Oceania, or the fifth part of the world

Ever wondered where the geographical term Oceania came from? In the eighteenth century, European explorers were busily charting all the island groups and working out exactly what continents there were – or weren’t – in the Pacific Ocean. By 1804, early French geographers Edme Mentelle (1730-1815) and Conrad Malte-Brun (1775-1826) coined the name Océanique as a label for what they called the ‘fifth part of the world’.

It was a part of the world that, once James Cook had worked out  there was no mysterious southern continent apart from Australia, in that scientific imperative to classify all things just had to be given a name. What had previously been referred to as an area of the globe called ‘Terres australes’, or the ’southern lands’, became Océanique.

In 1815, Adrien-Hubert Brué (1786-1832) in turn amended Océanique to Océanie, or, in English, ‘Oceania’. Meanwhile, the patchwork quilt of different Pacific Island cultures was still being worked out by Europeans. In 1832, the navigator-naturalist Dumont d’Urville (1790-1842) initiated the geographic and ethnographic distribution of the Pacific Islands and their inhabitants between Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia. Dumont d’Urville’s terminology became popular after it was formally adopted by the French Navy.

However the term Oceanie or Oceania was still a relatively obscure reference to the Pacific Islands and the Australian continent. It was to be cemented and popularised by French geographer Grégoire Louis Domeny de Rienzi (1789-1843). In 1836 Domeny de Rienzi published what was a highly derivative, but widely-read encyclopedia, Océanie ou cinquième partie du monde, or, Oceania or the Fifth Part of the World.

Domeny de Rienzi’s publication included scenes of the people, plants and animals of the various island cultures of Oceania. Australian scenes include what we would expect – strange animals such as the wombat and images of convicts. One image, in the museum’s collection, appears rather oddly in the series. It shows two deserted, shipwrecked sailors or matelots and their house built from the remnants of their ship.

Shipwrecked sailors on the Australian coast

Since its inception in 1804, Oceania has always been a somewhat awkward descriptor for the plethora of Pacific and Australasian cultures and environments. This tension can be seen in these mid-nineteenth century popular representations of the ‘fifth part of the world’ that portrayed dramatic tales of shipwrecks as part of the geography of Oceania.

 

A model tale

Model maker Richard Keyes recently donated to the museum a scale model of an early colonial Australian ship that saw many adventures in its comparatively short but very well traveled life. HMS Mermaid was a single masted, copper-sheathed, iron-fastened cutter of 84 tons. It was a small vessel at just 18 metres, but was to undertake several important survey voyages around the remote Australian north and western coastlines between 1817 and 1820. The passengers and crew aboard the Mermaid were an interesting array of early colonial figures that included inland explorers, botanists and artists, as well as an Aboriginal man from Broken Bay.

Richard Keyes model of the Mermaid

The first prominent person associated with the ship is Phillip Parker King (1791 – 1856), son of the Governor of NSW between 1800-1806, Philip Gidley King. Phillip Parker King was to become one of Australia’s greatest maritime surveyors. He had  entered the Royal Navy in England in 1807, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1814. In 1817 he was assigned to survey the parts of the Australian coast that had not previously been examined by Matthew Flinders. The Admiralty instructed King to discover whether there was any river ‘likely to lead to an interior navigation into this great continent’. The Colonial Office had also given instructions to collect information about topography, fauna, timber, minerals, climate, as well as ‘information on the natives and the prospects of developing trade with them’.

After arriving in the colony, King made four voyages between December 1817 and April 1822. The first three were in the Mermaid which had been purchased by the Royal Navy for his surveying expeditions. Among the 19-man crew were the botanist Allan Cunningham and Bungaree, an Aboriginal man from the Broken Bay area.

Bungaree had come to prominence in 1798, when he accompanied Matthew Flinders on a coastal survey as an interpreter, guide and negotiator with local Indigenous people. He also accompanied Flinders on his circumnavigation of Australia between 1801 and 1803. Flinders noted that Bungaree was ‘a worthy and brave fellow’ who, on more than one occasion, saved the expedition. After his survey and exploration expeditions, the well traveled and respected Bungaree remained a prominent Aboriginal person in Sydney society for many years.

The Mermaid was built of Indian teak in Calcutta in 1816 and after a re-fit for the expedition, sailed from Port Jackson on the 21st of December 1817, surveying Twofold Bay, King George Sound and Exmouth Gulf. From Port Walcott the survey party went to the north coast of Arnhem Land and explored it westward from Goulburn Island and the King River, around the Cobourg Peninsula and into Van Diemen’s Gulf as far as the West Alligator River.

