Minister unveils shipwreck relic

16/10/00
A restored cannon from the Trial, the earliest known shipwreck in Australian waters, was today unveiled at the Western Australian Maritime Museum by Arts Minister Mike Board.
The cannon is mounted on a new, authentic gun carriage designed and constructed after extensive research by the Maritime Museum's chief diver, Geoff Kimpton.
The English East India company ship Trial came to grief in May 1622 en route from Plymouth to the Spice Islands, when it struck an unchartered reef, now know as Trial Rocks, north of the Montebello Islands, off Onslow.
While skipper John Brooke and 45 others survived, 93 souls were left to die on the disintegrating wreck.
Before sailing to safety at Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Indies, some of the crew landed on the Montebello Islands in search of water. They became the first Europeans to land on Australian soil and were more than a century ahead of
Sir James Cook.
Mr Board said today that the wreck had been lost for more than 350 years before it was discovered in 1969 by a group of Perth divers led by the late Eric Christiansen of Busselton.
"In June 1971, a Western Australian Museum diving team, funded by the late Michael Kailis, reported that explosives had been used by looters, causing extensive damage. They found most of the ship's cannon and anchors lay on the top of a breaking reef and were in very poor condition," the Minister said.
"However, in 1985 a cannon was located in deeper water in good condition, so it was recovered by Mr Kimpton, who was part of a WA Maritime Museum team led by Jeremy Green.
"The cannon was then handed over to the WA Museum's Department of Materials Conservation where it was treated by conservators, Jon Carpenter and Dr Ian Mcleod, whose wonderful work really was a labour of love.
"It took four years to remove damaging sea salts and stabilise the corroded surfaces of the cannon so that it could be exhibited."
Mr Board congratulated Mr Kimpton's work in building a gun carriage on which the cannon could be mounted.
He said the carriage was a great contrast to the one on exhibition in the Zuytdorp Gallery. Both carriages were built using sponsorship funds from Peter Hickson, a Trustee of the WA Museum, and a member of the Board of the WA Maritime Museum.
Media contact: Tamatha Smith, 9222 9211