The man who remade Australia

They don’t make adventurers like the extraordinary navigator Matthew Flinders any more, explains Peter Martin

IWAS very pleased to hear the news of the discovery of Matthew Flinders’ lead breastplate, identifying his grave at the St James Burial Ground under Euston Street Station in London.

I was touched by the interest in his story, a maritime story, back here in Australia. As I speak about him during lectures, finding his remains resonates with me. I feel a mariner’s connection because of my own navigation and hydrographic surveying training and experience in the Royal Australian Navy. Here we were taught to use a raft of non-electronic instruments for rudimentary surveys. They included sounding sextants and three arm station pointers; simple instruments Flinders would have used. We also needed an intimate knowledge of the magnetic compass, an instrument Flinders had done so much work on to identify and correct the effects of magnetism in ships. Like Flinders, I discovered the effect of iron placed too close to the magnetic compass when the ship’s gunnery officer decided to locate his Bridge Lookout Rifle and ammunition right next to the magnetic compass. Gunnery officers: a perennial threat in jest to both navigators and a ship’s compass, be it in a ship of-the-line of Nelson’s time or a modern-day naval frigate.

I was privileged to visit St Mary’s church in Donnington UK with a fellow master mariner and captain of Cunard and Princess Cruise ships. A small display in the corner of the church caught our eye. It was all about Flinders. He grew up in Donnington. Absorbed in detail of Flinders’ adventures, we did not notice a flurry of activity by the church ladies to find the display’s curator. Curator Allan James spoke of a maritime explorer who had achieved so much, far from this English village and the church where many of his family were laid to rest. We drifted through St Mary’s cemetery to the curator’s home where more of Flinders’ story was revealed. Even in death (July 18, 1814, at just 40), a day after his work A Voyage to Terra Australis was published, the story advanced through time.

The colony’s fifth Governor of NSW, Major General Lachlan Macquarie, endorsed Flinders’ suggestion of a name for the continent. Flinders’ endeavour in 1802-03 to circumnavigate the continent determined it was a land mass undivided by sea or river. So Flinders’ suggested name, Terra Australis or Australia, would become Australia, as approved by the British government in 1824.

We were told by Mr James of another Australian story. After little more than an hour’s travel to another small village, we stood before a sandstone etched script in St Denny’s Church, Aswarby. This script proudly marked the life of a naval surgeon and explorer — George Bass. While

their villages were close, Flinders and Bass did not meet until their adventures united them on the HMS Reliance voyage to Sydney in 1795. Bass and Flinders would go on to sail the eastern seaboard of NSW in Tom Thumb I and Tom Thumb II, both little more than the size of a dinghy. On a separate voyage, Bass sailed from Sydney in a whaleboat to work his way down the coast to Western Port, Victoria. He had pressed far enough west in those unnamed and uncharted waters to get a sense that the long southwest swell could only be accommodated by a strait separating Van Diemens Land from the mainland. That Strait would ultimately be named by Flinders after his friend Bass — Bass’s Straits, later renamed Bass Strait. At Governor Hunter’s insistence, in 1798 Bass and Flinders’ spirit of adventure brought them together again, this time in the sloop Norfolk to circumnavigate Van Diemens Land. In February 1803 Bass sailed on a commercial venture from Sydney, shaping course east for Tahiti and Chile. He and his crew were never seen again.

Equally inspirational was French maritime explorer Nicolas Baudin. Baudin, commanding Le Geographe, and Flinders, commanding the Investigator, met at Encounter Bay (South Australia) near the mouth of the Murray River on April 8, 1802. Flinders was en route from England to Sydney. He pressed east from the western edge of New Holland (Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia) to survey the south coast of Terra Australis. Baudin had departed Sydney to survey westbound along the south coast then north to revisit the west coast of Terra Australis. Both were in pursuit of their national interests, to chart the unknown coast of Terra Australis. Baudin’s work has only recently been published in English (2006). His savant, Francois Peron, one of three of the expedition’s zoologists, survived the captain and was tasked to write up the history of the voyage. Baudin’s exploration and Peron’s botanical collection is at least as significant as that of Cook and Joseph Banks.

Baudin was one of five French captains to lose their lives in the quest to find the Great Southern Land; he died in Mauritius in September 1803 during the return passage to France.

Much is made of Flinders’ circumnavigation of Australia in 1802-03 in the Investigator. For that voyage most of the coast west of Darwin would not have been sighted because he was well seaward for a sprint, with an ill crew and rotting ship, from Timor to Sydney via the Southern Ocean. It could be argued that in 1642 Abel Tasman was the first to circumnavigate Australia — Batavia to Batavia via the Southern Ocean, Van Diemens Land, which he claimed for the Dutch and named after the Governor- General of the Dutch East Indies (Antonio van Diemen), New Zealand and New Guinea. In this case he did not see mainland Australia but still circumnavigated it! The combination of Dutch, French and English interest in Van Diemens Land provides rich text for cultural depth in the Tasmanian historical narrative.

While Flinders’ navigation and hydrographic abilities were extraordinary, it was his spirit of adventure as a young man that must have stood out and shines through as an inspiration today. Flinders and Bass were an extraordinary team. It’s hard to imagine doing the work they did on the exposed coasts of NSW and Van Diemens Land, in very small vessels with limited creature comforts. They took risks, then, that are not part of our community fabric, now, which makes their achievements seem even more

extraordinary. Perhaps Flinders had a strong belief in God and through that, himself — something characteristic of Nelson and the period when he inspired the English, and still does. While Flinders may not warrant a spire in Trafalgar Square, it would be splendid if he were to be interned forever in Westminster Abbey to be with the spirits of many of England’s notables. While his significant work was achieved in the antipodes, the colony, his youthful spirit and energy was characteristic of the English seafaring adventurer, like Dampier, Cook and Bligh before him. And that should be celebrated and enshrined.

Captain Peter Martin is a mariner, maritime historian and navigation expert. Peter has a Masters degree and PhD candidacy in strategic maritime issues and his career includes Command and more than 40 years as a navigation specialist. He sailed as navigator in the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race and serves on the Royal Hobart Yacht Club Board. He sailed the Round the World Clipper and worked for the 2017 America’s Cup Event Authority in Bermuda. His travels include a diplomatic posting to Malaysia. He now lives in Hobart.