The Mermaid then visited Melville and Bathurst Islands, called at Timor and the Montebello Islands, and returned to Sydney Cove on 29 July 1818. During this voyage the botanist Cunningham collected over 300 specimens, including several species from Arnhem Land that were new to the Europeans. The crew had many encounters with Aboriginal people and Malaysian fishermen.

In December 1818 and January 1819 King surveyed the recently discovered Macquarie Harbour in Van Diemen’s Land and sailed in May for Torres Strait. King took the explorer John Oxley as far as the Hastings River, and continued on to survey the coast between Cape Wessel and Admiralty Gulf. The Mermaid returned to Sydney on 12 January 1820.

The vessel had proven to be a most capable coastal survey ship and began a third voyage of exploration in July 1820, with Cunningham the botanist again on board. It was King’s intention to proceed with all speed along the east coast as before, to the north-west coast. However on the 20th July, while standing in at Port Bowen on the north-eastern coast, the Mermaid ‘took the ground’ and remained fast. With great effort by the crew, the ship was warped off into deeper water, where it was found that ’she had received considerable injury’.

The ship was repaired and continued the voyage, however after constantly taking in water, King decided to return to Sydney. In a dramatic scene – immortalised in a painting by Conrad Martens – the leaky Mermaid was caught in a storm just short of Sydney, and after hitting a rock, limped in to the safety of Botany Bay, rounding Banks Headland during flashes of lightning.

On King’s next voyage to the ‘unknown north west coast’ in 1821, he was forced to use a new ship, the Bathurst. Yet the battered and bruised Mermaid lived on, and was taken over by the colonial government and re-fitted for John Oxley’s surveys of Moreton Bay, Brisbane and the Tweed Rivers. It was later used to supply penal colonies at Port Macquarie, Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay, and made voyages to Van Dieman’s Land, New Zealand, and even Tahiti and Hawaii.

In 1829 the hard worked Mermaid was converted into an armed, two-masted schooner. Under Captain Samuel Nolbrow, it was en route to Port Raffles on the northern coast and then Albany in Western Australia, when Nolbrow decided to risk the inshore route through the Great Barrier Reef. The Mermaid’s interesting career soon ended on a coral reef.

The wreck was re-discovered by an underwater archaeology team led by the Australian National Maritime Museum in early 2009. Richard Keyes’ model of the ship, donated at the exciting time of the discovery of the wreck, is a testament to the well traveled and hard worked cutter and the fascinating people associated with the Mermaid.

 

A khaki Navy jacket?

Jim Varley's khaki US dress jacket now on display at the museum

In the coming weeks there will be a new addition to the Navy Gallery – an officers jacket from the Vietnam War period. But this jacket is somewhat unusual. It is not the familiar Naval white or blue, but khaki coloured.

The jacket belonged to Commander Robert James – or ‘Jim’ as he preferred to be called – Varley. Varley joined the RAN in 1953 and by 1963 had been promoted to Lieutenant and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering – just at the time the RAN were beginning to purchase a series of ships with new and more complex electronic systems.

These so-called DDG’s were guided missile destroyers. In the late 1950s the Australian Navy had commenced looking into its first purchase of this capability. Perhaps surprisingly,  considering Australia’s growing involvement with the United States Navy ever since the Great White Fleet visit of 1908, right up to the 1960s the RAN had never purchased any ship design other than British.

It was not without some interest in Naval circles, and yet another sign of the increasingly close political and military relations between Australia and the United States at this time, that the decision was made to purchase Australia’s first non-British designed warship.

From 1962 three modified Charles F. Adams class guided missile destroyers were ordered from the Defoe Shipbuilding Company in the USA. The Perth, Hobart and Brisbane were commissioned between 1965 and 1967. They were designated for Australia as the Perth Class of destroyer and were to serve the RAN well, right up to 2001 when they were finally decommissioned.

All three warships were deployed in the Vietnam War as part of the United States Seventh Fleet, providing air defence and coastal fire support. The Perth and Hobart were awarded decorations for their service by the United States.

In the early 1960s, Lieutenant Varley was among increasing numbers of Australian naval officers being sent to the US for training courses on these new destroyers. Whilst on shore in the US, Australian officers were required to wear United States dress jackets, which were khaki. Like many other officers on arrival in the US, Varley duly purchased his American jacket and proceeded to put his Australian Lieutenant’s insignia on to the jacket shoulders.

