An expedition to the historic HMS Pandora wreck site.

Maritime Heritage

Section

Core business: The Cultures and Histories staff based at the Museum of Tropical Queensland (MTQ) represent the Queensland Museum's key competencies in maritime archaeology and maritime heritage. Responsibilities, research and public programs focus on martime heritage across the state.

The Maritime Heritage Collections at the Museum of Tropical Queensland (MTQ) offer associated researchers and clients access to:

• The internationally significant Pandora shipwreck collection.
• Archaeological collections relating to the trade in indentured labour from the Foam historic shipwreck, the pearling industry and other historic maritime activities of significance to Queensland’s maritime heritage, e.g. collections of selected artefacts from the historic shipwrecks, SS Yongala, Gothenburg, Aarhus, Scottish Prince, Valetta.
• Oral histories collected under a project called ‘Old Salts, alternative life-stylers and the occasional beach-bum’ and oral history projects focussing on the North Queensland pearling and trochus industry, the SS Yongala and the Scottish Prince.
• A database of the shipwrecks off the Queensland Coast.
• A Virtual Reality Dive Trail featuring 12 prominent historic shipwrecks off Queensland.

A summary of the Maritime Heritage section’s collection policy is as follows:

Within its capacity to conserve and store such items, the MTQ Maritime Heritage Section accepts and collects items of relevance to specific historic shipwrecks and to selected (historically themed) maritime activities in Queensland (for instance, themes such as Pacific Exploration, Great Barrier Reef (GBR) hydrography, GBR diving history & technology, pearling or the recruitment of indentured labour).

Maritime Heritage: Collection, research and in situ management priorities

Following a thematic approach, maritime heritage staff include in their remit: research, collecting, in situ management, investigation and interpretation of maritime activity and of significant archaeological (shipwreck) sites exemplifying specific aspects of Queensland’s maritime heritage, whether in coastal waters or in waters or seas adjacent to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef, with a view to disseminating to a broad audience new insights and new knowledge about Queensland’s maritime heritage, concentrating specifically on the themes:

- 'Exploring the South Pacific’, (HMS Pandora).
- 'Exploiting Coral Sea marine resources’ (specifically pearling and bèche-de-mer).
- ‘The Queensland Labour Trade’, (the labour trader schooner Foam).
- Charting the Reef.
- Diving on the Great Barrier Reef.
- Queensland trade and immigration (Aarhus, Polmaise, Deutschland, SS Tambaroora).
- Maintaining colonial maritime services (RMS Quetta).
- Coastal passenger trade (SS Yongala and SS Gothenburg).

Research

The research potential of the Pandora Collection has yet to be fully appreciated and brought to fruition; however, it is considered to be substantial. Several research projects have started, mainly focussing on Pandora site specific topics -e.g. environmental influences (Guthrie, UQ Microbiology) as well as on specific aspects of the Pandora Collection – such as:

• Questions arising from the DNA analysis of human skeletal remains (Tom, Dick and Harry) and genealogical research [e.g. Steptoe (UQ Anatomy/NT Police Forensics Unit) and Gesner (MTQ)].
• 18th C Royal Navy surgeons in the South Pacific (Gesner).
• Polynesian fishing equipment (Fallowfield).
• Polynesian war clubs (Campbell, Gesner).

Other objects and aspects of the maritime heritage collection have been researched, e.g. ceramic armbands (trade goods) from the Foam collection (James Cook University Ph.D. candidate Stephen Beck) and a collection of Chinese material culture from the wreck of the SS Mecca (JCU honours student Ewen McPhee).