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Watery Graves: When Ships Become Places

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Watery Graves:
When Ships Become Places
Martin Gibbs

This Centenary Year of the establishment of our nation is a time for us

Australians to look back to the past and to recall people and events which
have helped shape our country, our locality and our lives … The loss of
the Sirius was a terrible setback for the settlements at Sydney Cove and
on Norfolk. But for us who gather here today, this is a precious site in
the history of our nation and this Island. The relics retrieved from the
wreck offer us a rare insight into the world of our past.
The monument which is being dedicated today has been specially
designed to tell something of the story of that fateful 19 March. It allows
visitors to sit and watch while imagination paints the picture of the death
throes of the doomed vessel on the shoreline and reef in front of us. The
monument is also special for another reason … the bricks of the
monument have been transported from the ruins of Captain Arthur
Phillip’s house in Hampshire. Like the relics of the Sirius itself, these
bricks reach back across time and oceans to a world of duty and
adventure; of convicts and cruel and inhuman punishments; of territorial
ambition and struggling colonies.1
In March 2001, Governor-General Sir William Deane unveiled a new
memorial to HMS Sirius, constructed at a site only metres from where it
had wrecked on the shore of Norfolk Island in March 1790. In his
address, Sir William not only recalled the history of the ship and the
events of its wrecking, but also linked these to the centenary of the
establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia and emphasised the
significance of sites, relics and monuments as touchstones in our concept
of nation.
Sir William’s speech reminds us that many of the foundation events and
processes of Australian exploration, colonization, invasion and migration
were enacted by ships. They have been platforms for Australian industry,
2 Object Lessons

recreation and action at war, and continue to be a vital link in the

transport network to, from and around our island nation.2 In our
national historical narrative, ships often take on identities almost as
strong as the human participants’, such that the personality of HMS
Endeavour becomes nearly as important as that of Captain Cook.
The archaeological remains of thousands of vessels, wrecked during
these activities and therefore intimately linked to the themes of our
national history, can be found on and around our shores. Because of the
catastrophic aspect of their creation, these sites often contain not only
relics, but also the mortal remains of an uncounted host of men, women
and children, rich and poor, of all ethnicities and persuasions, free and
bond – the ancestral stock of the Australian nation.
The status of shipwrecks as significant Australian heritage places
appears to be unassailable, apparently reinforced by the separate
Commonwealth legislation that protects them. There is general
acceptance that ‘maritime’ forms the third part in the triumvirate of
Australian archaeological research and heritage management, most states
having a distinct operational unit to deal with shipwrecks and marine
sites. However, in contrast to increasingly sophisticated discussions of the
nature of Australian ‘historic’ or ‘indigenous’ heritage, shipwrecks hold a
remarkably ambiguous position, not only in the minds of the majority of
Australians, but also in professional discourse. The ways in which
shipwrecks are constructed as ‘significant’ places often seem inconsistent
with how terrestrial heritage sites are discussed and managed. In
particular, the range of values identified for wrecks remains narrow,
while there has been no dialogue about how shipwrecks sit within our
concept of national identity, how people perceive or engage with them,
or their conflicting values.
This paper explores aspects of the separation in significance between
ships as artefacts and shipwrecks as sites, shipwrecks as memorials or
graveyards, and shipwrecks as experienced places and contested spaces.
The role of maritime heritage places in our constructions of national
identity requires serious reconsideration.3

How Ships Become Places

It is acknowledged that large portable artefacts such as locomotives and
machinery are often transformed into places, usually through
 When Ships Become Places 3

monumentalisation.4 However, no consideration of the relationship

between ship and shipwreck has taken place, despite the potential
importance of the processes of transformation to their significance,
unlike many terrestrial equivalents. Disaster grounds or sinks the vessel
on to a surface (beach, rocks, reef or sea floor), with some or all of the
structure, cargo and human remains falling with it and reintegrating into
a site and potentially a place. 5
It might be argued that the recognition of the transformation into
place is implicit in understanding the relationship between ship and
wreck. However, less well understood is that different stages of this
process have different forms of significance, and that while some values
survive from one stage to another, others do not.
The basic arguments for the heritage value of shipwrecks have been
around since the 1960s, when Graeme Henderson outlined a range of
criteria for declarations of ‘historic shipwreck’ under the Historic
Shipwrecks Act (1976–1985), as:

1. A wreck significant in the discovery, early exploration, settlement or early

development of Australia;
2. Relevance of a wreck to the opening up or development of parts of Australia;
3. Relevance of a wreck to a particular person or event of historical significance;
4. The wreck is a possible source of relics of historical or cultural significance;
5. The wreck is representative of a particular maritime design or development;
6. Naval wrecks, other than those deliberately scrapped or sunk and having no
particular historical or emotional interest;
7. A wreck over 75 years old.
8. Wrecks of an outstanding recreational or educational potential. 6