Of course the American manufactured jackets did not fit the Australian style of shoulder boards and Varley had to have holes punched in the jacket shoulders for what the American tailor noted on the inside of his coat as ‘big boards’.

Although not an Australian issued article of uniform, Varley’s khaki jacket represents an important shift in Australian Naval policy and armament during the Vietnam War and an interesting example of often forgotten ‘variations’ of Australian uniforms.

 

Navigating without instruments

A model of a sailing canoe collected by David Lewis in 1969

 

Many objects have fascinating stories and interesting people associated with them that we often don’t get a chance to talk about in detail. None more so than a group of five model canoes and outriggers from various Pacific Islands that I have recently been researching for the museum’s collection.
 
One is a Kapingamarangi canoe, from the Federated States of Micronesia. There is a Poluwot wa, from the Caroline Islands, a Te Puke from the Solomon Islands, a Kiribati from Nikunau and a Ninigo from Papua New Guinea – all collected in 1969. The fifth model is a Hawaiian canoe, collected in 1976.

All the models were constructed by indigenous Pacific Islander boat builders and navigators. In 1969, four were given to David Lewis and his son Barry as part of David’s research into Indigenous ocean voyaging and navigational methods. Lewis wanted to find out how people could wayfind long distances across the Pacific Ocean without modern navigational instruments.

David Lewis (1917-2002) was a most interesting character. An adventurous New Zealander, in 1960 and with little preparation, Lewis entered the first single-handed trans-Atlantic yacht race. He had long been interested in the navigation methods of historical Polynesian migrations across the Pacific. In 1964 he began to investigate how these voyages over the horizon may have been performed, and he successfully sailed from Tahiti to New Zealand without using a compass, sextant or chronometer.

Ever since the early European voyagers arrived in the Pacific in the 18th century there has been many theories about how the Pacific Islands were peopled. Sailors had long wondered at how islanders could navigate their sailing canoes so well without instruments. David Lewis decided to seek out some navigators and learn from them, rather than speculate about them.

Lewis went to an island in Micronesia that he had heard still made canoe voyages without modern instruments and asked to be taught their navigational lore. He spent several years during the late 1960s visiting other islands and seeking out traditional methods – which most people had assumed had been superseded by modern navigational technologies.

Lewis was accepted as a student by several indigenous navigators and he learnt about nautical almanacs of celestial navigation that were memorised and handed down orally. His work has been considered an important anthropological study. He recorded and published his research in his widely read and highly regarded We, The Navigators in 1972 and The Voyaging Stars in 1978.

Lewis generated further interest among scholars of the Pacific about the history of oceanic migration. He was also instrumental in a revival of traditional boat building skills and navigational lore in many islands across the Pacific. He formed an early part of the growing trend of re-creating historic vessels and re-tracing voyages. He  inspired further ‘experimental archaeology’ across the region, including the Polynesian Voyaging Society, who in 1976 recreated the first dedicated voyaging canoe to be built in the Hawaiian Islands in over 600 years – the Hokulea – and successfully sailed to Tahiti with a Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug, using no instruments.

David Lewis went on to single-handedly circumnavigate Antarctica and published another bestselling book about his adventures attempting this feat, called Ice Bird.
He continued to be associated with Antarctica and in 1975 set up the Oceanic Research Foundation and worked with businessman/adventurer Dick Smith in scientific exploration in the area. Lewis was an extraordinary sailor, anthropologist, author and adventurer.

 

A French connection to James Cook

A Map of the coast of Newfoundland after James Cook and Michael Lane by J N Bellin, Paris, 1784.

 

I’ve recently been putting some information together for the museum’s website on a series of charts in the museum’s collection that were made by James Cook and Michael Lane between 1763 and 1768. Interestingly, these maps are all in French.

Cook is famous for leading three voyages of exploration between 1768 and 1779, and for his charts and surveys made on these voyages. But not so well known are his earlier charts of British and French possessions in the northwest Atlantic around Newfoundland and Canada. These charts were to bring his skills to the attention of the Admiralty and put him in a very good position to take command of the Endeavour in 1768.

