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Matthew Flinders - hero home from the sea
I couldn't believe my eyes when I read recent reports of the remains of Captain Matthew Flinders being reburied in the village church in his birth place, Donington in England. Hang on! Hadn't I posted about this in 2022? Yes! Here! After hours of trying to track down the source of my error, I can only conclude that I assumed the plan to rebury the great navigator had already been carried out. I broke the cardinal rule of research: never assume anything.
For those who haven't a clue what I'm going on about, let's backtrack a bit.
Who was Matthew Flinders?
Captain Matthew Flinders was one of the Royal Navy's most outstanding navigators and cartographers, best known for his 18-months circumnavigation of Australia. During this voyage on the small Investigator, he made accurate and exquisite maps of most of the uncharted coast. Among his crew was Bungaree, an Aboriginal man whose role was to forge friendly relations with the tribes they encountered. Flinders was also first to refer to the entire continent as Australia and persisted in promoting this name despite influential opposition.
When Flinders called at the Isle de France (Mauritius) for vital repairs on his voyage back to Britain, he was shocked to be arrested by the Napoleonic French and imprisoned for seven years. However, he put his time to excellent use completing his superbly detailed charts and writing his two-volume A Voyage to Terra Australis.
What happened to Flinders' remains?
Flinders eventually returned to England in 1810, his health undermined. Tragically, he died in 1814 at the age of 40, just one day after the publication of A Voyage to Terra Australis, the work which brought him world-wide fame. Buried in St James burial ground in London, his headstone was lost when Euston station was built over the site just 30 years later. In 2019, during a huge excavation before a new railway project (HS2) at Euston, Flinders' coffin was identified by an inscribed lead breastplate, still legible.
Matthew Flinders - Bring Him Home campaign
When Donington's Bring Him Home committee succeeded in their bid to bury Flinders' remains in his village church, Australia was in the grip of Covid-19 travel bans. The organisers therefore decided to postpone the event and develop a ceremony worthy of Flinders' achievements. So it was not until 13th July 2024 that full naval honours were finally accorded Flinders in the presence of 400 people: his descendants, contingents from Australia and Britain and the proud villagers of Donington in Lincolnshire.
You can view the Australian SBS TV news report on Flinders' reburial here.
Flinders and Fiji
As an 18 year-old, Flinders sailed under Captain William Bligh on Providence during Bligh's second voyage to collect breadfruit seedlings in Tahiti and deliver them to Jamaica. The first attempt to do this had ended infamously in Tahiti when Bligh's first mate led a mutiny on the Bounty. Bligh and 18 loyal crew were cast off in a longboat to certain death. But Bligh navigated 4,000 nautical miles west through the Fiji Islands and the Torres Strait south of New Guinea. After seven weeks he landed in the Dutch colonial outpost of Timor. What better teacher could there be for an 18 year-old midshipman? Part of Flinders' training was charting 30 of the southern Fiji islands on the return voyage from Tahiti. Fiji recognises Flinders' importance and even issued a series of coins to commemorate him in 2002.
Trim: Matthew Flinders' remarkable cat
Among Flinders' steadfast shipmates on the Investigator was a black cat, Trim. Whenever he stayed ashore, Flinders took Trim with him - from ship's cat to house-cat with a flick of his thick tail. Trim was imprisoned on Mauritius with his master who also wrote a short memoir of his beloved cat when Trim died. Any cat lover who reads the book Trim will think of Flinders with great warmth as well as admiration.
Trim is often included in statues of Flinders, such as the one above in Port Lincoln, which Flinders named for his county city.
I'll end with these words from the website of Flinders University in South Australia: "Flinders is remembered for his sense of adventure, his innovations in navigation and cartography, his groundbreaking scientific work, his embrace of technology, and his consideration for his crew’s health and wellbeing – all qualities that make him a suitable inspiration to Flinders University."
You can find more about Fiji on my website, in the Fiji Gallery and Blog page. As ever, I'd welcome your comments and questions about this post.
Happy reading,
Bernadette (B.M. Allsopp)
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