In later iteration, these criteria have been retrofitted into the significance
categories of the Burra Charter and otherwise accreted with guidelines,
including a new UNESCO charter on Underwater Cultural Heritage.7
However, many maritime heritage managers still conceptualize the range
of values applicable to shipwrecks in this way, with all but the last
category bound to the functional or ‘historic’ phase and with very limited
recognition of past or present social values.
4 Object Lessons

a. Ship as Vehicle
One of the most obvious themes in nationalist constructions is the place
of ships in foundation myths of the ‘Great Voyage’, where they acted as
the mechanism for heroic journeys of exploration and colonization.8
Wrecks and sites associated with these phases are particularly prized. As
Tony Bennett has suggested, the process of incorporating pre-settlement
wrecks and associated sites into state and Commonwealth heritage
registers through the Historic Shipwrecks Act (1976–85) has also acted as
a device to add two centuries to the ‘national’ heritage timeframe.
Recognizing early exploration also serves to broaden the past away from
the focus on British colonization and allows migrants from several other
European nations the opportunity to anchor more recent immigration
into a deeper past.9 The conserved physical remains of these earlier
visitors – wrecks, camps, cairns, markers and burials – serve to legitimize
their presence, although the sites associated with contemporary or earlier
Macassan voyagers have not been accorded comparable recognition.
As an immigrant nation there are also personal and familial narratives
of voyaging for the non-indigenous population, with the potential for
wrecks and their contents to illuminate the nature and circumstances of
passage and life aboard the vessels. For the duration of the voyage the
ship acted as the mobile microcosm of the old world and its structures
and strictures, and ultimately the platform from which the step and
transition was made into the new world.10 In a recent lecture, Peter
Mayes pointed out the extreme level of paranoia exhibited over the
perceived potential for flotillas of ‘boat people’ to land on our shores,
especially when contrasted to the far greater number of illegal
immigrants landing through regular air services. He suggested that this
discomfort might originate in the processes of the seaborne European
dispossession of this continent, with non-indigenous Australians fearing
that these new marine incursions represent a succeeding invasion.11
For indigenous Australians, ships have a prime place in the processes
of cultural contact, often being the first and largest piece of Europe they
saw, the vehicle for invaders and later the means by which they were
displaced to other settlements or prisons. Ships were the means for
subsequent acts of territorial expansion along Australia’s coastlines and
they remain central to trade, transport, industry and defense. In
particular, there have been many Australian innovations in marine design
 When Ships Become Places 5

and technology, especially in association with iconic industries such as

pearling.
While there is a tendency to emphasize the significance of arrival,
departure and separation are also important parts of Australian
iconography, with shipping providing an umbilical cord to the
homelands. In this scenario, the ship takes the products of the new
nation back to the old world, providing sustenance through raw
materials and contributing to the cause of empire. Most important is the
alternate form of national origin myth where Australian identity was
forged away from our own shores through the ANZACs sailing away in
order to do heroic combat elsewhere in the world, fighting and dying in
the expression of national values.12 Images of the flower of Australian
youth marching gamely up the gangplank, embarking on the great
adventure, are engrained in national consciousness. It is interesting that
for both forms of foundation myth, the voyage aboard the ship acts as a
liminal phase, where the transformation towards community or even
nationhood is progressed and possibly achieved. Ships are, consequently,
an important element in mechanisms of separation, transformation and
reincorporation.

b. Shipwreck as Event
The process of wrecking is the start of the transformation from ship into
place, with the circumstances of the catastrophe, the behaviours
surrounding the event, and outcomes in terms of the damage or loss of
vessel, cargo, or human life, potentially resulting in forms of significance
independent of the ship’s function. Shipwreck was the tragic antithesis of
the successful voyage and the underlying fear of many of those who
traveled, or had loved ones traveling by sea.13 For the wider community
and the incipient nation, each shipwreck event raised fears of isolation
from the wider world and especially the parent countries, reminding
people of the fragility of these links.
While heritage managers have generally assessed the significance of
shipwrecks as historic events or archaeological ‘time capsules’, popular
perception has been influenced by centuries of literature, art and folklore
which interprets wrecks in a range of social and spiritual ways.14
Shipwreck has been seen as a doomed battle against the implacable forces
of nature: as an ‘act of God’, or as an absence of God.15 Shipwrecks also
6 Object Lessons

