Signals, issue 112

SIGNALS quarterly NUMBER 112 SEPTEMBER • OCTOBER • NOVEMBER 2015

GUIDING LIGHTS A lighthouse centenary

A MYSTERY WRECK Could it be the Comet?

ARCTIC ENIGMA

The fate of the Franklin expedition

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Contents SPRING 2015

Cover: Goose Island is in Bass Strait, 50 kilometres off the coast of north-eastern Tasmania.

Its 22-metre lighthouse, built from cement-rendered granite rubble in 1846, was constructed using convict labour under the supervision of ex-convict Charles Watson.

Since 1985 the light has been operated entirely by solar power.

Image courtesy Garry Searle

2 BEARINGS From the director 4 LEGACY OF A LOST EXPLORER Clues to the fate of the Franklin expedition 14 THE SHIPS THAT DIDN’T SAIL Australian support for the Indonesian struggle for independence 20 WINDJAMMER SAILORS A generous gift enables the creation of a new artwork for the museum 24 EXPLORING A MYSTERY WRECK Piecing together a maritime puzzle on the Great Barrier Reef 32 NAPOLEON’S ARTISTS IN AUSTRALIA Illustrations from Nicolas Baudin’s exploration of Australia 35 MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE Myths and misconceptions about ships’ figureheads 42 PACIFIC CONNECTIONS A fellowship program unites Hawaiian and Australian Indigenous youth 47 LIFESAVING LIGHTS Australian lighthouses celebrate a centenary 53 CONSERVATION AND CREATION The work of GhostNets Australia 59 MESSAGE TO MEMBERS AND MEMBERS SPRING EVENTS Your calendar of activities, tours, talks and excursions afloat 70 SPRING EXHIBITIONS The latest exhibitions in our galleries this season 76 MARITIME HERITAGE AROUND AUSTRALIA Australian Wooden Boat Festival 85 OUT OF PORT Bardi culture and the unspoken language of Ilma 88 CAPTAIN’S LOG A dry docking keeps Endeavour seaworthy 91 AUSTRALIAN REGISTER OF HISTORIC VESSELS Heritage navigation aids: lightships and lighthouses 97 TALES FROM THE WELCOME WALL A migrant family’s life in inner-city Sydney 102 READINGS Sea Fever: The true adventures that inspired our greatest maritime authors by Sam Jefferson 104 CURRENTS We bid farewell to Ern Flint, Douglas Herps and Bill Williams 109 TRANSMISSIONS Online innovations let you jump the queue or check out what’s new

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Bearings FROM THE DIRECTOR

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CURRENTLY WE KNOW of 13 submarine wrecks dating from 1926 to 1945 along the 37,000 kilometres of our mainland coast.

Among these are a Japanese midget submarine sunk during the attack on Sydney Harbour in 1942 and three scuttled Royal Netherlands boats. The vast majority of wrecks are J class RAN submarines scrapped and scuttled in 1926 and 1927. Importantly, there are also four submarines on permanent display in museums across Australia: at the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, the Holbrook Submarine Museum in rural New South Wales, and here in Sydney the ANMM has HMAS Onslow.

And over the last month we have been providing assistance to try to get a fifth submarine into display condition on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria.

01 Museum Director Kevin Sumption with the

museum’s Oberon class submarine HMAS Onslow. Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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The Oberon class submarine HMAS Otama was paid off in December 2000, and in 2001 was towed to Western Port Bay, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, where it has been moored ever since. HMAS Otama was built in Scotland in 1973 and served in the RAN until 2000, when eventually the RAN’s O-boats were replaced by new Australian-built Collins class submarines. To preserve and tell the story of HMAS Otama, the Victorian Maritime Centre (VMC) has the ambitious idea to build a new interpretation centre, which it believes will attract thousands of new visitors to the area, particularly families from Melbourne. The dedicated VMC team has endured many setbacks over the last ten years, but with the opening of the Frankston bypass in 2013, tourism has significantly grown in this part of the Mornington Peninsula. Cultural tourism attractions often bring new business to an area, as well as boosting turnover for existing restaurants, hotels and retailers.

Just as importantly, these types of cultural attractions often generate much-needed new employment, and for these reasons the ANMM is keen to assist projects like this.

There are more than 150 submarines in various states of preservation in museums around the world, and maintaining them in tip-top condition is particularly challenging. That’s why the ANMM’s Head of Fleet, Damien Allan, has been providing specialist technical advice to the VMC team on how to best conserve their 2,000-tonne submarine for the long term.

In addition, the ANMM is providing specialist advice on how to manage a volunteer-run organisation. Over the years we have built considerable expertise working with our 900 dedicated volunteers here in Darling Harbour. The current plan is for the new HMAS Otama centre to embrace local volunteers, particularly ex-RAN service men and women. With the RAN’s training base HMAS Cerberus only five kilometres away from the proposed site, there are plenty of current as well as retired RAN personnel in the area. The potential here is wonderful as it is often these volunteers, who are able to draw upon their own service careers, who can help to create much more meaningful experiences for visitors.

Importantly the ANMM is committed to ensuring we find new ways to increase our support for heritage organisations, particularly in regional and remote Australia, so they in turn can continue to serve their communities and also help local businesses thrive.

Kevin Sumption

There are more than 150 submarines in various states of preservation in museums around the world

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Legacy of a lost explorer

FRANKLIN EXPEDITION SHIP FOUND, 150 YEARS ON

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For centuries, explorers sought the fabled Northwest Passage – a direct sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Of countless such expeditions, perhaps the most infamous is that of Sir John Franklin, which left England in May 1845 and disappeared.

Recent archaeological searches have discovered evidence of its fate as well as tantalising hints of possible future finds. Museum project officer Inger Sheil recounts the story.

01 Chromo-lithographic plate of the Erebus and

Terror in Arctic waters (1887). Reproduced under a Creative Commons public licence

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IN THE CAREFULLY CONTROLLED conditions of the Australian National Maritime Museum’s art object store, alongside oils of clipper ships, vintage beer advertisements and other fascinatingly diverse images, a face familiar to students of 19th-century exploration glances with benign expression off canvas, not meeting the eye of the viewer. Perhaps the artist thought it appropriate for the subject to have a gaze that sought distant vistas. Those who pass it may recognise John Franklin (16 April 1786–11 June 1847), who served as the fourth Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) from 5 January 1837 to 21 August 1843. They are, however, probably more familiar with him in a different role – as commander of one of the most infamous exploratory expeditions of all time, a man whose fate, and those of his men, fascinated his generation and had an imaginative reach that transcended his own century. That it still holds power today is shown by the international reaction to the announcement last year by the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, that an expedition led by Parks Canada had located the wreck of one of the expedition’s ships.

In late July 1845, two whalers encountered HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in the waters of Baffin Bay as they waited for good conditions to cross the Lancaster Sound. The two Royal Navy ships carried the men and supplies for an expedition headed

by Franklin to find the last remaining link of the Northwest Passage, the sea route through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. When they parted ways, Franklin and his men sailed for the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the collection of islands on the northern coast of North America, continuing the search for a swifter route to Asia that had preoccupied European explorers since the end of the 15th century. The whalers who bade them farewell in Baffin Bay would be the last Europeans to see them alive.

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The fate of Franklin and his men fascinated his generation and had an imaginative reach that transcended his own century

Into the blue The expedition sailed from Greenhithe in Kent on 19 May 1845 with a crew of 24 officers and 110 men (later reduced when five were discharged in the early stages of the voyage). It was equipped as well as a mission of exploration could be at that time, with iron plates reinforcing the ships’ bows, internal steam heating for the crew to combat the Arctic conditions they would encounter, a generous supply of tinned and other preserved food sufficient for at least three years, an extensive library and even hand organs, one for each ship, with a repertoire of 50 tunes.

When no word was received of the expedition after two years had passed, the Admiralty launched a search party in the spring of 1848 in response to pressure from Lady Franklin and

02 Portrait of Sir John Franklin, possibly after

an original pastel by Joseph Mathias Negelen (1792–1870). The portrait was once in the possession of Lady Franklin, wife of Sir John.

Oil on canvas, ANMM Collection

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the public. It would be the first of many expeditions, initially formed as rescue parties, and then as attempts to find answers, that would continue throughout the remainder of the 19th century and, sporadically, up to the present day. So prolific – and often perilous – were the attempts to find Franklin that notoriously more men and ships came to be lost looking for him than on the original expedition itself.

03 Edwin Landseer’s painting Man proposes,

God disposes imagines a grisly fate for the members of the Franklin expedition.

Painted in 1864, almost 20 years after the expedition set off, it demonstrates the ongoing fascination that the expedition’s disappearance held for artists and the general public. Royal Holloway Collection, University of London.

Through those efforts, however, the fragments of the story came together. A note in a cairn on King William Island, the only surviving written record from the party, revealed that the expedition had wintered on Beechey Island in 1845–46.

In September 1846 the ships became icebound off King William Island, where the crew weathered the winter of 1846–47. But in 1847, the ice failed to thaw, and Erebus and Terror would not sail again. Franklin, according to the note, died on 11 June 1847 of undisclosed causes. The crew spent the winter of 1847–48 ashore on King William Island. With nine officers and 15 crew already dead, according to the cairn note, the remaining men planned to begin walking on 26 April 1848 towards Back’s Fish River (now called Back River) on the Canadian mainland.

From there, they could sail up the river and find a trading outpost, securing help. Manhauling one of the ships’ boats, they began their last, fatal journey.

Clues and controversy What we know of the rest of their story comes largely from forensic anthropological work on their remains and Inuit testimony, some of it collected by Arctic explorer John Rae, who was surveying the Boothia Peninsula for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Rae, a distinguished explorer in his own right, earned the ire of many of Franklin’s contemporaries (including Lady Franklin and Charles Dickens) when he reported Inuit stories about encounters with white men 03

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in a weakened, desperate condition, and a final camp near the mouth of Back River where the last men perished of starvation.

The bodies in the camp and contents of pots at the site led the Inuit to believe they were driven to what Rae called ‘the last dread alternative’ – cannibalism. Other Inuit accounts collected in 1869 and 1879 repeated similar stories of bodies with signs that they had been dismembered to be eaten by their comrades.

In the 1980s the Franklin expedition again captured international headlines with the exhumation and autopsy of three members of the expedition. The graves on Beechey Island – site of the first winter camp – were first located by a search party in 1850 and then left undisturbed for more than 130 years. In 1984 researchers dug through the permafrost and found the first of the bodies, that of 21-year-old Royal Navy stoker John Torrington, encased in ice. Water was carefully dripped over the corpse to thaw it for examination, and the figure that emerged seemed eerily well preserved, down to his half-open blue eyes. The autopsy revealed Torrington had pneumonia and tuberculosis at the time of his death, and a toxicological analysis of his hair and nails and those of his shipmates, William Braine and John Hartnell, revealed high levels of lead. The theory of lead poisoning as a possible cause for widespread incapacitation and death among the crew began to gain currency.

Why had the expedition – supposedly so well equipped – collapsed so utterly, before their supplies should have given out?

04 HMS Erebus in the ice, by François Etienne

Musin, 1847. © NMM Greenwich.

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Why had the expedition – supposedly so well equipped – collapsed so utterly, before their supplies should have given out? Why did the men start dying in such numbers even before they embarked on a desperate attempt to reach aid?

Theories have centred on the preparation of the tinned food provided for the expedition. Research in provisioning records and some of the cans themselves – examples of which survive and were among the items recovered during the searches – led some researchers to suggest that they were prepared in haste to meet a short deadline and were improperly soldered.

Another idea put forward to explain the lead contamination looks instead to the unique water system with which the expedition’s ships were fitted, and the possibility of lead leeching into water supplies.

With more artefacts and remains emerging in the later 20th and early 21st centuries, and advances in forensic anthropology, not only the lead poisoning theory but also the truth behind the stories of cannibalism – so vehemently rejected at the time

by Franklin’s supporters – are at the forefront in the analysis of human remains from the expedition.

The grave of Franklin himself has never been located. His death occurred early in the expedition, before the desperate struggle for survival took precedence over burial customs; this opens up the tantalising proposition that it, too, remains to be discovered.

Some of the later expeditions, however, did locate skeletal remains. In 1859, a search party led by Captain Francis Leopold McClintock discovered a lifeboat containing two skeletons on the shores of Erebus Bay, King William Island. In 1869 Inuit led an expedition to a shallow grave on the southern shore of the island, where a man was found and identified as an

05 Diver Filippo Ronca takes measurements

among the cannons and loose timbers on the starboard stern of the Erebus wreck.

06 Filippo Ronca shows the inner and outer stern

posts with iron strapping; they are guide rails for the removable propeller. Also visible is the step for the aft end of the propeller shaft.

Photographs by Thierry Boyer/© Parks Canada

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officer from the remains of a silk undershirt and a gold tooth filling. In 1879 six more sets of human remains were found, and the dead of the expedition – mostly in the form of scattered surface fragments – continued to be located sporadically into the 1980s. In 1981, cut marks were identified on a femur recovered from another Franklin site on King William Island, shedding new light on the cannibalism controversy.

In 1992 a survey by the Franklin Recovery Expedition located a previously unrecorded site on King William Island, within about a kilometre of where McClintock reported his findings. Artefacts at the site – including such objects as iron and copper nails, glass, a clay pipe fragment, pieces of fabric and shoe leather and wooden fragments that might have been the remains of a lifeboat – suggested it was the same location where McClintock found a lifeboat and human remains.

Some 400 human bones and bone fragments representing the remains of 11 men were recovered and sent to McMaster University for analysis. Examination of the remains and the artefacts found with them established their connection with the Franklin expedition. Some 92 of the bones had cut marks that examination, including analysis under electron microscope, revealed were consistent with metal blades rather than animal

Notoriously, more men and ships came to be lost looking for Franklin than on the original expedition itself

07 Filippo Ronca shining light on the ship’s bell.

Photograph by Thierry Boyer/© Parks Canada

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tooth marks or stone tools – evidence supporting the Inuit claims of cannibalism. The team’s findings also suggested that the blood lead levels found in the remains – levels up to 3–10 times greater than the current recommended upper levels for occupational exposure – would have had serious physiological and neurological effects on the individuals involved.

Of those fragmentary bones located over the years, most have been reburied in cairns near where they were found. Only two near-complete skeletons were returned to the United Kingdom, one of them the officer found in 1869. This set of remains was examined in 1872 by Thomas Henry Huxley, one of the leading biologists of his time, and from his notes was identified as Lieutenant Henry LeVesconte. The remains were interred under the Franklin Expedition monument at the old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, UK, intended to represent all those lost on the expedition.

When the monument was renovated in 2009, a team led

by English Heritage took the opportunity to examine the remains – and an isotope analysis indicated that they were not those of a man born and raised in Devon like LeVesconte, but an individual from northeast England or eastern Scotland.

These results, combined with forensic facial reconstruction of the skull, have led to a tentative re-identification of the remains as belonging to the expedition’s assistant surgeon and naturalist, Dr Harry Goodsir. No signs of tuberculosis or scurvy could be identified, and work continues on determining a baseline level of lead contamination for Goodsir’s Victorian contemporaries to see if the bones show unusually elevated levels, further refining the theories on lead poisoning.

08 Ryan Harris, Jonathan Moore, Chriss Ludin

and Marc-André Bernier on the deck of Investigator after the dive, discussing what Ryan and Jon had seen. Thierry Boyer/© Parks Canada 09 Sonar picture of the Erebus shipwreck resting

on the seafloor. © Parks Canada

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The latest discoveries And what of the Erebus and Terror? Inuit oral tradition spoke of Inuit hunters encountering and even boarding one of the ships after most of the crew had abandoned it. Stories handed down spoke in detail of what they found aboard while searching for useful materials such as metal, including the body of a large man with ‘long teeth’ in a locked cabin.

After these elusive sightings, the ships vanished beneath the crushing ice. But within the last decade, climate change has opened up the Northwest Passage for longer periods each season to search, and technological advances have provided new search tools, such as side scan sonar. Locating the wrecks became a real possibility – assuming they hadn’t been ground down to splinters in shallow waters by 160 years of passing ice, leaving only a scattered debris trail.

Archaeologists in the ensuing six major searches found significant artefacts

When Parks Canada launched a series of searches for the missing ships in 2008, there was a renewed focus on Inuit testimony, particularly those accounts that pointed to pre-sinking sightings of a derelict vessel in Victoria Strait.

Archaeologists in the ensuing six major searches found significant artefacts and, on 25 July 2010, the team located the wreck of HMS Investigator, a ship that had become icebound and was abandoned while searching for Franklin’s expedition in 1853.

On 1 September 2014, the archeology team discovered an iron fitting – a boat-launching davit – on an island in the southern search area. It was a harbinger of the major find to come.

On 7 September, side scan sonar deployed by the Canadian

10 Ryan Harris, Jonathan Moore and Doug

Stenton check the details of the Erebus bell.

Thierry Boyer/© Parks Canada

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Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfred Laurier revealed a ship sitting upright in 11 metres of water – an image clear enough to reveal deck planking. The expedition archaeologists had no doubt it was one of the Franklin ships, a fact soon confirmed by overlaying the sonar images on plans of the Erebus held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.

Early video footage taken by remote operated vehicle (ROV) was released to the public, showing silt-ridden planks in the greenish light of the seafloor – an eerie, tantalising glimpse of the wreck itself. Archaeologists have given reporters their initial impressions of diving the exterior of the wreck, and the glimpses provided by lowering a camera into the interior.

The precise coordinates of the site have yet to be revealed to prevent looting, and as this article goes to press, preparations are being made to investigate the interior of the wreck – including Franklin’s cabin, located in Erebus’ stern.

Shortly before the 2014 dive season ended, the ship’s bell was successfully raised and is now undergoing conservation work. A precise replica of the bell, produced using 3-D printer technology, is set to be the focus of a new touring exhibition on the discovery, featuring pop-up displays, lectures and exhibitions. The official announcement of the exhibition, a collaboration between Parks Canada and the Royal Ontario Museum, indicated it will incorporate contemporary research and technology and Inuit traditional knowledge. In April 2015, Parks Canada undertook a series of winter dives under the ice above the site, and recovered objects ranging from cannon to pieces as intimate as buttons from the clothing of one of the 11 marines on board.

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British Navy artefacts – a davit shoe and a chain cable scuttle plug/cover – found on King William Island before the discovery of the wreck. Jonathan Moore/© Parks Canada

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The team hopes future searches will find the source of the high lead levels among the expedition’s members and confirmation of theories as to why the expedition collapsed as it did. While the search for the Erebus itself has ended, the maritime archaeologists’ work has just begun. The Terror, too, remains a tantalising search objective. The story of the Franklin expedition – with its intricate twists and turns, its enduring legends and pioneering scientific analysis over generations – has begun a new chapter.

The first expedition to navigate the Northwest Passage fully by ship was that of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in 1903–06.

Further reading Canadian Parks and Wildlife exhibition, which includes resources and links to images of objects recovered in the April 2015 expedition: pc.gc.ca/eng/culture/ franklin/index.aspx ‘The final days of the Franklin expedition: New skeletal evidence’, Arctic Vol 50, No 1 (March 1997), 36–46. pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/arctic50-1-36.pdf

12 The underwater archaeology team meeting

in the science lab. Jonathan Moore/© Parks Canada

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The ships that didn’t sail AUSTRALIAN SUPPORT FOR INDONESIAN INDEPENDENCE

Australian support for the Indonesian struggle to maintain independence after World War II – in particular boycotts of Dutch ships in Australian ports – is the focus of a new display in both Sydney and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for the 70th anniversary of Indonesian independence. Curator Dr Stephen Gapps takes up the story of this ‘black armada’.

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01 A scene from the 1946 Joris Ivens film Indonesia Calling showing

Indonesian seamen listening to a short-wave radio for news of Indonesia’s declaration of independence. Ivens became a documentary maker of international renown with over 40 films between 1928 and 1989.

Politically exiled from his homeland after the making of Indonesia Calling, he was eventually recognised for his life’s work with a knighthood in 1989 from a Dutch government then much more sympathetic to an independent Indonesia. National Film and Sound Archive Australia

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IN AUGUST 1945 IN THE SYDNEY SUBURB of Woolloomooloo, a group of Indonesians crowded around a short-wave radio set in the Indonesian Seamen’s Union offices. They were monitoring every word from Batavia Radio. When news was broadcast announcing the proclamation of Indonesian independence on 17 August, they were ecstatic.

The announcement was the climax of a decades-long campaign for independence from Dutch colonial rule, but it also began a four-year-long political and military struggle for Indonesian independence to be accepted by the Dutch and acknowledged by the international community. During this period, Australian support for Indonesia was prominent.

