Uncovering our maritime past

Over the past four years, the Australian National Maritime Museum’s underwater archaeology program has been uncovering evidence of Australia’s strong colonial trade links to Asia, with plans for a new expedition in 2013.

In January (2012), the museum’s archaeology team located the remains of the Royal Charlotte, wrecked in 1825. The Indian-built three-masted ship had just brought a group of convicts to Sydney, and was en route to India with a contingent of British troops and their families when it ran aground during a gale on the inaccurately charted Frederick Reef, approximately 450km off the Queensland coast.

The Royal Charlotte was the fourth wreck site discovered by the museum’s archaeology team in the Coral Sea or Great Barrier Reef in recent years that demonstrates the strong trade links between Australia and India during the early years of the colony.

And the team will be heading back out on another expedition in early 2013, this time in search of the Indian-built Fergus(s)on which was bound for Madras (India) from Sydney with 170 British troops when it was wrecked on a reef near the Sir Charles Hardy Islands on the Great Barrier Reef. This area was a notorious wreck trap with over 30 vessels known to have been wrecked in the vicinity, including 11 vessels voyaging to India.

Previous expeditions to the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef by the museum have uncovered the schooner HMCS Mermaid (in 2009), the Porpoise and the Cato (2010) -- all part of the well-travelled trade route between England, Australia and Asia, carrying either cargo such as coal and timber, troops or convicts. In the 19th century, Australia became an important source of horses for troops in India -- marking Australia’s first commercial live-export trade.

"Locating the remains of the Royal Charlotte provided us with important historical detail and information on the early trade between Australia, Batavia (Jakarta) and India," said museum director Kevin Sumption today.

"It’s fascinating to look at the stories behind these vessels and what remains of them today, and see that the roots of Australia’s future engagement with Asia ... can be traced back more than two centuries," he said.

Several of the vessels were built in India, and the information gathered on these expeditions reveals useful details about aspects of Indian shipbuilding at that time.

The Royal Charlotte and proposed 2013 expeditions are part of an Australian Research Council project, a joint project between the Australian National Maritime Museum, the Silentworld Foundation and Sydney University.