In fact the charts were so good, even the French copied them. The French and British had been competing for possession of Canada and Newfoundland, with its rich fishing grounds, since the 1600s. When the Seven Years War broke out in 1756, James Cook saw the opportunity to advance his career in the Navy and arrived at Halifax in Nova Scotia in 1758 as Master on the fourth rate HMS PEMBROKE. He took part in the blockade of Louisbourg and gained instruction in surveying and chart making from an army engineer Captain Samuel Holland, who later became Surveyor General of Quebec.

In 1759 Cook was awarded a special payment of 50 pounds for his charting of the notoriously treacherous section of the St Lawrence River called The Traverse, by which the British were able to gain passage to, and successfully assault, the fortified town of Quebec.

Cook’s talents as a surveyor and mapmaker came to the notice of Admiral Saunders and Cook was transferred to the NORTHUMBERLAND. In 1762 he surveyed the coastline around St John’s, the capital of Newfoundland. He returned to England at the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, where Saunders arranged for Cook’s charts to be published. The Treaty of Paris saw the French lose all claims to mainland Canada, but given possession of the tiny islands of St Pierre and Miquelon, off Newfoundland. Cook was appointed ‘Surveyor in Newfoundland’ and tasked to survey the two islands before they were returned to French control.

Transferred to the TWEED with Captain Douglas, Cook completed accurate surveys in the remarkably quick time of less than two months. The British Admiralty realised the importance of having accurate charts of these difficult to navigate but strategically important coastlines and between 1763 and 1767 Cook continued to survey the coast of Newfoundland during the summer periods, returning to Britain for the winters to complete the charts for publication.

Cook’s Newfoundland surveys are famous for their accuracy and detail. His charts of the so-called ‘infinite mass of indentations, bays and harbours’ in the Gulf of St Lawrence and eastern Canada region have been regarded as the finest surveys and charts of his career.

During his surveying, Cook had recorded an eclipse of the sun and sent a paper on the event to the Royal Society. Along with his charts, Cook’s observations brought him to the notice of both the Royal Society and the Admiralty, who had combined in planning a scientific and exploratory expedition to the Pacific Ocean.

Cook’s Newfoundland charts were published in various countries for many years afterwards. A collection appeared in England in 1769 and then in the North-American Pilot in 1775. Even the French used Cook’s highly regarded maps, rather than draw their own. The museum has a copy of a folio of eleven charts published in France in 1784. It contains eight charts attributed to James Cook and Michael Lane (master’s mate and assistant surveyor to Cook in 1767-8) of the GRENVILLE between 1763-7.

Surviving French versions of the Newfoundland charts are rare, and it is interesting to see in the museum’s copy of ‘Newfoundland, St Pierre, Miquelon – 1763-1782’, Cook’s amazing handiwork translated into French.

 

Museum acquires historical treasures from Cook voyage

Exciting news! The museum announced today that it has acquired three amazing historical treasures from James Cook’s second Pacific voyage.

The three artefacts – two carved wooden clubs and a rounded hand club made of whalebone – were collected from Polynesian communities during Cook’s 1772-1775 exploration of the Pacific, giving them a direct link to the great explorer.

They are also significant because of their association with the Polynesian Omai who joined the expedition and became the first Pacific Islander to be taken to England.

There were two ships travelling together on the voyage – HMS Resolution (commanded by Cook) and HMS Adventure (commanded by Tobias Furneaux). Omai joined Furneaux on the Adventure and they became close friends.

He accompanied Cook and Furneaux when they landed at Tangatapu (Tonga) in October 1773 and was there when the two wooden clubs were gifted by the islanders to the commanders.

In December of that year, Furneaux received the whalebone hand club when the expedition visited Queens Charlotte Sound in New Zealand.

On arriving back in England at the end of the expedition, Furneaux took Omai to his home at Swilly, near Plymouth, to meet his family. He also took great pleasure in bringing home with him his South Seas treasures. The three clubs, now widely known as the Omai relics, remained in the Furneaux family collection until 1986 when they were sold.

The museum purchased the clubs from a private vendor for $622,750 with funding assistance from the Australian Government’s National Cultural Heritage Account of $100,000.

Curator Dr Nigel Erskine examines the Omai relics

But what makes these objects particularly significant is their unquestionable provenance. It is extremely rare for objects dating back to this era to remain in private ownership.

We’re delighted these objects are now part of the National Maritime Collection, adding to our existing collections relating to Cook and the European exploration of the Pacific. They will be going on display in the museum in time for the Christmas holiday season.

For more information visit our Newsroom.