speak of the foolish error of judgement by captain or crew, of heroism or

nobility during crisis, shame in the failings of participants, or of national
character. For instance, when the American SS Monumental City wrecked
off Gabo Island in 1853, the captain and 52 of the crew and male
passengers made their way to shore as the ship broke up, leaving the
women and children aboard. Thirty-two persons ultimately drowned and
the captain and crew suffered intense vilification from the Australian
authorities, press and public.16 Powerful cultural and religious responses
to the sinking of RMS Titanic in the north Atlantic saw the wreck event
became a metaphor for a range of social and moral issues.17
In both a practical and spiritual sense, a shipwreck represents loss at a
personal, community or even national level. The sinking of a vessel may
mean that valuable cargo does not arrive, or that the ability to obtain
vital supplies is compromised, as when the loss of HMS Sirius
endangered the fledgling colony of NSW.18 More importantly,
shipwrecks have always potentially represented mass death and trauma
for survivors and the wider population.19 When HMAS Sydney sank in
1941 after battle with the German raider Kormoran, the death of all 645
men aboard touched almost every community throughout Australia, as
well as shaking the national sense of security in our ability to defend
Australian waters.20 The sinking of the refugee vessel Siev X (acronym for
Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel – Unknown) in 2001 while en-route to
Australia with the death of 353 men, women and children has once again
drawn attention to the continuing risk of the passage to this country,
even in the modern context, as well as precipitating political conflict and
responses ranging from shame to paranoia.21
The symbolic value of shipwrecks is implicit in the enduring memory
of particular events. In 1943, the unarmed Hospital Ship Centaur was
sunk only miles from the Australian coast by a Japanese submarine; 268
nurses, patients and other non-combatants died. As important as the role
of the nurses and the hospital ship had been during the war effort, and as
sad the loss of their lives, its public meaning was created through the
circumstances of loss and the subsequent use of the event as a tool of
nationalist propaganda. Posters for war loans featured a picture of the
sinking ship aflame, with the banner ‘Work, Save and Fight and so
Avenge the Nurses!’ while the image of the Centaur figures in the
 When Ships Become Places 7

Australian War Memorial’s Hall of Memory mosaic commemorating

women’s services.22
Although war lends a more dramatic context to shipwrecks, the
tragedy of loss has also been felt in the many passenger and fishing vessels
wrecked along the Australian coast. In 1911 the SS Yongala sank near
Townsville during a cyclone, with all of the 48 passengers and 72 crew
lost.23 There are numerous other examples of equal or greater devastation
and loss. However, the short and long-term social impact or significance
of these ‘domestic’ disasters has never been adequately investigated.

c. Shipwreck as Place
The values of a shipwreck as static site are primarily articulated around
the archaeological or physical qualities of the wreck as a source of
structural remains and artefacts, or as a laboratory for investigation of site
formation processes. Recognition of ‘educational and recreational
potential’ also focuses on the physical intactness and legibility of the
remains as well as their accessibility, as informed by a scientific view.
There has been little or no investigation of shipwrecks as ‘places’. The
sorts of associations with a wreck site that rendered it a place could begin
almost immediately at the point of wrecking. Historically, some coastal
communities derived economic and social benefit from preventing
wrecks through providing services such as pilotage and navigation.
Conversely, they could gain considerable advantage from wrecks, in the
first instance gaining kudos for rescuing those in distress, and making a
profit from rewards and housing survivors, visiting officials and tourists
hungry for spectacle and tragedy.24 These communities might also be
able to claim formal salvage, or if not, then engage in long-term informal
salvage as well as collection of any flotsam and jetsam washed ashore.
Wreck structures also perform new roles, such as acting as artificial
habitats or fish aggregation devices, making them ideal spots for fishing.
In many instances, the economic benefit of fishing is outweighed by the
social act of sharing this experience with family or friends. Similarly,
divers perceive wrecks as destinations of interest, adding value to the
recreational dive experience. Some of the more dedicated enjoy the
processes of locating and identifying a new wreck without disturbance,
while others may perceive a wreck as a source of relics, or as financial
reward for their efforts. Perhaps the most important, most difficult and
8 Object Lessons

most neglected aspect of wrecks as sites is the question of whether they

retain a continuing role as a graveyard or as a memorial.

Shipwreck as Graveyard
The catastrophes that created shipwrecks frequently also caused death,
ranging from single fatalities to disasters claiming hundreds of lives. This
is an area of significance not explicitly recognized in Australian heritage
legislation, despite a cursory examination of the Australian National
Shipwreck Database indicating a minimum of 800 wrecks with loss of
life. No attempt has been made by heritage managers to evaluate how
many corpses were or were not recovered from vessels, although it is a
safe bet that the remains of several thousand men, women and children
are still associated with wreck sites within Australian waters. However,
while the Historic Shipwreck Act (1976–85) lists criteria for significance
and restricts recovery of material from declared historic wrecks, no
mention is made of either human remains or the potential status of many
wrecks as gravesites.25.
Historically, the aphorism ‘lost at sea’ frequently meant exactly that –
the wreck might never be located and consequently the bodies would
never be recovered. Even where a wreck site was known, effort was rarely
expended towards retrieving corpses. There have long been cultural
mechanisms for accommodating these circumstances, such as the notion
of the sea as a sacred or consecrated realm and appropriate burial place.
Mortal remains ‘consigned to the deep’ slid below the waves and into an
inaccessible place, in much the same way as a burial beneath the ground.
The sea also became the ships’ grave, often anthropomorphized, such as
when Sir William Dean spoke of ‘the death throes’ of the Sirius upon the
reef.26 Given that the actual site of the remains was unreachable, for those
ashore an empty grave, cenotaph or memorial to the disaster became the
substitute place to mourn. In Australia, as elsewhere, communities
located near to wrecks would often raise public subscriptions in order to
erect commemorative monuments in public places, or if there were
unidentified bodies washed ashore, in cemeteries above the graves.
Since the boom in recreational diving in the 1970s, the once
inaccessible underwater realm is now relatively easy to visit. Wrecks are
located, visited and the barriers of the sacred depths are breached, so that
the human remains and the vessels on which deaths occurred are now
 When Ships Become Places 9

