224th Anniversary of the Wrecking of H.M.S. Sirius

Midday Wednesday 19^th March was the 224^th anniversary of the wrecking of HMS Sirius on Norfolk Island. It was in 1790 that the disastrous wrecking of the flagship of the First Fleet occurred, leaving the struggling settlements here and in Port Jackson in a desperate situation.  Just 3 years earlier the Sirius had led the fleet of eleven ships that set out from England carrying the people who would start a new Nation on the other side of the world. She was a vitally important ship to the settlements struggle for survival in their new, isolated home and the only real means of contact with the outside world.

At the time of its wrecking the Sirius was on a desperate mission. Since 1788 both communities had lived not far from starvation. In late 1788 Captain John Hunter, master of the Sirius had taken her on a voyage to Cape Town for supplies. However by the end of 1789 Sydney Cove was still starving. The plan was to send the Sirius to the Chinese port of Canton to obtain food and supplies. To relieve the pressure at Sydney she would be accompanied to Norfolk by HMS Supply, the smallest ship of the First Fleet. Together they would transfer 275 people to Norfolk Island (116 convict men, 67 convict women, 27 children and 65 marines).

 

George Raper The Melancholoy Loss of HMS Sirius off Norfolk Island

Both ships had arrived at Norfolk Island on 13 March 1790 through terrible weather. Because of the conditions they could not risk the usual anchorage position off the settlement at Sydney Bay (Kingston) and had sailed around to Cascade Bay. By 15 March all the people had been put ashore but the weather worsened and both ships were forced out to sea. After three long days they finally re-appeared at Sydney Bay.

By morning 19 March 1790 the Supply had completed unloading supplies and the Sirius had just begun when Captain Hunter noticed they were beginning to drift in to close to the reef. The Supply was already under sail and her Captain, Lieutenant Henry Lidgard Ball called out to Hunter, waving his hat towards the reef to warn that both vessels were coming perilously close to it. Immediately, Captain Hunter gave the order to sail windward on a port tack. At this point the Supply was ahead, but leeward of the Sirius. However just at the critical time that they sailed off – the wind shifted direction two points to the south. This wind shift was to spell disaster for the Sirius. It was now impossible for the ships on their port tack to clear the rocks off Point Ross.

The Supply was able to pass just clear under the Sirius’ weather bow by taking a starboard tack and desperately, Hunter tried to do likewise. The ship failed to tack and fell off the wind so he had to change to take the tack by turning the ship’s head away from the wind, endeavouring to sail east past the landing point and off between Nepean Island and the eastern point of Sydney Bay. He desperately tried to change tack then frantically cut away the anchor, halyards and sheets in the hope that would slow them down. But the wind just blew the ship backwards until, as he describes in his Journal “she struck upon a reef of coral rocks which lies parallel to the shore, and in a few strokes was bilged”.

Amongst those watching on the shore was Norfolk Island’s Commandant, Philip Gidley King. Surely belying what he would have felt, his Journal records the event with little emotion “at Noon the Sirius having twice missed Stays & being Embayed, struck on the outer part of the Reef”. King would return to Sydney Cove on the Supply to deliver the news to Governor Arthur Phillip. He wrote “You never saw such dismay as the news of the wreck occasioned amongst us all; for, to use a sea term, we looked upon her as our sheet anchor”. Luckily there had been no loss of life from the wrecking, however the Sirius had been the main means of contact with the outside world for both Settlements.

 

The Causeway, possibly built to help bring goods ashore

On Norfolk Island the effects were felt immediately. With an ‘overnight’ doubling of the population, food and other supplies were now seriously short. Starvation was a real possibility. Within a week martial law had been enforced. Lieutenant Ralph Clark of the Royal Marines had been on board the Sirius for the journey to Norfolk Island, and had been put ashore at Cascade before the wrecking. His diary entry expresses their fears: “Gracious God what will become of us all, the whole of our provisions in the ship, now a wreck before us. I hope in God that we will be able to save some if not all but why do I flatter myself with such hopes – there is at present no prospect of it except that of starving”. Starvation was averted by the arrival of over 200,000 migratory birds nesting on Mount Pitt in the following four months. Eventually hunted to extinction in Norfolk Island they christened the birds ‘Providence Petrels’. Midshipman George Raper captured not only the wreck on the reef in his painting, but also the emotion of her loss with the title “The Melancholy Loss of HMS Sirius, off Norfolk Island March 19 1790” (National Library of Australia).