From late 1945, Dutch ships in Australian ports preparing to return to Indonesia with military arms and personnel were set back by a series of maritime trade union boycotts, called ‘black bans’. Support for Indonesian independence then grew beyond the labour movement and Australia led the way in international political recognition of Indonesia. This central moment in the Indonesian struggle for independence has since largely been forgotten in both nations.

Coming amid the wider context of the end of World War II, the declaration of independence made little impact in world news, so the Batavia Radio broadcast was critical.

Twenty-year-old Tukliwon was a sailor on one of the Dutch ships that had escaped to Australia following the Japanese invasion in 1942. He had worked on Sydney Harbour ferries during the war, and the day after he heard the proclamation

02 The bonang is part of a Javanese gamelan

orchestra of 19 different instruments.

The bonang sléndro from the gamelan Digul – skilfully tuned by Bapak Pontjopangrawit from cast-iron cooking pots – will be on display in the Black Armada exhibition at the museum. This image from 1981 shows the bonang pélog from the gamelan Digul being played by Javanese gamelan musician Ki Poedijono (on left) while Margaret Kartomi, author of a book on the gamelan Digul, plays a bonang sléndro from the traditional gamelan at Monash University.

Photograph Tony Miller, courtesy Monash University Music Department

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broadcast, he walked across the city to inform the Seamen’s Union of Australia, which promised its support.

A few days later Tukliwon and his fellow sailors were told that the Dutch wanted their Indonesian crews to take ships back to Java. In support of the foundation of a new independent homeland Indonesia, they refused to sail. The Australian Seamen’s Union then called on members for ‘an embargo on all ships carrying munitions or any other materials to be used against the Indonesian Government’.

By 24 September 1945 a boycott of Dutch shipping was in place in Brisbane and Sydney, before spreading to Melbourne and Fremantle. It quickly extended to other related maritime industry unions – boilermakers, engineers, iron-workers, ship painters and dockers, carpenters, storemen, clerks and tug crews.

In Brisbane, the Dutch vessel Van Heutz, loaded with Netherlands Indies government officials, troops and arms, was unable to leave port. Eventually, without tugboats, carrying little coal and few supplies, the Van Heutz limped from Brisbane towards Java.

Similarly the Karsik – loaded with Dutch money for the returning administration – and the Merak in Melbourne were both unable to find coal in Australian ports.

On 28 September waterside workers in Sydney, carrying ‘Hands off Indonesia’ banners, led a demonstration outside Dutch shipping companies and diplomatic offices. By October, the actions had escalated. The Trades and Labor Council issued a leaflet with instructions to unionists: Dutch soldiers and officers should not get transport. No Dutch munitions should be touched. Repairs on Dutch ships, etc., must not be done. Dutch ships must not get coal. Tugs must not be made available to Dutch ships. Food, stores, etc., must not be provided to Dutch ships, offices, canteens or personnel.

Dutch officers and seamen should not be taken to and from ships. In fact everything Dutch is black.

Indonesia calling Not quite everything Dutch was ‘black listed’. A lone but significant Dutch figure was working with Indonesians to tell the world about their struggle, and about Indonesian support from Australian, Indian and Chinese sailors.

Film maker Joris Ivens resigned his position as Film Commissioner for the Netherlands Indies government in protest against the Dutch policy of reoccupying Indonesia. In Sydney

A lone but significant Dutch figure was working with Indonesians to tell the world about their struggle

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in November 1945 he was approached by Indonesians and Australian sympathisers to make a film about the Australian events supporting the Indonesian independence struggle.

In the film Indonesia Calling, Ivens created a re-enactment of the mutiny by Indian seamen aboard the Patras, a ship laden with arms sailing for Indonesia from Sydney. The brave Indian sailors, under Dutch armed guard, stopped stoking the engines and the Patras was forced to return to Sydney Harbour.

The motivation of the Indian sailors was solidarity and support for another Asian country also seeking its independence from colonial rule.

Narrated by Australian actor Peter Finch, the film premiered to an audience of Indonesians in Kings Cross, Sydney, on 9 August 1946. It screened three times a day for a week, to packed houses. The film was also taken to Indonesia where it was shown to freedom fighters, who were delighted with such support in Australia.

Indonesia’s declaration of independence had long been on the minds of a small group of Australian sympathisers. In July 1945, before the August 17 declaration, the first public organisation of Australians supporting an Asian nation’s anti-colonial struggle was formed. The Australia–Indonesia Association took inspiration from the 1941 Atlantic Charter, signed by the Allied countries including the USA and Britain, that recognised the rights of people to govern themselves after World War II ended.

The association’s aims were to ‘foster friendly cultural, sporting, educational and trade relationships with Indonesia’. Australians were beginning to come to grips with the fact that their northern neighbour might not be a Dutch colony forever.

03 SS Moreton Bay was one of the vessels

chartered by the Dutch government-inexile that was affected by the waterside workers’ black bans. More than 400 vessels were caught up in the boycott, significantly hampering the Dutch military and assisting the nascent Indonesian republican forces.

ANMM Collection

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In fact around 10,000 Indonesians had accompanied the fleeing Dutch administration to Australia when the Japanese invaded in 1942. Many were government officials, merchant sailors and military personnel. Some were political prisoners.

Most Australians had never met Indonesians before, and many were enchanted by these people and their cultural traditions.

Friendships and relationships were formed as the Indonesians assisted Australia in the war effort.

An Australian gamelan Indonesians had been agitating for independence from the Dutch since the 1920s. At this time, the Dutch established a series of internment camps for political prisoners in what was then part of the Netherlands East Indies (now Irian Jaya).

The Digul River was chosen for its remote and isolated location deep in the jungle, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest township.

One of the Dutch political prisoners was Surakarta-born court musician and political activist Bapak Pontjopangrawit. In 1927 he was sent to the Tanah Merah prison camp in Upper Digul.

To entertain the prisoners, he constructed a Javanese gamelan orchestra from the rudimentary materials available in the prison camp, including milk and sardine tins, animal skins and Dutchmade cast-iron rantang, or cooking pots.

The instruments were bought to Australia with the political prisoners in 1942 when the Dutch fled the invading Japanese.

The Dutch feared that if left behind, the prisoners would establish a guerrilla force and make their return difficult after the war.

After interning the prisoners in camps in Australia, the Dutch faced growing pressure from Australian sympathisers to release them. For example, in December 1945 at the Casino internment camp in northern New South Wales, sympathetic Australians had tried to give Christmas gifts to Indonesian prisoners, but were refused by the Dutch guards. Some Casino residents then formed an Indonesians’ Defence Committee and demanded the camp’s closure.

Under increasing pressure from the federal government led by prime minister Ben Chifley, the Dutch governmentin-exile agreed to release Indonesian political prisoners in Australia. Bapak Pontjopangrawit’s gamelan was then played to appreciative audiences in Melbourne, and is believed to feature in the film Indonesia Calling.

When the Indonesians returned home, as a gift of thanks to Australia they donated their gamelan – named gamelan Digul

Most Australians had never met Indonesians before, and many were enchanted by these people and their cultural traditions

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after its prison camp origins – to the Museum of Victoria in 1946, and then to the Monash University Music Department in 1976.

Independence gained While the young Indonesian republic was caught in a great struggle with firstly British military forces assisting the Dutch return, then Dutch troops between 1946 and 1948, the Chifley government boldly referred the conflict to the United Nations Security Council and stepped up aid to the Indonesian Republic.

By December 1948, there was little Australian opposition to a complete boycott of Dutch goods and trade. While Dutch armed forces had gained control of much of Indonesia at the cost of tens of thousands of Indonesian lives, international condemnation of the Dutch forced them into negotiations.

On 27 December 1949 the Dutch formally recognised Indonesian sovereignty.

Indonesian gratitude for Australian support was heartfelt.

President Sukarno paid tribute to the ‘freedom-loving’ stand taken by the Australian labour movement. The Brisbane-based Central Committee of Indonesian Independence wrote: The understanding and support given us by the Australian people will never be forgotten, and we will convey this history of our struggle in your land to our countrymen at home.

We hope that the friendship between our two peoples may become stronger and endure in the best interests of democracy.

Black Armada: Australian support in upholding Indonesian independence runs until 24 February 2016 at the Australian National Maritime Museum and until November 2015 at the Museum Benteng Vredeberg, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

The period of widespread Australian support for the Indonesian republic that grew from the maritime workers and the radical labour movement to the government and beyond between 1945 and 1949 is an amazing yet forgotten period of transnational history.

The personal stories of this era will be further explored in the collaborative exhibition Black Armada, and online in a series of digital stories. The first of these are already online: stories.anmm.gov.au/blackarmada/ Further reading Rupert Lockwood, Black Armada – Australia and the struggle for Indonesian independence 1942–49, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1982 Hans Schoots, Living dangerously – A biography of Joris Ivens, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2000 Jan Lingard, Refugees and rebels – Indonesian exiles in wartime Australia, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2008 Margaret J Kartomi, The gamelan Digul and the prison camp musician who built it – an Australian link with the Indonesian revolution, University of Rochester Press, 2002

By December 1948, there was little Australian opposition to a complete boycott of Dutch goods and trade

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > WINDJAMMER SAILORS

FOUNDATION SPRING 2015

Windjammer Sailors

A MAJOR GIFT CELEBRATES THE AGE OF SAIL

Later this year the museum is to receive a gift of a major work of public sculpture, funded through a donation to the Australian National Maritime Foundation. Senior Curator Daina Fletcher previews the statue and profiles the retired admiral whose vision and generosity have helped bring it to life.

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01 Changing sails, Herzogin Cecilie, 1935.

ANMM Collection. One of a series of images that Dennis Adams painted in situ on sail cloth while sailing aboard windjammers in the 1930s.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > WINDJAMMER SAILORS

FOUNDATION SPRING 2015

A BEAUTIFUL BRONZE SCULPTURE will soon enhance the museum’s waterfront. It is based on an idea cherished for many years by Rear Admiral Andrew Robertson ao dsc ran (Rtd), a former member of the museum’s interim council, which steered the museum through its formative years in the mid-1980s.

Rear Admiral Robertson joined the navy in 1939 as a cadet midshipman and served in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific from 1942 to 1944, in the Mediterranean from 1944 to 1945, then in the Korean and Vietnam wars. He has been captain of frigates HMA Ships Quickmatch and Yarra and carrier HMAS Sydney.

As a naval commander of massive steel ships with crews of well-disciplined professionals, he was fascinated by a contrasting era; that of the majestic wind ships with their enormous sail power and gallant, often itinerant crews, who travelled at the mercy of the globe’s perilous winds and waters to deliver critical cargoes in and out of ports around Australia. He saw them very much as making a vital contribution to the economic development of the nation.

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These great wind ships have been the stuff of legend, inspiring artists, poets, writers and musicians such as John Masefield, Joseph Conrad, Alan Villiers, Eric Newby and, locally, Percy Grainger and Dennis Adams.

For Rear Admiral Robertson, Australian artist Dennis Adams was the natural choice to produce a sculptural work in homage to windjammer sailors. In 1934 the young commercial artist travelled from Port Victoria to Europe to study art at London’s Royal Academy aboard Herzogin Cecilie, one of Finnish shipowner Gustaf Erickson’s windjammers, on its homeward voyage.

Adams returned on Lawhill in the summer of 1938–39 and subsequently enlisted in the services, also gaining a commission as a war artist and later building a career as a marine artist and sculptor.

The concept for this new work for the Australian National Maritime Museum is drawn from Adams’s idea to capture a moment in the lives of the windjammer sailors, perhaps one of the key, decisive, emphatic yet common moments on any voyage around the world – the men struggling at the helm in heavy weather.

Rear-Admiral Robertson held this idea close for several decades, during which time Dennis Adams died (in 2001). Now in his 90s, Rear-Admiral Robertson is setting wheels in motion to see the idea to fruition by generously giving funds to the Australian

02 Lawhill, Great Australian Bight, by Dennis

Adams, 1939. ANMM Collection

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > WINDJAMMER SAILORS

FOUNDATION SPRING 2015

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National Maritime Foundation to honour windjammer sailors in a bronze sculptural work, as an ode to their contribution to Australian history.

The work is being developed at Australian Bronze, a fine-art foundry on Sydney’s North Head, under the direction of Clive Calder, who has been casting in Australia for 20 years.

The foundry, by pairing with artists, has produced significant works in various styles, including the abstract memorial to the Bali bombing victims at Sydney’s Coogee Beach, the Workers’ Memorial at Darling Harbour and the figurative Mary Poppins sculpture in the New South Wales town of Bowral.

The challenge is to translate a two-dimensional sketch into three dimensions while retaining and enhancing the spirit of the work

Sydney sculptor Belinda Villani is taking on the challenge of realising Dennis Adams’s concept. Belinda is especially interested in realist, figurative work and has worked extensively in the film industry. She has also exhibited some quite beautiful work playing with monumentality, form and materiality in rattan, such as Tribute to a workhorse for Sydney’s annual Sculpture by the Sea festival.

The challenge for Belinda is to translate a two-dimensional sketch into three dimensions while retaining and enhancing

03 Herzogin Cecilie from on top of charthouse

on the way to the Horn, by Dennis Adams, 1935. ANMM Collection

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > WINDJAMMER SAILORS

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the spirit of the work, which in this case is to capture the excitement and danger of square-rigged sailing to convey the power of the moment.

The six-month process will see the sculpture refined and modelled, cast in positive and negative forms several times in various materials with the centuries-old lost-wax technique.

Museum staff are recording this complex, fascinating and highly skilled process as the sculpture changes form and material, gradually taking shape to embody the spirit of those sailors.

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The six-month process will see the sculpture refined and modelled, cast in positive and negative forms several times in various materials

The result will be a magnificent bronze presented in an edgy, exciting and contemporary form. It will be located outside the Australian National Maritime Museum as part of a program to re-energise the museum’s external footprint.

Windjammer Sailors will relate directly to the history of the trade and transport between continents and cultures, with particular connections to its site at Darling Harbour (a former goods yard) and its historic vessels and those who worked them. These vessels include James Craig, the largest and most high-profile artefact of movable cultural heritage embodying this history. Indeed, James Craig’s wheel has served as the model for part of the work, setting up interesting tensions in modelling the real, the technological and the human at one, harnessing the power of nature.

Windjammer Sailors will be unveiled later in the year.

The December issue of Signals will feature more on the making of this sculpture.

The Australian National Maritime Foundation is the fundraising organ of the museum.

It has deductible gift recipient status, enabling it to issue tax receipts for donations and gifts in kind. Broadly, the foundation’s purpose is to support the acquisition, conservation and enhancement of the National Maritime Collection. The foundation has recently initiated development of an active and sustainable fundraising program with a view to gaining significant long-term support for the collection.

For more information about donating or leaving a bequest to the foundation, please contact Andrew Markwell on 02 9298 3777 or email amarkwell@anmm.gov.au

04 Dennis Adams’s original sketch for the statue.

05 Rear-Admiral Andrew Robertson and Senior

Curator Daina Fletcher with a copy of the maquette (a small-scale working model) of the sculpture. Photograph Andrew Frolows/ ANMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > EXPLORING A MYSTERY WRECK

Exploring a mystery wreck THE ASHMORE REEF EXPEDITION 2015

The Great Barrier Reef is the final resting place of many ships that have foundered in its confusing and sometimes imperfectly charted waters. An archaeological team set out early this year to explore one such wreck on Ashmore Reef.

Maritime Archaeology Manager Kieran Hosty reports on what they found.

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01 Jacqui Mullen from the Silentworld

Foundation inspecting an anchor.

Photograph Xanthe Rivett/Silentworld Foundation

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > EXPLORING A MYSTERY WRECK

IN JANUARY 2015 ARCHAEOLOGISTS from the Australian National Maritime Museum, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and the Department of the Environment joined the museum’s research partner and sponsor the Silentworld Foundation to investigate an unidentified shipwreck that had recently been located on Ashmore Reef, some 950 kilometres north of Cairns and 250 kilometres east of Thursday Island, in the Australian Coral Sea Marine Reserve.

As the work progressed we slowly built up a picture of the mystery wreck

Ashmore Reef was first sighted by Captain Ashmore in the brig Hibernia in 1811 and subsequently called either Hibernia Reef, Claudine and Mary Reef, Jones Shoal or Great Ormond’s Reef.

Not until the late 1960s was it officially named after Ashmore.

As the reef was confusingly named and – like the nearby reefs of Boot, Portlock, Lagoon and Eastern Fields – imperfectly charted, there was a great deal of misunderstanding among 19th-century mariners regarding the location of this and adjacent reefs, which dangerously sat astride the northern section of the Outer Shipping Route around the Great Barrier Reef, guarding the north-eastern approaches to Torres Strait.

Isolated, rarely visited and even today still not completely surveyed, Ashmore Reef is believed to be the final resting place of some of the 35 vessels known to have been lost in the area between 1817 and 1923. One such site was recently located by the crew of HMAS Benalla when the vessel was surveying sections of the reef in 2014.

02 Grant Luckman (Department of the

Environment) photographing one of several iron carronades found at the wreck site on Ashmore Reef. Photograph Xanthe Rivett/ Silentworld Foundation

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Although the wreck located by Benalla was possibly one previously discovered on Ashmore Reef (reported in ‘Coral Sea Shipwreck’, Sport Diving, No 137, Dec 2009) and later identified

by Ben Cropp as being the 185-ton brig The Sun, the wreck appeared to be that of a much larger vessel and in a different location.

Given the confusion over the shipwreck’s identity and its potential to provide additional information on early colonial trade routes, in late 2014 the Department of the Environment – which manages the Australian Coral Sea Marine Reserve – approached the Australian National Maritime Museum to request our archaeological assistance and the expertise and resources of the Silentworld Foundation in surveying the site and assessing its significance.

A small team of archaeologists, photographers and volunteer divers departed in January 2015 to investigate the discovered wreck

As a result, a small team of archaeologists, photographers and volunteer divers departed from Horn Island, Torres Strait, in January 2015 to investigate the discovered wreck.

Following an 18-hour trip through flat-calm tropical seas, the expedition vessel arrived off the northern edge of Ashmore Reef. After following the carefully worded directions provided by the crew of HMAS Benalla, the shipwreck site was speedily located and the first groups of divers entered the water.

On first inspection the site – lying in water between two and eight metres deep – appeared to consist of a series of scattered iron concretions, sections of broken anchor chain and clusters of anchors, along with cannon, stone ballast, iron and copper fastenings and copper hull sheathing, strewn over a coralline rock bottom among patches of coral.

03 Peter Illidge (GBRMPA) recording the bore on

one of the site’s carronades. Photograph Xanthe Rivett/Silentworld Foundation

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However, closer examination of the various concretions allowed the divers to identify them as being different-sized hanging, lodging and rider knees along with iron stern crutches and breast hooks.

Knees are structural components of a ship that hang vertically from, or lodge horizontally between, the deck beams of a vessel, while rider knees hang down between the hold beams and are attached to the vessel’s floors (frame) through its ceiling planking to provide additional strength to the lower part of the hull. Crutches, on the other hand, are used to strengthen the stern and breast hooks of the bow of the ship by being placed horizontally across the inner stem or stern posts, cant frames and ceiling planks. The size, shape and number of these important structural components allowed us to estimate that the sailing vessel would have had at least two decks and displaced some 300 tons.

The divers also reported that all the anchors were found lying flat on the seabed rather than in the ‘picked in’ or deployed position. The numerous pieces of stud-link anchor chain, once plotted onto the overall site plan, revealed that they had been run out from all four anchors and across the reef top for a short distance before ending in a jumble of iron concretions.

04 Paul Hundley and Jacqui Mullen from

the Silentworld Foundation recording the dimensions of one of the site’s anchors.

Photograph Xanthe Rivett/Silentworld Foundation

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > EXPLORING A MYSTERY WRECK

Together, these two discoveries seemed to indicate that the crew of the unfortunate vessel was caught unawares and had run out all anchors after striking the reef – perhaps in an attempt to prevent the vessel from drifting off and sinking in deeper water.

Over the next few days the dive teams, led by archaeologists Paul Hundley (Silentworld Foundation) and Peter Illich (GBRMPA), first buoyed and recorded the general position of the two anchor clusters, the iron carronades (small cannons) and the various groupings of iron knees and riders before assessing, measuring and recording the features. At the same time the photographic team – led by Xanthe Rivett (Silentworld Foundation) and assisted by Grant Luckman (Department of the Environment) – recorded the general artefact assessment and survey work and supplemented the survey teams’ records by taking scaled photographs of distinctive site features to produce a scaled photomosaic of the entire site.

While the divers worked below, John Mullen (Silentworld Foundation) and Frits Breuseker (Seasee Pty Ltd) piloted the survey vessel Maggie II around the northern edges of Ashmore Reef in an attempt to locate any other shipwreck material that might have drifted off into deeper water.

Purpose built by Silentworld Foundation, Maggie II is equipped with magnetometers – instruments that calculate and record changes in the earth’s magnetic field caused by the presence of iron artefacts such as anchors, cannon and iron knees.