accessible. However, in most instances diver reactions to the presence of

remains have been ambiguous. For instance, the wreck of SS Yongala
now sits in 30 metres of water near Townsville, remarkably intact and
undeniably one of Australia’s most popular wreck dives, with almost
10,000 local and international visitors annually. Although visitors are
told of the circumstances of the wreck and the tragedy of the 120 deaths,
and visible human bones are indicated in brochures and during the dive,
there seems little apparent concern or interest, although the level of
information provided by dive operators is apparently limited by their
own ignorance.27 Descendants have indicated that they see the site as
significant, although there has been no move to implement a strategy for
surviving remains. Current restrictions to prevent divers from entering
the wreck structure are aimed at slowing deterioration of the iron
structure, rather than in recognition of the nature of the site as a grave.
The apparent lack of regard for Yongala remains stands in stark
contrast to two other Australian examples. In 1997 a Joint Standing
Committee of Parliament was convened as a result of public pressure to
investigate the circumstances of the loss of the HMAS Sydney. Although
the enquiry was couched in terms of determining various defence
matters, including whether the Australian Navy had deliberately
obscured facts, and why none of the 645 men aboard had survived, the
committee immediately recognized that the main issue was a desire by
the families to achieve some sense of ‘closure’, or resolution regarding the
death of their loved ones. Concurrent with the enquiry there was
pressure on maritime archaeologists to determine the actual location of
the wreck site. Although there was no proposal to recover human
remains, it is clear that families felt that establishing the location would
provide the wreck a memorial status. This was a situation completely at
odds with the traditional acceptance of a ship ‘lost at sea’.
Despite extensive enquiries, neither historical nor archaeological
studies bore fruit, so that several years later on the 60th anniversary of the
sinking, a memorial was unveiled in Geraldton, the nearest major town,
reading:

In memory of, and to honor the men of HMAS Sydney. To bring a measure of
closure to their families and to comfort them in the knowledge that they are not
alone in grief, and that the whole nation grieves with them.28
10 Object Lessons

Although there was a clear preference towards at least identifying the

actual wreck site, failure to locate the remains was salved by recourse to a
traditional cenotaph as the focus of grief and memorial.
The case of the hospital ship Centaur highlights the continuing
interplay between the significance of monument versus site. Despite the
wreck site remaining unidentified, several beachside memorials to the
ship and the 268 dead have been erected on the Queensland coast,
including at Caloundra and Coolangatta in 1993 to mark the fiftieth
anniversary of the sinking. Memorial services had been held at both sites,
with families of the deceased participating. In 1995, this equity in the
monuments shifted when a diver convinced the residents of Caloundra
and government authorities that he had found and positively identified
the site of the Centaur in 178 meters of water, ten kilometres off the
adjacent coast. Although most experts suggested the site was likely to be
in far deeper water off North Stradbroke Island, the residents of
Caloundra and some government departments accepted the claim. Based
on this information a new memorial was built on a cliff top, pointing out
toward the site. Families and descendants felt that the identification of
the wreck allowed them a proper feeling of closure and one widow
arranged to have her ashes scattered over the site. However, several years
later a Royal Australian Navy survey followed up reports by other divers
and confirmed that the size and form of the vessel was completely
inconsistent with Centaur. It also transpired that the original report was
from a convicted conman.29 There was extensive media coverage of the
outrage felt by the community.30
While the sense of betrayal at the deception is undeniable, even if it
had been the Centaur, none of the descendants were ever likely to visit
the actual site, or get closer than 178 metres above it. The
acknowledgement of the location, rather than recovery of the remains,
appears to have been the important aspect.

Andy would like to see the wreck found provided the discovery was not followed
by interference with what is not only a historic shipwreck but a watery grave to
some hundreds of people. In the end though, Andy says it matters little where
the Centaur is now – “It’s only the memories really. The spot doesn’t have a
great deal to do with it.”31
 When Ships Become Places 11

Widespread media exposure of new underwater technologies such as used

to locate and explore Titanic has created a perception that even deep-
water wrecks can now be found quite readily. Consequently, it appears
that there is a movement towards transferring the memorial status back
to the wrecks themselves, making the cenotaph or monument a sort of
‘proto-place’ until the real one is found. In the cases of Sydney and
Centaur there is a clear public sentiment that these vessels, if found,
should be considered gravesites, or more specifically as war graves. It
appears that some elements of the community are becoming prepared to
stake claims on shipwrecks, or at least certain wrecks, as sacred places. It
is probable that if precedent were established, other groups such as
descendants and families associated with Yongala would become more
active in asserting their relationships to these sites and promoting the
need to recognize, protect and manage them as places of significance.

