An original tompion from HMS SIRIUS

The eighteenth century sailor, who rammed a wad into the muzzle of a carronade then closed it off with the tompion to prevent water seeping in, would not have believed it would still be in place well over 200 years later.

Tompions (or tampions) that we see today are usually painted replicas, like the red one sitting in the muzzle of this cannon in Norfolk Island.

 
Surprisingly, when the wreck of HMS SIRIUS was dived on and its artefacts brought to the surface, one of the six 18 pounder carronades was still fitted with its original water-tight wooden tompion (made of maple), which had been placed there in 1790 (the year it sank) or in 1787 when SIRIUS sailed from England as flagship of the First Fleet of 11 vessels bound for Botany Bay.

When the tompion was removed from the gun, beneath it were two lengths of twisted twine spliced to a ball of string wadding.

This is probably the only example of an original tompion, over 200 years old, in existence today.

The Wreck of HMS SIRIUS - Norfolk Island 1788

In 1788, soon after the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Town, a settlement was planned for Norfolk Island. But the arrival of HMS SIRIUS was a disaster.

HMS SIRIUS: Wrecked 19 March 1790 - Norfolk Island.
She was a 512 ton naval frigate armed with 14 x 6lb cannon, 6 x 18lb carronades and 8 swivel guns. 

Having sailed from Britain to Botany Bay as flagship of the First Fleet, HMS SIRIUS was sent on to Norfolk Island with convicts, settlers and supplies. With no natural harbour, and the island surrounded by reefs, the ship attempted to remain in deep water but was blown onto the outer reef and eventually pushed into the channel running between the two.

While the sea here appears fairly calm, it is possible to see the breakers on the two reefs which run parallel. It was here that the SIRIUS met her fate.

While no one was lost and many of the stores were rescued, the ship could not be floated off and eventually succumbed to the treacherous waves and currents bombarding the island.

The SIRIUS Museum is located a stone's throw from where the ship was wrecked.

In 1905, divers recovered the first anchor (now in Sydney) and during the century to follow, thousands of other artefacts, including another bower anchor, cannon and carronades were recovered from the seabed.

These were all heavily encrusted in coral.
Today, the ‘Sirius’ Museum is located a little over 100 yards from where the ship foundered. The museum presentation is remarkable.

 

Other items possibly still remain between the reefs.

Norfolk Island - where convicts, Cook, Captain Bligh and BOUNTY left an indelible mark on its history

Norfolk Island is a tiny old volcanic outcrop in the South Pacific. Apart from being isolated, it is steeped in history – both heroic and brutally inhumane.

On his voyage of discovery aboard RESOLUTION, Captain James Cook stepped ashore briefly on this section of the coast of the small island (6 x 8 km). The year was 1774.

Though the sheer cliffs and inhospitable rocky shore made further investigation impossible, Cook named the island NORFOLK. He saw value in the natural vegetation - the tall timbers (now called Norfolk Island pines) for shipbuilding and the flax-like plants for sail making.

The Island is a natural paradise and, today, is World Heritage listed with the best examples of Georgian architecture in the Southern hemisphere. It’s a place where the cattle graze the long paddock and have right of way on the roads.

 

Unfortunately, Norfolk Island has no natural harbour and the transport ships which arrive once a month are off–loaded in the old-fashioned manner by lighters (longboats/whaleboats).

Its museums reflect a history of shipwrecks (HMS SIRIUS) and settlement and events from N.I.’s early visitations by Polynesians around 700 years before Captain Cook ‘discovered’ it and gave the island its name; to the eras of the early colonial settlements and its dark convict stain; to the arrival of the descendants of the ‘BOUNTY’ mutineers from Pitcairn Island in the mid-1800s. 

Despite this bronze memorial standing in the square, the BOUNTY itself never came to Norfolk Island After the mutiny against Captain Bligh, the ship was sailed to Pitcairn Island by Fletcher Christian and his ‘crew’ where it was fired and sunk. In the years that followed, the mutineers and their Tahitian women spawned a unique population and it was their descendants who landed on Norfolk Island in 1856. 
The 'Pitcairners' consisted of 40 men, 47 women, 54 boys and 53 girls, in all, 194 people whose names appear beneath this monument. They were to become the ‘torch bearers for the Norfolk Island heritage’.  

Today’s small population (less than 2000) is made up of many direct descendants of Fletcher Christian, Quintal, Nobbs, Adams and McCoy. Their names are engraved on the gravestones in the cemetery.

 
I have just spent a week on Norfolk Island and would thoroughly recommend a visit.

The following posts have more details and pics.