Also on board are side scan sonars, which send out bursts of conical or fan-shaped sound pulses down to the sea floor that are then bounced back to the survey vessel after striking a submerged object such as ballast stones. These returned signals paint an acoustic picture of the seabed and can be interpreted on plotting screens.

Maggie II also carries a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) that employs both the normal navigational satellites used in conventional GPS and also a series of ground-based reference stations that broadcast similar signals from known fixed positions. The combination of the multiple sets of signals allows locational accuracy to be improved from the nominal 10–15 metres to about 100 millimetres.

As the work progressed we slowly built up a picture of the mystery wreck, aided by the artefacts being recorded on the site. The divers established that the anchors were of a type known as a Pering-Patent anchor, which had been designed

by Richard Pering in July 1813. Being more compact, lighter and stronger than the earlier Admiralty longshank anchors, Pering-Patent anchors were taken up by the Royal Navy in 1815 before becoming the preferred anchor for use on board

Isolated, rarely visited and even today still not completely surveyed, Ashmore Reef is believed to be the final resting place of some 35 vessels

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merchant vessels between 1820 and 1835, after which the style was replaced by the Pering-Improved anchor.

Originally designed to be fitted with manila or hemp cables, the Pering-Patent anchors on the Ashmore Reef site had been modified to accept iron stud-link anchor cable, which had started to become common on board merchant ships by the early 1820s.

The method used to secure the iron cables to the two largest Pering-Patent anchors was quite unusual. A run of iron cable was passed through the iron anchor ring then run around the stock of the anchor two or three times, passed back through the anchor ring and then secured back onto the iron cable with a shackle – in a similar manner to a fisher tying a ‘sheet bend’ to a hook.

While quite novel, this must have been a result of an immediate necessity – perhaps the captain or owner of the vessel was unable to purchase a suitable-sized shackle before departing port, or the vessel had been recently fitted with iron cables, as this method of fastening was not only less secure but also resulted in weakening the anchor cable.

When the divers first inspected the wreck the cannons located on the site were identified as being of a type known as a carronade. Named after the Carron Company of Falkirk,

05 Storm front approaching Ashmore Reef

with the expedition team’s vessel The Boss in the foreground. Photograph Xanthe Rivett/ Silentworld Foundation.

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Scotland, this short, stubby cannon was developed in the mid-1770s. They quickly gained a reputation for reliability, ease of loading, and, at short range, incredible muzzle velocity – earning them the nickname of ‘smashers’.

After a more detailed examination, the carronades on the Ashmore Reef wreck were recorded as having a reinforced loop cast into the bottom of the gun rather than having typical ‘trunnions’ – cylindrical protrusions which act as pivots – mounted on the side. The loop allowed the carronades to be mounted on a slide rather than on a gun carriage and made the weapon more portable and easier to use.

The carronades on the site also had very pronounced foresites and backsites for improved accuracy, along with an iron loop cast into the uppermost portion of the back or ‘breech’ of the cannon, a type known as a ‘Bloomfield Pattern’ breech.

All these innovations indicated a date of post 1820.

After all the major features had been recorded, a series of 100-metre long baselines was set up on the site and used by the divers to run a series of compass and tape transits out from the baselines, recording all the smaller site features as they went.

As the divers became more familiar with the site and their eyes became attuned to the sea bottom, they began to pick out and identify a number of other artefacts. These included two hawse pipes (cylindrical tubes mounted in the bulwarks of the ship through which the anchor cable runs out from the chain locker to the anchors), several lead scuppers (a lead tube mounted at deck level that drains the deck of any seawater that comes on board), and a large iron winch or windlass axle.

Mixed in among the broken shell, coral fragments and sand grains, the divers also observed numerous copper sheathing tacks, coral-encrusted rolls of lead, smooth river-worn basalt, sandstone and shingle ballast, fragments of dark green bottle glass, a round glass deck prism (which, when laid flush into the deck of a ship, refracts and disperses light into a compartment below the deck), numerous pieces of copper sheathings and several larger copper fastenings.

Although small in size, all these artefacts were carefully examined and plotted just in case they might be able to provide us with additional information on the size, type, age and possible nationality of the wrecked ship, and hopefully, when compared with the historical records, allow us to identify with a fair degree of certainty what ship it was.

As the week progressed and the site slowly gave up its secrets, the weather started to deteriorate around us. The formerly flatcalm seas were now choppy and white capped, whipped up by 30-knot winds, and sets of deepening rolling swells were

Carronades were short, stubby cannons with incredible shortrange muzzle velocity – earning them the nickname of ‘smashers’

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crashing over the top of the site, making working conditions below difficult.

With no break in the weather predicted and our survey work completed, we departed Ashmore Reef for the more sheltered waters of the Torres Strait – and for some of us, flights back to Sydney and the research resources of the museum’s Vaughan Evans Research Library.

The field data obtained from the survey of the site on Ashmore Reef, followed by analysis of Lloyd’s Rules for the building and classification of wooden vessels and various timber scantling and fastening guidelines, have allowed us deduce that our mystery wreck was an armed, timber-built, copper-sheathed, copper-fastened sailing vessel, with at least two masts.

The presence of numerous iron knees and riders also indicates that the vessel had at least two decks and a tonnage of some 300–350 tons. The style of knees, anchor cables, anchors and carronades also indicate a vessel built after 1820 but before 1840.

Although far from conclusive, an examination of the historical records has suggested one possible candidate – the 314-ton Canadian-built wooden brig Comet, wrecked on a voyage from Sydney to Batavia (now Jakarta) on an unknown reef south of Boot Reef in May 1829.

Comet was built in Portland, New Brunswick, in 1826.

Archival information indicates that it was a two-decked, copper-sheathed, copper-fastened, armed trading vessel that had been retro-fitted with iron knees, iron riders and iron anchor cables before being re-registered in England in late 1827. It was then sent out on a speculative trading voyage to Van Diemen’s Land and Port Jackson in 1828.

The circumstances surrounding the wrecking of the Comet are unclear, but according to the Sydney Gazette and New Wales Advertiser of 3 November 1829 the ship departed Sydney in ballast on 5 April 1829, and following the wreck the crew took to the ship’s boats before being rescued by the brig Fairfield off Murray Island in Torres Strait. Interestingly, the same newspaper story also reports the wrecking of three other vessels on the Great Barrier Reef almost at the same time: the Governor Ready, the Swiftsure and HMCS Mermaid.

The wreck of HMCS Mermaid was later discovered by divers from the ANMM and the Silentworld Foundation in January 2009. (See Signals No 86, March–May 2009, for the full story.)

The Ashmore Reef Project 2015 was a collaboration with the Silentworld Foundation, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Department of the Environment.

The project was greatly assisted by Frits Breuseker, Lee Graham, Peter Illidge, Grant Luckman, Xanthe Rivett and the volunteer divers from the Silentworld Foundation, including John and Jacqui Mullen, Paul Hundley and Captain Michael Gooding.

Our mystery wreck was an armed, timber-built, copper-sheathed, copper-fastened sailing vessel, with at least two masts

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > NAPOLEON’S ARTISTS IN AUSTRALIA

Napoleon’s artists in Australia EARLY VIEWS OF A NEW CONTINENT

Exquisite illustrations by French artists made during Nicolas Baudin’s exploration of Australia will come to this country for the first time next year. Lindl Lawton previews the expedition and the remarkable works that it produced.

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01 Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Chrysaora

lesueur (jelly fish). Watercolour and pencil on vellum. Image Museum d’histoire naturelle, Le Havre, France

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STUNNING ORIGINAL WATERCOLOURS and drawings by expedition artists Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit will be showcased across the country following an agreement signed in May between the Mayor of Le Havre, Mr Edouardo Philippe, and the Australian National Maritime Museum. The agreement also includes five other Australian museums.

The artists sailed to Australia with the 1800–1804 expedition of Nicolas Baudin, who was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, to explore Nouvelle Hollande (New Holland) – particularly its uncharted southern coast.

Baudin famously met British explorer Matthew Flinders at Encounter Bay on the Fleurieu Peninsula, in what is now South Australia, in April 1802. Both expeditions added to the complete chart of Australia and left their legacy in trails of French and English names.

Baudin’s two ships, Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste, were well staffed and equipped and they left France carrying 22 scientists and artists. However, Baudin recruited two additional artists, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit (listing them as assistant gunners), intending that they would illustrate his personal sea log. In the event, ten of the scientific team, including its official artists, deserted at the first port of call, Île de France (now Mauritius), and Lesueur and Petit took on a broader role as the expedition’s artists, capturing some of the first European views of Aboriginal people and Australian animals and landscapes. More than 1,500 of their Australian artworks are preserved at the Museum of Natural History in Le Havre, France.

Lesueur and Petit captured some of the first European views of Aboriginal people and Australian animals and landscapes

02 Nicolas-Martin Petit, Mororé, man of New

Holland, 1802–04. Pierre noire or charcoal and sanguine on paper 03 Nicolas-Martin Petit, Man of New Holland,

1800–04. Sanguine, charcoal, ink and pencil on paper

Images Museum d’histoire naturelle, Le Havre, France

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Such sketches were the scientific snapshots of their era.

While the final versions of these images, reproduced as coloured engravings in the official account of the voyage (1807–1816) have been displayed, most of these original works have never before been seen in Australia.

The expedition finally returned to France with more than 180,000 natural history specimens. The expedition ships also carried live specimens such as kangaroos, emus and black swans, which were delivered to Josephine Bonaparte’s estate Malmaison, outside Paris, where they became a great novelty, living amid the great house’s ornamental gardens.

The expedition finally returned to France with more than 180,000 natural history specimens

The exhibition will commence its Australian tour in June 2016 when it opens at the South Australian Maritime Museum. It will open at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney in 2018.

Lindl Lawton is a Senior Curator at the South Australian Maritime Museum.

04 Péron and Lesueur, Lagostrophus fasciatus

(Banded Hare Wallaby), 1807. Watercolour and ink on paper. Image Museum d’histoire naturelle, Le Havre, France

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE

More than just a pretty face SHIPS’ FIGUREHEADS IN 18TH- AND 19TH-CENTURY BRITAIN

The tradition of decorating boats is deep-rooted in most maritime cultures around the world, with the ships’ figurehead being possibly the most familiar example.

Researcher Erica McCarthy examines the history, purposes and changing styles of figureheads, and some of the misconceptions about them.

01 Figurehead of the Florence Nightingale

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(1861). Cutty Sark Collection, London, on display. © Cutty Sark Trust

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THE FASCINATING SUBJECT of ship decoration has been examined by very few nautical archaeologists, and fewer still from the world of art history. Although there have been some very informative books written on the topic in recent years, ships’ figureheads are probably one of the least studied (and arguably most interesting!) components of ships.

The practice of decorating boats may be as old as seafaring itself, therefore the variations in type and meaning are immense. In 2012, I was given the opportunity to study the collection of ships’ figureheads in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. Most are 19th-century in date, with some 18th-century examples too. My research, which is ongoing, involves examining the purpose of these figureheads as well as how our interpretation of them has changed over time. Throughout my research I have found there to be many widely held misconceptions about ships’ figureheads, the most common being that they usually depicted busty women.

Certainly women were depicted, but so were men, animals and decorative scrolls – the popularity of each subject changed over time, as did their purpose.

The purpose of vessel ornamentation has varied over the millennia. Early carvings may have been used to placate gods, instil fear in enemies or keep the crew safe. As well as the function, the form and subject of the figurehead also evolved as a result of changing hull forms, fashions and sociological changes. In 18th- and 19th-century Britain, before writing the name of the vessel on the hull became the norm, figureheads were used, among other reasons, to identify vessels.

A description of a vessel’s figurehead was included with each registration in the register of merchant ships. After the Navigation Act 1786, it became mandatory for every ship in Britain to be registered, so this register is an excellent resource in the study of ships’ figureheads.

Although it is now rare for a ship to have a carved and colourful figurehead adorning its bow, the iconic image of the buxom female, with her wooden chest exposed, remains alive in the popular imagination and, for many, is the first image that comes to mind when the word ‘figurehead’ is mentioned.

Examining a representative sample of ships registered in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, I found that the female, perhaps unsurprisingly, did feature on the bow of vessels more often than any other single type of bow decoration; but as a whole, the female figurehead represented less than half of the total figurehead subjects.

Female figureheads were rarely seen on ships’ bows until the end of the 18th century. The popular perception is that most ships’ figureheads were female, and more specifically

02

There are many misconceptions about ships’ figureheads, the most common being that they usually depicted busty women

02 Figurehead from Elizabeth Fry (1864).

Cutty Sark Collection, London, on display. © Cutty Sark Trust

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bare-chested females. The website for the National Museum of the Royal Navy, in Portsmouth, England, notes that the lion figurehead went out of fashion towards the end of the 18th century, and that after that ‘Female figureheads were popular, usually baring one or both breasts. This represented the superstitions of the seamen. Women on board ships were thought to be unlucky, but a naked woman was supposed to be able to calm a storm at sea.’ This idea of the female’s supernatural ability to calm the seas by exposing her body has been traced by Tony Lewis to the time of Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder or even earlier.1 Pliny stated:

The tradition of vessel ornamentation is a custom that lasted for millennia

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03 A display at the National Maritime Museum,

Greenwich, UK, illustrates the wide variety of subjects portrayed in figureheads. © NMM

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... there is no limit to the marvellous powers attributed to females.

For, in the first place, hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightning even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather; and out at sea, a storm may be lulled by a woman uncovering her body merely, even though not menstruating at the time.2 Many authors have reinforced the popular idea that figureheads are typically female. P N Thomas, for example, noted that ‘the subject for the figurehead was predominantly female despite sailor’s superstition that a woman aboard a ship would bring bad luck’.3 This popular perception is not reflected in the main British collections – the National Maritime Museum (NMM) and Cutty Sark collections in Greenwich, the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) in Portsmouth, and the Hull Maritime Museum collection. Analysing these combined collections, I found that although there are slightly more female than male figureheads, fewer than half of the total are female. It appears that the gender balance is perhaps more even than generally imagined. Outside Britain, the 92 figureheads in the collection of the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, Virginia, USA, include 45 that depict females – again less than half of the total collection. The collection in the South Australian Maritime Museum has 11 females and six males, which may be explained by the later date of the collection; all but three of these figureheads are from vessels built in the second half of the 19th century, when the female subject was most popular.

The Australian National Maritime Museum has four figureheads, depicting a Maˉori, Horatio Nelson, a dragon and a small scroll.

Another aspect of my research addressed the specific preconception that female figureheads were often exposing their breasts. In the sample of 192 figureheads from the NMM, Cutty Sark, NMRN and Hull collections, only ten figureheads are females with one or both breasts exposed – that’s just five per cent of the whole sample. These ten figureheads do not appear to be examples of gratuitous nudity; they depict women from mythology, such as Atalanta, the Arcadian huntress; the sea nymph Calypso; Semiramis, the semi-mythical queen of Assyria; and Amphitrite, wife of Poseidon. Other fictitious beings were also depicted, such as the witch Nannie from the poem ‘Tam O’ Shanter’ by the 18th-century Scottish poet Robert Burns. Female figureheads in Australia, Gordon de L Marshall notes, also depicted ‘classical subjects, virtues, individuals and heroines from romantic fiction’.4 Aware that these museum collections might not accurately represent the ratios of male to female figureheads that existed in reality, I turned to the

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04 Nationalistic symbols – such as a lion,

featured on the British coat of arms – are obvious subjects for figureheads, especially for those of warships.

Lion figurehead from an unknown vessel (c 1720). National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK, on display. © NMM

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register of merchant ships for further evidence. Examining the details of more than 4,000 vessels registered in London for foreign trade showed that, similarly to the main British collections, fewer than half of the figureheads listed are female.

The practice of adorning the bows of merchant ships, particularly those registered in London for foreign trade, appeared to peak just before it dramatically declined.

During this peak the female figurehead was most prevalent, and this perhaps explains the popular belief that it was typically a female on the bows of ships. It is also possible that the actual slight preference for female over male subjects, as well as the public perception that figureheads are predominantly female, is intertwined with the ‘feminine personification’ of vessels.

This phenomenon has been described by Jeffrey Mellefont as an ‘impulse that has reached beyond mariners, ship designers and builders, maritime historians, specialists and enthusiasts into popular literature, song, reportage and everyday speech’.5 The female figurehead – especially in semi-naked goddess form – has perhaps, in recent centuries, become the popular physical embodiment of this animism associated with ships. This is an interesting development in the public perception of figureheads, especially when one considers that female figureheads only appeared on ships towards the end of a very long tradition of bow ornamentation.

Perhaps more interesting than the general preconceptions about female figureheads are the carvings that depict non-fictitious women. When discussing American female figureheads, Tony Lewis noted that ‘as traditional strictures against women’s active participation in the public sphere began to erode, carvers began exercising greater latitude in their treatment of the female figure’.6 The same could be said for surviving British figureheads, which include well-known figures such as the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, and Elizabeth Fry, a political activist and founder of the Association for the Improvement of Female Prisoners. Both are on display in the Cutty Sark Museum in Greenwich, London.

Gordon de L Marshall observed that these types of figureheads are a ‘reflection of the Victorian ideal of womanhood’ as well as evidence of the Victorian ‘admiration for romantic heroism’.

Female royal figures, both contemporary and historic, also feature quite frequently.

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05 Heroic and mythological figures are common

subjects for figureheads; the figurehead of HMS Ajax (1809) depicts the mythological Greek hero of that name. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK, on display. © NMM

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Unidentified female figureheads are often suggested to be portraits. Many examples exist in British collections, such as the figureheads of the Bessie Whineray and the Indipendenza, both in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, UK. The South Australian Maritime Museum also has an example of a possible portrait, the figurehead of the Hannah Nicholson, originally owned by the merchant William Nicholson.

Tony Lewis has noted that ‘Ship owners and masters began commissioning figureheads representing their wives, daughters, and sweethearts, who were invariably shown fully dressed’.

It was reported in the Boston Daily Atlas on 18 December 1854 that the 1,787-ton Indiaman Blanche Moore was completed for the trade between Liverpool and Calcutta by Mr Donald McKay, a well-known shipbuilder from East Boston. The Blanche Moore was owned by Charles Moore, a merchant based in Liverpool.

The reporter noted that ‘For a [figure] head she [the Blanche Moore] has a full figure of the lady whose name she bears, and who is the daughter of her owner’.7 Charles Moore had three daughters, Marian Edith, Helena Blanche and Laura Mary, all of whom were born in Liverpool. Helena Blanche, in the 1861 census, was listed as being 19 years of age, making her just 12 when the Blanche Moore was completed in Boston.

The vessel was bought by Wilson, Cunningham and Co., the co-founder of the White Star Line of Australian Packets, and was used to carry passengers from Britain to Australia.

The Blanche Moore was reported in September 1867, in the Daily News (London), to have been lost off the coast of Ireland.

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The possibility that these 18th- and 19th-century female figureheads may depict investors in those vessels has never been explored. Helen Doe states that during the 19th century ‘women were very much part of the [shipping] industry and provided essential capital for the purchase of new vessels and the funds to keep them at sea’.8 She suggests that female ship owners were not just passive acceptors of inherited male wealth, but actively pursued and managed their investments in these shipping joint ventures. In the 18th century, too, there is evidence of women playing an important role in shipping ventures. The William and Ann, registered in London in 1786, was owned by, among others, Elizabeth Kelly of Gravesend. As women played such an active role in shipping, it is possible they may, in some cases, be the subject of the figurehead of the ship in which they invested.

In the last few hundred years before the tradition of vessel ornamentation declined, men – and in some cases women – made a living solely from carving decoration for ships.

They were trained in academies or through apprenticeships and created figureheads that were seen by maritime communities

06 Figurehead of HMVS Nelson (1814).

Australian National Maritime Museum, on display. Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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in far-reaching corners of the globe. The significance of these symbols of our maritime heritage is, thankfully, appreciated by many maritime history enthusiasts, museum curators and historians. Numerous figureheads are on public display in museums around the world; they are continually maintained and these wonderful examples of maritime art are rightfully regarded as tangible vestiges of past generations’ connection with the sea. Although the female figurehead was a popular choice of bow ornamentation, it was by no means the only subject depicted. It therefore seems unfortunate that the diverse and varied subjects of figureheads are often ignored and outshone by the minority that depict partially nude females.

This appears to have resulted in a general misinterpretation, often depicted in popular culture, of these fascinating wooden figures as amusing ornaments rather than acknowledging the historical value they deserve.

Notes and references 1 Lewis, T, 1996. ‘Her effigy in wood: Figureheads with feminine subjects’.

