Pandora HMS

The full index of our ship stamp archive
Post Reply
shipstamps
Posts: 0
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:12 pm

Pandora HMS

Post by shipstamps » Sat Sep 27, 2008 7:08 pm

On August 8th 1966, Fiji issued three stamps commemorating the 175th anniversary of the discovery of Rotuma by Capt. Edward Edwards, R.N., in H.M.S. Pandora. In August 1790, the Pandora was commissioned by the Admiralty to search for mutineers from the Bounty. His orders were: "You are to keep the mutineers as closely confined as may preclude all possibility of their escaping, having however proper regard to the preservation of their lives, that they may be brought home to undergo the punishment due to their demerits".
After visiting Tahiti and neighbouring Pacific islands, Capt. Edwards had rounded up 14 of the Bounty crew on Tahiti. The voyage was continued westward and after passing Wallis Island he saw, on August 8, 1791, a fertile island which he named Grenville's Island, but which the local inhabitants called Rotuma. It was a long, narrow island, some eight miles in length and an average two miles in width, the most isolated island in the northern part of the Fiji group.
Three weeks later the Pandora ran aground of the north coast of Queensland while trying to negotiate the Endeavour Straits in the Great Barrier Reef on August 28, 1791, with the loss of 39 lives, including four prisoners.
The Pandora of 1779 was the first naval ship of the name, but in 1960 a yachtsman found in shallow water off the North Queensland coast, the wreckage of a wooden ship which was presumed to be H.M.S. Pandora, because of the ship's bell with this name, the size of the hulk and the approximate position of the wreck. A curious fact however was the inscription on the bell of this hulk: "Gift of Lady Herbert, daughter of Sir John Knatchbull, of Mearchim Hatch in Kent in the Kingdom of England, November 30, 1711".
The Dictionary of Natural Biography mentions a Sir John Knatchbull (1636-1696) but gives no details of his children. His uncle, Sir Norton Knatchbull, lived at Mersham Hatch. Other ships named Pandora were wrecked in the North Sea (1797) and Kattegatt (1811).
The 3d. stamp depicts the Pandora entering Split Island, Rotuma—the island is cleanly split in two, hence its name. On the Is. 6d. stamp Rotumans are shown signalling to a passing ship as they did in the old days and, indeed, still do, such is the infrequency of ships calling at Rotuma even now.
Sea Breezes 11/66

Fiji SG351,353,827,829.
Norfolk Is DG516/17.
Pitcairn Is SG316
Tokelau SG23
Attachments
SG351
SG351
SG353
SG353
SG827
SG827
SG316
SG316
SG23
SG23
SG516
SG516
SG517
SG517

john sefton
Posts: 1816
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 1:59 pm

Re: Pandora HMS

Post by john sefton » Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:17 am

H.M.S. Pandora; built at Deptford, 1779, by Adams and Barnard. Sixth Rate of 24 guns; 520 tons; length 114'/2 ft., beam 32 ft. in 1791, she was commissioned by Capt. Edwards, R.N., to search for the Bounty mutineers, picking up 14 at Tahiti. After calling at Rotuma Island on August 8, 1791, she ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef with the loss of 39, including four prisoners.
SG23 Sea Breezes 1/71

Anatol
Posts: 1037
Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:13 pm

Re: Pandora HMS

Post by Anatol » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:19 pm

Pandora HMS
Tokelau1999;3d;SG? Niuafo’ou1994;80s;SG210. Niuafo’ou1991;57s;SG154.
Attachments
img0971.jpg
img1022.jpg
img1051.jpg

aukepalmhof
Posts: 7771
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

Re: Pandora HMS

Post by aukepalmhof » Mon Oct 09, 2017 8:22 pm

Built as a sixth rate by Adams & Barnard, Grove Street shipyard in Deptford for the Royal Navy.
11 February 1778 ordered.
02 March 1778 keel laid down.
17 May 1779 launched as the HMS PANDORA.
Tonnage 524 tons burthen, dim, 34.39 x 9.83 x 3.12m, draught 3.4m, length of keel 28.89m.
Armament: Upper deck 22 – 9 pdrs., quarterdeck 2 – 6 pdrs., in 1815 altered to 14 – 9 pdrs, 8 x 18 pdrs carronades, quarterdeck 2 – 6 pdrs.
Crew 160 when built, in 1815 140.
May 1779 commissioned.
03 July 1779 completed at Deptford Dockyard.