Shipwreck as Experienced Space and Contested Place

On the eastern beach of Fraser Island (Queensland) lies the wreck of the
Maheno. Built in 1905 as a luxury New Zealand trans-Tasman liner, in
her glory days the vessel held the Sydney to Wellington speed record,
until being refitted for six years of service as a troopship in WWI,
ferrying 25,000 sick and wounded soldiers to safety. Returned to her
former state after the war, she made six runs between England and New
Zealand before being decommissioned. While being towed to a Japanese
scrap yard in July 1935, a cyclone parted the tow cables, leaving the ship
to drift ashore in Wide Bay.32 No lives were lost. After attempts to refloat
her failed, the vessel was abandoned, although during WWII she was
used as a training ground for commandos and a practice target for the
RAAF and RAN. Today the Maheno has become a major destination for
visitors to Fraser Island, attracting perhaps hundreds of thousands of
tourists each year. Most take photographs, many walk up to and touch
the rusting hull. Although people are clearly drawn to the aesthetic
qualities of the huge ochre-red hulk slowly collapsing into the sands, it
remains uncertain whether the historical significance exerts an equal pull
towards the site. Presumably, the test will come when the structure
finally gives way and removes the visual appeal.
Here I have considered the possible ways in which shipwrecks might
be considered significant or even sacred. However, accessible beached
12 Object Lessons

historic vessels with coherent structures such as the Maheno, which allow
the casual observer the opportunity for leisurely contemplation and
interaction, are uncommon. Consequently only that relatively small
group of Australians capable of diving will ever have the opportunity of
experiencing a submerged shipwreck as a place. For the average person
standing on shore and looking over the blank expanse of the ocean
‘landscape’, the information that somewhere below the surface lies a
shipwreck with heritage values, does little to create a sense of engagement
with that wreck as a place. For many there is a basic difficulty in even
conceiving what a shipwreck might look like, many imagining that it
continues to look like a ship, rather than the dispersed series of remnant
structural and cargo elements that is so often the reality. In the case of
Centaur, the public had to accept professional advice about the
identification, location and nature of the wreck.
Even for many persons who can dive down to a wreck, the encounter
is often brief, tense and with the dive experience itself, rather than
engaging with the wreck or its heritage values, even if they can see and
understand what is in front of them. The exclusivity of the dive
experience breeds a certain feeling of privilege amongst those who are
capable of doing it – they are fit, brave, and capable, whereas others are
not – of entering what is conceived of by many to be the last wilderness.
Just as some groups have objected to government regulation of terrestrial
wilderness areas, some divers resent the idea of management of the
underwater environment, including shipwrecks.33
American divers range between two polarized schools of thought
about who gets to manage shipwrecks: ‘Big Brother’ – the belief that
significant shipwrecks should be managed by professionals who dictate
access to sites and relics – versus the ‘Wild West’ view – that there is
freedom of the high seas and submarine wilderness, and therefore there
should be unfettered access to sites and their contents.34 The notion that
through braving risks and persevering to find wrecks and recover
material, whatever is recovered becomes the property of the pioneer, is a
perspective most publicly espoused by professional treasure hunters.35
In the early period of establishing Australian shipwreck legislations,
archaeologists worked closely with avocational groups, dive instructors
and the public to convince them of the need to preserve shipwrecks and
artefacts. Although the ‘Wild West’ extreme has not really been seen in
 When Ships Become Places 13

Australia since the late 1970s, it does not necessarily mean that the allure
of shipwrecks as a source of ‘authentic’ heritage has been diminished.36
Compared to terrestrial sites that appear as a palimpsest of reuse and
alterations, it is easy to perceive a shipwreck as somehow pristine, while
the artefacts within provide a direct connection with another era,
unsullied by later possession or use. 37 They take on the aspect of relics,
acting as a tangible link to a real or imagined past, in particular the
heroic past associated with the explorers, founders and ancestors. The
mystique is enhanced by having to recover the object from the
underwater realm and possibly in conflict with Big Brother’s restrictions.
For some individuals and groups, visiting wreck sites and removing
materials may well be an expression of long-term and even cross-
generational relationships to place. As noted earlier, some coastal
communities have established historical links to shipwrecks as resources,
sometimes dating from the time of the original wrecking and salvage.
Despite the introduction of diving technologies, the transmission of
knowledge about where wreck sites are located and what they might
contain, as well as removal of material, begins to take on the aspect of
traditional practice rather than just souvenir hunting.38 Of course,
maritime archaeologists must also be considered a community of interest,
staking a claim to shipwrecks both as arbiters of interpretationand use of
the sites, and as individuals with their own interests. While valuing
wrecks for what they can provide as state-controlled archaeological
resources, they are as susceptible as terrestrial archaeologists are to the
desire to lay personal claim to particular sites, sometimes by dint of long
association. As Tracy Ireland’s contribution to this collection shows,
maritime archaeology has also often given attention to artefacts most
obviously of ‘relic’ value in a manner that approaches the level of
fetishisation. These are the very items that, once conserved, are mounted
on display in museums as justification for shipwrecks as significant
heritage. However, there is little or no recognition of non-archaeological
aspects or the value of the wreck as ‘place’ for other communities, past or
present.
14 Object Lessons

Ships as Heritage, Shipwrecks as Memorials?

