Pages 9 - 77 (1600kb) - Eurobodalla Shire Council

EUROBODALLA ABORIGINAL CULTURAL HERITAGE STUDY
South Coast NSW
In 1849, just a few years after the event, the following account was recorded:
Some of the tribe… greatly distinguished themselves, three or four
years since, by saving the crew of a schooner which was wrecked in the
surf. The white by-standers stood aghas, and could not contrive means
to render any assistance; but fifteen of the aborigines formed a line,
hand in hand, and went into the surf and saved all on board. A
benevolent individual residing near, a captain in the navy, made earnest
application to the Governor, for a reward for these daring fellows; but
the reply received was, that there were no funds at the disposal of the
Government for such a purpose. This seems a hard case, when such
immense sums have been realised by the sale of waste lands! But
Captain – did all he could to reward these men, by making them
frequent presents of little comforts, and he presented to each ‘humanity
man’ a brass plate, having attached to it a chain, by which to hang it
around the neck. On each plate he caused to be engraved the name of
the wearer, and a record of the good deed and his comrades had done.
This was the more generous, as the trading vessel that was cast away
contained goods and stores belonging to himself, which were all
irrevocably lost. The same gentleman is before alluded to as having, at
a police office, pleaded the cause of a black held in captivity. He is an
old and gallant officer, who has seen a great deal of hard service, and
been more than once desperately wounded, and his noble nature ever
prompted him to befriend the aborigines. 59
In recognition of their assistance and bravery Captain Oldrey RN of Broulee, whose
cargo the ship was carrying at the time it was wrecked, presented several Aboriginal
people with gorgets. 60 He had asked that the Government provide some form of
reward to the individuals but this was refused. 61
A gorget in the collection of the National Museum of Australia appears to be one of
those presented on this occasion. The gorget is inscribed with the name ‘Timothy,
Chief of Merricumbene’, Merricumbene being one of the station runs in the area. One
half of this gorget was found in 1911 in an ash-heap near an old boat building shed at
Bateman’s Bay, it had been cut up to repair a boat’s keel. The other part was
subsequently found and they have since been rejoined. It was recorded in relation to
the gorget when it was recovered that:
Old residents, then alive, remembered the occasion of the presentation
of the plate to Timothy for his valour in swimming with a life-line to a
stranded merchantman in the vicinity of Bateman’s Bay about 70 years
before (that is about 1840). 62
59 th
Townsend quoted in Tania Cleary, Poignant Regalia: 19 Century Aboriginal Breastplates & Images,
Historic Houses Trust of NSW, Sydney, c.1993, p.39.
60
Also known as ‘king plates’ or ‘brass plates’.
61
Ron Prior, The History of Old Mogo Town, Bateman’s Bay Commercial Printers, 1991, pp.3-4.
62
Cleary, op.cit. ; Jakelin Troy, King Plates: A History of Aboriginal Gorgets, Aboriginal Studies
Press,1993.
62 Milne, quoted in Troy, op.cit., p.34.
Goulding Heritage Consulting Pty Ltd
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