HMS PANDORA was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy launched in May 1779. She is best known as the ship sent in 1790 to search for the BOUNTY and the mutineers who had taken her. She was wrecked on the return voyage in 1791.
Early service
Her first service was in the Channel during the 1779 threatened invasion by the combined fleets of France and Spain. She was deployed in North American waters during the American Revolutionary War and saw service as a convoy escort between England and Quebec. On 18 July 1780, while under the command of Captain Anthony Parry, she and DANAE captured the American privateer JACK. Then on 2 September, the two British vessels captured the American privateer TERRIBLE. On 14 January PANDORA captured the brig JANIE. Then on 11 March she captured the ship MERCURY. Two days later PANDORA and HMS BELISARIUS were off the Capes of Virginia when they captured the sloop LOUS, which had been sailing to Virginia with a cargo of cider and onions.[ Under Captain John Inglis PANDORA captured more merchant vessels. The first was the brig LIVELY on 24 May 1782. More followed: the ship MERCURY and the sloops PORT ROYAL and SUPERB. 22 November 1782), brig NESTOR (3 February 1783), and the ship FINANCIER (29 March). At the end of the American war the Admiralty placed PANDORA in ordinary (mothballed) in 1783 at Chatham for seven years.
Voyage in search of the BOUNTY
PANDORA was finally ordered to be brought back into service on 30 June 1790 when war between England and Spain seemed likely due to the Nootka Crisis. However, in early August 1790, 5 months after learning of the mutiny on HMS BOUNTY, the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, decided to despatch her to recover the BOUNTY, capture the mutineers, and return them to England for trial. She was refitted, and her 6-pounder guns were reduced to 20, though she gained four 18-pounder carronades.
PANDORA sailed from Portsmouth on 7 November 1790, commanded by Captain Edward Edwards and manned by a crew of 134 men. With his crew were Thomas Hayward, who had been on the BOUNTY at the time of the mutiny, and left with Bligh in the open boat. At Tahiti they were also assisted by John Brown, who had been left on the island by an English merchant ship, THE MERCURY.
Unknown to Edwards, twelve of the mutineers, along with four sailors who had stayed loyal to Bligh, had by then already elected to return to Tahiti, after a failed attempt to establish a colony (Fort St George) under Fletcher Christian's leadership on Tubuai, one of the Austral Islands. They were living in Tahiti as 'beachcombers', many of them having fathered children with local women. Fletcher Christian's group of mutineers and their Polynesian followers had sailed off and eventually established their settlement on then uncharted Pitcairn Island. By the time of PANDORA's arrival, fourteen of the former BOUNTY men remained on Tahiti, Charles Churchill having been murdered in a quarrel with Matthew Thompson, who was in turn killed by Polynesians who considered Churchill their king.
The PANDORA reached Tahiti on 23 March 1791 via Cape Horn. Three men came out and surrendered to Edwards shortly after PANDORA's arrival. These were Joseph Coleman, the BOUNTY's armourer, and Peter Heywood and George Stewart, midshipmen. Edwards then dispatched search parties to round up the remainder. Able Seaman Richard Skinner was apprehended the day after PANDORA's arrival. By now alerted to Edwards' presence, the other BOUNTY men fled to the mountains while James Morrison, Charles Norman and Thomas Ellison, tried to reach the PANDORA to surrender in the escape boat they had built. All were eventually captured, and brought back to PANDORA on 29 March. An eighth man, the half blind Michael Byrne, who had been fiddler aboard BOUNTY, had also come aboard by this time. It was not recorded whether he had been captured or had handed himself in. Edwards conducted further searches over the next week and a half, and on Saturday two more men were brought aboard PANDORA, Henry Hilbrant and Thomas McIntosh. The remaining four men, Thomas Burkett, John Millward, John Sumner and William Muspratt, were brought in the following day. These fourteen men were locked up in a makeshift prison cell, measuring eleven-by-eighteen feet, on the PANDORA's quarter-deck, which they called "PANDORA's Box".
On 8 May 1791 the PANDORA left Tahiti and subsequently spent three months visiting islands in the South-West Pacific in search of the BOUNTY and the remaining mutineers, without finding any traces of the pirated vessel. During this part of the voyage fourteen crew went missing in two of the ship's boats. In the meantime the PANDORA visited Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga and Rotumah. They also passed Vanikoro Island, which Edwards named Pitt's Island; but they did not stop to explore the island and investigate obvious signs of habitation. If they had done so, they would very probably have discovered early evidence of the fate of the French Pacific explorer La Perouse's expedition which had disappeared in 1788. From later accounts about their fate it is evident that a substantial number of crew survived the cyclone that wrecked their ships ASTROLABE and BOUSSOLE on Vanikoro's fringing reef.
Wrecked
Heading west, making for the Torres Strait, the frigate ran aground on 29 August 1791 on the outer Great Barrier Reef. She sank the next morning, claiming the lives of 31 of her crew and four of the prisoners. The remainder of the ship's company (89 men) and ten prisoners – seven of them released from their cell as the ship was actually sinking – assembled on a small sand cay and after two nights on the island they sailed for Timor in four open boats, arriving in Kupang on 16 September 1791 after an arduous voyage across the Arafura Sea. Sixteen more died after surviving the wreck, many having fallen ill during their sojourn in Batavia (Jakarta). Eventually only 78 of the 134 men who had been on board upon departure returned home.
Captain Edwards and his officers were exonerated for the loss of the PANDORA after a court martial. No attempt was made by the colonial authorities in New South Wales to salvage material from the wreck. The ten surviving prisoners were also tried; the various courts martial held found four of them innocent of mutiny and, although the other six were found guilty, only three (Millward, Burkitt and Ellison) were executed. Peter Heywood and James Morrison received a Royal pardon, while William Muspratt was acquitted on a legal technicality.