The Magazine Antiques 2 Pliny the Elder. ‘Natural History ad 77–79.’ In Latin Texts and Translations. Online perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3. pl?dbname=LatinAugust2012&getid=1&query=Plin.%20Nat.%2028 accessed 23/07/2014: Perseus Digital Library 3 Thomas, P N, 1995. British Figurehead & Ship Carvers. Albrighton: Waine Research

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In the 18th and 19th centuries there is evidence of women investors playing an important role in shipping ventures

4 de L Marshall, G, 2003. Ships’ Figure Heads in Australia. Tangee Publishing 5 Mellefont, J, 2000. ‘Heirlooms & Tea Towels: Views of Ships’ Gender in the Modern Maritime Museum’. The Great Circle, Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History 22, no 1: 5–16 6 Lewis, T, 1996. ‘Her effigy in wood…’, above 7 Unknown author, 1854. Transcribed by Lars Bruzelius. ‘The New East Indiaman, Blanch Moore, of Liverpool’. Boston Daily Atlas, Dec. Available at bruzelius.info/ Nautica/News/BDA/BDA(1854-12-18).html. Last accessed on 24/11/2014 8 Doe, H, 2010. ‘Waiting for her ship to come in? The female investor in nineteenthcentury sailing vessels’. The Economic History Review 63(1): 87 Erica McCarthy is based at the University of Hull, UK. Her research into figureheads is being undertaken as part of a collaborative doctoral award funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the National Maritime Museum, London, and the University of Hull, UK. For further information please contact Erica McCarthy e.mccarthy@2012.hull.ac.uk.

07 Figurehead from Indipendenza (1875).

Valhalla Collection, Tresco, Isles of Scilly, UK, on display. © NMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > PACIFIC CONNECTIONS

Pacific connections THE 2015 BILL LANE FELLOWSHIP

Among the museum’s many grants and assistance programs is the Bill Lane Fellowship, which provides for cultural and research exchanges between Australia and the United States. The current round of fellowships brought together Indigenous high school students from Hawaii, Sydney and the Torres Strait Islands, writes Richard Wood.

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01 Community cultural leader Dean Kelly

welcomed the fellows and other guests to Gadigal land, on which the museum stands.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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AMBASSADOR BILL LANE was instrumental in establishing the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund, the official gift from the people of the USA marking 200 years of British occupation of Australia.

He stated: There is no relationship that is closer to my heart than the Australian–American friendship and our commitment to democracy and the many freedoms Aussies and Yankees share and work on together for the good of mankind around the world.

The fund built the museum’s USA Gallery and continues to explore and interpret the maritime relationship between Australia and America through the museum’s USA Programs.

After Bill died in 2010 the Bill Lane Fellowship was established in his honour, to perpetuate his great love of the Pacific Ocean, the maritime partnership between Australia and the United States, and his commitment to preserving our maritime history for future generations.

Until now the fellowship has funded scholars and museum professionals, fostering relationships with American cultural institutions, and contributing to research, collecting and conservation for the museum’s USA Program.

In May 2015, as part of its Maˉlama Honua worldwide voyage (see Signals 111), the traditional Hawaiian voyaging canoe Hoˉkuˉle‘a visited the museum. This presented a unique opportunity for the fellowship to contribute to a new USA Program initiative – to develop research into, exhibitions about, and collections from, the first nation/Indigenous maritime cultures of Australia, the USA and the Pacific.

This year the fellowship was awarded to Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Hawaiian secondary school students to share their maritime traditions and knowledge during a three-day cultural exchange program and workshop at the museum. It was held

02 Owen Talbot and US Ambassador to

Australia, John Berry, at Government House, Sydney. Photograph Richard Wood/ANMM 03 Laurence William ‘Bill’ Lane (1919–2010),

United States Ambassador to Australia 1985–1989. Photograph Jenni Carter/ANMM

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in collaboration with Donna Carstens, the museum’s Manager of Indigenous Programs, and Jenna Ishii, Education Coordinator of the Maˉlama Honua voyage.

The 2015 Bill Lane USA Gallery Fellows are Owen Talbot and Hayden Charles from Sydney; Gaitup Satrick, Timikah Mudu and Jaub-Lashae Turner from the Torres Strait Islands; and Ka’ihikapu Maikui, Malie Sarsona and Kay-ala Kaha’ulelio from Hawaii.

It was a full program. The first day of the exchange included a tour of Aboriginal sites around Bundi (Bondi), led by crosscultural interpreter Colin Walangari Karntawarra McCormack, an elder from Alice Springs of the Arrernte, Luritja, Walpiri, Yankuntjatjarra, Pintubi, Anmatjerre and Alyawarre peoples of the Central and Western Desert. It was followed by a lunchtime cruise (accompanied by US Ambassador to Australia John Berry and US Consul General Hugo Llorens) on board the Sydney Heritage Fleet’s MV Harman, where Indigenous elder Uncle Terry Olsen shared his knowledge of Gadigal maritime culture, names and practices around Sydney Harbour. In the evening the students attended a reception at Government House, hosted by His Excellency

04 The 2015 Bill Lane Fellows with

US Ambassador John Berry (left) and ANMM Director Kevin Sumption (front).

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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General The Honourable David Hurley ac dsc (Ret), Governor of New South Wales, and Mrs Hurley, where the Hoˉkuˉle‘a advance party entertained with traditional dances and songs.

On day two the students attended a workshop on nawi, the traditional bark canoes of the Gadigal people of Sydney Harbour, which was led by Jinny Smith, Project Assistant Indigenous Programs, and David Payne, Curator of Historic Vessels. They examined the construction of the vessels, built models and repaired one of the museum’s nawi using beeswax and an experimental resin from South Australian grass trees. Museum visitors and onlookers enjoyed the fun as the fellows took turns testing their workmanship by paddling the nawi on Darling Harbour.

Later the fellows exchanged stories and taught each other songs in their traditional languages as they rested on the wharf.

Our Hawaiian fellows were intrigued and horrified when one Thursday Islander nonchalantly said that her school had recently been in lockdown when a giant crocodile wandered into the playground.

A highlight of that evening was their visit to Sydney Observatory to experience a Dreamtime astronomy tour and learn astronomical tips – including when and how to harvest emu eggs.

Day three concluded the nawi workshop and the fellows regrouped to consolidate and document their experiences, which will be posted online in a series of blog entries.

They then headed to the inner-city suburb of Redfern to visit the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which is protesting against the proposed development of commercial shops and university student housing on Aboriginal land.

05 Hōkūle‘a finally arrives at the museum.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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‘I’ve never really had the experience to mingle with a lot of Indigenous youth and I really like that we get to meet Aboriginals of this ‘aina [land] and to learn and exchange with them,’ said Ka’ihikapu Maikui, 16, from Kanu O Ka ‘aina New Century Charter School, Waimea, Hawaii. Hayden Charles, 16, of Endeavour Sports High School, Caringbah, New South Wales, said, ‘I was hoping for all of us here to take different knowledge from our lands and countries and go back to our communities and talk about it with different people.’

Due to bad weather Hoˉkuˉle‘a was delayed by four days, arriving at the end of the cultural exchange program. Unfortunately the Torres Strait Islander fellows had already left by the time the canoe arrived, and missed the elaborate and moving traditional smoking and welcoming ceremonies performed by the waterside at the museum.

The students, their schools and Hoˉkuˉle‘a continue to connect with each other and the museum through social media, where they are documenting their experiences to create a digital record of blog posts, images and other media to be published online by the museum.

The Australian National Maritime Museum acknowledges the Gadigal people as the traditional custodians of the land and waters on which we work. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands and waters throughout Australia and pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and present.

Bill Lane’s passion for culture is also celebrated in Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West, supported by the Lane family. In 2012 the Center’s Comparative Wests Project convened in Canberra and Western Australia to discuss parallels between Aboriginal and Native American concepts and issues of country and culture.

A highlight was a visit to Sydney Observatory for a Dreamtime astronomy tour and to learn astronomical tips – including when and how to harvest emu eggs

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > LIFESAVING LIGHTS

Lifesaving lights

CELEBRATING A LIGHTHOUSE CENTENARY

As an island nation, Australia has always relied on shipping for its economy, and before advances in technology, lighthouses were essential to warn ships of hazards such as reefs and rocks. This year marks the centenary of government management of lighthouses, writes Michelle Balaz of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

01 01 Breaksea Island is located in King George Sound,

12 kilometres south-east of Albany in Western Australia. Photograph courtesy Garry Searle

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THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT has more than 37,600 kilometres of coastline and countless potential hazards for ships approaching landfall. Shipwrecks were common in Australia’s early history, with the loss of hundreds of lives. Lighthouses are a unique symbol of Australia’s maritime history andmany date back more than 150 years.

In 2015, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is recognising 100 years of Australian government ownership of aids to navigation. AMSA now manages some 500 aids to navigation, including 56 heritage-listed lighthouses recognised for their outstanding heritage values to the nation.

Lighthouses under current Australian government management include one of Australia’s oldest lighthouses, located on Tasmania’s Swan Island, which will be 170 years old this year.

Tales of shipwrecks abound through Australia’s history, and many lighthouses were built as a result of numerous fatal shipwrecks. Areas such as Bass Strait and the south-western point of Western Australia have proved especially treacherous for ships.

Today, new aids to navigation continue to be installed in remote locations on the Australian coastline as required, with a new lighted buoy recently being installed at Urchin Shoal in Palm Passage, which is one of the main entrances to the Inner Shipping Route of the Great Barrier Reef.

Evolution of technology The very first beacon to warn mariners was believed to have been built at South Head in Sydney in 1793, only five years after the arrival of European colonists. Its beacon was fuelled by wood and kept alight by convicts. Australia’s lighthouse history started with Governor Lachlan Macquarie and the first Macquarie Lighthouse, which was built in 1818 atop the cliffs of Vaucluse in Sydney. In those early years, the Macquarie light was powered by whale oil.

Changes in technology evolved slowly, with kerosene being used at most Australian lighthouses by the late 1800s and the largest lighthouses often using mercury baths to assist in the rotation of their large glass lens assemblies.

In those early days, lighthouses were staffed by light keepers.

Each day before dusk, men across Australia left their cottages to ascend a familiar spiral staircase, set the light going by winding it up and pumping the kerosene, maintaining it and watching it throughout their watch. This occurred night after night, in still weather and in the midst of the worst storms that the sea could throw against the nearby shores. The lighthouse

Cape Wickham Lighthouse Reefs and rocks near King Island in Bass Strait were the scene of many tragedies before the Cape Wickham Lighthouse was built in 1861.

Only 15 of the 239 people on board survived when the female convict ship Neva sank in 1835. In August 1845, 400 people lost their lives when the Cataraqui sank – this is still Australia’s worst shipping disaster.

In the 1850s, eight ships were wrecked near King Island.

The Cape Wickham lighthouse is Australia’s tallest, at 48 metres in height.

It has 220 steps and the walls at its base are 3.4 metres thick. It marks the southern end of the western entrance into Bass Strait. Due to numerous shipwrecks near this entrance, the lighthouses at Cape Wickham (1861) and Victoria’s Cape Otway (1848) were established.

AMSA will open the lighthouse to the public in November this year to celebrate the centenary.

Image courtesy AMSA

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02

prisms also had to be cleaned at least once a fortnight; it took two men the best part of a day to clean and polish both sides.

When the Australian colonies federated in 1901, they decided that the new Commonwealth government would be responsible for coastal lighthouses – major lights used by vessels travelling from port to port, rather than the minor lights used for navigation within harbours and rivers. The transfer of control occurred on 1 July 1915, when the Lighthouses Act 1911 came into effect.

The Commonwealth Lighthouse Service commenced operation on 1 July 1915, assuming responsibility for about 163 lights, buoys and beacons

When the Commonwealth of Australia officially accepted responsibility for all landfall and coastal lights around Australia, these included 103 manned lights. The individual states retained responsibility for harbour lights.

The Commonwealth Lighthouse Service commenced operation on 1 July 1915, assuming responsibility for about 163 lights, buoys and beacons from the various state administrations that marked ocean shipping routes. After the Commonwealth was given control of major lights, it was decided that all newly built lights would be unattended. These new lights used acetylene as the illuminant and lighthouse keepers eventually lost their positions to automation.

As technologies used in the maritime industry evolved, so did the needs and man hours required by lighthouses.

New navigational, lighting and power technologies, together with environmental considerations, led to changes in the way

02 On the Great Barrier Reef, 100 kilometres

offshore, a lighthouse was built at North Reef in 1878. The construction – on a sandbank covered by two metres of water at high tide – was one of the most challenging ever undertaken in Australia. A cast-iron cylinder, or caisson, was sunk directly into the coral reef. Inside the cylinder, concrete was poured to form a hollow base for the tower and living quarters that encircle it. The hollow base serves as a tank, fed by fresh water from the roof. Photograph courtesy AMSA

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03 Lighthouse keepers and their families often

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regarded South Solitary, 18 kilometres north-east of Coffs Harbour on the New South Wales north coast, as the most isolated lightstation in New South Wales.

The lighthouse was automated and de-manned in 1975. Today the island and its surrounding waters are part of the Solitary Islands Marine Park – the first marine park established in New South Wales.

Photograph courtesy AMSA

lighthouses were operated. Light keepers are no longer present to run and maintain the light stations, with the departure of Australia’s last light keeper in 1997.

The responsible government agency changed names over the years and AMSA took on responsibility for aids to navigation in 1991. Today, AMSA maintains a network of some 500 visual and electronic aids to navigation for shipping. The network consists of traditional lighthouses, beacons, buoys, radar transponder beacons (racons), Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) and Automatic Identification System (AIS) stations, plus met-ocean sensors such as broadcasting tide gauges, wave rider buoys, current meters and weather stations.

The lighthouses in AMSA’s network of aids to navigation continue to serve a vital navigational safety role, including those preserved under heritage responsibilities. Many of Australia’s oldest lighthouses are in isolated locations away from public view. Others are open to the public for tours.

A lighthouse love story Life for lighthouse keepers and their families could be tough and lonely. Many lighthouses were in very isolated locations or affected by extreme weather. Supplies for many lighthouses came by sea or air, and lighthouse keepers had to grow much of their own food.

There are countless stories from the experiences of these hundreds of men and their wives who dedicated their lives to the safety of the mariner, together with their children who endured the isolation, some growing up with no knowledge of the world outside their intimate communities.

Split Point Lighthouse The Split Point Lighthouse, built in 1891, stands 34 metres tall. It is located at Aireys Inlet off the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, and is well known as the location of the Australian children’s TV series Round the Twist.

In June 2015 the incandescent light source was replaced by an LED light installed within the existing historic first-order lens.

The lighthouse is open for tours every weekend and during school holidays.

Image courtesy AMSA

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One of these stories is of Alice and Job Symonds, who tended the light on Breaksea Island off the coast from Albany in Western Australia in the late 1800s. Their story is told in Garry Searle’s book, First Order – Australia’s Highway of Lighthouses, from which the following is an extract: As the RMS Oroya steamed into King George Sound on 5 May 1889 passengers looked up to see a large bonfire on top of Breaksea Island. For one special passenger, Alice Cook, this brought a broad smile. She knew this fire was meant for her, a special welcome sign from her soon-to-be husband.

Job (Joe) Augustus Symonds, just 19 years old, had completed the same voyage from England two years earlier. Symonds was born for the sea, running away from home at the age of nine to work on the Thames River, joining the Royal Navy at twelve, then the Merchant Navy. Symonds was already qualified as a master mariner and his first job in Albany was with the pilot service. Within twelve months Symonds was appointed to the assistant lighthouse keeper position on Breaksea Island and kept his first watch on the evening of 1 July 1888.

Alice had followed Job to Australia and early on 7 May 1889 boarded a boat for the short trip from Albany to Breaksea Island. One can only wonder as to her thoughts as she sat in a basket whilst the crane winched her onto the jetty.

Later that day, in a ceremony performed by Reverend TA James, the two were married. As Symonds was unable to leave the island a special licence, granted by Governor Broom, had made the ceremony possible. Following the wedding, the party sat down to a breakfast which had been prepared by the head keeper’s wife, Mrs Robinson.

Life on Breaksea would have been a lot harder than the romanticised image it conjures. Infrequent supplies often arrived in terrible condition, with the only source of fresh meat being the large supply of rabbits and muttonbirds on the island – which also made it impossible to grow fresh vegetables.

Running a home for Job and the three children they raised on the island would have been a difficult task but Alice also became proficient in signalling duties to help her husband.

It has been recorded that her grandson remembers her complaints ‘about the monthly delivery of fly-blown meat and sodden vegetables, and the inability to grow any of her own vegetables because of rabbits, still much in evidence on the island.’ The rabbits on Breaksea Island seem to have been newsworthy, with a Tasmanian newspaper reporting in 1881 that the Royal Princes visited the island to go rabbit shooting and in 1888 the Albany Advertiser commented that ‘It is believed that if blockaded, there are enough rabbits on the island

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse Standing at the point where the Southern and Indian oceans meet in Western Australia, at 39 metres this is the tallest lighthouse on the Australian mainland.

Before it became operational in 1896, there were 22 recorded shipwrecks at Cape Leeuwin, and only one after the lighthouse was completed.

The former light keeper’s cottage is said to be haunted by a keeper’s wife who died in 1909 after a fall.

There have been reports of sightings and doors opening and closing for no reason. The Cape Leeuwin lighthouse is open to the public for tours.

Image courtesy AMSA

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to enable [the lightkeepers] to hold the fort against the combined Russian, Mongolian and French fleets, for an indefinite length of time.’

A third keeper was appointed in 1892 and in 1893 Job Symonds became head keeper and held that position until leaving the island in March 1894 when he returned to the pilot service.

Reproduced with permission of author Garry Searle. His book First Order – Australia’s Highway of Lighthouses is available in the museum’s Store or online at store.anmm.gov. au. RRP $115 (Members $103.50)

Cape Byron Lighthouse Although many heritagelisted lighthouses are quite isolated and rarely visited, those in coastal towns become an intrinsic part of local community identity as well as major contributors to their economy.

Cape Byron Lighthouse, completed in 1901, is Australia’s most visited lighthouse and is located on the mainland’s most easterly point. In June 2015 the incandescent light source was replaced by an LED light installed within the existing historic first-order lens, making this the most powerful lighthouse on the Australian coastline, with its lens projecting at 2.2 million candle power.

Image courtesy AMSA

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > CONSERVATION AND CREATION

Conservation and creation

THE WORK OF GHOSTNETS AUSTRALIA

GhostNets Australia is dedicated to protecting marine ecosystems from the threat of drifting abandoned fishing nets.

It also educates communities about environmental protection and has developed an ongoing project that recycles salvaged nets into works of art, writes Ester Sarkadi-Clarke.

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01 Detail of the coral reef sculpture created

at the museum from ghost nets and marine debris. Photograph Ester Sarkadi-Clarke

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GHOST NETS are abandoned fishing nets that are lost at sea.

They drift and float in oceans, collect and injure or frequently kill marine animals, and are then often washed onto beaches and into waterways. They are very destructive to marine fauna, flora, environments and ecosystems.

The GhostNets Australia organisation began in 2004 in the areas most affected by ghost nets – such as the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Northern Territory and the Torres Strait Islands. Its founder and coordinator, Riki Gunn, formerly worked in the fishing industry. She advocates for sustainability in the fishing industry, and for strategies to protect marine environments through working closely with local communities.

Most ghost nets are lost or discarded from fishing vessels from the Indonesian region and Arafura Sea, mainly from trawl fisheries and gill nets. Data collected by GhostNets Australia (GNA) shows that most nets are found in the far north of Australia, and especially in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where 90 per cent of the nets are found and marine debris such as thongs, plastic bottles, cans and items of household rubbish are also collected. The Gulf of Carpentaria is one of the last remaining ecosystems for endangered marine and coastal species such as dugongs, sawfish and six of the world’s seven marine turtle species. GNA prioritises rescuing turtles, which represent 80 per cent of marine life caught in the nets.

More than 300 turtles have been rescued so far.

The Gulf of Carpentaria is one of the last remaining ecosystems for endangered marine and coastal species such as dugongs, sawfish and marine turtles

02 Workshop participants at St Pauls

Village on Moa Island in Torres Strait.

Photograph Dennis Newie/GNA

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Since 2004, more than 13,000 nets have been removed from Australian beaches and estuaries, and GNA records the types, locations and sizes of nets that are found. The nets can be kilometres long and trap many types of marine animals, including turtles, sharks, fish, whales, dugongs, crocodiles, crabs, dolphins and even birds. Unless the animals are rescued, they are injured and often killed by the nets.

Working with Indigenous ranger groups and volunteers, GNA retrieves massive amounts of discarded ghost nets and marine debris from coastal areas, collects data and tracks nets in situ using satellite tracking technology. Its work also has significant effects beyond Australia. For instance in Indonesia, various programs and workshops educate people in the fishing industry about illegal fishing practices and also raise awareness of how destructive ghost nets are. GNA also runs wide-ranging community art projects and educational programs in Australia that educate communities about environmental protection, conservation and sustainability in fishing industries.