 

Wooden ice skates reveal fascinating tale

When 13 year-old Rob Davids migrated to Australia from Holland almost 60 years ago, he didn’t realise his most treasured possession -  a pair of 1930s wooden ice skates  – would come to symbolise his expectations and misconceptions about the new country he would call home.

These skates are on display in the museum’s New Acquisitions Case and help tell a fascinating story of persecution, exile, dislocation, lost hopes and new beginnings.

 

Project Wrap Up

A year’s passed and I’ve finally finished researching and re-cataloguing the museum’s collection of maritime small arms and accessories. All up, I’ve looked at nearly fifty guns, swords, knives and pikes, as well as one walking-stick rumoured to house a sword. Sadly, it turned out to be a simple cane, and thus fell outside my brief.

I’m now entering my research results into “The Museum System,” the museum’s central database where information on an object’s provenance, condition, storage location and so on are collated. Once the data has received a stamp of approval from the curatorial team, it will be available to the public through our e-museum.

When I started out the project, a historian friend of mine (who clearly spends too much time shrouded in documents) joked that objects are boring and only significant for three reasons: 1. they’re rare 2. they’re typical, or 3. they belonged to someone important. He’s kind of right, but I’d argue that the way these three factors intersect makes objects interesting and insightful, and a valuable supplement to written material.

In my research I’ve tried to explore the stories behind the objects, and see how they might illustrate some important themes.

One major focus area of the museum is the strong maritime links between Australia and the United States, celebrated in the museum’s USA Gallery.

It’s easy to forget what cosmopolitan places the colonies were, especially in the heady years of the gold rushes. And as people traversed from place to place, they brought their sidearms with them for personal protection. The frontiers of our settlements were not so very different from the fabled ‘Wild West’ of the United States.

One pistol held by the collection—and yes, the story of its owner—brought home how close the Australian colonies and America were in the nineteenth century. It is a flintlock ‘coach’ pistol produced by J. Harding, a London manufacturer active between 1815 and 1840. For stylistic reasons I suspect this pistol was produced in the late 1830s. Harding manufactured similar pistols for use by Her Majesty’s Coach Service and three examples are held in the British Post Museum and Archive.

Flintlock Coach Pistol owned by Francis Deane (ANMM 00008294).

This particular pistol, however, was for civilian use, and is believed to have belonged to Francis Williams Deane, an American sailor who travelled between the gold-rushes in California and Victoria in the mid-nineteenth century. The museum holds a number of objects associated with Deane, including a daguerreotype portrait, and his naturalization, death and marriage certificates.

Daguerreotype of Francis Williams Deane (ANMM 00008367).

Deane was born around 1820 in Raynham, Massachusetts. After travelling to the Californian rushes in 1848, Deane came to Sydney as master of the Bark Milwood. The following year, Deane returned to America to join the ‘forty-niners’ on the Yuma diggings in Arizona.

Diggings in Arizona and California were reputed to be fairly safe places for new immigrants, but around the time Deane arrived, a number of arrivals from the south had been causing trouble. One local miner explained there was an influx “of the worst element in the world, chiefly from Sydney and other Pacific Ocean ports… this matter seriously changed and endangered current affairs in California.” In response to a string of thefts in 1851, locals in San Francisco rose up and formed the famous “Committee of Vigilance Committee,” several hundred strong. In a flurry of activity, the Vigilantes hung 4 Australians, and drove several dozen others from California.

The execution of John Jenkins, “an ex-convict from Sydney”. Held at the Californian Military Museum.

Deane was not Australian, but, perhaps due to his earlier Antipodean sojourn, is rumoured to have fled town “a pier jump ahead” of the Vigilantes. He departed (permanently) for Victoria, and it is tempting to wonder whether he armed himself with this pistol for protection.

Deane was naturalised in 1854 in Williamstown, Victoria, a place known for its strong maritime community. On his naturalization certificate he was described as “a master mariner who arrived from the US on board the Mary & Ellen and who intends to purchase land and establish himself in the said colony.”

Deane married a local, but never abandoned his ‘Yankee’ ways. According to a district historian, “Captain Deane called his home Yosemite… it was his habit to ride round the streets of Williamstown on a small skewbald pony, complete with Mexican saddle and savagely rowelled spurs. A heaving line [lasso] was coiled on the pommel like a lariat, and jammed on the head of the pilot would be his shiny stovepipe hat.” Deane died in 1898.