The quest for a distinctive [Australian] cultural identity, formulated in the

globalizing processes of colonialism and imperialism, has been framed within the
historical experience of transportation, exile or immigration and colonial
dependency, a European and specifically British provenance and heritage, the
brutal exploitation of the land and its people, the conquest of distance, and
participation in foreign wars.’ 39

Bruce and Judith Kapferer examine Australians’ attempts to define

themselves as a nation and as a people through global processes of
nation-building. Here I have attempted to reaffirm that shipwrecks are
significant heritage places, with a range of values that might contribute to
the construction of Australian national identity. I argue that our
conception of these values, the nature of ships as objects and shipwrecks
as places, and the potential relationships to communities and other
stakeholders, has been woefully narrow. Finally, I suggest that our
professional and public conception or shipwrecks as monuments is
fraught with ambiguities.
For over three decades maritime heritage managers have been tireless
in their attempts to articulate the heritage values of shipwrecks to the
public, perhaps because of this very lack of visibility.40 In the 1970s and
1980s the removal of structural elements and artefacts for the sake of
long-term preservation and museum display seemed to provide a way of
allowing non-divers access to the heritage resource and perhaps
improving public understanding of the nature and value of shipwreck
heritage places.41 The continued popularity of the larger Australian
maritime museums suggests that this was not an altogether unsuccessful
strategy. However, shifts in thinking towards in situ conservation,
difficulties with diver safety and insurance associated with recovery, and
the spiralling costs of conservation treatments has seen a steady decrease
in both large and small-scale recovery projects.
Since the 1990s the removal of wreck fabric has been superseded by
underwater wreck trails and waterproof information tablets, although
intensive on-site interpretation that better demonstrates or highlights
significance is expensive to install and difficult to maintain.42 Museums
still provide a forum for artefacts, many collected in earlier periods, while
there have been at least two attempts to use large-scale reconstruction of
 When Ships Become Places 15

sections of a vessel – using original fabric or new materials – as an

interpretive device.43 Books, pamphlets, beachside monuments,
memorials and onshore interpretive facilities providing information on
wrecks have also been improved as a means of increasing awareness of
sites and significance. As Sir William put it in his speech, a monument
on the shore ‘allows visitors to sit and watch while imagination paints the
picture of the death throes of the doomed vessel’, although an act of
imagination from a distance does not necessarily encourage genuine
engagement with the place.44
The remains of some ships might speak of earlier achievements in
exploration, colonization, war or transport, despite the vessel eventually
coming to the end of its natural life and being discarded and
transformed. However, in many cases, these remains represent significant
failure and loss, including the death of Australians, those who wished to
become Australians, or those forced to come to these shores. They are
not monuments to the great journey or heroic combat, but poignant
reminders of the potential for tragedy and the risks and costs in the
creation of the nation.
Kapferer and Kapferer consider that the construction of memorials
and monuments in Australia is a discursive practice, a way of
‘substantializing … history and tradition’, of expressing current ideas
about national character by bringing the past into the present and into
our presence.45 Identifying significant heritage places is a means of
asserting their presence, moving them towards monument status and
ensuring that they take their place in the discourse about the Australian
past. This returns us to the dilemma that most wrecks are not visible or
accessible to the majority of the public, and consequently cannot ‘assert’
themselves physically or through the usual processes of heritage
identification, restoration, reconstruction or interpretation. Does this
mean that they are, and always will be, ineffectual as memorials in their
own right, or does collective imagination and narrative render their
physical presence unnecessary?
There is also the apparent growth of the notion of shipwrecks as
graveyards and memorials, somewhat at odds with traditional notions of
burial at sea, and requiring recognition and respect beyond protection of
the archaeological remains (human and otherwise) contained within. The
use of the term ‘sacred site’ in these situations is interesting as an example
16 Object Lessons

of non-indigenous Australians appropriating and incorporating aspects of

indigenous heritage and spirituality into a discourse about non-
indigenous places. 46
Although there have been individual attempts to develop appropriate
responses for specific wreck sites47, there has been no move by Australian
practitioners to openly discuss wider strategies to accommodate
commemoration of wrecks as gravesites, or to deal with human remains
as other than artefacts. This contrasts with the situation in the United
States, where the USS Arizona memorial (Pearl Harbour, Hawaii), which
straddles the remains of the vessel and consequently the remains of the
hundreds of sailors within, has now been in place for several decades and
is recognized as a particularly poignant place of commemoration.
Dialogue has also begun on possible strategies to provide memorial status
to other wrecks with human remains, raising the spectre of increased
restriction or even full prohibition on diving on some or all sites.48
This paper has explored a range of issues, showing that shipwrecks as
heritage places are fraught with contradictions – do we need to encourage
or facilitate greater engagement with what seem to be vital parts of our
national heritage? Are there more effective ways of interpreting or
demonstrating that significance? Do we wait to see if there is a public
shift towards wanting to memorialize shipwrecks as graveyards, or do we
advance in that direction regardless, taking our cue from terrestrial
heritage sentiments and management? Wider reconsideration of
Australian shipwrecks is long overdue and it may be that the professional
heritage community needs to overcome its fear of the water and dive into
the debate.

