HMS Investigator (1798)

HMS ''Investigator'' was the mercantile ''Fram'', launched in 1795, which the Royal Navy purchased in 1798 and renamed HMS ''Xenophon'', and then in 1801 converted to a survey ship under the name HMS ''Investigator''. In 1802, under the command of Matthew Flinders, she was the first ship to circumnavigate Australia. The Navy sold her in 1810 and she returned to mercantile service under the name ''Xenophon''. She was probably broken up c.1872.

Background

''Fram'' was built in Sunderland as a collier. She operated off the north-east coast of England before the Royal Navy purchased her in 1798. Pitcher, of Northfield refitted her between 27 April and 24 May 1798. She then went to Deptford Dockyard on 6 August. The Navy armed her with 22 carronades to serve as an escort vessel, and renamed her HMS ''Xenophon''.

Commander George Sayer commissioned ''Xenophon'' as an armed ship for the North Sea. In 1799 he brought the Irish rebel James Napper Tandy and some of his associates as state prisoners from Hamburg to England. Around February 1800 Sayer removed to HMS ''Inspector''.

Australian voyage

At the urging of the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, the Admiralty decided to launch an expedition to map the Australian coastline, as well as further study the plant and animal life on the new colony. Attached to the expedition was the botanist Robert Brown, the botanical artist Ferdinand Bauer and the landscape artist William Westall. The Admiralty chose ''Xenophon'' for the expedition: her former mercantile role meant that she had a small draught and ample space for supplies, making her particularly suitable for a long exploratory voyage. On the other hand, she was in relatively poor condition, and could therefore be spared from service in the war against France.

The Navy had ''Xenophon'' fitted as a discovery ship at Sheerness between November 1800 and March 1801, and renamed her ''Investigator''. The refitting included making additional cabins for scientists and space on the deck for plant specimens. The armament was reduced to two guns and eight carronades (six 12-pounder and two 18-pounder), providing additional storage space.

On 19 January 1801, the Navy appointed Lieutenant Flinders commander of the ''Investigator'', and he would arrive to take command on 25 January. He would later write:

Circumnavigation (6 Dec 1801 – 9 June 1803)

''Investigator'' set sail from Spithead for Australia on 18 July 1801, calling at the Cape of Good Hope before crossing the Indian Ocean and sighting Cape Leeuwin off South West Australia on 6 December 1801. The expedition put into King George Sound (Albany) for a month before beginning a running survey of the Great Australian Bight, which stretched 2300 kilometres to Spencer Gulf.

On 21 February 1802 a tragic accident occurred when a shore party which included Ships Master John Thistle, midshipman William Taylor and six seamen were lost when a boat capsized attempting to return to the ship at dusk in choppy waters. No bodies were recovered. Flinders named the headland Cape Catastrophe, and the area which he had anchored Memory Cove.

Proceeding into the gulf, Flinders surveyed Port Lincoln (which he named after his home county). Working eastwards ''Investigator'' next charted Kangaroo Island, Yorke Peninsula and St Vincent Gulf. On 8 April, at Encounter Bay, a surprise meeting with ''Géographe'' under Nicolas Baudin was cordial, the two navigators being unaware the Treaty of Amiens had only just been signed, and both believed the two countries were still at war with one another.

Sailing eastward through Bass Strait, ''Investigator'' visited King Island and Port Phillip before arriving at Port Jackson on 9 May 1802. ''Investigator'' spent the next ten weeks preparing and took aboard 12 new men, including an aborigine named Bungaree with whom Flinders had previously sailed on the sloop ''Norfolk''. On 22 July ''Investigator'' left Port Jackson, sailing north in company with the brig . The ''"Lady Nelson"'' sailed poorly after losing her keels and Flinders ordered her back to Port Jackson.

''Investigator'' hugged the east coast, passed through the Great Barrier Reef and transited Torres Strait (which Flinders had previously sailed with Captain William Bligh on . While she was surveying the Gulf of Carpentaria the ship's timbers were examined; the dockyard refit/conversion had failed to rectify and fix major faults with the ship, and as the voyage to Australia had revealed, she was in poor shape: the wood was rotting and there were serious extensive leaks. The ship's carpenter reported that she would not last more than six months.

Flinders sailed to the Dutch settlement in Timor hoping to find a replacement, but was unsuccessful. By now a number of the crew were unwell with numerous diseases such as dysentery and scurvy, so Flinders reluctantly cut short the survey and sailed back to Port Jackson "with all possible sail, day and night" to undergo repairs. This meant abandoning his desire for a running survey on the north and west coasts of Australia.