 

George Raper Mount Pitt Bird (National Library of Australia)

Immediately the Sirius ran aground as much as possible was thrown overboard with the hope it would float ashore. To rescue the crew a rope was fastened to a barrel and floated ashore, then fastened to a pine tree allowing the men to scramble to shore. Convicts who volunteered to rescue the livestock broke into the rum supply and caused a fire, resulting further loss of precious supplies. In the following weeks it was decided to strip the ship of hardware so desperately needed on the island. Sails, hawsers, masts and spars, fittings and the timbers of the ship itself were removed until she was down to the waterline. It took two years to do this, finishing with fifteen cannons being removed in 1792. Before long all trace of the Sirius disappeared from view.

Today of course, the important HMS Sirius artefacts are housed in the Norfolk Island Museum, within view of the shipwreck location. Together with the story of their modern day recovery they sit on display alongside the stories of Captain John Hunter, Lieutenant Ralph Clarke and the other marines, convicts and civilians whose lives were all sent into turmoil that day 224 years ago, midday 19^th March 1790.

Celebrating our 1788 Beginnings

Foundation Day this year was a fabulous celebration of the beginnings of our Island’s first British Settlement on the 6^th March 1788. The day is important to celebrate as Norfolk Island’s significance at the very start of the colonization of what was to become Australia, has been largely forgotten in the minds of most Australians. Our story from 1788 is inextricably bound up with Port Jackson as both settlements needed each other for their very survival. At one point Governor Phillip even considered making Norfolk Island the primary settlement above Port Jackson such was this island’s relative success. The wrecking here of HMS Sirius in 1790 was an event that put both places at enormous stress and resulted in Norfolk Island housing an equal number of people as Port Jackson for the next few years.

The Pier Store Museum has a number of books for sale that provide good information on the First Fleet, the wrecking of the Sirius and life on Norfolk in the First Settlement.

Taking us back to our understandings of why and how the British prepared for and undertook the First Fleet voyage is Alan Frost in his book “The First Fleet – the Real Story”. Through a meticulous examination of hundreds of previously neglected documents he debunks the myth that it was an ill conceived, shambolic affair primarily about dumping unwanted convicts. The importance of the resources that Norfolk Island offered to establish a Pacific naval boat building base in terms of pine trees and flax plants, were well understood and reinforce the important place of Norfolk Island at the very start of our Nation.

Two books that have been written about First Fleeters who lived on Norfolk Island provide a great picture for not only their ancestors, but anyone who’s ancestor lived here then, of what life was like. These are: “Prisoners In Paradise – The Story of Olivia Gascoigne and Nathaniel Lucas” by Trevor Lagstrom, and “Robert Forrester, First Fleeter” by Louise Wilson. These are both highly recommended.

The wrecking of HMS Sirius on the reef at (now) Slaughter Bay in 1790 would have been a soul crushing event to have lived through. The entire populations at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island were already at breaking point when the vessel of their salvation was wrecked before their eyes. The story of the wrecking is included in a book that looks at the role and culpability of her Captain, John Hunter in the disaster. “An Unlikely Leader, the life and times of Captain John Hunter” by Robert Barnes may surprise some with his conclusions. “One Ship, Two Names, Three Voyages – the Story of the Sirius” by Helen Sampson provides a clear and concise telling of her First Fleet voyage and eventual wrecking.

There are two beautiful ‘coffee table’ style books for sale in the Pier Store. “The Northern Plains – A History of Longford, Cressy, Perth and Bishopsbourne, Tasmania” by Nic Haygarth, picks up the story of what happened to Norfolk Island’s settlers at the close of the First Settlement. In 1813 many were settled in the Norfolk Plains in Tasmania and last year the Northern Midlands Council produced this book to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of that event.

“A Most Admirable Australian – Phillip Parker King” by Brian Douglas Abbott is a comprehensive biography of perhaps Norfolk Island’s most successful, yet little acknowledged sons - and a son of Philip Gidley King. As is well known, Phillip followed his father into the Royal Navy and completed Matthews Flinders unfinished survey of the Australian coast. He also however completed hydrographic work in the Magellan Straits which laid the platform for the famous voyage of HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin. His son actually completed the voyage with Darwin. Phillip Parker was the first Australian born to become an Admiral of the Blue.

For such a small island Norfolk’s place in the start of Australia’s British history is large. Our current job is to communicate that loudly and clearly to the rest of Australia! There are many who will visit this island specifically because of that history, whether they have ancestry connected to that time or not. Our Foundation Day celebrations on Norfolk Island can play a big part in that communication and deserve our support.

Archaeology on Land and Water

This post concludes an account of two weeks in February when we had visiting land and water based archaeologists undertaking survey and training work on the island:  

We’ve just come to the end of a fabulous two weeks looking at the archaeology of Norfolk Island thanks to our five visiting archaeologists. We had the land covered with Dr Martin Gibbs, Dr Brad Duncan and Natalie Blake undertaking the Norfolk Island Archaeological Survey, and Andy Viduka and Amer Khan looked at our underwater heritage.

The land sites surveyed using three radar techniques were the Landing Place at Kingston including down to the area in front of Munnas, Emily’s Grave behind Emily Bay, the Cascade burial site and the original Melanesian Mission cemetery. Other areas that they visited to make initial observations and GPS readings were the range of properties that make up the Cascade Agricultural and Longridge Agricultural Stations. Due to the loss of days with wet weather and some equipment problems we didn’t get to cover quite as much terrain with the radars as originally envisaged. Each site is also complex with a variety of historical and current information available. While that may be a bit frustrating in the short term, it has meant that Martin and Brad are very keen to map out an on-going program of work to more fully cover the island and work on a funding program to do so. As a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology with the University of Sydney, Martin will be doing his best to see how the university can become involved in future work.

The land Survey radar results won’t be fully known until after the radar readings get thoroughly analysed by the team using a number of software applications back on the mainland. However there were enough anomalies (a word we’ve learnt to use to describe changes in the squiggly lines of the radar readings!) in the readings to give hope of some good results across the sites. Good results may include identification of what could be building structures or graves from cemetery areas as well an understanding about which previous buildings were ‘robbed’ of stone to build later structures that now leave only a caved in imprint on the radar. The remains of the Longridge and Cascade Agricultural Stations in particular really excited the team. While we didn’t get to investigate Phillipsburgh in detail it also remains as a large area to follow-up on.

By mid May the Museum will have mounted an exhibition on the whole survey which will include all the results and we will also publicise them in the paper as they become available. For Brad, Martin and Natalie they now face a busy few months processing and writing up the results into a report.

On Tuesday night Martin, Brad and Andy very generously gave a public presentation. Brad showed how he works with geo-referencing which gives real world co-ordinates and spatial references to historical maps. Knowing with good proximity where buildings shown on a 1795 map are on the ground today, obviously aids decisions about where to carry out radar activity. Andy talked about the value of knowing about our maritime heritage and the importance of recording the stories that surround our maritime objects.

Martin gave a fascinating presentation on Pitcairn Island as Cultural Landscape based on his thinking after visiting and carrying out archaeological digs on Pitcairn in the late 1990s. He states “…it will be suggested that when viewing the Bounty arrivals as a colonizing population, the perceptions and reactions of the Polynesian participants almost certainly included responses to a spiritual realm within the Pitcairn landscape that was most likely undetectable and incomprehensible to the Europeans.  In particular… especially in the early years the Polynesians were engaged in a constant series of negotiations within the spiritual and natural realms”. His presentation also gave an insight into the breadth of archaeology – its not just about finding buried remains but the whole landscape of a place, how and why people historically and currently respond to it.

Meanwhile, on the water and on-shore, Andy and Amer worked with members of the Norfolk Island Maritime Association (NIMAA). There were a number of dives to try and locate the position of known Admiralty anchors, a session on oral history and looking at how to measure up a wreck on the sea floor. Andy and Amer spoke to a number of people in the community about our maritime heritage, building up an awareness of our islands maritime culture. Andy also provided information to the Police on their role as Inspectors under the Historic Shipwrecks Act and to the museum on filling the Australian National Shipwreck Data Base.