From marine debris to art The Ghost Net Art Project started in 2008 with a scoping study undertaken by Cairns artist Sue Ryan, who is now the Ghost Net Art Project director. Sue first held community art workshops in Aurukun (in far North Queensland) as a way to deal with ghost nets and marine debris by creating art, craft and functional objects out of these materials. The initiative has since developed into a significant project that works with communities where ghost nets are found.

The project revolves around community collaboration and community workshops, predominantly held where ghost nets are found. This not only benefits the environment, but also

03 Senior Nanum Wungthim ranger Phillip

Mango cutting free a juvenile hawksbill turtle.

Photograph Matt Gillis/GNA 04 A turtle found barely alive during patrol

by Dhimurru Rangers. Photograph Jane Dermer/GNA

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Through its art project, GhostNets Australia aims to transform destructive ghost nets and marine debris into artworks

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connects and educates communities. GhostNets Australia sponsors workshops that are facilitated by contemporary artists.

The Ghost Net Art Project facilitators work collaboratively with artists and weavers in Indigenous communities to develop new skills for using ghost net materials. Workshops are led by artists who demonstrate techniques of fibre art, and include volunteer participants. Artists are encouraged to use their traditional techniques for weaving and fibre art, incorporating themes from Indigenous Dreamtime stories and cultural symbols, while finding creative ways to use ghost nets and marine debris to make environmental art – in the same way that many contemporary artists create artworks from recycled or found materials. By using the ghost net materials found

by Indigenous rangers, the artists in the Ghost Net Art Project have a very important role in educating people and exposing what is happening to the marine environment and in the fishing industry.

The works from the Ghost Net Art Project have been exhibited in art exhibitions, community festivals, social history settings and natural history museums such as the Australian Museum in Sydney. The works are also seen in aquariums, static displays and interactive exhibitions, including at the Australian National Maritime Museum.

Audiences for ghost net art are often based in communities where this art is created, meaning that the community is involved on various levels, from collecting ghost net materials to creating and then viewing the completed artworks.

Communities can represent local stories that are expressed in the artworks, and link people in communities who are working towards similar goals – whether in collecting the materials or making the art from them. As Sue Ryan says: ‘Although we all share a sense of despair about the ghost net

05 Mapoon Land and Sea Rangers,

Conservation Volunteers Australia, Tangaroa Blue and GhostNets Australia team members with their thong collection.

Photograph Jen Goldberg/GNA

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issue there is something about the Art Project that, wherever it goes, generates a feeling of goodwill that makes you believe anything is possible’.1 In 2014, the Ghost Net Art Project visited the Australian National Maritime Museum. Sue Ryan and artist Karen Hethey provided a week of guidance and instruction in fibre art techniques for a collaborative sculpture of a coral reef bombora, or ‘bommie’.

The sculpture re-created the seafloor environment and coral reef ecosystem, using collected ghost nets and marine debris, all stitched together using fishing line. Sue and Karen created the structure of the bommie using wire and bamboo.

Workshops were held in which museum staff, volunteers, visitors and children added to it, creating coral made of ropes, marine creatures made of thongs, and fish made of bottles, ropes and ghost nets. The sculpture went on display as part of the exhibition Voyage to the Deep (December 2014 to April 2015).

The ghost net artworks have been exhibited in art exhibitions, community festivals, social history settings and natural history museums

06 The coral reef structure under construction

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at the museum. Photograph Ester SarkadiClarke

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GhostNets Australia and the art project strive for practical and lasting change. Their work with ranger programs involves communities in conserving and protecting turtle populations and marine flora and fauna. Its collaboration between science and art creates practical solutions addressing the problem of the destructive ghost nets. As seen in the Ghost Net Art Project, communities work with the changing role and meaning of art in Indigenous communities, and raise environmental awareness in communities affected by ghost nets. Through this work the ghost net problem is presented to diverse audiences to raise awareness. GhostNets Australia’s projects have ongoing positive effects on the environment and local communities.

This has a significant role in influencing lasting change for present and future generations, by providing and creating practical solutions to conserving our environment.

Notes 1 Sue Ryan, ‘The Ghost Net Art Project’, Artlink, Vol 32, No 2, 2012, pp 110–112.

Available from artlink.com.au (accessed 8 September 2014), p 112 Author Ester Sarkadi-Clarke was involved in the ghost nets project as part of a university internship at the Australian National Maritime Museum from September 2014 to February 2015.

For further information on GhostNets Australia, go to ghostnets.com.au

GhostNets Australia’s projects have ongoing positive effects on the environment and local communities

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > WELCOME TO SPRING

MEMBERS SPRING 2015

Welcome to spring MESSAGE TO MEMBERS

Spring into the museum this season for plenty of exciting events, including opportunities to trial our newest attraction, Action Stations.

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01 Undiscovered: Photographs by Michael Cook

has been a popular exhibition during winter.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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02

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THIS PAST WINTER has seen the museum full of people escaping the cold, with many of them heading straight to our latest exhibition Undiscovered: Photographic works by Michael Cook, which sees Indigenous people placed in unusual early European settings. The museum is proud to have this art on display and to have featured Michael in our recent NAIDOC Week celebrations.

Winter school holidays went off with a lot of noise.

Our popular performances saw children of all ages beating drums, practising circus tricks and following penguins and characters throughout the museum. The spooky glow-in-thedark tour of the Shackleton: Escape from Antarctica exhibition was fun for everyone, with the ghost of Perce Blackborow, a young stowaway on Shackleton’s ship Endurance, leading a treasure hunt.

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Recently many of you participated in our Members survey, and we’d like to thank all of you for your very helpful comments. An impressive 86% of respondents listed Signals as one of the advantages of membership, so we are committed to keeping your magazine engaging and varied. Many of your suggestions about Members events have already been put into place, and we will keep striving to bring you interesting talks, tours, previews and interactive family events.

Among the many activities we have scheduled for spring is the opening of our new building and the launch of our new attraction Action Stations on 8 November. Members will be invited to help ‘test’ the new attraction before it opens, with a special Members presentation.

We also invite a limited number of Members to the unveiling of a memorial to Australia’s first submarine, AE1, on Tuesday 14 September – the 101st anniversary of the loss of the vessel with all hands. This important commemoration will be followed by morning tea for guests and dignitaries.

02 Painting for Antarctica was the inspiration for

an artists’ talk and sketching session in June.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM 03 Captain John Dikkenberg (pictured in

Endeavour’s Great Cabin) was guest speaker at our special Members wine-tasting event.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM 04 Young Members on a glow-in-the-dark treasure

hunt. Photograph Annalice Creighton/ANMM

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06

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The museum is gearing up for a big summer program with the opening of the exhibition Horrible Histories Pirates.

To whet your piratical appetites, join our Family Fun Day ‘Talk Like a Pirate’ on Sunday 13 September. And keep Saturday 19 December free for a special Horrible Histories: Pirates!

Members family day.

For many of our Members, their anniversary lunch is an essential date in the calendar. The next lunch, marking the event’s 24th anniversary, will be held on Saturday 28 November, with a special guest speaker (to be announced). In conjunction with the lunch we will hold an exclusive Members Christmas shopping day in the museum’s Store, where Members will receive 20% off all their festive shopping.

And, on the subject of Christmas festivities, our annual Boxing Day Cruise will take place on 26 December, so keep the date free for this quintessential Sydney event. And a few of our favourite summer events are already online for you to book early – visit anmm.gov.au to sign up.

The Members Lounge will soon be home to a rare military medal from World War I, purchased with a generous bequest from the late Mr Basil Jenkins, a member for more than 20 years. Members will be some of the first to see this medal, which will be permanently displayed in the lounge.

Please enjoy reviewing this quarter’s events and museum activities, and I look forward to seeing you at the museum soon.

Deanna Varga Assistant Director Commercial and Visitor Services

05 Humpbacks ahoy on a whale-watching cruise

in July. Photograph Robert Schaverien 06 Garden Island, destination of a Members tour

in August. Photograph Robert Schaverien 07 Fun for youngsters at our winter circus

program. Photograph Annalice Creighton/ ANMM

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Members events SPRING 2015

SEPTEMBER Special Members opportunity

Actions Stations test events September to October Stay tuned for information on special Members test events for our new attraction.

Your attendance and feedback will help us to develop a highquality experience.

Family fun Sundays

Talk like a Pirate 10 am–3 pm Sunday 13 September Pirate-themed tours, performances, film screenings, treasure hunts and crafts

Panel discussion and film

Indonesia Calling and the Black Armada 2.30–5 pm Sunday 13 September 1940s boycott of Dutch shipping in Australia, in aid of the fledgling Indonesian republic

Special commemoration

AE1 memorial unveiling 10 am Monday 14 September A new memorial to submarine AE1, lost with all hands 101 years ago

Members preview

Walking tour and lunch

Fine-art foundry tour, Manly

A walk through Pyrmont history

10 am–12 noon, Wednesday 23 September Learn about the ancient ‘lost wax’ technique; preview the museum’s new bronze statue

10.15 am–12 noon Saturday 26 September Explore the history of early Pyrmont then enjoy lunch at Doyle’s at the Fish Markets

Under 5s activities

Talk and tea

Spring holiday tours

Maritime artist Stan Stefaniak

10 and 11 am Tuesday 22 and 29, Saturday 26 September Special character tours for under 5s and their carers, with stories, song and dance

Youth workshop

Polar patterns printmaking workshop 10 am–3.30 pm Thursday 24 September Create Antarctic-inspired silkscreen prints and stencils; print a bag, t-shirt or mural

Family torchlight tour

Tall ship at twilight 6–7.30 pm Friday 25 September Board HMB Endeavour for an interactive theatrical tour, games and souvenir crafts

2–5 pm Sunday 27 September An afternoon with artist Stan Stefaniak, whose works hang in the Members Lounge

Youth workshop

Cockatoo Island photography workshop 10 am–3 pm Wednesday 30 September Kids can build skills in using digital SLR cameras and learn photo-editing techniques

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Members events SPRING 2015

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

Cruise forum

Exclusive Members access

Shipwrecks, corrosion and conservation

Action Stations unveiling

10 am–3.30 pm Wednesday 7 October Cruise to Watson’s Bay then walk to the Hornby Lighthouse at South Head

11 am–1 pm Sunday 8 November Members will be among the first to step inside the museum’s new Warships Pavilion

Members exclusive

Family fun Sundays

Behind the scenes: Registration and Photography

Action Stations Extravaganza

2–3 pm Thursday 8 October Tour the museum’s Registration and Photography department and object store

10 am–3 pm Sundays 8, 15, 22 and 29 November Special themed days with tours, performances, face painting and creative activities

On the water

Annual event

Jacaranda cruise 10 am–1 pm Saturday 24 October With award-winning gardener and photographer Adam Woodhams

Members anniversary lunch 11.30 am–2.30 pm Saturday 28 November Annual Members event with three-course lunch and special guest speaker

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

Please note that booking is essential unless otherwise stated. Book online at anmm. gov.au/events or phone (02) 9298 3644 (unless otherwise indicated) or email members@anmm.gov. au before sending form with payment. All details are correct at time of publication but subject to change.

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MEMBERS SPRING 2015

Members events SPRING 2015

Panel discussion and film

Indonesia Calling and the Black Armada 2.30–5 pm Sunday 13 September Join museum curator Dr Stephen Gapps and a panel of guest speakers as we delve into the ‘Black Armada’ – the 1940s boycott of Dutch shipping in Australia, in aid of the fledgling Indonesian republic. Enjoy a screening and discussion of John Hughes’ fascinating documentary, Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens in Australia.

Members and concessions $12, guests $15. Includes afternoon tea and general admission ticket

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Special commemoration

AE1 memorial unveiling 10 am Monday 14 September Join us for the unveiling of a memorial dedicated to AE1, on the anniversary of the day the submarine was lost at sea. The first of two E class sister submarines, AE1 was commissioned on 28 February 1914 for the Royal Australian Navy and mysteriously disappeared on 14 September 1914, along with all hands.

Free. Bookings for this event are exclusive to Members.

Limited tickets are available, and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

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Members preview

Fine-art foundry tour, Manly 10 am–12 noon, Wednesday 23 September Join museum Senior Curator Daina Fletcher on a fascinating tour of the fine-art foundry Australian Bronze at Sydney’s historic North Head. Meet artist Belinda Villani and director Clive Calder to hear about the beautiful centuries-old ‘lost wax’ technique and see models and casts illustrating the process. A highlight will be a preview of a major bronze work dedicated to windjammer sailors, to be installed at the museum. $15. Includes morning tea and visits to the workshop and adjoining gallery. Meet at the gallery: Australian Bronze, 19 North Fort Road, Manly 08 Artists’ impression of the AE1 memorial.

Photograph Trent Baker, courtesy Warren Langley 09 The ‘lost wax’ method of bronze casting.

Photograph courtesy Australian Bronze

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MEMBERS SPRING 2015

Members events SPRING 2015

Walking tour and lunch

A walk through Pyrmont history 10.15 am–12 noon Saturday 26 September Explore the history of early Pyrmont and discover the suburb’s past through photographs. Hear about occupations and trades that have come and gone, and gain an understanding of conservation and heritage issues. Then enjoy lunch at Doyle’s at the Fish Markets, with a choice of two menu options (see weasydney.com.au for details of menu options). $59 or $75 depending on choice of lunch option. Book through WEA Sydney weasydney.com.au or phone 02 9264 2781.

Quote course no. 53HM010. No changes of menu choice can be made after booking. No concessions and no refunds unless WEA cancels the course

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Talk and tea

Maritime artist Stan Stefaniak 2–5 pm Sunday 27 September Join us in the Members Lounge for a talk and tea with artist Stan Stefaniak, creator of the beautiful artworks hanging in the lounge.

Stan is known for his contemporary interpretation of the traditional maritime art style of the 18th and 19th centuries in painting ships of all kinds. The talk will allow Stan to explain his work and introduce us to the seven paintings, which will be featured in the lounge until January 2016.

Free. Includes afternoon tea. A minimum of 15 attendees required for this event to proceed

Cruise forum

Shipwrecks, corrosion and conservation 10 am–3.30 pm Wednesday 7 October Join museum educators in a tour and workshop about conserving Australia’s submerged cultural heritage, then take a cruise around Sydney Harbour to Watson’s Bay. Enjoy expert commentary from maritime archaeologist Dr James Hunter as we walk to the Hornby Lighthouse at South Head, opposite the Dunbar wreck site. $65. Includes lunch, afternoon tea and museum entry.

Please indicate any dietary requirements when booking.

Book through WEA Sydney weasydney.com.au or phone 02 9264 2781. Quote course no. 54HM010 10 Hornby Light, South Head.

Photograph Helen Darwell

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MEMBERS SPRING 2015

Members events SPRING 2015

Family program

Family fun Sundays 10 am–3 pm selected Sundays Join us for special themed family fun Sundays with lively performances, film screenings, face painting and more.

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

13 September: Talk like a Pirate – Members receive a free pirate eye patch with every purchase of a kid’s meal at Yots Café.

8, 15, 22 and 29 November: Action Stations Family Fun Extravaganza – Members receive 20% off at Yots Cafe (year round Member benefit is 10% off).

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Included in Big Ticket. Members free

Family activities

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

Children $8.50, adults general museum fees apply. Included in Big Ticket. Members free.

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Under 5s activities

Mini mariners program Every Tuesday during term time and one Saturday each month Explore the galleries, sing and dance in interactive tours with costumed guides. Enjoy creative free play, craft, games, dress-ups and story time in our themed activity area. For ages 2–5 and carers. Session 1: 10–10.45 am; session 2: 11–11.45 am.

September – Sail Around the World October – Antarctic Animals November – Pirates Ahoy Child $8.50, first adult $3.50, extra adults $7 (includes admission to galleries). Members free. Booked playgroups welcome.

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

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Activities and art making at Kids on Deck.

12 A mini mariner meets Antarctic animals.

Photographs Zoe McMahon/ANMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > MEMBERS EVENTS

MEMBERS SPRING 2015

Members events SPRING 2015

Under 5s activities

Spring holiday tours 10 and 11 am Tuesdays 22 and 29, Saturday 26 September Dive in and explore curious creatures, hidden treasure and much more in our special character tours for under 5s and their carers.

Enjoy stories, sing songs and move and dance through the galleries in this fun-filled learning program. Afterwards you can head to Kids on Deck for creative crafts and messy play. For ages 18 months to 5 years.

Child $8.50, first adult $3.50, additional adults $7. Members free.

Online bookings essential at anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays

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Spring school holidays

Check out our holiday program 20 September–4 October Bring the kids for an adventure at the museum these school holidays with exhibitions, vessels, hands-on workshops, themed creative activities, performances and more. It’s fun for the whole family!

Daily activities include art making, games and dress-ups in Kids on Deck, exploring touchable objects and artefacts at the Cabinet of Curiosities, participating in lively and interactive performances, relaxing with a family film screening and more.

See anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays for full program

Family torchlight tour

Tall ship at twilight 6–7.30 pm Friday 25 September All aboard for an extra special torchlight experience on board HMB Endeavour with your hilarious character guide Antonio Ponto.

Enjoy an interactive theatrical tour, games, souvenir crafts and themed refreshments. Ages 4 to 12 (minimum height 90 cm).

Member child $28, member adult $15, guest child $22, guest adult $22. Online bookings essential at anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays

13 School holiday dress-ups and more.

Photograph Ken Butti

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MEMBERS SPRING 2015

Members events SPRING 2015

Youth printmaking workshop

Polar patterns 10 am–3.30 pm Thursday 24 September Take inspiration from the Antarctic wildlife on display in our exhibition Shackleton: Escape from Antarctica and learn to create unique silkscreen prints and stencils. Print your own bespoke bag, t-shirt, mural or temporary tattoo. For ages 8–14.

Members $50, guests $55. Bookings essential: 9298 3655 or book online at anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays

Youth photography workshop

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Cockatoo Island 10 am–3 pm Wednesday 30 September Take a ferry out to the spectacular former shipyards of Cockatoo Island for an adventurous photography workshop. Build skills in using digital SLR cameras and learn photo-editing techniques.

Have your photos printed and exhibited in a special exhibition at the museum. This course is held in partnership with Spitting Image Photography and the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.

For ages 8–14 and suitable for all levels of experience.

Members $75, guests $80. Online bookings essential at anmm.gov. au/youth

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Members exclusive

Behind the scenes: Registration and Photography 2 pm–3 pm Thursday 8 October Step into the heart of the museum with this behind-the-scenes tour of the Registration and Photography department.

Manager of Registration Sally Fletcher will explain the vital work of recording and managing the museum’s vast collection. Then take a look inside the museum’s Wharf 7 warehouse, overflowing with maritime treasures. Drop into the Members Lounge afterwards for tea and biscuits.

Members free, guests $10.

14 Young photographers on Cockatoo Island.

Photograph Annalice Creighton/ANMM 15 Registrar Cameron Young in the museum’s

large object store. Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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MEMBERS SPRING 2015

Members events SPRING 2015

On the water

Jacaranda cruise 10 am–1 pm Saturday 24 October Adam Woodhams returns to the museum this spring to host our traditional and much-loved Members jacaranda cruise.

What better way to experience the change of seasons than a leisurely trip up the Lane Cove River, spotting these beautiful trees in bloom. Adam is an award-winning gardener and photographer and will provide expert botanical and historical commentary to accompany Members on their exclusive vessel.

Book early to avoid disappointment!

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Members $50, guests $70. Includes morning tea

Exclusive Members access

Action Stations unveiling 11 am–1 pm Sunday 8 November Action Stations is an exciting new way for you to experience the compelling history of the Royal Australian Navy. Explore the danger and drama of military life at sea through a high-tech and immersive journey that shows the inner workings of the navy like never before. Members are invited to test out this latest experience ahead of the opening. Join us and be a part of Maritime Museum history in the making.

Bookings are essential for this event, exclusive to members and free. No catering will be provided, but members are encouraged to visit the Members Lounge for tea and coffee afterwards.

Annual event

Members 24th anniversary lunch 11.30 am–2.30 pm Saturday 28 November Join your fellow Members for this annual event, with a special guest speaker (to be announced). As is tradition, museum director Kevin Sumption and chairman Peter Dexter will join us to share exciting details of the year ahead.

Members $95, guests $115. Includes three-course gourmet meal and matching wines NOTE After the lunch, take advantage of our special Members shopping event and visit the museum’s Store to pick up all your Christmas shopping needs. Members receive 20% discount storewide, excluding sales items and limited editions (year round Member benefit is 10%)

16 Still image from a film that will form part

of Action Stations.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > EXHIBITIONS > BLACK ARMADA

EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2015

Black Armada

AUSTRALIAN SUPPORT IN UPHOLDING INDONESIAN INDEPENDENCE Opens 20 August At the end of World War II in August 1945, Indonesians declared their independence from Dutch colonial rule. The declaration began a four-year political and military struggle. During this period, Australian support for Indonesia was prominent.

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01 HMAS Glenelg in Indonesia at the end

of World War II. ANMM Collection ANMS0296

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From late 1945, Dutch ships in Australian ports preparing to return to Indonesia with military arms and personnel were paralysed by a series of black-bans by maritime trade unions. Support for Indonesian independence then grew beyond the labour movement and Australia led the way in international political recognition of Indonesia.

This central moment in the Indonesian struggle for independence has since been largely forgotten in both nations.

To mark the 70th anniversary of Indonesia’s declaration of independence on 17 August 1945, the Australian National Maritime Museum, in conjunction with the Museum Benteng Vredeburg in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, has developed a display focusing on the boycott of the so-called ‘Black Armada’ of Dutch ships.

02 Scene from the 1946 Joris Ivens film

Indonesia Calling. Courtesy National Film and Sound Archive

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EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2015

Undiscovered: photographs by Michael Cook Until 15 November 2015 Undiscovered is a series of photographic works by celebrated Aboriginal artist Michael Cook of the Bidjara people of southwest Queensland. This exhibition, marking NAIDOC Week 2015, presents a contemporary Indigenous perspective of European settlement in Australia, a land already populated by its original people.

These striking large-scale photographic works shift roles and perspectives around the notion of European ‘discovery’ of Australia, reflecting upon our habitual ways of thinking and seeing our history.

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X-Ray Vision: Fish Inside Out Until 28 February 2016 Striking X-rays of fish dazzle in this fascinating travelling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Forty prints of specimens from the 20,000 contained in the museum’s National Fish Collection are arranged in evolutionary sequence, so you can go with the flow of fish evolution. Many of the species X-rayed are found in Australian waters.

X-ray Vision: Fish Inside Out is organised by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES).

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A Different Vision Until 28 February 2016 This companion exhibition to X-Ray Vision: Fish Inside Out in our USA Gallery displays a small selection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fish images and maritime art using the X-ray technique pioneered in Arnhem Land thousands of years ago.

Action Stations Opens November 2015

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The striking new building currently taking shape on the museum’s south wharf will house our newest attraction, Action Stations, which traces the story of the Royal Australian Navy and the museum’s ex-navy ships, the destroyer HMAS Vampire and submarine HMAS Onslow.

Featuring a dramatic immersive cinematic experience, a new discovery and exploration space and audio-visual encounters that recall sailors’ memories on board the vessels, Action Stations will give visitors new insight into the inner workings of navy life at sea.

For more information visit anmm.gov.au/actionstations

01 Undiscovered#4 by Michael Cook (2010).

ANMM Collection 02 Lookdown Fish. Radiograph and fish

photograph by Sandra J Raredon, Division of Fishes, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution 03 Artists’ impression of the interior of the

Warships Pavilion. Courtesy FJMT Architects

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2015

Koori Art Expressions 2015 Opens 24 November 2015 Be inspired by artworks produced by students in Public Schools NSW across Sydney (Kindergarten to Year 12) in their exploration of the 2015 NAIDOC Week theme. This year the theme highlights Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ strong spiritual and cultural connection to land and sea, and is an opportunity to pay respects to country, to honour those who work tirelessly to preserve land, sea and culture, and to share the stories of many sites of significance or sacred places with the nation.

Mission X – The rag tag fleet

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Until 28 February 2016 This story of Australians sailing under the US flag during World War II is one of daring and courage. The US Army Small Ships Section comprised some 3,000 requisitioned Australian vessels of every imaginable size and type, which plied the dangerous waters between northern Queensland and New Guinea to establish a supply lifeline to Allied forces fighting the Japanese.

This little-known story is told using objects and documents lent by the men of the Small Ships and their descendants.

Shackleton: Escape from Antarctica 05

Until 6 April 2016 One hundred years ago, Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed aboard Endurance to Antarctica aiming to be the first to cross its vast interior. A support party followed, led by Aeneas Mackintosh on Aurora. Both ships were crushed in the ice and lost to their crews, who endured incredible hardship. How did they cope in this treacherous place?

Their exploits are contrasted with those of modern-day adventurer Tim Jarvis, who re-enacted parts of Shackleton’s epic trip.

The exhibition features Australian Frank Hurley’s stunning images, multimedia and interactive elements, and rare and unusual artefacts, specimens and equipment.

04 Cadigal Country: Our special place (detail),

2013. Artwork by students from Years K–6, Ultimo Public School, displayed in the 2013 Koori Art Expressions exhibition.

05 US Army Captain Sheridan Fahnestock

in New Guinea. Ladislaw Reday Photographic Collection, Courtesy San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2015

Painting for Antarctica: Wendy Sharpe and Bernard Ollis follow Shackleton Reopens 22 September In 2014 Australian artists Wendy Sharpe and Bernard Ollis voyaged to Antarctica in the footsteps of Shackleton.

Their paintings of its land and seascapes are on display and for sale in this exhibition. All proceeds will benefit the Mawson’s Huts Foundation.

Special charity exhibition made possible courtesy of Wendy Sharpe and King Street Gallery on William, Sydney; Bernard Ollis and N G Art, Sydney; chief sponsor Chimu Adventures; and Mawson’s Huts Foundation.

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For sales enquiries visit mawsonshuts.org.au

ANMM travelling exhibitions

Black Armada Museum Benteng Vredeburg, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Opens 31 August At the end of World War II in August 1945, Indonesians declared their independence from Dutch colonial rule, and so began a four-year political and military struggle. During this period, Australian support for Indonesia was prominent. It included boycotts by maritime trade unions of the so-called ‘Black Armada’ of Dutch ships in Australian ports preparing to return to Indonesia with military arms and personnel.

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This exhibition, developed in conjunction with the Museum Benteng Vredeburg in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, marks the 70th anniversary of Indonesia’s declaration of independence on 17 August 1945.

On Their Own: Britain’s child migrants UK tour Merseyside Maritime Museum Until 4 October 2015 V&A Museum of Childhood 24 October 2015–12 June 2016 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.

06 Fur seal and penguin friends, Wendy Sharpe,

2014.

07 Child migrant Stewart Lee, 1955.

Courtesy Stewart Lee

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > EXHIBITIONS

War at Sea – The Navy in WW1 Museum of the Riverina, Wagga Wagga NSW 29 August–22 November 2015 The histories and stories of the Royal Australian Navy and its sailors, less widely known than those of the soldiers at Gallipoli and the Western Front, are told through first-hand accounts from diaries and journals, objects, film and interactives from the National Maritime Collection, the National Film and Sound Archives and the Australian War Memorial.

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

EXHIBITIONS SPRING 2015

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > CELEBRATING TASMANIA

MARITIME HERITAGE AROUND AUSTRALIA HOBART

01 Hobart’s Constitution Dock is the hub of the festival.

Photograph Robert Oates, Ballantyne Photography/ AWBF

Celebrating Tasmania

AUSTRALIAN WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL

In the early 1990s, three Tasmanian friends had an idea to celebrate and promote their state’s superlative boatbuilding timbers and its tradition of fine shipbuilding. Their drive and commitment created the Australian Wooden Boat Festival, now the largest of its type in the southern hemisphere. Its co-founder, former co-director and boat manager Cathy Hawkins gives a personal account of the festival’s genesis and growth.

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WHEN EUROPEANS first settled in Tasmania two centuries ago, they quickly discovered that some Tasmanian tree species yielded the best boatbuilding timber in the world. Boats were the prime means of travel, trade and communication, so timber was a vital commodity for the developing colony.

Word spread rapidly about the quality of timbers such as Eucalyptus globulus and E regnans for keels and masts; Huon pine, with its workable, fine, silky grain containing a unique fragrant oil that proofed timber from rot and shipworm; King Billy pine, which was light and strong for smaller craft; and celery top pine, a strong, durable and stable timber for hulls and decks.

Along the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, south of Hobart, some trees were more than 100 feet (35 metres) tall before their first branch. This area had the highest tonnage of timber per hectare in the world. Settlers wrote about the need to fell the first group of trees into the water because there was nowhere within the dense forest for the trees to fall.

There are other stories of tall ships returning to England fitted with bow and stern doors to enable lengths of timber up to 126 feet (38 metres) long and 24 inches (60 centimetres) square, free of heart and sap, to be transported back to England to form the backbone of British sailing ships and port construction.

Boatbuilders understood they were building vessels that would be handed down for generations, and the quality of the timber inspired excellence of workmanship and refined boat designs.

Tasmanian whaleboats, for example, were internationally regarded as the strongest and swiftest craft conceived for their purpose.

02 Peter Cavill’s Marguerite – a mahogany

cold-moulded power boat and replica of John L Hacker’s Arab VI – at the 2013 festival. Photograph Robert Oates, Ballantyne Photography/AWBF 03 Festival co-founders Andy Gamlin,

My husband, Ian Johnston, a fifth-generation Tasmanian, grew up in the highland ‘Hydro Villages’ – his father was an engineer for the Hydro Electric Commission, which built

Ian Johnston and Cathy Hawkins in front of a scaled-down tall ships rig that Ian built for children to climb on to experience what it might be like climbing on a real square rig.

Photograph David Murphy

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power schemes in Tasmania’s rain-soaked mountains. Ian had enthusiastically championed Tasmanian timbers ever since I first met him in 1979. We ‘came ashore’ in 1990, after our 11-year short-handed ocean-racing career, during which we built and campaigned two timber trimarans and clocked up the equivalent nautical miles to three and a half circumnavigations.

We then settled in Tasmania to raise our boys.

Ian was a boatbuilder and we started our wooden boatbuilding business and sold special species timbers to amateur boatbuilders while I followed a new botanical career.

Our neighbour, Andy Gamlin, had been to the Brest Wooden Boat Festival in France and talked excitedly about it. We agreed that Tasmania was in a prime position to hold a similar festival – we had the maritime heritage, boatbuilders, skills, artisans, waterfront and a multitude of beautiful world-class wooden boats. Ian and I had taken a lot of risks in our lives to follow the things we were passionate about. We were used to making things happen from scratch and never really doubted that we could turn this idea into reality by rallying interest and engaging support.

We were also troubled by the wasteful harvesting practices in Tasmania’s old-growth forests and the fact that such a rich maritime heritage was uncelebrated. Tasmania’s master boatbuilders were also dying, along with their knowledge

04 The Quick ’n’ Dirty Boatbuilding Challenge

race about to get under way in the Constitution Dock ‘colosseum’.

Photograph Robert Oates, Ballantyne Photography/AWBF 04

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and skills. We thought a wooden boat festival would draw attention to these plights and the need for change, and to recognise what timber we had left and to make it sustainable through value-adding as opposed to wood chipping. So, the idea was born, and we adopted the title Australian Wooden Boat Festival, confident that no other state had the combination of venue, timber and boat quality that Tasmania boasted.

We also formed the Wooden Boat Guild of Tasmania in 1992 to bring together others who shared an enthusiasm for wooden boats and our maritime culture. The Guild members were instrumental in providing support in the early days and into the future. The Shipwright’s Point School of Wooden Boat Building was also established in 1992 on the banks of the Huon River by academics John and Ruth Young, who were determined to retain and document boatbuilding skills through the education of students in their pursuit of a Diploma of Wooden Boat Building.

It’s satisfying to hear how many local kids have pursued a maritime career because of their involvement in the festival

With a plan in hand, Ian, Andy and I walked into the office of the harbour master, Captain John Hodgson, and asked if we could borrow the Hobart waterfront for a weekend for the event. He loved the idea and said yes straight away! John was brilliant to deal with – a real mover and shaker – and without his support it would have been much harder to get the festival off the ground. One of the great advantages of operating in a small city is the ability to knock on doors, speak to the right person and get an instantaneous outcome. I doubt we could have achieved that in my home city of Sydney.

We approached Tourism Tasmania for financial support to hold the first festival in the February long weekend of 1995.

05 The Maritime Market place showcases trade,

boat and maritime exhibits. Photograph Robert Oates, Ballantyne Photography/AWBF

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They told us that no funding was available for an event in that month. They had a plan to stimulate tourism in the off-season in the month of November. We didn’t want the festival to clash with pre-Christmas distractions or school and university exams; besides, November was a tenuous month to showcase Tasmania because of unpredictable spring weather. Interstate boats would find it challenging to cross Bass Strait. The answer was still ‘no funding unless it is held in November’, so that was when the first three festivals (in 1994, 1996 and 1998) took place. Each successive festival grew in both popularity and boat registrations, but November’s weather did indeed prove challenging.

The great feat of the first festival was convincing the HM Bark Endeavour replica to change course on its maiden voyage from Fremantle to Sydney to join the festival. A French frigate also arrived, bringing a traditional canoe from Ile des Pins, New Caledonia.

With Endeavour and the French visitors moored against the dock, and Constitution Dock and Franklin Wharf jam-packed with 180 wooden boats, Captain Hodgson had tears in his eyes as he stood in the rain giving the first closing speech. His Port of Hobart was looking as it should, full of boats and life – not just a place to park cars.

In 1999, under the newly incorporated AWBF Inc. and with a growing respect and recognition for what the event had to offer Tasmania, the festival finally secured Hobart’s prime February Regatta long weekend in 2001. It has gone from strength to strength in this festive summer holiday slot ever since.

Every festival has been themed by its major attractions, such as the transportation in 2005 of replica Viking ships – complete with woollen sails – from Denmark with an entourage of Viking boatbuilders equipped with authentic tools,

06 A bullock team being driven onto the waterfront

with a load of traditionally felled timber that shipwrights then broke down into ship’s timber during the 2015 festival. Photograph Robert Oates, Ballantyne Photography/AWBF

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rope-making equipment and a Viking village. In 2007, among 620 registered boats, the Dutch ship Duyfken was a feature vessel, complemented by three traditional Dutch scows from Holland and a dockside Dutch village.

Tasmania has a vibrant tradition of live theatre and playwrights have written historical performances for the festival –such as Richard Davey’s play The Bastards from the Boats and Bush, a tale of hardship and adventure about the Huon piners on Tasmania’s west coast who felled timber on the edge of the treacherous rapids of the Gordon River.

The festival has also attracted Sydney’s 18-foot replica racing skiffs, Port Phillip Bay couta boats, Indonesian perahus, Aboriginal canoes, an America’s Cup challenger, the return of the barque James Craig to Tasmania after its 30-year restoration in Sydney, and a breathtaking display of scrimshaw art – the largest in the southern hemisphere.

A traditional 13-metre-long Japanese Hachoro fishing boat visited the festival in 2011 from Yaizu, Japan, to celebrate the 34-year-old ‘sister city’ relationship between Hobart and Yaizu. The three-masted boat came with eight traditionally dressed oarsmen and a Japanese village featuring tools, eastern boatbuilding techniques, origami, ikebana, tea ceremonies, noodle making and folk dancing.

Our festival duties are all-consuming over the weekend, but during these festivals we did make time to crew on the 18-foot skiffs and go for a sail on the Viking boats.

The festival long weekend flies by in a blur of logistical tasks, so it’s hard to experience the event as visitors and other boat owners do. I remember a creepy feeling leading into the first festival, wondering if anyone would turn up – then the sheer relief of seeing tens of thousands of visitors, volunteers and participants swarm onto the site. The vision of a wall of sails stretching across the river and descending on Sullivans Cove always brings with it a breathtaking mix of elation and trepidation.

The moments during each festival when I have caught sight of our growing sons give me the best opportunity to reflect that they were once toddlers rowing around the waterfront in their boats, and now they are grown men relaxing on boats with their mates on their favourite biennial long weekend.

Their Tasmanian generation has grown up with this event and they have been a part of the Quick ’n’ Dirty Boatbuilding Challenges, rowing and sculling races, and volunteer jobs as dock crew and watercraft operators. They’ve sold newspapers and bags of ice to boat owners and been ‘spoilt for choice’ with

I remember a creepy feeling leading into the first festival, wondering if anyone would turn up

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boat sleepovers. It’s satisfying to hear how many local kids have pursued a maritime career because of their involvement in the festival. By Sunday afternoon of the festival, Ian and I usually get a chance to sprint around the site and we are always in awe of the energy, talent, creativity, skills and passion all the participants and boat owners bring to the event.

The festival embodies humanity and Tasmania at their very best, because its core values are based around the heart, with passionate people sharing their enthusiasm for their beautiful boats and inspiring and welcoming the public on board. It’s a success because it oozes authenticity and integrity and the production team takes care to maintain these values on every level – boats, entertainment, food, wine, skills, relevant commercial exhibitors and community organisations and demonstrations.

I can’t think of a better-placed city in the world to host such an event. Hobart’s waterfront is compact and accessible, with so much maritime heritage. Within the 1.6-kilometre festival area are many attractions: Salamanca Markets; the Henry Jones Art Hotel, showcasing contemporary Tasmanian artworks; the redeveloped Princes Wharf that houses the maritime marketplace; various pubs, restaurants and galleries; the Maritime Museum of Tasmania; the Tasmanian Museum

07 The Duyfken replica was one of the featured

vessels in 2007. Photograph Robert Oates, Ballantyne Photography/AWBF

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and Art Gallery; and the University of Tasmania’s Marine and Antarctic Science and Fine Art faculties. A short ferry ride will take you up the river to MONA – the Museum of Old and New Art – which has captivated the world and transformed Tasmania culturally.

The smiles on everyone’s faces and the goodwill that abounds during the festival are people’s response to being immersed in beauty – glowing natural materials, stunning hand-crafted individualistic boats, skilful craftspeople, superb local food, and world-class maritime entertainment and traditions.

There’s something for everyone to connect with, from model boats, tall ships, wooden surfboards, yachts and fishing boats – even rowing boats to borrow, so anyone can have a chance to experience the festival from the water. It’s not elitist – it’s entirely accessible to young and old, rich and poor.

There’s a boat type and size within reach of everyone.

Crowds ten deep in and around the Shipwrights Village are mesmerised by demonstrations of adzing, cray pot and oar making, blacksmithing, cross-cut sawing, scrimshawing, rope-making, caulking, roving and steam bending. In 2015, a heaving bullock team lumbered onto the city site towing a traditionally felled eucalypt log that was broken down by timber workers for boatbuilding. Later, the bullock team delivered a cargo of Tasmanian produce – bales of wool, fresh fruit and vegetables and beverages – that was loaded onto a 50-foot (15-metre) Huon pine staysail ketch called Stormalong and transported to the Port Arthur Heritage Site, some 40 kilometres south, in celebration of the coastal trading vessels that once plied waterways supplying settlements and carrying produce to markets.

There are plenty of stories of people coming to live in Tasmania after experiencing a festival. The festival creates many knock-on benefits to the broader community, and has also helped to imbue both the community and government with an appreciation of what Tasmania can showcase to the world.

Wooden boatbuilding and maintenance put $20 million annually into the Tasmanian economy. Shipwrights, restorers, slipways and chandleries do a roaring business leading into each festival, and dozens of interstate boats continue cruising the sheltered waterways for weeks after the event. The festival is a magnet for more than 400 generous volunteers who are keen to be a part of what has evolved into a well-oiled machine. The 2015 event won the Hobart City Council Award for Best Practice in Volunteer Management.

We walked into the office of the harbour master and asked if we could borrow the Hobart waterfront for a weekend

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The challenge is still to secure our precious timber resources and use them at a sustainable rate. The festival has managed to highlight this problem but not to solve it. Tasmania needs to harvest its remaining old-growth forest in timber production areas at a rate that can be maintained in perpetuity without loss of quality. Forestry practices and policies that work against the wooden boatbuilding industry need to be overcome. We have a duty to pass on vital skills to future generations. The festival demonstrates that we are serious about caring for our young people’s future, their environment, resources and employment prospects.

The nearby town of Franklin, in particular, has taken the festival to its heart – its motto is ‘Where the wooden boat festival never ends’! The town’s Living Boat Trust, Wooden Boat School and Working Waterfront Association are a vital part of the local community. They maintain and restore traditional boats, hold weekly sailing and rowing expeditions, and run workshops on rigging and on making sails, oars and model boats.

Wooden boat practices often vary greatly from region to region because boat designs and construction techniques evolve from the demands of local weather conditions, topography, fishery activity and recreational pursuits. There is widespread acknowledgement that if regional wooden boatbuilding culture is handed on, visitors and employment will grow and spread optimism into people’s lives.

The 11th MyState Australian Wooden Boat Festival, held over four days in February 2015, attracted 540 wooden boats ashore and afloat and 220,000 visitors. Forty percent of visitors were from interstate or overseas; they spent an average of 12.8 nights in Tasmania and injected more than $70 million into the Tasmanian economy.

