Matthew Flinders Anniversary
John Franklin was connected to Matthew Flinders through the marriage of his Aunt to Matthew Flinders father (his second wife) in 1783. This paved the way for a young John Franklin to be taken on board the Investigator as midshipman in 1801 for Matthew Flinders expedition to chart the unknown coasts of Australia. In the next two blogs I will cover Matthew Flinders Reburial and Anniversary services, and look more closely at the connection between the Franklin and Flinders families.
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| Stained glass window at St Mary & the Holy Rood |
On Sunday 13th July this year, Steve & I attended the First Anniversary Service for Matthew Flinders in the Church of St Mary and the Holy Rood, at Donington where he was born. The occasion marked a year since his actual reburial in the village church, on 13th July 2024.
Last year’s reburial service had been particularly moving, led by an imposing Bishop of Lincoln, accompanied by the Governor of South Australia, the Australian Naval Attache and a host of dignitaries too numerous to mention. As a naval Captain, Matthew Flinders received an 18 gun salute and his coffin was carried by 6 pall bearers from the Royal Navy’s state ceremonial team. Permission had been granted to bury him inside the church itself, a very rare occurrence. The coffin was lowered into the grave to the sound of bosun’s whistles and a volley of rifles fired in salute outside.
The story behind the discovery of Matthew Flinders coffin is remarkable in itself. Having died in London on 19th July 1814, he was originally buried in St James’s Chapel burial ground near Hampstead Road, which at that time was out beyond the northern edge of London. In 1852 this graveyard closed for burials and later it became a public garden, with the headstones cleared away to the edges. In the 1850’s Matthew Flinders sister-in-law, Isabella Tyler, tried to visit his grave and was horrified at what she saw :
Many years afterwards, my aunt Tyler went to look for his grave, but found the churchyard remodelled, and quantities of tombstones and graves with their contents had been carted away as rubbish, among them that of my unfortunate father, thus pursued by disaster after death as in life
This information became fact, even being included on a memorial plaque at St Thomas Church, Charlton, where Matthew’s widow Ann Flinders and her half sister Isabella Tyler were buried. In 1973 the church was at risk of demolition and the plaque was moved to St John’s Church, Flinders town near Mornington Peninsular, Victoria (Note the date of death on the tablet is wrong, he died on 19th July not the 14th):
MATTHEW FLINDERS ESQ
POST CAPTAIN, ROYAL NAVY
THE AUSTRALIAN DISCOVERER
DIED JULY 14. 1814. AGED 40
AND WAS BURIED AT ST JAMES’ CHAPEL HAMPSTEAD ROAD
THE TOMB HAVING BEEN DESTROYED OR REMOVED BEFORE THE YEAR 1854
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED TO HIS MEMORY
Nevertheless, the burial ledger of St James’s Chapel, Hampstead Road, clearly recorded Matthew Flinders burial in the “second ground”, an area unaffected by any expansion. The HS2 excavations revealed that his grave was still in the same area recorded by the burial register, and fortunately it was easily identified by a decorative lead plaque on top of the coffin, which is now on permanent loan to Adelaide.
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| Lead plaque |
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| Matthew Flinders new coffin with boomerang |
There was no record that the Flinders family ever purchased a grave marker, so this may have led to the later confusion, once other head stones had been removed.
Matthew Flinders new coffin was a reconstruction by Robert Hartle, the Senior archaeologist at the excavations at Euston. Before polished & waxed wooden coffins became the norm, they were covered with fabrics such as baize or velvet and decorated with upholstery studs in patterns. Traces of these were found on Flinders coffin, and although the exact pattern of the studs couldn’t be identified, the new coffin was covered in black cloth with decorative stud work. A pall incorporating both British and Australian flags covered the coffin, along with a wreath of a white anchor with red roses.
After this beautiful coffin was lowered into the ground, handfuls of earth from Donington, Australia, Mauritius and London, were sprinkled over it to represent places of importance in Matthew Flinders life. Some of the Australian earth came from Encounter Bay, southern Australia, where he met the French explorer Nicolas Baudin in 1802. Earth from Mauritius represented Matthew’s imprisonment on the Ile-de-France by the Governor, General Decean for 6 ½ years on his return home from Sydney (1803-1810).
Laurie Bimson, a descendant of Bungaree, Chief of the Broken Bay tribe, who accompanied Flinders in the Investigator placed a boomerang smeared with ochre from Bungaree’s country north of Sydney into the grave. Ochre symbolizes connection to country. The boomerang was made by Laurie’s son, Tom Bimmo Bimson and had an image of a stingray, Bungaree’s tribal totem, burnt into it, along with three emus and a group around a camp fire.
Matthew Flinders reburial in 2024 had been a joyous occasion for Donington, shop fronts were filled to the brim with Australian memorabilia of all sorts; images of Bungaree, Matthew Flinders and his cat Trim; colourful bunting everywhere. In Flinders Park there were Flinders cocktails on sale (we tested them of course!) and a giant model of a kangaroo stood in Market Square.
How different this would have been to the scene over 200 years ago, when my great great great grandfather, Willingham Franklin, was a mourner at Matthew Flinders funeral in London in 1814. How appropriate that 200 years on, Franklin descendants were able to attend Matthew Flinders reburial and first anniversary services at Donington.