AMAZING FLINDERS DISCOVERY
THE remains of the first European to circumnavigate Australia, Captain Matthew Flinders, have been found during an archaeological dig at a London railway terminus more than 170 years after they disappeared.
The English navigator and cartographer’s coffin was found at the St James’s Burial Ground at Euston Station by archaeologists working on England’s High Speed 2 rail project. Capt Flinders is famous for sailing the HMS Investigator around Australia with Englishman George Bass and indigenous man Bungaree between July 1802 and May 1803.
That voyage proved to the Europeans that Australia was a single continent.
Capt Flinders is also widely credited with popularising the name Australia as well.
He died in 1814 but his headstone was removed from St James’s during the expansion of Euston Station and his remains were believed to be lost. Now archaeologists have identified Capt Flinders’ remains by a lead plate on top of his coffin.
“Given the number of human remains at St James’s, we weren’t confident that we were going to find him,” HS2 Head of Heritage Helen Wass said yesterday. “We were very lucky that Cpt Flinders had a breastplate made of lead.”
His remains will be reinterred at a new location.