The International Wooden Boat Symposium attracted five international speakers, four from mainland Australia and eight local presenters. The symposium was opened by the Governor of Tasmania, Professor the Honourable Kate Warner am, and was generously supported by the University of Tasmania.

The biennial MyState Australian Wooden Boat Festival is now widely recognised as the largest wooden boat festival in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the largest in the world.

It remains entirely free to the public, supported by local and state government, the business community, service organisations and hundreds of volunteers.

Ian and I are still involved as project managers and it’s been a privilege to witness our ‘baby’ evolve into such a worthwhile citizen through the efforts of every contributor.

Classic and Wooden Boat Festival 2016 The Australian National Maritime Museum’s Classic and Wooden Boat Festival is a weekend celebration of vintage and wooden boats from all around Australia. It represents Australia’s rich maritime history, encompassing beautiful Halvorsens, yachts and skiffs, classic speedboats, steam yachts, navy workboats and much more. Boating enthusiasts and families enjoy a packed program of demonstrations, workshops, kids’ activities and more set against the backdrop of sparkling Sydney Harbour.

More than 100 boats have already signed up for the next event, in April 2016, and the festival has been secured to return every second year until 2020. The 2018 event will have a Pacific flavour, with a collection of visiting Pacific Islander canoes adding to the mix. In 2020 a major on-water festival will be held to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s arrival. For more information, please see anmm. gov.au/cwbf The 2012 festival at the museum.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > BARDI COUNTRY AND CULTURE

OUT OF PORT SPRING 2015

Bardi country and culture THE UNSPOKEN LANGUAGE OF ILMA

In June this year the museum’s Indigenous Programs unit travelled to Bardi country in Western Australia to attend a local festival and catch up with senior law man, community leader and artist Roy Wiggan, writes Indigenous Programs Manager Donna Carstens.

01 01 Passage between island and point off Swan

Point, Roy Wiggan. ANMM Collection Gift from Hawaiian Management Pty Ltd

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OUT OF PORT SPRING 2015

THE BARDI ARE SALTWATER PEOPLE whose traditional country incorporates the tip of the Dampier Peninsula, to the north of Broome in Western Australia, and the offshore islands at the western end of the Buccaneer Archipelago. It includes the former Sunday Island Mission and the current communities of One Arm Point and Lombadina/Djarindjin, and the outstations surrounding these communities, plus the tourist resort at Kooljiman (Cape Leveque).

Roy Wiggan was born in 1930 on Sunday Island in northern Western Australia and represents his culture and his people through sacred hand-held dance totems known as Ilma.

Roy is one of only a handful of Bardi elders still able to make these important cultural objects. Ilma are used in ceremonies embodying song and dance and represent the strong visual language developed over thousands of years by the Bardi people to allow their stories, laws and moral codes to be passed on to the younger generations.

Traditionally, Ilma were made out of materials such as hair, ochres, bark, feathers and native cotton and were not meant to be exhibited or viewed by outsiders. These days Roy constructs the Ilma out of cotton wool, acrylic paint and plywood but still keeps to the colours of the earth and sea. Roy has also made the conscious, but not easy, decision to allow his works to be seen outside his community and to become part of mainstream collections. He believes this is the only way to help maintain Bardi culture, make it more accessible for future generations and prevent destruction of his clan’s past:

02

Most of the Ilma that Roy designs come to him through the spirit of his deceased father, Henry Wiggan

My kids aren’t interested, the young fellas they aren’t interested, they [the Ilma] have to be looked after so they can come back.

It’s very important they come back. When those young ones are interested again then they will be there ready for them.

Maybe in 60 years, maybe in a hundred. It’s dead now but it can come back.

The Australian National Maritime Museum holds 1,000 of Roy’s Ilma in its collection – an extraordinary and significant representation of at least three-quarters of Bardi cultural knowledge. Most of the Ilma that Roy designs come to him through the spirit of his deceased father, Henry Wiggan, and tell the story of Henry being washed out to sea on a broken raft, where he survived for three days before freak tides and spirits carried him back to Sunday Island. The Ilma in our collection were the main reason for our visit with Roy, their creator and knowledge keeper. Meeting Roy and spending time with him in his country allowed us to better understand the cultural and conservation requirements needed to treat the Ilma with appropriate respect and sensitivity. During this time Roy

02 Roy Wiggan. Photograph Donna Carstens/

ANMM

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spoke very much about the handling of the Ilma outside his community and the importance of only men fixing the Ilma if required, as it is not women’s business to do so.

We spent three days with Roy listening to him tell the stories and sing the songs of the Ilma and his country. We also visited the remote community of Lombadina to attend their very first cultural festival, Essence of Ardi. On the way we passed through country that Roy had travelled by foot numerous times in his life; he shared with us some of the significant spots where ceremonies had taken place and pointed out the hidden walking tracks known only by the traditional owners of that area.

Upon arriving in Lombadina we set ourselves up with some of the local food and found a perfect spot to view the performances and art. We were fortunate to witness traditional Bardi people dancing the Ilma accompanied by local senior song men. The festival ran from early afternoon until late into the evening and was attended by about 180 people, ranging from tourists travelling through the area to Indigenous and nonIndigenous community members from across Bardi country, a few of whom, like us, had travelled the bumpy two-hour dirt road from Broome. Festival activities, displays and performances ranged from spear making, a display of Galwa, a traditional Bardi watercraft (which included a traditional paperbark shelter and shell midden), an art display featuring pearl shells etched with traditional designs and patterns, plus a large contingent of local dancers and musicians who kept the audience entertained with a mix of contemporary and traditional performances.

Lombadina, along with numerous other remote Indigenous communities in Western Australia, is currently under threat of closure. The Essence of Ardi festival was designed to demonstrate the vibrancy and relevance of Bardi culture and the importance in maintaining and nurturing these strong traditions and showcasing them to a wider audience.

03 Fruit and seeds, Roy Wiggan.

ANMM Collection Gift from Hawaiian Management Pty Ltd

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > A SHIP ASHORE

A ship ashore

ENDEAVOUR’S BIENNIAL DRY DOCKING

Some aspects of Endeavour’s maintenance are obvious, such as rigging, oiling and painting. But much else goes on behind the scenes to keep the ship sailing, writes her First Mate, Anthony Longhurst.

01 The unusual sight of a ship on wheels:

Endeavour on dry land underneath Sydney’s Anzac Bridge, aboard the 84-wheel shiplift.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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CAPTAIN’S LOG SPRING 2015

IN ORDER TO KEEP Endeavour seaworthy, safe and ‘in survey’ – meaning legally able to sail at sea – the ship undergoes an annual inspection carried out by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA). This survey inspection is carried out in accordance with a predetermined schedule over a ten-year period.

One of the problems with timber ships is the threat of teredo worm – the termites of the sea

Every year the vessel’s lifesaving and safety equipment – life jackets, firefighting equipment, life rafts, radios, watertight hatches, escape routes and the rescue boat – are checked, as are maintenance checklists, logbooks and records. All items associated with oil and sewage pollution control measures are examined, along with the fuel that we use, to ensure that we are abiding by the laws regarding air pollution.

Every second year we remove the ship from the water for her biennial underwater survey. Here we have the opportunity to inspect the hull for possible damage. One of the problems with timber ships is the threat of teredo worm – the termites of the sea. Fortunately Endeavour’s underwater planking is Western Australian jarrah, a species chosen because it is one of the least susceptible to teredo attack. In addition to inspecting the planking we withdraw random hull fastenings to inspect them for corrosion and remove all of the valves in the ship’s pipe work that are open to the sea. These valves are cleaned and pressure tested to ensure they are watertight when closed.

02 A cherry-picker is needed to inspect the

ship’s stern, standing some 12 metres above ground. Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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CAPTAIN’S LOG SPRING 2015

Any small cracking in planking is investigated and repaired as required and the caulking seams between the planks are inspected. Again, any suspect seams are opened and re-caulked.

During this year’s docking, we chose to remove a short plank from the bow, just above the forefoot. The plank had several cracks that have been there since the ship was built and we figured that it would enable us to not only replace the plank, but also to inspect the superstructure behind.

Once all necessary repairs are made, the hull then receives a fresh antifouling paint system that keeps it free from growth until the next docking.

Every second docking we withdraw the propeller shafts and disassemble our feathering propellers. The propeller bosses are opened, the blades removed and the moving parts inside are inspected for wear. The shafts are cleaned and checked for electrolytic corrosion and wear at their bearing points, and the bearings that keep the shafts securely straight and aligned with the engines are also checked. The bearings which the shafts pass through are prone to wear and are occasionally replaced.

This latest docking fell in a year where the survey schedule required us to remove some of Endeavour’s 100 tonnes of lead ballast, so that we could inspect the internal hull beneath the ballast for any rot that would otherwise go unnoticed. Fortunately the hull was found to be in the same condition as when the ship was built, albeit a little dusty after 22 years.

03

It is reassuring to know that Endeavour is in prime condition to carry out her next round of exciting voyaging

Before the next 12-month survey certificate can be issued, Endeavour is also subject to an underway survey. Here the ship undergoes mostly engineering tests regarding her propulsion, both ahead and astern. Her steering is tested, the anchor is dropped and weighed, the rescue boat is launched, run and recovered, and the fire hoses are run out and charged.

Bilge pumps and back-up emergency pumping arrangements are tested along with the competency of the ship’s professional crew.

Having just completed the last docking, it is reassuring to know that Endeavour is in prime condition to carry out her next round of exciting voyaging. In early 2016 we will be sailing to Victoria and South Australia, visiting Geelong, Adelaide, Port Lincoln and Portland before returning to Sydney.

For those of you who are interested in joining us for an experience like no other, please visit endeavourvoyages.com.au for more information.

03 Shipkeeper Peter Lightbody and shipwright

Cody Horgan inspect the ship’s topsides.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > GUIDING LIGHTS

Guiding lights

AUSTRALIAN REGISTER OF HISTORIC VESSELS

Australia’s coastline and offshore waters are dotted with lighthouses and lightships, the guardians of shipping. Their specialised purpose requires ingenious design and engineering solutions, writes David Payne, Curator of Historic Vessels.

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01 CLS4 brightens the waterfront near the

museum. Photograph Helen Darwell

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THE SENTINEL EXISTENCE of a lighthouse – often sited on an isolated, forbidding coastline by virtue of its role – has become a cliché used by artists and photographers to depict a scene of loneliness. When heightened by an approaching storm as darkness settles in, the mood has immense potential for drama. For novelists it’s a gift setting in which to build a narrative laced with suspense. In the case of a lightship, the scene must seem even more despairing. These vessels appear sentenced to float in a wilderness with little or no land nearby, standing watch over a muddy shoal or jagged rocks, tethered in place and only able to change orientation with the current, wind and waves.

The masters of lighthouse design and construction were the Stevenson family from Scotland, internationally renowned for more than four generations

For those aboard a staffed lightship, their role was potentially more punishment than fulfilling task, and consequently many lightships were unmanned. An automated lightship became a vessel of bare essentials, needing to support its anchor and cable, the lamp mechanism and any associated fuel to keep the light shining, and to be strong enough to survive the sea.

Picture it at dusk, silhouetted against the horizon, relentlessly flashing a regular, coded sequence. If there was a swell about, the vessel’s roll would be tolled out on the brass bell. It’s not really a comforting scene to imagine, yet both the light and bell were there to help, and ships became reliant on their location to ensure a safe passage.

Australia’s huge coastline with its varied environments has numerous dangerous locations needing the support of a beacon to ensure their visibility at night. In 1916–18 four identical ‘unattended lightships’ were built at Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney, the first built in Australia for the Commonwealth Lighthouse Service (CLS). They were designed for Breaksea Spit and Proudfoot Shoal in Queensland. Two remain extant – CLS2 is with Queensland Maritime Museum in Brisbane and CLS4 is with the Australian National Maritime Museum.

Both are listed on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels.

As working colleagues, the twins shared the name Carpentaria, representing the broad location at the top of the Gulf of Carpentaria for their stations at Merkara then Proudfoot Shoals, both on Hockings Patches to the west of Thursday Island.

They took turns; while one was on station, the other was slipped for maintenance and then kept on standby.

The lightships came with an impressive pedigree. The masters of lighthouse design and construction were the Stevenson family from Scotland. Internationally renowned lighthouse builders for more than four generations, they had moved into lightship design as well. David and Charles Stevenson, of the family’s fourth generation, designed the CLS1–4 vessels, preparing the plans at their office in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1915.

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Constructed of riveted iron and steel, CLS2 and CLS4 are almost 22 metres long and displace 164 tonnes. These are big vessels with heavy-duty engineering and this construction is their other story.

As a vessel with such a specific singular task, they are an intriguing study of functional requirements, designed and built in a classic period of engineering. The heavy iron plating is lapped and riveted together around a skeleton of deep sections for the keel supported by closely spaced frames, longitudinal and transverse web plates, stiffening flanges, brackets, posts and diagonal bracing. It’s all there and each part is cut individually and riveted at its connections, and where required backed up by the necessary bracket to ensure the connection is sound. Significant wood belting encompasses the topsides, while the external keel and bilge keels are also reinforced with brackets and support. The light tower is bedded down to the keel, and braced by four tensioned rigging wires.

It seems nothing was left to chance as large margins of safety were applied throughout – understandable, as the craft had to fend for itself against the corrosive elements and even possible impact from the vessels it was there to assist.

02 Drawing of Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse

by David Payne, 2003.

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If current automated technology were to be applied, much of this would be cut by computer numerical control (CNC) from sheet material in one go, the flanges pressed at right angles and all made to high-tolerance precision and finish. In the early 1900s there was no such option, so instead the construction is closer to a big Meccano set project with numerous manual fabrications, many to an almost repetitive pattern. The vessels were hand painted by labourers whose successive layers of protection remain, and the inevitable corrosion is now part of their heritage.

Both Carpentaria lightships saw their last active service in the unremitting swells and often big seas of Bass Strait

For all the effort and strength that went in to support an anchor and cable and a bell, the ship’s main purpose, the light, had a nominal range of only 10 nautical miles (18 kilometres).

In its final configuration this light was powered by a six-month supply of acetylene gas. The vessel then carried four A-300 size acetylene cylinders, one of the few configuration changes made to the vessels. Another change was the installation of a Southern Cross diesel engine to power the windlass. CLS4 had one added in 1950 by Evans, Deakin of Brisbane. A welded steel angular deckhouse was fitted at the same time to protect the engine.

Throughout the ships’ life on station, the heavy brass warning bell that was housed in a support frame on the aft deck tolled with the rolling of the vessel, and both lightships saw their last active service in the unremitting swells and often big seas of Bass Strait, acting as traffic separators for the shipping in the oil fields. They were retired from service around 1985.

A lighthouse far from home The museum also has its own lighthouse, now far from its original location at Cape Bowling Green, a low sandy spit 70 kilometres south of Townsville in northern Queensland,

03 Three of the CLS1–4 vessels, c1918.

Location and photographer unknown

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where many ships had run aground. The lighthouse was built in 1874 to assist vessels passing through the Great Barrier Reef via the Inner Route. It was one of 22 lighthouses built to the same design to aid ships serving the expanding North Queensland ports.

The lighthouse was built using local hardwood for the frame and clad with iron plates imported from Britain. It was prefabricated in Brisbane under the direction of the colonial architect, and constructed by brothers John and Jacob Rooney of Maryborough. Chance Brothers (suppliers to the lightships) supplied the original third-order dioptric rotating light and the fuel system which operated on kerosene. A clockwork mechanism rotated the light, which then had a range of 14 nautical miles.

The lighthouse was staffed by a keeper and three assistants, who lived in four cottages on the site, which was twice threatened by the sea. After only four years of operation the whole light station was moved due to beach erosion, then again, in 1908, the tower was re-erected further away as the coastline changed. Gradual improvements were made to the light and mechanisms, and in 1920 it became automatic, so the staff were removed and their cottages demolished. Twin red stripes were painted around the tower to assist daytime visibility from the sea, but by 1987 the lighthouse had been replaced by a modern tower.

Early in the 1990s, in a discrete operation, the lighthouse was dismantled by a small team camping onsite. Using a Department of Transport helicopter, sections were transferred to a site where

04 Original plan of the lightships’ hull by Scottish

designers David and Charles Stevenson

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they could be numbered, crated and then loaded onto a Royal Australian Navy ship to be taken to Sydney. The lighthouse was re-erected at the museum in 1994.

It, too, is an intriguing study of construction, and in 2003 I was lucky enough to be contracted to prepare a drawing of the lighthouse, which helps reveal the story of the design pattern inside its outer shell. It is the same classic technology of many parts, fabricated and assembled by hand, all observing the standard rules of support and bracing. The outcome has elegant proportions, and the pattern of structure created to support the tall, tapered column below the light is equally elegant and simple – a series of four tapering sections, with each divided into six identical braced panels that link to form up that section.

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The four vertical sections sit within the circular shell of cladding. Each section has six vertical square posts spaced around the perimeter with beams that form a hexagonal pattern.

These posts are raked to suit the taper of the overall structure.

Between each pair of square columns are three equally spaced rectangular sectioned posts that ‘fill out’ the flat line of the beam between the square posts to fit the circumference of the cladding. A diagonal brace from one post across to the next braces the structure, and completes one of six identical panels.

Fastened together they form a rigid section.

The shell of curved riveted plating then encloses this wooden skeleton of Queensland hardwood, which has a platform at each section joint. The light room – another elegant structure of almost identical cast-iron panels and window frames – is attached on top, and finished with a dome 22 metres above the base. An internal staircase spirals around the clockwork mechanism’s weight tower, and a ladder completes the access up through a trapdoor into the light.

Once again, it’s an example of an impressive amount of design and work put into an item of very singular use, and as with the lightships, the lighthouse had to survive in a difficult environment with limited opportunity for maintenance.

Reliable to the end, both lightships and lighthouse fulfilled their task and now serve to remind us how earlier generations used their best technology to ensure a safe passage for shipping around our coastline.

05 CLS4 in Bass Strait in the mid-1980s.

Photographer unknown

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > CON THE FRUITERER

Con the fruiterer

FROM ISLAND LIFE TO THE INNER CITY

Hailing from Evia (or Euboea), the second-largest of the Greek islands, Constantine ‘Con’ Dounis migrated from a small fishing village to the bright lights of Sydney’s Kings Cross in the 1930s.

His daughter, Bessie Dounis, shares her family’s story with Welcome Wall writer Veronica Kooyman.

01 (Left to right) John, Maria, Florence and Con

in 1936, just after arriving in Australia.

01

All photographs courtesy the Dounis family

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

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CON DOUNIS WAS BORN IN 1897, the second of six children, and grew up in the village of Raptei on the Greek island of Evia. His seemingly idyllic island life spent fishing in the blue waters of the Aegean Sea was shattered by the early death of both his parents when he was just 12 or 13 years old.

His youngest sibling was still a baby and was adopted, never to be seen again, while the eldest children were sent to other families in the district.

Con understood that he would need to look further afield for a secure future

In 1925 Con married local girl Maria Kelly, who was poorly educated but of a quick and natural intelligence. By 1928 they were parents to toddler Florence and baby John. Con’s eldest brother, Stelianos, had already left the island in search of better opportunities and Con understood that he, too, would need to look further afield for a secure future. Leaving his young family behind, he followed his brother to Australia, joining Stelianos and a cousin at Thevenard in South Australia, working in the fishing industry off the Great Australian Bight.

Thevenard, near Ceduna on the Eyre Peninsula, is still a small and relatively isolated town. In the 1920s Greek migrants found work clearing scrub for agriculture and on construction of the Tod River pipeline, helping to develop the town.

By the late 1920s, most Greeks had turned to fishing for a living.

From these origins some large South Australian fish-processing companies developed. Traces of the once-thriving Greek community remain in the town, with a Greek club and Greek Orthodox church still standing in the main street.

In the early 1930s Stelianos decided to return to Raptei and his wife and children. Tragically he drowned in 1935 in the waters off Evia while transferring animals to another island for pasture.

02 The High Class Deli, where Bessie went

02

to work after her father closed his store.

January 1966, photographer unknown

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > CON THE FRUITERER

03

The loss of his brother affected Con greatly – another hard loss in a short life. Around the same time Con made his way to Sydney, settling in Kings Cross, the centre of Sydney’s hustle and bustle and a far cry from his rural and isolated background.

He established a fruit shop on Victoria Street with a halfChinese business partner, giving him direct access to Sydney’s market gardens. By the end of the year he had saved enough money to buy passage for his wife and two children to join him in Australia. They arrived, appropriately, on 26 January 1936 – Australia Day.

04

In the early 1940s they lived in Palmer Street, a place made infamous by their neighbour, the notorious brothel madam Tilly Devine

Almost exactly nine months later daughter Bessie was born.

