Biennial Congress, to be held in Washington DC and Newport Mews, USA, in October this year. I will be attending this event, representing our museum, and we will report in Signals on the outcomes of the meeting. If you’d like to read more about the Congress, visit its website at www.icmmonline.org. In closing, I invite you to take part in the festivities on Navy Family and Community Day at the museum on Sunday 12 June. I know I’m certainly looking forward to welcoming your family and friends to this celebration of 100 years of our Royal Australian Navy. 

shop online at anmm.gov.au Hundreds of books something for everyone from key rings to ship models and boating clothes friendly service mail order Members discounts! Open 9.30 am to 5 pm seven days a week Phone 02 9298 3698 or fax orders to 02 9298 3675 or email thestore@anmm.gov.au

Navy Centenary medallion in box, 48mm diameter $35 Members $31.50

Navy Centenary cap $28 Members $25.20

Men’s Navy polo shirt with RAN Centenary logo $59.95 Members $53.96

Navy Centenary framed bullion badge 250mm x 320mm $150 Members $135

Navy pen and pencil set $49.95 Members $44.96

Navy Centenary timber case with decanter and glasses $270 Members $243

Book to accompany the upcoming exhibition $25 Members $22.50

Pirate ship model large 47cm, $89.95 Members $80.96 Medium 32cm, $45 Members $40.50

Treasure chest, antique silver-plated/zinc alloy 12 x 9 x 7cm $39.95 Members $35.96

DVD 90° South – With Scott to the Antarctic $39.95 Members $35.96

Book Silent Killers $45 Members $40.50

Captain James Cook figurine 27cm $99.95 Members $89.96

Australian National Maritime Museum Open daily except Christmas Day 9.30 am to 5 pm (6 pm in January) Darling Harbour Sydney NSW Australia Phone 02 9298 3777 Fax 02 9298 3780 ANMM council Chairman Mr Peter Dexter am Director Ms Mary-Louise Williams Councillors Rear Admiral Stephen Gilmore am csc ran Mr Peter Harvie Ms Robyn Holt Dr Julia Horne Ms Ann Sherry ao Mr Shane Simpson Mr Neville Stevens ao Signals ISSN 1033-4688 Editor Jeffrey Mellefont 02 9298 3647 Assistant editor Penny Crino Staff photographer Andrew Frolows Design and production Austen Kaupe Printed in Australia by Bluestar Print Advertising enquiries Jeffrey Mellefont 02 9298 3647 Deadline end of January, April, July, October for issues March, June, September, December Signals back issues Back issues $4 10 back issues $30 Extra copies of current issue $4.95 Call Matt Lee at The Store 02 9298 3698 Material from Signals may be reproduced only with the editor’s permission 02 9298 3647 The Australian National Maritime Museum is a statutory authority of the Australian Government Contact us at GPO Box 5131 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia