State Heritage Convention

Dr Michael McCarthy
Curator Maritime Archaeology Department
Western Australian Maritime Museum
"Heritage at sea and abroad"

Photos: Divers excavating the clam The Roebuck Bell as found

The holistic presentation of the maritime heritage
Many will be familiar with the work of the Department of Maritime Archaeology at the Western Australian Maritime Museum in respect of the preservation and presentation of the State’s underwater maritime heritage. This has involved inspection, excavation, interpretation, and presentation of the State’s history through the medium of the shipwreck and other submerged remains. These have ranged from an Aboriginal site (Lake Jasper), jetties at Albany and Fremantle and sunken aircraft and often the work has been undertaken with a wide variety of stakeholders, volunteers, institutions and students. Results appear through the medium of the usual range of refereed journals, books, reports and the like. These publication lists are available, partly on the Museum’s website and through direct contact with the Department itself.

Presentation has been within museum walls in traditional museological fashion and also in an‘underwater display case’ and ‘cultural tourism’ mode throughout the State and adjoining seas.  This has been achieved partly through the Museum’s  ‘wreck access’ and ‘outreach ‘programs that date back to 1980 with the Rottnest Wreck Trail, arguably one of the first heritage trails to be developed here. The aims of these programs have since been effected by further trails and wreck access programs and through the many maps, pamphlets, books and databases now freely available on the ‘web’ (www.mm.wa.gov.au). 

Some programs, notably the involvement of  ‘street kids’ alongside gifted high school students in Albany and young people with severe disabilities from Rocky Bay Village at Mosman Park in the production of interpretive facilities and pamphlets have been award-winning.  The production of the  ‘access to Maritime Sites for people with disabilities’ pamphlet in association with Rocky Bay village was especially relevant to the  ‘holistic approach’ theme of this conference (See Departmental publication lists).

This initiative also involves the facilitation of maritime research and the publication of the results by volunteer researchers and scholars, the promulgation of site information and position-fixing data to dive shops, tourist and charter operators, and the provision of assistance to institutions and interest groups in obtaining and presenting site material, both indoors and out.  An example is the material from the Norwegian barque Gudrun (1901) that is on exhibition on the foreshore at Denham in Shark Bay. There are many other examples and all are developed in association with local interest groups and/or statutory authorities.

The outreach program is also designed to facilitate public access to research notes, data-bases, collections and the like and the presentation of data, excavation reports and other material by ensuring they are available for promulgation by the Museum’s ‘Web Team’. A bibliographic data base also includes all internal reports and material produced by staff, students and volunteers, for example. 

Through these mechanisms the Maritime Museum and its offerings have been taken out into the local community and vice versa, thereby keeping it apace with regional developments and more relevant to the needs of the people, as opposed to the academics, historians and aficionados they once primarily served. By design, these processes have also seen the gradual return of a sense of ‘ownership of the maritime heritage to the people as we emerge from the depths of indifference and ignorance to the heritage into an era where the past, or at least some elements of it,  are valued in both social and economic terms.

Again from the perspective of this conference, the Maritime Archaeology department has also managed or assisted in the management of terrestrial maritime heritage places. Examples are the many survivors camps, guano facilities, pearling camps, lighthouses, jetties and other port-related structures, and the work has been  acting on  behalf of the State, often in an ex officio capacity for an external body, and  usually with little or no funds. An exception was the receipt of grants from the Heritage Council for an examination of  Lighthouses and Port-Related Structures on the coast. These two grants resulted in the Department’s documentation and nomination of a large number of these maritime heritage structures, despite the ex officio status of the work.