Shipwrecks: Capturing our maritime past - Part 2
The Shipwrecks stamp issue, which will be released on 29 August 2017, presents three historically and archaeologically significant shipwrecks. The stamps feature paintings by maritime artists of each wreck event, together with a recovered relic, to show the context of each voyage.
In our first instalment of this three-part article series, we spoke to artist Adriaan de Jong about the meticulous process involved in researching and painting the ZUYTDORP shipwreck. In this article, we move from a Dutch VOC trade ship to a Royal Navy ship sent to hunt down some famous insurgents.
HMS PANDORA
HMS PANDORA sank on 29 August 1791, on the outer Great Barrier Reef, while returning home from its mission to locate the mutinous BOUNTY crew in the Pacific Ocean. In total, 35 lives were lost during the wrecking including four of the captured BOUNTY mutineers.
While 14 of the 25 BOUNTY mutineers were captured upon PANDORA’s arrival in Tahiti, Fletcher Christian, fearing reprisal from the powerful Royal Navy, had fled Tahiti in BOUNTY with a small band of his supporters – destination unknown. The captured mutineers were shackled in leg irons within a wooden cell, 3.5 metres by 5.5 metres, located on the quarterdeck of PANDORA. The prisoners dubbed this “PANDORA’s Box”. With the prisoners secure, HMS PANDORA searched the Tokelau Islands, Tongan Islands and Fiji for five months, but still could not locate Fletcher Christian and his men. It was then that Captain Edwards decided to head for home.
The wreck of PANDORA and its artefacts are looked after by the Cultures and Histories Program at the Queensland Museum Network. Dr Madeline Fowler is the Senior Curator Maritime Archaeology, and her role is to care for the objects to national standards, increase access to the objects and undertake new research on the collection. Alison Mann is the Assistant Collections Manager and is also based at the Museum of Tropical Queensland.
Both Alison and Madeline find the PANDORA a fascinating and intriguing story.
“I feel it’s the intertwined stories,” says Alison. “The First Fleet depart England in May 1787, six months later BOUNTY sets sail. One month after that we have European settlement in Australia, while BOUNTY is still sailing around the world following orders from the Admiralty. Fourteenth months after the British colonise Australia there is the mutiny on board BOUNTY and then, after many more months the Admiralty send PANDORA out into a largely uncharted Pacific to hunt down the mutineers … this story is just short of four years in the making!” notes Alison.
For Madeline, the PANDORA story starts when the wreck was discovered in 1977 and the subsequent nine seasons of excavation in the 1980s and 1990s.
“The archaeological methods used to record the site differ in some ways to how the site would be documented if it were discovered today. It is interesting to understand how the management of underwater cultural heritage changes over time,” says Madeline.
The museum holds thousands of artefacts from PANDORA, including the pistol featured on the stamps and some incredible carved wooden clubs from Polynesia, which the crew would have collected while searching for the mutineers.
I have held that pistol, the one on the stamp, in my hand. It is a tangible connection to this story. All Royal vessels had an armoury, had the weapons to deal with whatever threat came their way. This pistol would have been prepared and ready to fire as PANDORA discovered some of the mutineers in the islands of the Pacific. The sailor who held the weapon would have had the orders to shoot if necessary … and our carved wooden clubs from Polynesia? We have the ship’s log of where and when the islands were visited by PANDORA. We can date and locate the clubs to island groups. We see the artistry of the work by the carvers. We can do research today and see how the styles, icons and designs may have changed over 200 years. But also by where the clubs were located in the wreck (in the Officer’s Store, and we know this through the use of archaeological techniques). We believe the clubs were collected by one or more of the officers with the long term view of profiting from the unique circumstances that found them on a voyage in the vast Pacific Ocean. In the late 1700s, museums back in Britain and Europe would pay good money for these ‘artificial curiosities’ (today, we would call them souvenirs). The PANDORA clubs are similar to other significant international collections of Polynesian objects collected during the late 1700s,” says Alison.