In quick succession another four children followed: Nicholas in 1938, Michael in 1940, Steve in 1942 and George in 1944. In the late 1930s the family moved from Kings Cross to a house in Waverley and the fruit shop was sold to an Italian family. By 1939 Con had repurchased the fruit shop to help the new owner, who by then had been interned as an enemy alien due to the outbreak of World War II, and the family were back in the Cross. In the early 1940s they lived in a narrow terrace house in Palmer Street, a place made infamous by their neighbour, notorious brothel madam Tilly Devine.

Bessie affectionately remembers Tilly, wearing a diamond ring on every finger, keeping an eye out for her mum. The family was protected from the more rugged elements of the area, with Tilly even telling her accomplices, ‘I don’t want you to disturb that woman with all those kids. Help her out’. Once, when Maria was very sick, Tilly came to the house to arrange for prescriptions to be filled in the middle of the night.

03 Eldest daughter Florence and her brother

John inside the shop, c1942.

04 Con and his nephew John Dounis in the fruit

shop, 1930s.

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WELCOME WALL SPRING 2015

Florence and John worked in the shop with their father and their cousin, also named John Dounis. In 1948, when Florence was 21, she married Andrew Elfes and left the family business.

They set up their own fruit shop in Hurstville. Her brother John left home at 18 and moved to Manly, marrying Koula Kontominos in 1951.

Bessie and her younger brothers spent their childhood years playing with local Maltese, Cypriot and Australian kids, attending the prestigious Crown Street Public School in Surry Hills, and helping with the business – visiting the markets in the early morning with Con to buy the day’s produce, or helping their mother to open the shop. An education beyond the basic high school level was never part of Con’s plans for his children; Bessie was working full time in the shop by the age of 15, and her brothers helped outside school hours.

In 1953, when Bessie was 17, Con decided to sell up and arranged for her to work in the Greek delicatessen nearby.

To her delight, Bessie found the deli a haven of excitement in the centre of a vibrant and cosmopolitan locale. It catered to a rich variety of customers by both day and night,

05 Florence’s wedding in 1948. Pictured are

Con and Maria, all seven of their children, nephew John and nieces Sophie and Stella.

05

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WELCOME WALL SPRING 2015

with regulars from dapper ‘gentleman gangsters’ to creative and interesting radio and theatre people. Actors Chips Rafferty and Peter Finch were some of her most memorable patrons.

Enjoying her worldly education, Bessie stayed for two decades, working for various owners and eventually becoming a partowner of the business, with her brother George, until 1985.

Bessie found the deli a haven of excitement in the centre of a vibrant and cosmopolitan locale

In the mid-1950s the family moved into a long-awaited large home in Randwick – a luxury after the cramped Palmer Street house. Con opened another fruit and grocery store, this time in Beverly Hills, which was then a rural area. But within a year the business was struggling and Con, living behind the store with his son Nick, missed the vibrancy of inner-city life.

This was followed by a series of failed ventures, including a prawn trawler that sank in Sydney’s Rushcutters Bay. His once affable nature changed, leading to the breakdown of the family.

He returned to Kings Cross to run a small fruit stall, living away from home. In 1963 Nick married, followed by Mike and Steve in 1966 and George in 1967.

Bessie and George would both check on their father, and in late 1969 told their mother that Con was sick and in need of a doctor. Ever kind and generous, Maria and her children decided to bring him home. During the few months he stayed at the family home, Maria and Con made peace with each other despite some very difficult times in the past.

Con died in April 1970 and was remembered by many of the migrant Greek and local Kings Cross communities as a good man who always helped other new arrivals to the country.

Maria lived to an impressive 96 years of age, fondly remembered by her children for her exceptional home cooking and natural wit. Con and Maria always said that this was the best country in the world, and they left behind three generations of Australians. Bessie honoured her family by registering her parents and eldest siblings on the Welcome Wall earlier this year. Their names were unveiled in May.

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

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > OCEANS AND INK

READINGS SPRING 2015

Oceans and ink

NAUTICAL NOVELISTS AND MARITIME (MIS)ADVENTURES

‘I NEVER REALISED that writers were quite so willing to suffer for their art until I started researching this book’, says author Sam Jefferson in his acknowledgements, nicely summing up both the tone and much of the subject matter of this engrossing work.

The book is not a volume of literary criticism; instead, it looks at how the sea shaped some of the most famous nautical novelists in the English language. It is an admittedly subjective selection, which still manages to span the history of the nautical novel. Jefferson notes its almost-genesis in Tobias Smollett’s 1748 novel Roderick Random – the first, he states, in which ‘the sea comes alive in a manner that no novelist had managed to convey before’ – and its true birth in the 1820s, when James Fenimore Cooper and Frederick Marryat set the template for this new genre.

A recurring motif in the book is the love-hate attitude most nautical novelists express towards the ocean. Anyone who has spent any time sailing at sea will understand the mixture of boredom, discomfort, exhilaration and fear entailed – all of which are eloquently described by both Jefferson and the authors he surveys.

Youth is another motif; many of the writers profiled seem to have caught sea fever very early in life. At the age of 15, Jack London bought a boat and became an oyster pirate in San Francisco Bay; his talent for describing the sea is vividly demonstrated by a passage from a competition-winning story written when he was just 17. Orphaned at 11, Joseph Conrad decided at 17 to go to sea, despite never even having seen the sea. His subsequent adventures were such that, Jefferson states, ‘You would swear that he was doing little more than research for future novels’.

The book reveals many interesting episodes and surprising contradictions in the authors’ lives. On his booze-fuelled fishing jaunts Ernest Hemingway machine-gunned everything from sharks to terns, yet he was also a genuine student of deep-sea creatures, and his notes on the habits of marlin are still extant.

Erskine Childers, a self-effacing junior civil servant, was also an obsessive sailor and a gun-runner to Irish rebels; his novel The Riddle of the Sands is cited as many mariners’ favourite

Sea Fever: The true adventures that inspired our greatest maritime authors, from Conrad to Masefield, Melville and Hemingway

By Sam Jefferson, published

by Adlard Coles Nautical, London, 2015. Hardback, 336 pages.

ISBN 9781472908810, RRP $35.00 (Members $31.50).

Available at The Store or online at store.anmm.gov.au

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READINGS SPRING 2015

novel, yet it was a one-hit wonder. John Masefield’s famous poem ‘Sea Fever’ is, the author says, ‘almost a mantra for sailors from all walks of life’, yet Masefield’s only real sailing experience came from a single trip at the age of 15.

This miserable journey from Britain to Chile lasted just 13 weeks but fuelled Masefield’s output for the rest of his writing life.

The life of Joseph Conrad is perhaps the most arresting of all those described

The life of Conrad (another gun-runner) is perhaps the most arresting of all those described. He became a sea captain by the very young age of 29, by which time he had already been shipwrecked and attempted suicide. The nadir of his extremely varied career was a post captaining a steamer on the Congo River, which led him into ‘a maelstrom of intolerable degradation and disease’ that was the basis for Heart of Darkness.

Jefferson – a lifelong nautical enthusiast and a leading authority on the clipper ship era – states in his introduction that the book is ‘not a scholarly work, it is a celebration and appreciation of the sea by a fellow sailor’. This bit of modesty plays down the fact that it’s still a work of considerable research – so it’s disappointing to find that it lacks notes, references and an index.

This criticism aside, fans of nautical literature will appreciate Jefferson’s evident love and respect for the sea. Engagingly written and largely devoid of jargon, the book is very approachable for nautical novices, too. A rollicking good read in its own right, it might also prompt people to reacquaint themselves with some of the classic nautical novels it describes, or to approach them for the first time.

Janine Flew

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > SMALL SHIPS STALWART

Small Ships stalwart

VALE ERNEST ALFRED FLINT mbe oam ed, 11 JANUARY 1927–3 JULY 2015

01

ERN FLINT, who died on 3 July at the age of 88, lobbied for many years to earn recognition for the service of the more than 3,000 Australian civilians who risked life and limb serving under contract in the US Army Small Ships Section during World War II. Nicknamed the ‘Raggle Taggle fleet’, this collection of fishing boats, tugs, steamers, motor launches, ferries, trawlers, sloops, ketches, the steel-hulled US barquentine Kaiulani (S-106, commandeered in Hobart), and even showboats was gathered from around Australia by the US Army, and crewed by men too young, too old or too unfit for Australian military service.

The Small Ships supplied the Allied forces in New Guinea and the south-west Pacific from early 1942 until 1945 and during the occupation of Japan until early 1947.

Lightly armoured, painted grey, given an S number, fitted with machine guns and flying the ‘stars and stripes’, these (mainly) little ships transported troops, nurses, food, water, ammunition and tanks to the front line and returned with the dead and injured.

01 Ern Flint (centre) at the museum in December

2013 with (from left) USA Consul General Hugo Llorens; ANMM USA Gallery Manager Richard Wood, Chairman Peter Dexter and Director Kevin Sumption; and fellow Small Ships veteran Max Hood. ANMM photographer

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Ern joined the fleet at the age of 16 as a Seaman Boy on the wooden tug Gee Bee (S-210). His 59-year-old father Ernest Alfred Flint Snr joined a year later as Bosun on the newly built OL7 Bahloo (S-412). During their service they met only once, for a day in Manila.

Ern went on to have a distinguished career in the Australian Army and founded the US Army Small Ships Association in 1985.

Owing to his tireless efforts, in 2009 the Australian Government granted the US Army Small Ships entitlement to the Imperial and Australian Campaign medals for service in World War II, and in 2010 the US Army Corps of Transportation inducted the US Army Small Ships Section into its Hall of Fame for demonstrating exceptionally distinguished service to the Corps in World War II. 02

Ern was an enthusiastic supporter of the Australian National Maritime Museum, where part of his story is told under a photo of his fresh-faced teenaged self in the Mission X exhibition in the USA Gallery. The exhibition closes at the end of February 2016.

Richard Wood

02 A young Ern Flint in Japan, 1945.

Courtesy E A Flint

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > A CAMPAIGNER FOR KRAIT

CURRENTS SPRING 2015

A campaigner for Krait VALE DOUGLAS HERPS oam, 30 JULY 1923–23 APRIL 2015

THE MUSEUM WAS SADDENED to learn of the death of former Z Special Unit Commando Douglas Herps oam on 23 April, aged 91.

For several years Douglas campaigned strongly to ensure that the stories of the commando vessel MV Krait and his fellow Z Special mates who served on it are never forgotten.

On loan to the Australian National Maritime Museum from the Australian War memorial, Krait was central to Operation Jaywick, one of the most daring and dangerous covert missions undertaken by Australian forces during World War II. From Krait, which was disguised as a Japanese fishing vessel, six commandos paddled folding canoes behind enemy lines into Singapore Harbour under cover of darkness for a secret raid that resulted in seven Japanese ships being sunk or badly damaged.

03

Krait is currently on display at the museum’s wharves and for many years Douglas Herps lobbied tirelessly for the vessel to be preserved as a permanent memorial out of the water in a more appropriate and solemn display.

Over the last 12 months, the museum and the Australian War Memorial have taken significant steps to realise Douglas’s vision.

Douglas worked closely with the museum towards raising the funds needed to preserve and display Krait in a new purposebuilt facility adjacent to the museum’s Wharf 7 building.

Douglas’s mission has now been passed on to his sons Nicholas and Jonathan, and the museum is committed to working with them and other stakeholders to raise funds and support for the new display.

Douglas Herps is survived by his wife, two children and five grandchildren.

Shirani Aththas

03 Douglas Herps pictured at the museum

in front of Krait, 2012. Rohan Kelly/Newspix

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > AN INSPIRING COLLEAGUE

An inspiring colleague VALE BILL RICHARDS 19 JULY 1941–15 MAY 2015

04

THE ANMM IS WORKING WITH the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) to create an annual internship for a promising media-studies student, as a practical memorial to one of its founding staff members, Bill Richards, who died in May this year. Throughout his long career as the museum’s media and communications manager until his retirement in 2011, he firmly believed in training and encouraging young people.

Bill was trusted and esteemed for his immense professional expertise, knowledge and enthusiasm – not only by the media with whom he worked to promote and publicise the museum, both Australia-wide and overseas, but by the succession of ANMM directors who drew upon his experience and counsel to devise communications policies and to manage media issues.

While he was among the more senior and influential figures in the museum, Bill’s genial good humour, innate kindness and courtesy made him one of those rarest of figures in any organisation: someone whose friendships extend warmly throughout the entire staff. He brought an unusual, infectious zest and appetite for life to both his work and his leisure. It inspired the people who collaborated with him professionally, and made him delightful to be around.

04 Bill Richards in the on-shore galley specially

created for cooking demonstrations, during the first of his famous Food at Sea festivals.

Photograph Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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More than just a communicator, though, Bill was an innovator of museum programs – most memorably in the series of annual Food at Sea Festivals that he conceived and coordinated.

He routinely devised imaginative events and activities that would not only help to publicise a program or exhibition, but also add to its content. They’re too many to list, except at random, like the night the museum restaged the World War II Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour. Or hosting the ABC’s iconic Macca and his Australiana show at our Classic and Wooden Boat Festivals.

More than just a communicator, Bill was an innovator of museum programs, such as the series of annual Food at Sea Festivals that he conceived and coordinated

Born in July 1941, Bill Richards was raised and educated in Brisbane, where he became a newspaper journalist and married his lifelong partner Robin, the girl from down the road.

Bill’s career as a reporter took him to London and established a lifelong habit of writing with concise, readable clarity and an unerring ability to find the story that would interest people.

Back in Australia Bill’s love of heritage took him to the National Trust as an influential staff member and consultant.

Bill was recruited to the ANMM by its founding director, Dr Kevin Fewster, for the museum’s huge opening program in 1991 – initially to fill a sudden, temporary gap in staffing, but working so successfully that a permanent position was created for him. For the next 20 years he was one of the key personnel establishing and communicating this new, national cultural organisation’s reputation and standing. In this role he mentored many young media and communications assistants early in their careers.

Bill, who is survived by Robin, his sons Stephen, Jonathan and Nicholas and eight grandchildren, is remembered most warmly by colleagues as a true bon vivant: whether discussing food with passion, bringing in home-made limoncello, sharing the wine that lived in a carton beneath his desk (or the rum bottle in the filing cabinet), bursting into choruses from Handel’s Messiah which he sang each year in the Opera House, or dressing as Santa for the staff Christmas party. He left us far too soon, but he left us with so much, both professionally and personally.

Jeffrey Mellefont, Honorary Research Associate

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 115 > ONLINE ACCESS

Online access

JUMP THE QUEUE OR CHECK OUT WHAT’S NEW

01

OVER THE LAST QUARTER the Digital Team has been working hard behind the scenes to improve the museum’s booking system and to give greater online access to our collections.

Here are some details of what we have been doing:

Queue jumping Our new EventBrite online booking system allows you to easily book your admission and event tickets and skip the queue.

Admission and tickets are available through the museum’s website at anmm.gov.au/admission.

Navigating Navigators?

We’ve worked with Google Cultural Institute (GCI) to create three mobile app tours: one each for our Watermarks and Navigators galleries and another for our wharfside vessels.

They’re free and currently available on Android devices – Google is working to release an iOS version later this year.

We’d love you to test them out and let us know what you think by emailing us at web@anmm.gov.au. The apps are a free download from Google Play – just search for ANMM.

01 GCI museum tour by Michelle Mortimer

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Unlocking our collections

In 2012 we were fortunate to receive a donation of more than 3,000 Gervais Purcell images

Over the coming months you will begin to see more stories and images on the ANMM blog and Flickr Commons pages about emerging collections and hidden treasures.

Last month, for instance, we revealed a few more images by the mid-20th-century commercial photographer Gervais Purcell.

Gervais’ work was first featured at the museum in the popular travelling exhibition Exposed! The story of swimwear in 2009.

In 2012 we were fortunate to receive a donation from Gervais’ son Leigh Purcell of a substantial catalogue of more than 3,000 images, and since then our researchers and registrars have been working to document the collection image by image.

Gervais worked from the 1940s to the 1960s for clients such as David Jones, 3M Company, Jantzen Swimwear, P&O Cruiseliners and Ansett Airlines, and was commissioned to photograph everything from sandpaper to swimwear and millinery fashions.

A versatile photographer, Gervais sustained his business through the war and in a comparatively small Australian market space among peers such as Helmut Newton and Bruno Benini.

His work provides an insight into design trends, photographic practices, social mores and business trends of the day and so forms an interesting Australian historic record.

You can read the blog at wp.me/phJZE-4aA and see more images on flickr.com/photos/anmm_thecommons Gemma Nardone for the Digital Team

SIGNALS > NUMBER 112 > THE STORE

SEE WHAT’S IN STORE SHACKLETON’S EPIC –

BY TIM JARVIS In 2013, explorer Tim Jarvis and five comrades set out to replicate Ernest Shackleton’s gruelling journey of survival from Elephant Island to and across South Georgia.

This is their story.

HORRIBLE HISTORIES: PIRATES Special import edition.

Terry Deary reveals the terrible truth behind the pirate legends and lies, plus foul facts on the ships they sailed, the punishments they suffered and the rules they lived by.

$45.00 / $40.50

$25.00 / $22.50

Members

Members

SHACKLETON: DEATH OR GLORY DVD Discovery Channel documentary in which adventurer Tim Jarvis and his companions successfully re-enact Ernest Shackleton’s historic journey of survival in Antarctica.

PIRATE BROOCH Limited edition.

Designed in Melbourne, Australia. Made from coloured layered resin. 6.5 x 5.5 cm

$35.00 / $31.50 Members

$49.95 / $44.95 Members

ICHTHYO – THE ARCHITECTURE OF FISH Fish X-rays from the Division of Fishes of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution.

GLASS SHIP IN BOTTLE – HMB ENDEAVOUR Hand-blown glass ship in a bottle. Gold finish, length 21 cm. Other ships are available.

$79.95 / $70.50

$39.95 / $35.95

Members

Members

SAILING WITH COOK –

BY SUZANNE RICKARD Features facsimile pages from Cook’s private journal.

Beautifully illustrated with maps, portraits, contemporary documents and artefacts.

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY TEDDY BEAR Cute teddy bear dressed in Royal Australian Navy’s camouflage (DPNU) uniform.

Length 35 cm

$ 53.00 / $ 47.70

$29.95 / $26.95 Members

Members

Shop online at anmm.gov.au/thestore 9.30 am–5 pm 7 days a week | 02 9298 3698 | fax orders to 02 9298 3675 thestore@anmm.gov.au | Members discounts | Friendly service

Books DVDs & CDs Brassware Models Gifts Prints Posters Toys Shirts Hats Scarves Souvenirs

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SIGNALS Signals ISSN 1033-4688 Editor Janine Flew Staff photographer Andrew Frolows Design & production Austen Kaupe Printed in Australia by Pegasus Print Group.

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

Editorial and advertising enquiries signals@anmm.gov.au Deadline mid-January, April, July, October for issues March, June, September, December Signals is online Search all issues from No 1,October 1986, to the presentat anmm.gov.au/signals

Signals back issues Back issues $4 each or 10 for $30 Extra copies of current issue $4.95 Call The Store 02 9298 3698 Australian National Maritime Museum Open daily except Christmas Day 9.30 am to 5 pm (6 pm in January) 2 Murray Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia.

Phone 02 9298 3777.

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

Become a museum Member Benefits include four issues of Signals per year; free museum entry; discounts on events and purchases; and more. See anmm.gov.au or phone 02 9298 3644. Corporate memberships also available.

Foundation partner ANZ Major partners Nine Entertainment Returned and Services League of Australia (Queensland Branch) Partners AccorHotels’ Darling Harbour Hotels Antarctica Flights Antarctic Heritage Trust Australian Pacific Touring Pty Ltd Laissez-Faire Royal Wolf Holdings Ltd Southern Cross Austereo Sydney by Sail Pty Ltd Founding patrons Alcatel Australia ANL Limited Ansett Airfreight Bovis Lend Lease BP Australia Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation Doyle’s Seafood Restaurant Howard Smith Limited James Hardie Industries National Australia Bank PG, TG & MG Kailis P&O Nedlloyd Ltd Telstra Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics Westpac Banking Corporation Zim Shipping Australasia

ANMM council Chairman Mr Peter Dexter am faicd Director Mr Kevin Sumption Councillors Mr Paul Binsted The Hon Ian Campbell Mr Robert Clifford ao The Hon Peter Collins am rfd qc ranr (nsw) Rear Admiral Stuart Mayer csc and Bar Mr Shane Simpson am The Hon Margaret White ao

/anmmuseum #anmm /anmmuseum /anmmuseum #anmm anmm.gov.au/blog

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Shackleton: Escape from Antarctica

War at Sea: The Navy in WWI

Media Partner

Presenting Partner

Exhibition Partner

Exhibition Sponsors

Australian National Maritime Museum Partners 2015

Painting for Antarctica: Wendy Sharpe and Bernard Ollis follow Shackleton

Exhibition Sponsors

Exhibition Partner