Deane’s single-shot, muzzle loading coach pistol seems small and awkward in comparison to a second pistol associated with both Americans and the Victorian gold rushes. It is a Colt Second Model Dragoon Revolver, which fired six shots and was known for its large bore and great stopping power. Colt revolvers were popular amongst civilians and soldiers because of their unique (at the time) double-action firing mechanism. Previous mechanisms required the shooter to manually ‘cock’ the pistol before firing the trigger. The ‘double action’ cocked and fired the pistol simply by pulling the trigger, which significantly increased the gun’s rate of fire.

Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company was established in Hartford, Connecticut in 1847. It’s initial focus was on the production of revolvers for use in the Mexican-American War of 1846 – 1848, but it soon expanded its operations. Three models of the Colt revolver were manufactured, with the second model being made between 1850 and 1851. Approximately 2550 of these were produced, making them the least common of the three. This pistol’s serial number- 9253- indicates that it was manufactured in 1850.

Colt Second Model Dragoon Revolver (ANMM 00029485).

According to its previous owners, the pistol was “found in pieces under the dirt floor of a shed in Ballarat.” There is a chance- admittedly a small one- that it was used in the miner’s uprising at the Eureka Stockade in 1854.

The uprising began in response to the high price of mining licenses and the uncertain returns of digging. Some miners equated the purchase of licences with taxation, and argued that gold diggers were being subjected to taxation without representation.

In October 1854 the murder of a Scottish miner by a local hotelkeeper led to increasing civil unrest, which culminated with the formation of the Ballarat Reform League in November. Among other things, the League demanded the removal of the licence system, and manhood suffrage. On the 3rd of December, after a tense stand-off, miners and government troops clashed at a hill occupied by the League. A subsequent commission determined that 22 miners were killed, and at least twelve more were wounded. Other accounts put the figure as high as 27.

Troops and miners clash at the stockade. The miner in the blue trousers appears to be wielding a Colt. State Library of NSW SSV2B/Ball/7.

Because of the Reform League’s demand for universal male suffrage, the uprising at Eureka has sometimes been described as the “birthplace of Australian democracy.” This Australian claim makes it is easy to forget what an international endeavour the uprising was. The thirteen miners were charged with treason in the uprising’s aftermath included Irishmen. Scots, an Italian, and a Jamaican. The first of the thirteen tried, John Joseph, was an African American who hade come from New York. As with the other twelve, Joseph was acquitted. His defence, however, held a unique racial element: the defence argued it was impossible for “a simple nigger” to oppose Her Majesty the Queen.

Joseph was not the only American involved. The prominent American businessman George Francis Train, who was based in Melbourne, had imported a consignment of Colt revolvers to the colony. They sold well, and when tensions arose in Ballarat, miners sent a request for Train to forward a further stock of Colts, on loan, to the diggings. Train refused to help, and, ever the entrepreneur, proceeded to lease six wagons to transport government troops and supplies to Ballarat.

Despite Train’s tardiness, a group of up to 200 American miners based in Ballarat organised themselves into the “Independent California Rangers Revolver Brigade.” Rafaello Carboni, an Italian who described events at the stockade, noted members of the Brigade were armed “with a Colt’s revolver of large size, and many had a Mexican knife at the hip.” The Brigade missed the skirmish, having left the stockade the previous evening in an attempt to intercept government reinforcements (incorrectly) rumoured to be en-route to Ballarat.

 

Like Poncho, Like Pimple

 After watching the rebellion of James T. Kirk in the recently released epic film Star Trek I got to thinking about the pressure of following in the footsteps of one’s parents, especially a parent like George Kirk, who in an alternate reality, served as captain of the Kelvin for a mere 12 minutes yet saved over 800 souls. Don’t stop reading- I promise to not reference Star Trek again in this blog. The idea I am trying to introduce here is the desire to continue one’s family legacy and birthright through an occupation. Consider this; a legitimate reason for enlisting in the armed services today is to consolidate and continue the family tradition. Like father, like son, as the old adage goes.  Wandering around the Australian National Maritime Museum I saw this paradigm play out in front of my eyes via an exhibit on display. Yes, that’s right. You’ve guessed it. Sons and grandsons carrying on the naval tradition as clown entertainers onboard passenger liners.

Doubling as a theatre duo and husband and wife, Harold Tanner and Marcelle Rose boarded ships using the stage names of Poncho and Bubbles.  The exhibit label informs the audience that Poncho was always interested in clowns and magic and his father performed as a clown under the nom de plume Poncho also. The exhibit included an array of paraphernalia such as posters and performance memorablia, not limited to a rubber chicken. 