“While these artefacts [the pistol and wooden clubs] are significant, they should be interpreted as part of the entire assemblage,” says Madeline. “The pistol is on object within a collection of weapons and accessories that include ordnance, small fire arms, shot for guns and small arms, kegs, gunner’s equipment and bladed weapons. While the war clubs are one example of Polynesian material culture that also includes adze blades, shell blades, poi pounders, lures, hooks, octopus lures, and the modified coconut husks and shell fragments that comprise the Tahitian mourning dress,” adds Madeline.
“Our collection is special because of its diversity and intactness … PANDORA wasn’t smashed against a rocky coastline and broken into thousands of pieces. The ship ran onto a reef and had a large hole ripped out of the side. One of the pumps on board whose job it was to pump water out of the hold in a situation like this broke down, the ship took on too much water. There was time to get the long boats off the vessel and get the crew and some prisoners on board. Hence the low loss of life. Then the tide lifted the stricken vessel off the reef but it didn’t get far – it sank in 30 metres of water. Gently, over the next 200 years it was covered in sand. It was this process, this action that gives us the collection we have today,” adds Alison.
To learn more about the HMS PANDORA, visit Queensland Museum’s website. To learn more about the entire shipwrecks collection, read Madeline Fowler’s blog article.
In our third and final article, we look at the wrecking of the luxury paddle steamer CLONMEL on only her second voyage.

https://auspost.com.au/content/auspost_ ... st-part-2/
Australia 2017 $1 sg?, scott?
Attachments
pandora sinking.jpg
2017 pandora_jpg.jpg

Post Reply