The work of the last few weeks won’t stop here. The museum is very keen to continue supporting NIMAA and community members in their pursuits to identify and protect our historic shipwrecks heritage. On land, we will continue to work with Brad and Martin to see how we can establish long term archaeological projects that will work to help us understand more about the remains under our very feet and the stories of the people who live and have lived on our island. 

We extend our sincere thanks to Brad, Martin and Natalie for sharing so much with us over the last few weeks. We sincerely look forward to working with them all again. Thanks also to Andy and Amer for returning to the island to keep us and NIMAA members focused on our maritime heritage. It’s been a fabulous two weeks at the Norfolk Island Museum!

Archaeologists on Norfolk Island!

Five archaeologists visited Norfolk Island recently working on land and sea based surveys – it even began to look like Time Team moved in! 

From Febraury we reported: Dr Brad Duncan, Dr Martin Gibbs and Natalie Blake spent the last week getting the Norfolk Island Remote Sensing Survey underway. Andrew Viduka and Amer Khan have just arrived to get a marine survey and training underway with the Norfolk Island Maritime Archaeology Association (NIMAA) members. It really is fabulous to have professionals of this calibre on island working to help us locate and identify more of our islands heritage.

Brad, Martin and Natalie’s Survey, funded through a Commonwealth Your Community Heritage Grant, will continue till the end of the week. This week they spent time identifying sites to survey from across the island. Together with analysing historic maps and paintings, they also looked at aerial and historic photos, and written information including previous archaeological reports by KAVHA and Robert Varman. Walking through the landscape with former KAVHA Site Manager Puss Anderson was invaluable. It quickly became apparent to them that there is so much work to be done on Norfolk, in fact far too much for this short two week visit.

Brad is the geo-referencing and map expert and he spent many hours putting all the current and historical information into a computer program that creates an aligned layering of all the maps and information, which is then used to support decisions about where to survey and analysis of the results.

The Landing Place at Kingston was the first place surveyed and, given disruptions due to the rain, took close to three days to complete. Martin is the remote sensing expert of the group, and he set up three pieces of equipment to do the work – a Magnetometer, a Ground Penetrating Radar and a Resistance Meter. Laying out the grids and working the machinery backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards became the work of the group. The results will be fully analysed by Martin but already clearly show a number of anomalies.

Most likely the next area to work on will be the Emily bay burial grounds – will there be remains in Emily’s Grave marked on the survey maps of Jamison and Kennedy? The drainage systems and area at the back of Chimney Hill may be looked at after that. Phillipsburgh, Longridge, Cascade and Polynesian sites all remain to be looked at if time allows.

Water based activity with the maritime archaeologists Andy Viduka and Amer Khan will depend on sea conditions. Wether it be on the water or land they will progress surveying skills of NIMAA members along with oral history skills. Andy will also provide training to the Commonwealth Police in their role as Inspector’s under the Historic Shipwrecks Act. Our sincere thanks to Andy’s employer, The National Historic Heritage Section within the Commonwealth Department of the Environment, and Amer’s employer, the SA Department of the Environment for allowing them to travel to Norfolk to support the Museum’s Historic Shipwrecks Program activities.

Letters from Pitcairn Islander Girls

A few months ago we wrote about a donation to the Museum of six letters from Frederick (Fred) and Roslyn Howard. The letters were written in 1856 and ’57 to Fred’s great Grandfather also named Frederick Howard, by two young Pitcairner girls, Catherine ‘Kitty’ Christian and Louisa ‘Victoria’ Quintal. Fred and Roslyn had emailed a copy of the letters and promised that when they visited Norfolk this month they would bring the letters with them. Well this week the wonderful moment arrived and they brought them in to the museum and formally made their donation.

These letters are very special. They provide us with a rare opportunity to get to know the youthful Kitty and Victoria and through them the community as a whole. We so often think about that arrival of our ancestors from Pitcairn, imagining what it would have been like for them to land at their new home so alien yet full of new promise. What did they think, how did they feel? 

Frederick and Roslyn Howard

 Howard met Kitty and Victoria in the days after they had arrived on the Morayshire. Howard was Second Master on board HMS Herald, which was here at Norfolk Island when the Pitcairners landed on the 8^th of June 1856. Captain Henry Mangles Denham from HMS Herald was of course one of the people greeting the Islanders as they came ashore on Kingston Pier. The Herald had come to Norfolk Island during its work undertaken between 1852 and 1861 carrying out an important series of hydrographic surveys amongst the island groups of the South Pacific and in the waters adjacent to Australia.