In 1961 the couple bore a son, Clive, and at six years of age he developed an alter ego; Pimple. We have all heard of stage parents, but isn’t this taking it a little too far? At the age of fifteen Cli…ergh Pimple began to perform on passenger ships with his parents. The tradition did not stop with that little facial spot; Poncho and Bubbles also have two performing grandchildren- Freckle and Dimple. 

Sadly Poncho passed away in April of 2000 but Bubbles still performs. I decided to test this out and to my surprise I found a website offering the services of the novelty clowns Poncho, Bubbles and Pimple.   This is indicative of a successful career spanning over fifty years.

Krusty the Klown eat your heart out.

 

The Maritime as a collection of curiosities

As a volunteer intern at the Australian National Maritime Museum it has come to my attention that museum personnel are inherently just as fascinating and enigmatic as the objects which are kept and displayed in the exhibits.   In my quest to find a suitable artifact in the Maritime to be the focus of this blog, I encountered an entertaining and unsuspecting specimen in the form of a security guard. He has often regaled me with comical anecdotes as I’ve passed him on my way to lunch from time to time and as such I was pleasantly surprised to find a familiar face wandering around the galleries. My questions about any ‘curious’ objects left him pondering for a moment or two before he proceeded to detail to me a rumour he had heard concerning a display statue outside the ‘Passengers’ exhibit. The statue is a depiction of a young boy seated amongst travel baggage grasping a teddy bear.   

Museum labels inform me that children were commonly passengers on sea vessels. They travelled via ship to Australia with their families, at times to grasp the new working opportunities the country had to offer, other times to seek refuge. Children were also known to travel on their own, as part of the British scheme to populate the newly colonized country.    

 The security guard divulges to me that two former security guards of the museum swore they saw the spirit of the child walking along the platform adjacent to where the statue is situated. Night at the Museum eat your heart out. They have not since returned to the museum, he adds for further emphasis. Distinctive of many urban legends, a precise date is not specified and the witnesses of the specter are not identified by name.

 He does not cease there. On his first 3am shift following the revelation of what transpired in the after hours of the museum, the elevator proceeded to run on its own. No buttons were pressed and no one else was in the building. Upon being asked if he was ‘spooked out’ he chuckled and reported the elevator had been known for working in mysterious ways for some time.

 Thanking him for his input and preparing to move on he appeared to have had an epiphany; his eyes became focused as he insisted that he show me the wild animals that secretly frequent the museum. He explained that he is about to tell me the story he tells the adolescent patrons of the museum. I am led to a gallery with a large, wharf crane holding wooden crates in suspension by a roped net. This crane is characteristic of the ones used to move catches of fish along the Victorian coastline during the early 20^th century. I am instructed to stand directly beneath it.  I do as I am told.

 “Now look to your left.”

Adjacent to the crane, atop more wooden crates and ropes is a small rat. The guard explains that once a person is standing right underneath the target, Mr. Rat gnaws at the rope in the hope of breaking free the cargo. However this is not a one rat job. He has an accomplice, in the form of a small pigeon that is perched on the other side of the exhibit, a la Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven. He acts as a scout and helps finish off the job by flying about the undoubtedly dazed victim.

I am told that in the beginning there was also a mouse involved. Must’ve been quite a trick- some trio. I suggest possibly it was the mouse that enticed the unsuspecting victim under the trap. My input delighted the security guard and he agreed that it was indeed plausible. Unfortunately however the mouse went missing, although I promised to keep an eye out for him during my wanderings through the museum.

 The exchange ended with him recounting a talk he had in 2008 with young pilgrims who were visitors to the museum during World Youth Week. Seeing the Southern Cross portrayed on the ceiling along with the other constellations they exclaimed that they were in a blessed place. I put it to you that they were quite correct. The Australian National Maritime Museum is indeed fortunate to employ such animated staff, like my friend the security guard, with a fervency to evoke the imaginations of the patrons with the products and the vividness of his own. He, and others like him, are valuable contributions to the aura of the museum.

 

Walking back to the office in Wharf7 I glance at the artefacts on exhibit in the Sydney Heritage Fleet Artefact Store, opposite the Conservatory Laboratory. What do you know? There is a little mouse in the display. 

 

Funny that. I’ve never taken much notice of him before.

Melissa Grima