The Bribie Islander

By Barry Clark, Bribie Island Historical Society

A memorable day for the indigenous Joondooburri people of Bribie, 211 years ago, when they first saw a Sailing Ship coming to their island. The year was 1799. Some elders may have had memories or heard stories, of seeing a big boat way out to sea, 29 years earlier, when James Cook sailed past this coast in 1770.

The first fleet had arrived in Sydney in 1788, to establish a new Penal Colony. Small areas around Sydney were explored and farmed, but nothing much else was known of this vast land. It was thought that big rivers might flow from a vast inland sea, and young Matthew Flinders, aged 25, was sent north to explore bays and find rivers.

FLINDERS TO BRIBIE

Aboard the sloop, Norfolk, built by Convicts on Norfolk Island, Flinders and a small crew, including his brother, and an Aboriginal named Bongaree, sailed into Moreton Bay in July 1799.

On July 16th the first white footprint was made in the sand of Bribie Island, near the site of today’s Seaside Museum, where a commemorative stone and plaque can be seen. Hardly noticed these days, but it is Queensland’s equivalent of Australia Day.

Two engraved plates show Flinders’ face, and the Map he drew of Moreton Bay. The words on the plaque read;

Flinders sailed all around Moreton Bay, charted the islands, but failed to find the Brisbane River. He beached the Norfolk for repairs at White Patch, rowed up what he called the Pumicestone River, and climbed a Glasshouse Mountain. Flinders did not know that Bribie was an island, and nobody at that stage even knew that Australia was a huge island continent.

FLINDERS THE EXPLORER

Flinders had come to Australia, aged 21 in 1795, and circumnavigated Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) in a small boat with George Bass. Flinders was a great cartographer and navigator and in 1803 became the first to sail right round, and map, the land previously named New Holland by early Dutch explorers. Flinders confirmed it was a huge island Continent, to which he gave the name TERRA AUSTRALIS, in a book about his journeys. Years later the name AUSTRALIA was officially adopted as the name for this continent.

Flinders took his cat TRIM with him on all of his travels. They travelled together for many years until dramatically interrupted when sailing back to England. Arriving on the island of Mauritius, not knowing that England was a War with France, he was taken prisoner and held for 7 years. Finally getting home in 1810 in failing health, he struggled to finish “Voyage to Terra Australis”, his book finally published a day before his death on 19 July 1814 at age 40.

FLINDERS REMAINS

Records of his death and burial 206 years ago were reviewed when major building work began at Euston Railway Station in London in 2019.

In a mass gravesite, where 60,000 largely unidentified bodies had been buried, records indicated the possible site of Flinders grave. Like finding a needle in a haystack, on a huge archaeologic dig site, the coffin plate and remains of Matthew Flinders were unearthed last year.

Monument at Banksia Beach, and the Bribie Arts Centre has a Matthew Flinders Gallery. There are many books about Flinders and his cat Trim, places and plants bear his name, and a bronze memorial to the welltravelled cat stands outside the NSW State Library.

FINAL TRIBUTE

Some recovered items from Flinders burial site may eventually come to Australia, to honour the man who first circumnavigated and named this continent.

This article reflects on two July dates in his life. First footing on Bribie Island on 16 July 1799 age 25, and his death on 19 July 1814 at age 40

Everyone would be familiar with the story of the wreck of this great ship and the stories of personal tragedy attached to the event, but as with all great disasters there were financial and political consequences. Indeed there are sure to be such results from the pandemic we are experiencing at present; winners and losers will emerge from this current event as well as all the human tragedies much the same as happened in 1912.

At that time Radio Telegraphy was in its early stages of development and introduction. Communication was via the dots and dashes of Morse code rather than by the now common voice transmission. Viewers of the movies depicting the wreck will also remember that some nearby ships that picked up the Titanic’s frantic signals were only ‘on air’ for limited hours each day so were deaf to signals outside those times, all of which contributed to the dreadful outcome

What wasn’t explained in the movie stories was that ships of the time didn’t own their own radio equipment or in fact hire their own radio operators. ‘Marconi men’ together with Marconi equipment were provided at cost from the Marconi Company. This organisation was founded by Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian born inventor who, dismissed by his native land, took his work to Britain where he achieved great success, culminating in the award of a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909

At the British court of enquiry on the sinking a public statement was made by the Postmaster General that those who had been saved owed their lives to ‘Mr Marconi and his marvellous invention’. Strange to relate is that Marconi and his daughter Degna were offered free passage on the Titanic for the voyage but had taken the Lusitania instead because he preferred working with a public stenographer, whom he knew well, who worked on that other ship. Yet again another quirk of fate attached to the disaster.

One of the radio operators survived the Titanic sinking, Bride by name. Marconi personally met Bride when the Carpathia that had rescued him docked in New York. I have personally seen a copy of a signal sent to Bride by Marconi that said “Keep your mouth shut”. Bride did as he was told and spoke to no reporters or officials. He was indeed shipped back to Britain on the immediate first return sailing.

Marconi had realised the potential for business for his company from the disaster and wanted to control all the fallout from the news.

Prior to this very public sinking each ship owner decided whether or not to install radio communication equipment and Marconi men aboard their ships; plus they decided the number of hours per day these should operate. After the findings of the much publicised court of enquiry far more pressure from authorities was made to have sufficiently manned Marconi equipment installed in all ships.

Political manoeuvring and positioning took place to avoid blame for the sinking. New regulations and recommendations were proposed. A scandal looked to be brewing implicating the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He was accused of having made a fortune from the increase in the share values of the Marconi Company. The company had benefitted from the new huge volume improvements in their business that had come about from the recommendations from parliament. Lloyd George had himself been involved in bringing in regulations concerned with radio communication aboard British registered ships. Remember at this time that 60% of the world’s merchant marine was British registered. As a result of the insinuations and innuendo in the press and elsewhere there was an insistence made that there be a question raised in parliament to which he should provide an answer to assuage the rumours. Being the wily politician he was he organised that one of his own men in the house posed the direct question to which he must provide answer. Lloyd George was asked, by the ‘plant’ the question “Did you make a profit on shares you bought in the Marconi Company” to which he replied, “I did not”. This answer effectively closed the matter. However the truth was that Lloyd George had not bought the shares, he had been given them!

Now to bring such matters into the present day it will be interesting to find out, if ever we will, who or what organisations prosper and profit from the present day Pandemic. Of course we all know that modern day politicians are not as duplicitas as they were of old! There could be winners financially and or politically who walk away from human suffering with advantage. Sad to relate but it’s the way of the world – we don’t see much change as history unfolds.