From the letters we get a sense of these girl’s humour, innocence and naivety, together with their obvious enthusiasm for meeting the new people they are coming into contact with as a result of the enormous change that has just occurred in their young lives. Together with a separate letter to this donation sent by Kitty’s mother Charlotte to Howard, they reveal how easily trusting they were, sharing their feelings and personal circumstances so openly.

Howard’s view of the Pitcairners is fairly well known as another of his letters to Emily (now held by the Mitchell Library) describes them in great detail – and refers specifically to Kitty and Victoria. It was Howard’s sister Emily who received Kitty and Victoria’s letters, sent to her by Howard as he sent all his letters to her for safe keeping. From Emily they were passed down through the family to Fred’s father, who had kept them in Howard’s old sea chest where they remained untouched for many years until Fred and Roslyn discovered them. Roslyn has also compiled for her family a fabulous history of Frederick’s life detailing his years at sea.

It is such a generous act of Fred and Roslyn to separate Kitty and Victoria’s letters from their collection and return them to Norfolk and we sincerely thank them for doing so.

Lieutenant Colonel James T. Morisset

It was wonderful to meet Jan Lowe at the Museum this week visiting from Sydney for a relaxing week on Norfolk. However Jan’s visit has provided not only the opportunity to have a relaxing time, but as a descendant of Lieutenant Colonel James Morisset and Victor Selheim Morisset, to walk in the places that her ancestors walked. To proudly say on Norfolk that you are a descendant of James Morisset can be a tricky thing as without a doubt he has been described as one of the more notorious of Commandants on Norfolk Island during the Second Settlement.

His time here between 1829 to 1834 is one that has historically been told in stark terms of violence, cruelty and personal mental turmoil. However a quiet challenge to that view has begun to emerge through the work of historians and another of Morisset’s descendants and cousin of Jan’s, Margaret Thompson. She argues that “there is much evidence to suggest that he was no harsher than others and that his conduct was consistent with the attitudes of his time”. She cites his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography by Vivienne Parsons who wrote: “[M]orisset does not appear to have been considered unnecessarily harsh by his contemporaries. Both Macquarie and Bigge approved of his methods, as did later governors, and the Sydney Gazette, 28 November 1827, praised him for being upright and conscientious, and not frightened by daring offenders, while ironically lauding him as an opponent of capital punishment”.

Jan Lowe and (inset) her ancestor J.T. Morisset

We know that he most likely suffered a mental breakdown during his time on Norfolk Island and spent time too ill to take charge of the settlement, relying on his deputy Captain Foster Fyans and men such as Captain Charles Sturt to keep control of the convicts. The tenor and harsh rule of these two men during that time, which includes a notorious mutiny attempt, has never been written about with the same ferocity as Morisset. There were a number of mutiny attempts and uprisings that occurred during his term as Commandant, but the question of whether these were as a direct result of Morisset’s harsher rule in comparison to other Commandant’s and conditions in other penal settlements of the day is still being debated. He had served his superiors well in postings before arriving on Norfolk Island particularly at Newcastle and Bathurst, which have then also been cited as evidence of his “zest for rigid discipline”. Other strong men and his superior’s of the day such as Governor’s Brisbane, Darling and Burke were all pleased with his work.

On a personal side Morisset was clearly a family man. Prior to his arrival no women had been allowed into the settlement after December 1825 when Sir Ralph Darling, the Governor in NSW declared that all women, bond or free, should leave the island. “I laid it down, as a rule on my arrival here, that women should not be sent to that settlement…”. James Morisset was the first to insist that his family accompany him and they all arrived in 1829. The sense of vulnerability and fear that he felt for his wife and four young daughters living in such violent circumstances appears to have played a part in his mental decline.

Perhaps also the physical appearance of Morisset has played a part in him becoming historically cast as the villain. During the Peninsula Wars he was badly wounded by a sabre cut to the face, from which he barely survived and carried a facial disfigurement for the rest of his life. The only known portrait of him is from before this time and he appears as quite slight and fresh-faced with no hint of the cruel temperament of his reputation. Certainly Morisset ruled with severity, but no matter what we believe about Morisset’s rule on Norfolk, it is clear that reducing his time to simplistic statements of horrors reduces a more complex and nuanced person, history and story. It may serve our purposes to continue to represent his term to that only of a “mentally-ill sadist”, but can we now continue to truthfully do so as more detail and analysis of his time is revealed?