Notes
1 Sir William Dean , Address by Sir William Dean, Governor General of the
Commonwealth of Australia on the occasion of the dedication of the Sirius
monument, Norfolk Island, 6 March 2001
(http://www.gg.gov.au/speeches/rtf/2001/sp010306.rtf, accessed 10 December
2003).
2 Frank Broeze, Island Nation: A history of Australians and the Sea (St Leonards, NSW:
Allen & Unwin, 1998). See particularly Chapters 8 and 9.
3 Broeze, Island Nation 1998
4 E.g. Peter Milner, ‘Needs and priorities for identifying and conserving the engineering
heritage’, in Cultural Conservation: Towards a National Approach, ed. Sharon Sullivan
(Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995), 251–276.
 When Ships Become Places 17

5 The term ‘shipwreck’ is, however, fraught with difficulties, as many ships in later life
were systematically stripped and discarded, or their structures were reused for new
functions such as breakwaters or fish aggregation devices, meaning that they never
‘wrecked’ as such. The difference in processes between catastrophic wreck,
abandoned vessel or reused structure means that there are some disparities in
potential values, although for the purposes of this discussion they are dealt with
together.
6 Graeme Henderson, Maritime Archaeology in Australia (Nedlands: University of
Western Australia Press, 1986, p.68); essentially the same view is reiterated ten
years later in Graeme Henderson, ‘Maritime Archaeological Sites’ in Cultural
Conservation: Towards a National Approach, ed. Sharon Sullivan (Canberra: Australian
Government Publishing Service, 1995), 293–295.
7 The ICOMOS International Charter on the Protection and Management of
Underwater Cultural Heritage (ratified by the 11th ICOMOS General Assembly,
held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 5–9 October 1996).
8 Graeme Davidson, The Use and Abuse of Australian History, (Crows Nest, NSW:
Allen & Unwin, 2000), Chapter 4.
9 Tony Bennett, ‘The Shape of the Past’, in Nation, Culture, Text: Australian cultural and
media studies, ed. Graeme Turner (London: Routledge, 1993), 72–90.
10 Relevant to this is discussion is Ann Curthoys, ‘Expulsion, Exodus and Exile in
White Australian Historical Mythology’, Journal of Australian Studies, June 1999,
accessed online via Infotrac online.
11 Peter Mayes, ‘In the Wake of the Tampa: where next for Australia’s refugee policy’,
public lecture at James Cook University, 7 October 2003.
12 Bruce Kapferer and Judith Kapferer, ‘Monumentalizing Identity: The Discursive
Practices of Hegemony in Australia’ Stanford Literature Review, 10, no.1–2 (1993):
67–84.
13 Mark Staniforth, ‘Shipwrecks: Images and Perceptions of Nineteenth Century
Maritime Disasters’, in Disasters: Image and Context, ed. Peter Hinton (Sydney:
Sydney Studies, 1992), 45–64.
14 Tim Smith 2000 ‘Shipwrecks and the Australian Psyche’, Bulletin of the Australasian
Institute for Maritime Archaeology 24:89–98.
15 George Landow, Images of Crisis: Literary Iconography, 1750 to the Present (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982).
16 Charles Bateson, Australian Shipwrecks Volume 2:1851–1871 (Sydney: Reed, 1980),
31; Mark Staniforth, ‘SS Monumental City’, in Iron Ships and Steam Shipwrecks:
Papers from the first Australian seminar on the management of iron vessel and
steam shipwrecks, ed. Michael McCarthy (Fremantle: Western Australian Maritime
Museum, 1988), 163–168.
17 Steven Biel, Down With the Old Canoe: A cultural history of the Titanic disaster
(London: W.W. Norton, 1996).
18 Graeme Henderson and Myra Stanbury, The Sirius: Past and Present (Sydney:
Collins, 1988).
19 Beverley Raphael, ‘Death and the Great Australian Disaster’, in The Unknown
Country: Death in Australia, Britain and the USA, eds. Kathy Charmaz, Glennys
18 Object Lessons