Adding to this broader context, and again in the context of an ‘holistic approach to heritage’, with the new maritime museum dominating the skyline at Fremantle, we are now moving into an era where the maritime heritage of the State will soon be presented in existing facilities across the State and also in a developing  ‘bookends’ milieu at Fremantle.  The latter will involve two working ports, an ‘anchor walk’ comprising  a large collection of early anchors, put in place in partnership with the then Department of Marine and Harbours. This fits within an heritage precinct, including the Round House and a Whaler’s Tunnel, an archaeological site at Bather’s Bay and remnant shore in between the two ‘books’. Thus the State will come to have at one end as the southern  ‘bookend’, an existing world-recognised Shipwrecks Museum. It specialises in presenting the history through the work of archaeologists and conservators alike in a recognised heritage building that was built in the mid 19^th Century for maritime purposes.  At the northern end will lie a ‘traditional’ maritime museum, presenting themes such as defence, European exploration, leisure and the other subjects expected of maritime museums generally   in what promises to be an eye catching, ‘emphatic’ new facility that has the potential to assume an ‘iconic’ status. This all lies on a traditional Aboriginal meeting place and a recognised significant site and it lies  adjacent a heritage WWII submarine slipway and its accoutrements including a submarine as an exhibit in its own right. This is a unique situation indeed and it is one that reflects ‘a holistic approach to heritage’.

In the context of that approach, I would argue that there is another element to it all, the maritime heritage that lies on other shores. Two examples are HM Ship Roebuck (1701) and the French exploration corvette L’Uranie (1820).    

HM Ship Roebuck

Most maritime scholars are familiar with William Dampier through his own works and those of his commentators. In  recent times his contribution has been more broadly promulgated in this State by Leslie Marchant  through  ‘An Island unto itself: William Dampier and New Holland,’ and by Alex George in his ‘William Dampier in New Holland: Australia’s first Natural Historian’.

In short, in 1697 William Dampier published a book entitled ‘A New Voyage Around The World’ that was an account of his extensive travels with privateers and pirates in the period 1679-1691. It proved such a literary and maritime sensation, that it was translated into French and Dutch in 1698 and into German in 1702. By 1703 it had gone through 5 editions in English and has been in print ever since as one of the great English classics. Even today, it appears an astounding and gripping work and as a result it has enjoyed a continuous series of print runs through the ages.

Throughout the work Dampier emerges as a complex and gifted man, well worthy of consideration as one of England’s ‘greats’—one thirsting after travel and knowledge, prepared to risk all and  join with privateers and pirates in order to do so. At one point in the narrative in the face of impending danger he stated

‘I was well enough satisified, knowing that the farther we went, the more Knowledge and Experience I should get, which was the main Thing that I regarded’ (Dampier, 1998 edition :207). 

On his own account he engaged in many nefarious activities, however, commenting  that ‘our business was to pillage’ and when faced with almost certain death thus: 

I had a  lingering view of approaching Death, and little or no hopes of escaping it. And I must confess that my Courage, which I had hitherto kept up failed me here, and I made very sad Reflections on my former life, looking back with horror and Detestation on Actions which before I disliked, but now trembled at the remembrance of. I had long before this repented of that roving course of Life, but never with such Concern as now.’ (18 May 1688).

In the work Dampier also documents his landing in the privateer Cygnet on the north west coast in January 1688 while under the command of John Read. Dampier provides quite detailed accounts of his stay, but his disparaging comments on the peoples encountered and the quality of the land visited were to remain the commonly-held view of this continent and its indigenous peoples until the advent of the post-revolutionary visits of the French under Baudin. For a variety of reasons, none of the explorers appreciated the age-old traditions, the complexity and richness of the Aboriginal culture. It was a failing based on their use of the ‘yardstick’ of material wealth, riches and edifices, that has been shared by the vast majority of Australians right up until the 1980s.

Dampier’s reputation after the publishing of his sensational account was such as to be able to influence the Admiralty to support his leading a voyage that was designed to approach the uncharted eastern coast of Australia from the Pacific Ocean and Cape Horn. The intention was to survey it and the eastern coast of New Guinea after making landfall around 35-40° S (about mid-way between Sydney and Melbourne). He also intended to examine the partly known islands between New Holland and the Dutch Indies’ on the way home via the Cape of Good Hope (Williamson, 1939, xxviii).

In a statement reflecting the state of contemporary knowledge, he said of the eastern part of the continent:

‘New Holland is a very large Tract of Land. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent, but I am certain that it joins neither to Asia, Africa nor America’. Dampier, Beken Edition, 1998: 217

Dampier’s appointment as a civilian and former privateer to command a naval vessel, no matter how humble, was remarkable, but his fame and influence amongst royalty and powerful men was enough to transcend such a hurdle, as the following quote from the diarist John Evelyn attests.

I dined with Mr Pepys, where was Captain Dampier, who had been a famous buccaneer, had brought hither the painted prince Job [Jeoly], and printed a relation of his very strange adventure…He was now going abroad again by the King’s encouragement, who furnished a ship of 290 tons. He seemed a more modest man than one would imagine by relation of the crew he had associated with’  (From George, 1999, pp 135-6).

After finding the first vessel assigned to him totally unsuited, Dampier was provided with HM Ship Roebuck an armed three masted vessel, 96 feet long on the deck with a beam of 25 feet and a crew of 50 men, including a RN officer, with whom he immediately took umbrage.

Too late to take his preferred route via Cape Horn, Dampier departed England on January 14 1699 [1] and approached his objective via the Cape of Good Hope, first making his landfall at the place he subsequently named Sharks Bay on the mid-west coast. While ranging on this coast from Sharks Bay to the coast near present day Broome, he collected many plants, shells and other specimens, and in full and detailed descriptions of the plant and animal life encountered, he was the first Englishman to do so. In also describing the landscape and soils and in describing the land and marine animals, some in scientific terms that are still in use today, Dampier deservedly earned himself the title ‘Australian’s first natural historian’ (George, 1999).

Of some importance to this narrative is Dampier’s comment that at ‘Sharks Bay’ (now Shark Bay), the shore was ‘was lined thick with many sorts of very strange and beautiful Shells…I brought away a great many of them…’ (Williamson, 1927: 87).

After calling in to Timor, Dampier sailed around the northern part of New Guinea, naming Nova Britannia (New Britain). Dampier Strait was subsequently named after him. Concerned at the state of his ship, at the end of March 1700, Dampier abandoned his plan to sail south to explore the eastern Australian coast, leaving these explorations to Lt James Cook RN well over half a century later. 

They turned back and after a prolonged stay at Batavia, they left arriving at the Cape of Good Hope at the end of the year. From there they proceeded to Ascension Island, which they sighted on 21 February 1701. 

Dampier’s account of the ensuing events reads thus:

From: William Dampier’s unpublished account of the loss of the “Roebuck.” (Public Record Office, Admiralty 1/5262) Dated;  29 September, 1701

An account of the loss of His Majesty’s Ship Roebuck Febry 21^st 1700/1. At three aclock in the afternoon being in Sight of the Island Ascension… At half an hour after 8 in the night we sprung a Leake on the larboard bow about four Strakes from the Keele, which oblig’d us to keep our Chain pump constantly going, at twelve at night having a moderate gale, we bore away for the Island and be daylight were close in with it, at nine aclock in the morning anchored in the N.W. bay in ten fathom and half water, sandy ground about half a mile from the shoare, the S. point of the bay bore S.S.W. dist. one mile and a half and the northernmost point, N.E.1/2 N.dist. two mile…

… Being come to anchor...I ordered the Carpenter’s Mate…with the Boatswain and some others to goe downe and search for the Leake,  the Carpenter’s Mate and the Boatswain told me that they could not come at it unless they cut the Ceiling, which I bid them doe, which done they found the Leake against one of the foothook timbers, it was very large, and the water gushed in with great violence… after the cutt the timber… the leake so increase …But about 11 aclock at night the Boatswain came to me, told me… that the Plank was quite rotten, and that it was now impossible to save the Ship…I therefore hoysted out the boate, and next morning, being the 23^rd, we weigh’d anchor and warped in nearer the shoare, but to little purpose till in the afternoon we had a Sea breeze by which we gott in within a Cable’s length of the Shoare, then made a Raft to carry men’s chests and bedding ashoare., and before Eight at night most of them were gott ashoare, She struck not before nine aclock at night, and so continued, I ordered some sailes to be cut from the yards to make us some tents, etc, and the next morning being the 24^th myself and Officers went ashoare…

From  his published account. (Wm. Dampier, Voyage to New Holland)

[on 3 April] …appear’d 4 Sail, which came to anchor in this Bay. They were his Majesty’s Ships, the Anglesey, Hastings and Lizard; and the Cantebury East-India Ship. I went on board the Anglesey with about 35 of my Men; and the rest were dispos’d of into the other Men of War.

We sail’d from Ascension, the 8^th…

They subsequently returned to England and though Dampier lost most of his shell collection, in the wreck he managed to save his plant specimens and his journal. The specimens eventually found their way into a collection that is now housed at the Fielding-Druce Herbarium at the University  of Oxford and the journal was published in an  account entitled ‘A Voyage to New Holland’ that appeared a few years later in 1703.

This is not the forum in which to regale the reader about the 18 months of research and planning as a result of a decision to try and locate this wreck and that of the other lost Shark Bay exploration ship, the French Corvette L’Uranie  that was made at in the aftermath of the Dampier Tricentennial at Shark Bay in August 1999. Nor is it the place to list the many donors, the difficulties, the vast amount of assistance provided or the excessively good fortune that visited my team in the location and inspection the two sites. Except to make mention those from Western Australia  in the team, these references will be made in the ensuing report and on our developing website. 

Mr C. Amalfi…newspaper correspondent

Mr H. Edwards…author and diver

Mr G. Kimpton…chief diver

Mr J. Lashmar…abalone diver

Cr L. Moss…President Shire of Shark Bay

Dr J. Williams…artist 

&  in absentia members, M. Philippe Godard…chief researcher  and Dr J. Hanrahan, philanthropist.

It is pertinent to note that a long-standing Ascension Island ‘tradition’ had it that Roebuck lay in South West Bay. This was also reflected in the Island museum’s exhibits prior to our visit.  The evidence contained in Dampier’s depositions to the Court, when read carefully against those of the others who also did so, e.g. the Master indicate that, unless Roebuck drifted back out to sea after it was abandoned, the wreck lay in water no more than three and a half fathoms (7 metres deep) off Long Beach in North West or Clarence Bay, however.

Perhaps it was even engulfed in the sands of the beach itself (as is quite often the case elsewhere) for this particular beach was apparently quite mobile. Squadron Leader Tebbs had come to this conclusion and he wrote in the account of the unsuccessful 1985 RAF searches that

It seems most likely that the Roebuck lies underneath the deep sands of Long Beach at Georgetown, and the wreck will probably only be located either after a heavy storm that may shift the sand, or by the use of side-scan sonar or other sub-surface search equipment.

How right he was, as will be seen in what follows.  In following Dampier’s recorded movements as his ship slowly sank beneath him, by fixing his compass bearings and anchoring where and as he described, with the assistance of our island Liaison officer Flt Lt Richard Burke RAF, my team was able to rigidly focus its search in shallow water a maximum of 200 metres from the present shore at Clarence Bay. In many respects it was a circumstance not dissimilar to our successful work at the VOC ship Zuytdorp (1712) at the cliffs north of Kalbarri and our experience at that site provided the grounding for our successes at Roebuck. 

In accepting that the beach may have subsequently covered the ship, or that it lay buried offshore, a combination of visual and remote sensing searches were planned and water powered sand probes were proposed as a first stage in what was expected to be a prolonged campaign, taking a number of seasons.  Suffice it to say, it took much shorter than that, for an unprecedented sand movement at the beach of almost ‘biblical’ and ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ proportions occurred just prior to our arrival. This served to temporarily expose vast areas of seabed, revealing tantalising glimpses of what lay still buried. Tantalising and eternally frustrating, for the team was hamstrung by my prior agreement with the Island Administrator HH Geoffrey Fairhurst, and the British Admiralty, owners of the wreck. These were to the effect that the wreck would be subject to to a non-disturbance search and survey, that precluded the removal of large quantities of sand from the site.

Though details will appear in my ensuing report, I present just a few insights from my report, for those interested.

16 March 2001;

‘After just under an hour of searching with Kimpton along the transit lines set on the beach, Lashmar descended and while swimming along the bottom he located  a bronze bell on the 9^th transit line, lying uncovered  but affixed to a cleft in rocks c. 90m from shore on a rock/sand seabed c. 4m deep. Indications were that it had only recently been exposed—with a distinct line on its surface indicating the high point of the latest sand movement around it. The search regime was then halted, with the team uniformly in disbelief.  For a while the ordered progression of the search was lost and a random swim of the immediate area was conducted. A short time later a heavily-concreted longboat grapnel was found concreted to a rock on an exposed rocky seabed. Then a large clam was found exposed  in a cleft in the reef on the seabed. It lay in the swell in shallower water c. 100 metres south of the bell to the south and c. 8 metres from shore.  The grapnel lay closer to the bell in slightly deeper water than the clam.

The location of the concreted grapnel near the shore and in such a configuration as to indicate that it’s rope was once tangled and that it was irretrievable when abandoned, was considered highly significant. The Captain’s Log of HMS Hastings  for 5 April 1701 reads as follows: 

Satterday 5.. Wind and Weath[er] Do [ditto]. In y afternoon came on board seven Of y Roebuck men at 10 at night got on board y Roebuck anchor being her small bower and fourtenn fath[om] of cable In giting of which o[ur] Longboat Lost her Grapnel 

  When Dampier’s accounts of his collecting shells while on the Australian coast were considered, the possibility that it was part of his collection became evident. In his account of events at Shark Bay that was published subsequent to his return to England after the loss of his ship, he wrote:

‘The Shore was lined thick with many sorts of very strange and beautiful Shells…. I brought away a great many of them; but lost all except a very few, and those not of the best’  .

 On the balance, the bell, the clam, the grapnel, the concreted ironwork and other debris, were sufficient as an assemblage, to conclude that the team had located the wreck-site of HM Ship Roebuck. 

From experience with similar situations, such as that at the remains of the Zuytdorp where objects such as cannons have been severely abraded, and in some cases totally destroyed, by similar forces, the author then advised the Administrator that, as the clam and bell were without a protective layer of concretion, they were in danger from both natural and human forces. Subsequently, Mr Fairhurst faxed the Admiralty advising them of the situation and then requested that the museum team remove the ‘at risk’ materials in association with the Ascension Island Dive Club. This was done, and on excavation, on the underside of the bell was a ‘broad arrow’ sign of British Government ownership, a further important clue..

Ceramics, also recovered from the site by Mr Jimmy Young, a St Helenan resident on Ascension Island for over 40 years, were then examined. He had found a blue and white ceramic lid and  an intact brown earthenware pot  near the clam site just a few weeks prior to our visit.  They were found to be consistent with Dampier’s time and travels, with Batavia (now present-day Jakarta) considered the most likely source.

As a matter of course and as agreed by the team before departure, the remains of HM Ship Roebuck at Long Beach were formally claimed by the team for the Royal Navy, Britain and Ascension Island, paving the way for their declaration as one of the world’s most significant and virtually untouched maritime archaeological sites.

In recommending that the site the site be afforded legal protection by the declaration of a restricted zone, it was requested that it be considered part of the joint maritime heritage of Britain , Ascension Island and the State of Western Australia.   It was also requested that the finds be exhibited to the satisfaction of the Royal Navy and the Ascension Island people and its Administration. Further, it was recommended that consideration also be given to travelling the materials to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, to Western Australia for exhibit at the Western Australian Maritime Museum, Shark Bay, Dampier and Broome. Finally, it was advised that consideration also needs be given to their travelling to the National Maritime Museum in Sydney, again if that was considered appropriate.

The full report on these events is presently with the various stakeholders in draft form and their reactions are awaited. Part of the purpose in presenting them at this forum is to highlight the ‘holistic’ approach that was taken in the search and survey operation.

The French Exploration corvette, L’ Uranie 

Again, and as with William Dampier, most maritime scholars were familiar with the French on these shores through the reprints of the explorer’s own accounts, through analytical academic tomes, and through early works such as Marnie Bassett’s Realms and Islands.

Most recently the seminal works of Leslie Marchant, whose France Australe set the scene for a broader understanding of the ‘French connection’ with these shores have proved of utmost importance. Adding further, to a rapidly developing body of knowledge, some fascinating personal details being provided by M.S. Riviere through his translation of Rose De Freycinet’s journal entitled ‘Woman of Courage’. As a result of this veritable renaissance, readers have recently been regaled withmore copiously illustrated works such as Terre Napoleon: Australia through French Eyes 1800-1804, Baudin in Australian Waters, : The artwork of the French voyage of discovery to the southern lands 1800-1804 and Napoleon, the Empress & the Artist: The story of Napoleon, Josephine’s garden at Malmaison, Redouté & the Australian Plants.  

In essence, the voyage of the French exploration corvette L’Uranie in the period 1817-1820 was the culmination of a series of French interest and explorations that begin with  the annexation of Western Australia for France by St Allouarn in 1772. It was followed by the ill fated la Perouse expedition and that of  d’Entrecasteux, who in 1791 landed scientists, botanists, a gardener, hydrographers and crew on the southern coast of what is now known as Australia,  taking many  natural science specimens, charting with great skill and naming many features along the southern coast from the Indian to the Pacific Oceans. These were followed in 1800 by a two-ship expedition under Nicolas Baudin with orders to continue the exploration of New Holland with an enhanced anthropological ethos resulting from the new era of liberty egality and fraternity of post revolutionary France. This voyage has been the subject of recent bicentennial celebrations across the State.

On board one of Baudin’s ships L’Naturaliste, commanded by J.F.E. Hamelin was the young  Sub-Lt Louis de Freycinet. He was also on board when an inscribed pewter plate was found in Shark Bay commemorating the landing of the Dutch explorers Dirk Hartog and Willem de Vlamingh in 1616 and 1697 respectively.  Hamelin had this, and a plate of his own, re-erected on the land, in a gesture reflecting modern trend towards the repatriation of cultural heritage, removed in those earlier times.

In performing his exploratory and mapping work admirably, de Freycinet was given command of a locally built schooner  Casuarina when L’Naturaliste was sent home with the expedition’s collections and works.  In continuing with Baudin, de Freycinet was a to complete many charts, including one of Shark Bay and the Dampier Archipelago. These and other artworks were recently exhibited in Perth as part of the bicentennial celebrations of the Baudin explorations.

The restoration of the monarchy and the return to peace after Waterloo resulted in further French  expeditions to south west Australia, the first by Louis de Freycinet in the corvette L’Uranie and subsequently those of Louis Duperry in 1822 and Hyacinthe de Bougainville in 1824. These were in the context of ‘specific plans to colonize western Australia, in order to realise the long held Bourbon dream of having a temperate base in the Indian Ocean to match British controlled south Africa’ (Marchant, 1998: 209). For a variety of reasons, no ‘Restoration Period’ French expedition landed on the south west coast, as intended, bar an accidental visit by  Dumont d’Urville who had actually been sent to  examine the suitability of establishing a French colony at New Zealand. He landed at  King George Sound in 1826  just before French interests in a proposed south west Australian penal colony were finally extinguished by British landings at King George Sound (Albany) in 1826 and at the Swan River (Fremantle) in 1829.

The DeFreycinet voyage

Jacques Arago, an artist on board, L’Uranie recorded that

The principal object of the expedition…was the investigation of the figure of the earth, and of the elements of terrestrial magnetism; several questions of meteorology had also been suggested by the Academy as worthy of attention. Although geography certainly formed but a secondary object in the voyage, it was natural to anticipate…[there would be] some valuable additions to the existing tables of latitude and longitude. Though no professed naturalist was attached to the expedition, our navigators undertook the task of collecting for the Museums (Arago, 1823:a).

What was not mentioned was the fact that in September 1817, the 22-year-old M. Rose de Freycinet  smuggled herself aboard her husband Louis’s new command, giving the voyage an illicit element.  These actions were to be the beginnings of one of France's great love stories—one that so captured the imagination of contemporary society and he was never censured by the French Navy despite initial official indignation once news of the tryst became known.

She, the artist Arago and her husband Louis, amongst others, also recorded the events that transpired on the exploratory voyage, including the recovery of the de Vlamingh plate, a near-disaster rounding Cape Horn on the way home, and their running ashore after striking a rock while attempting to reach Bougainville’s abandoned settlement in the Malouines (Falkland Islands).  The logs, diaries, letters and artworks also provide a record of their enforced stay in French (Uranie) Bay, their purchase of another vessel, the Mercury, renamed L’Physicienne and their return home to the inevitable court martial and national acclaim. Though they recovered some of the materials from the ship, which lay aground just offshore, most of the ship and much of its contents were lost. The accounts and artwork survive to document these events, however and Uranie appears depicted aground adjacent the camp, for example, though it soon broke up. Though the Museum team was taken to the camp of the survivors by local Falklands identity Dave Eynon, who first saw timbers in the water well over 30 years ago, these contemporary illustrations proved essential in the subsequent location of the main wrecksite and in an understanding of the survivor’s camp. 

Again it is not within the scope of this conference to detail these matters or to document the  vast amounts of support my team received in achieving the goal set at the Dampier Tricentennial in August 1999 to try an locate both HM Ship Roebuck and L’Uranie, for these details will appear in my ensuing report.

 It is pertinent to note in the context of the conference theme that, as a matter of course and as agreed by the team before departure, the remains of L’Uranie  would be formally claimed  by the team for Britain, for the Falkland Islands, and for France, paving the way for their declaration as a significant and virtually untouched maritime archaeological site. 

It is also useful at this juncture and again in the context of the conference theme to provide some insight into the assessment process that accompanies such reports. This appears below as the draft of my, as yet unfinished, assessment of the significance of the site(s).

Assessment of Site Significance

 (i)  Archaeological: Of its lost exploration ships L’Uranie is a representative of the post Napoleonic period, at a time when France still sought colonies on the Great South Land for its own purposes and partly as a foil to British intentions. The vessel itself provides tangible links to Louis de Freycinet one of the France’s recognised explorers and it carried materials collected from around the world as France and other European countries searched for knowledge about the Great Southland and for new dominions. The vessel is also linked to one of the great female voyagers and diarists of her time, Rose de Freycinet.

The wreck will also prove of significance and in regards to the collections de Freycinet and his people made on these shores.

 (ii) Technological: The wreck, its fittings and fixtures will provide useful information and insights into the French exploration ship of the time and the manner in which it was configured and prepared for its exploration voyage.

(iii) Scientific: Apart from the usual comparative studies, e.g. corrosion measurement, organics analyses, site formation studies, &c that are now part of most major shipwreck studies, the materials gathered on the deFreycinet’s voyage and subsequently lost in the sands of Uranie Bay and on its shores will prove of interest to many specialists. Examples are the fastenings that remain in abundance on the shore.

(iv) Educational: The wreck provides a focus on Rose and Louis de Freycinet, their travels, their journals, their story and on France’s plans in respect to Terre Napoleon and other stretches of Australian shores, that in other circumstances might well have seen the region colonised by France.

(v) Recreational: The area in which the wreck lies is remote and in being buried and on a relatively barren sand bottom, the site does not lend itself easily to recreational diving.

(vi) Cultural: The wreck is of great significance to Australia in respect of its links to the de Freycinet’s and for their role in recording their movements and observatons along the coast, for the mapping, and for removing and preserving the deVlamingh plate.  

 

Recommendations (Only one reproduced here, again as an example of the process)

#1 In  respect of the historic links this vessel has with Australia it is hoped that the France, and the Falkland Islands Government and its people would consider L’Uranie and its survivor’s camp as part of a shared maritime heritage and thereby involve Australia and the State of Western Australia in particular in all future management issues.

Selected Reading

Wreck Access & Outreach

Chapman, P., Wilkie, L.,  Strbac, S., (Work Experience) Green, B., & McCarthy, M., 1994), Access to Maritime Sites for People with Disabilities. Illustrated Information Pamphlet, WA Maritime Museum.

Cumming, D.A., Garratt, D. McCarthy, M. & Wolfe, A., (1995) Lighthouses on the Coast of Western Australia. Report - Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Maritime Museum, No. 100

Cumming, D.A., Garratt, D. McCarthy, M. & Wolfe, A., (1995) Port Related Structures on the Coast of Western Australia. Report - Department of Maritime Archaeology Western Australian Maritime Museum, No. 98

McCarthy, M., & Garratt, D. (1998) The Western Australian Maritime Museum Wreck Access and Outreach Program. Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, 22: 127-132.

Dampier

Bruce, & Duchess of Hamilton, J., The Flower Chain: The early discovery of Australian plants. Kangaroo Press, Sydney.

Dampier, W., A New Voyage Round the World: The Journal of an English Buccaneer. Hummingbird Press, London. First published by James Knapton, London, 1797. 1998.

Dampier, W., 1939, A Voyage to New Holland. The Argonaut Press, London.

George, A.S., 1999, William Dampier in New Holland: Australia’s First Natural Historian. Bloomings Books, Victoria.

Marchant, L.R., 1988. An Island unto Itself. William Dampier & New Holland. Hesperian Press, Perth.

Williamson, J. A., Ed., Dampier, W., 1939, A Voyage to New Holland. The Argonaut Press, London. Introduction

The de Freycinet’s

Arago, J., 1923, Narrative of a voyage around the world in the Uranie and Physicienne corvettes &c.  Treuttel and Wurtz, London.

Bassett, M., 1962, Realms and Islands: The world voyage of Rose de Freycinet (1817-1820). Oxford university Press, London.

Bonnemains, J., Forsyth, E.,& Smith, B., (eds.,)1988, Baudin in Australian Waters: The artwork of the French voyage of discovery to the southern lands 1800-1804. Melbourne , Oxford University Press.

Bruce, J  & Duchess of Hamilton, The Flower Chain: The early discovery of Australian plant. Kangaroo Press, Sydney.

Duchess of Hamilton, 1999,Napoleon, the Empress & the Artist: The story of Napoleon, Josephine’s garden at Malmaisn, Redouté & the Australian Plants. Kangaroo Press, Sydney.

Dunmore, J., 1969. French Explorers in the Pacific. Oxford, Clarendons Press.

Duyker, E & Duyker, M (ed & Trans.) Bruny d’Entrecasteaux Voyage to Australia & the Pacific 1791-1793, Melbourne University Press.

Horner, F., The Baudin Expedition to Australia 1800-1804.  In Bonnemains, J., Forsyth, E.,& Smith, B., (eds.,)1988, Baudin in Australian Waters: The artwork of the French voyage of discovery to the southern lands 1800-1804. Melbourne , Oxford University Press: 1-14.

Hunt., S and Carter P., 1999, Terre Napoléon. Australia through French Eyes. 1800-1804. Historic houses Trust of NSW, Sydney.

Marchant, L., France Australe: The French search for the Southland and subsequent explorations and plans to found a penal colony and strategic base in south western Australia. 1503-1826. Scott Four Colour Press, Perth

Playford, P, 1998, Voyage of Discovery to Terra Australia by Willem De Vlamingh in 1696-97, Western Australian Museum, Perth.

Riviére, M.S., 1996, A Woman of Courage: The journal of Rose de Freycinet on her voyage around the world 1817-1820. National Library of Australia. Canberra.

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