Flinders did, however, complete the circumnavigation of Australia, but not without lightening the ship by jettisoning two wrought-iron anchors. These were found and recovered in 1973 by divers at Middle Island, and lifted from the water and carried to port by the MV Cape Don Archipelago of the Recherche, Western Australia. The best bower anchor is on display at the South Australian Maritime Museum while the stream anchor can be seen at the National Museum of Australia.

''Investigator'' reached Port Jackson on 9 June 1803 and, on her return to Sydney, Governor Philip Gidley King requested that a survey of the vessel be carried out:

Flinders left the now decommissioned ''Investigator'' as a storeship hulk at Port Jackson and attempted to return to England as a passenger aboard HMS ''Porpoise''.

Later years (1804–1810)

In 1804, Governor King of Sydney ordered a survey, which found that ''Investigator'' could be repaired and returned to service. The work involved cutting down the front deck and re-rigging the ship as a brig, to prepare her for another voyage. In 1804 she came under the command of Lieutenant John Houston for local service. While she was at Sydney, ''Investigator'' helped raise , which had sunk at her moorings in a storm on 16 October 1804.

On 23 May 1805 Commander William Kent sailed ''Investigator'' back to England, carrying two of Flinder's botanists, Robert Brown and Ferdinand Bauer, and their collections. The ship endured several fierce storms en route but arrived safely at the Port of Liverpool.

In November 1805 Captain Kent was ordered to relocate ''Investigator'' to the Port of Plymouth. The voyage was a difficult one despite its brevity. A typhoid fever had come aboard while the ship was in port, incapacitating both lieutenants, the midshipman and one third of the crew. A further six crew members deserted in Liverpool before ''Investigator'' sailed. There was no ship's surgeon or medicine aboard, and Captain Kent observed that the provisions in ''Investigator''s hold had long since turned "old and bad."Correspondence, Captain Kent to Admiralty Secretary William Marsden, 13 November 1805. Cited in Bladen 1979, pp. 729–730

''Investigator'' was put to sea nonetheless, rounding the tip of Cornwall in heavy storms. A gale off The Lizard carried away most of her sails and rigging and part of the mainmast. Unwilling to risk further damage, Kent abandoned the voyage to Portsmouth and brought ''Investigator'' into Falmouth for repairs. Two of the crew died of disease before the ship was ready to return to sea. On 13 November, Kent wrote that a "more deplorable crazy vessel than the ''Investigator'' is perhaps not to be seen" in the Navy.

The battered and disease-ridden ''Investigator'' arrived in Plymouth harbour on 21 November, where she was declared unseaworthy. On 22 December her crew were paid off and transferred to other vessels. In January 1806 the ship herself was removed from active service and placed in ordinary. Two years later she was reclassified as a prison hulk. A decision was made to sell her for breaking up in 1810. One contemporaneous observer called her, a "noble, hard-working ship which did not deserve this fate". However, she was sold in December to a merchant, George Baily for £1,253.

Commercial service (1810–1872)

Now in private ownership, ''Investigator'' was rebuilt as a commercial sailing vessel, brig or snow rigged and reverted to her former naval name ''Xenophon.'' She continued to sail extensively around the globe.

The table below details information from ''Lloyd's Register'' for several years. In all cases, the data is for ''Xenophon'', launched in 1795 in Sunderland. She first shows up in ''Lloyd's register'' in 1817, in which year there are two other ''Xenophon''s, both launched in Massachusetts, all of roughly similar sizes, but the American ones are much younger. In no subsequent year in the table below is there a second ''Xenophon'' listed.

Her final voyage occurred in 1853, when she put into the Australian port of Geelong on 30 July with a cargo of timber and other goods.The ''Argus'' newspaper, Melbourne, 3 August 1853. ''Xenophon'' later continued on to Melbourne, where she was sold and was converted into a storage hulk. She was re-registered in Melbourne in 1861. A further change of ownership occurred in 1868 and the register was closed in 1872 with the comment "broken up".

Citations and references

Citations

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External links

Digitised copies of the original logs of HMS InvestigatorBritish Atmospheric Data Centre
The National Archives as part o
the CORRAL project

{{DEFAULTSORT:Investigator (1801)
1795 ships
Sloops of the Royal Navy
Exploration ships of the United Kingdom
Maritime exploration of Australia
Survey vessels of the Royal Navy
Prison ships