Howard and Allan Kellehear (London: Routledge, 1997), 72–83; Also Mark
Staniforth, ‘Shipwrecks: Images and Perceptions…’.
20 Wesley Olsen, Bitter Victory: the death of HMAS Sydney (Nedlands: University of
Western Australia Press, 2000).
21 Geoff Parish, ‘Siev X’, SBS Television (Australia), broadcast 17 July, 2002.
22 Commonwealth Department of Veterans’ Affairs, The Sinking of the Centaur,
http://www.dva.gov.au/media/publicat/2003/centaur/comm.htm 2003, Accessed
7/10/2003; Australian Defence Force, ‘The Sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship
Centaur … War crime or legitimate target?’ Ryebuck Media and Australian
Defence Force 2002, www.anzacday.org.au, accessed 10/12/2003).
23 Jack Loney, Wrecks on the Queensland Coast 1791–1992, (Tarram, Vic: Lodestone
Press, 1993), 18–25.
24 Brad Duncan (James Cook University) is currently undertaking PhD research on
the nature of these relationships within the Queencliffe (Victoria) community.
25 Whether actual physical evidence of these deaths has survived on a wreck depends
of course on a range of physical, chemical and biological environmental variables,
although potentially remains can survive for centuries in good condition, such as
those recovered from the late 18th century HMS Pandora.Peter Gesner, ‘HMS
Pandora Project’ – A report on Stage 1: five seasons of excavation’. Memoirs of the
Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 2(1):1–52.
26 Sir William Dean , Address by Sir William Dean, 2001.
27 Bronwyn Jewell, The Effectiveness of Interpretation on Diver Attitude and
Awareness of Underwater Shipwrecks Values: SS Yongala a case study,
Unpublished B. Admin (Tourism) Honours Thesis, James Cook University, 2002.
28 Australian Naval History, HMAS Sydney Memorial
(http://www.hmassydney.com.au/), accessed 7 October 2003.
29 Louise Willis, ‘Shipwreck Memorial Mistake’, aired on The World Today (ABC
Radio, Australia), Monday 30 June 2003, (transcript at
http:/www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s981609.htm). Accessed 27 August
2003; Australian Defence Force, ‘The Sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship
Centaur … War crime or legitimate target?’ Ryebuck Media and Australian
Defence Force 2002, www.anzacday.org.au, accessed 10/12/2003).
30 A Sixty Minutes expose claims it as “…the story of how we’ve all been fooled by a
charlatan and fraudster claiming, falsely, that the wreck of the Centaur had been
found. And even more distressing – that the site has become sacred to many
Australians as a war grave. But it’s phony. It’s not the Centaur at all”. Richard
Carlton, ‘A Grave Mistake’, aired on Sixty Minutes (Nine, Australia), May 18, 2003
(transcript at
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/sixtyminutes/stories/2003_05_18/story_833.asp
), accessed 27 August, 2003.
31 Cam Young, ‘Where is the Centaur?’, aired ABC Radio, Monday 7 July 2003,
(Transcript at http://www.abc.net.au/sunshine/stories/s896634.htm), Site accessed
27 August 2003.
32 Jack Loney, Wrecks on the Queensland Coast 1791–1992, (Tarram, Vic: Lodestone
Press, 1993), 116–117; Lachie Campbell and Gillan Gout , ‘The Maheno – the story
of a famous shipwreck’ aired ABC Radio, Thursday, 12 June 2003
 When Ships Become Places 19

(transcript at http://www.abc.net.au/widebay/stories/s877712.htm), Site accessed

17 May 2004.
33 C.f. Joan Knowles, Traditional Practices in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area: A
study of five communities and their attachment to place. Report for the Steering
Committee of the Traditional Practices in the World Heritage Area Project
(Hobart: Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service, 1997) .
34 Greg Stemm, ‘Showdown at the Shipwreck Corral: Big Brother or Wild West?’,
Underwater Magazine July/August 2000, (reproduced at
http:/www.shipwreck.net/gdarticle06.html), Accessed 28 August 2003.
35 Paul Johnstone, ‘Treasure Hunting’, in British Museum Encyclopedia of Underwater
and Maritime Archaeology, (London, British Museum Press, 1997), 424–425; Bleth
McHaley and Wendy Tucker, Mel Fisher “World’s Greatest Treasure Hunter”, Key
West: Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, n.d.).
36 For instance, Alan Robinson, In Australia Treasure is not for the Finder (Perth
Vanguard Print, 1980).
37 David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985), 240.
38 Brad Duncan, PhD student, James Cook University, Personal Communication,
October 2003.
39 Bruce and Judith Kapferer, Monumentalizing Identity, 75.
40 See for instance, Heritage Victoria, Victorian Heritage Strategy – Shipwrecks 2005:
Knowing, communicating, protecting and managing Victoria’s diverse shipwreck maritime
heritage 2000–2005, (Melbourne: Heritage Victoria, 2000).
41 The best known example of this is the recovery and reconstruction of the hull of
the VOC Ship Batavia within the hall of the Fremantle Maritime Museum. See
Graeme Henderson, Maritime Archaeology, 9.
42 Shirley Strachan ‘Interpreting Maritime Heritage: Australian historic shipwreck trails’,
Historic Environment 11, no.4 (1995): 26–35.
43 Tom Barnes, Take a Bow Pandora, (Brisbane: Museum of Tropical Queensland,
2002); Jeremy Green and Robert Parthesius ‘Comparative archaeological and
historical evidence from reconstruction of the original Batavia and a modern
replica’, Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology 13 no.2 (1989):
33–4.
44 Sir William Dean , Address by Sir William Dean.
45 Bruce and Judith Kapferer, Monumentalizing Identity, 82–83.
46 Denis Byrne, ‘Deep Nation: Australia’s acquisition of an indigenous past’. Aboriginal
History 20 (1996) 82–107.
47 For instance, Peter Gesner, ‘HMS Pandora Project’, 43–44.
48 E.g. Gregg Bemms, ‘Can human remains affect your bottom line?’, Underwater
Magazine, July/August 2002,
(http:/www.diveweb.com/commdive/features/024.06.html). Accessed 28 August
2003.

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