Norfolk Island of course has had two Morisset men play a part in the affairs of the island. Commandant Morisset’s grandson Victor Sellheim Morisset came to Norfolk Island in 1928 and served as Administrator until his death from a severe heart attack in 1929. He is buried in the Norfolk Island cemetery.

For Jan Lowe visiting Norfolk today, there must be many strong feelings about the role her ancestors played in the affairs of this island. Hopefully this has not stopped her enjoying the beauty, wonders and overall complex yet fascinating history of this island!

Pitcairn Tapa

In 2011 Meralda Warren visited Norfolk Island and our museum was delighted to present an exhibition of her handmade and painted tapa. The Museum Trust purchased one of her works titled “The Keepers of the Sea” which has recently been framed and is now hanging in the Pier Store Museum. It hangs alongside a tapa pounder most likely brought to Norfolk in 1856, and an historical piece of tapa made on Pitcairn in 1841. The story of the near loss of the skill of tapa making on Pitcairn Island is told through these artefacts and in particular Meralda’s tapa art work.

The Polynesian women who went with the mutineers to eventually settle on Pitcairn Island and become the island’s foremothers, would have taken their tapa pounders and cloth with them. These items held great importance to the women as they provided the only means of making cloth for themselves and their families. By the time the Pitcairners arrived on Norfolk Island in 1856 the women were clothed in full-length cotton dresses and the men in pants and shirts. We know that the women were still making barkcloth in the weeks before they left Pitcairn and also brought beaters with them to Norfolk, however tapa making and the wearing of tapa clothing does not appear to have continued on Norfolk. With the return of two groups to Pitcairn in 1858 and 1863, tapa making did continue on Pitcairn however the influence of the Seventh Day Missionaries during the 1930’s saw it cease.

Meralda Warren scraping the outer bark

 Meralda Warren born and still living on Pitcairn Island today, describes herself as “a 7th generation descendant of the Tahitian mamas and the Bounty mutineers”.  One day in 2007, feeling a challenge that was too strong to resist, she went into her backyard and gathered the bark from a mulberry tree (aute). This act began a journey that resulted in the lost art, and a part of the islander’s heritage, being revived. Together with her mother Mavis they experimented with all they could remember from the last time they saw the women making tapa. Over the next few years they worked out how to harvest the aute plant using a sea shell to strip the outer bark from the inner fibrous paper mulberry, soak it in citrus juice and beat it into a piece of cloth. Once dried they seal the piece with arrowroot cooked to the right consistency. Through trial and error they worked out how to create various dyes from the Doodwi and Nano trees. 

"The Keepers of Sea" by Meralda Warren

Meralda now teaches the craft to the island’s children and an exhibition of their work was recently held on Pitcairn. Other descendants and artists, Pauline Reynolds, Sue Pearson and Jean Clarkson joined Meralda in the quest to restore the lost art. Pauline has undertaken detailed research into surviving tapas now held around the world and produced the book “Pitcairn Tapa: ‘Ahu no Hitiaurevareva” (on sale at the Pier Store museum). Together they also formed a group called the ‘Ahu Sistas’, with the aim of ensuring historic Pitcairn tapa designs are safe from exploitation and that the traditions of ahu making are not lost.

Meralda’s modern tapa work now hangs alongside a framed piece of historic tapa cloth and letter (donated to the museum by Chloe Nicholas). The letter written by Mrs W. Jeffery in 1893 describes how the tapa piece was made in 1841 on Pitcairn, its voyage to Norfolk Island, gifting to Mrs Jeffery and fact that these pieces were scarcely seen. The tapa beater on display had been attributed to the Melanesian Mission, however investigations by Pauline Reynolds reveal it as being consistent with Pitcairn and eastern-Polynesian beaters. It appears most likely that it was brought to Norfolk Island in 1856.

Together these artefacts and art works tell us of an important part of our heritage handed down from our Tahitian foremothers. We came so close to losing it, but thanks to the determination of Meralda and a small group of dedicated women it has been saved. That is a good news story.