VALUABLE FIND

Southland Times, Issue 22214, 5 January 1934, Page 5

VALUABLE FIND

LINK WITH THE PAST

DISCOVERY ON PITCAIRN

ISLAND

RUDDER OF MUTINY SHIP

(Per United Press Association.)

Wellington, January 4. The first news of the discovery by Pitcairn Islanders of the rudder of the mutiny ship Bounty was told to a reporter when the Home liner Mataroa arrived in Wellington to—night. Two of the passengers had with them pieces of the old sea roughened copper which had been given to them from the rudder by Islanders when the Mataroa called there on Boxing Day. When the Mataroa anchored off Pitcairn Island to exchange mails, passengers stated that the islanders who came out to the ship in their doubleended rowing boats told them that four days earlier the rudder had been found by them while fishing. They had seen it lying uncovered on the seabed and with some difficulty had salvaged it. The rudder itself had been left on the island, but with them they brought two pieces of it. One of these, a copper bolt, they gave to Mr J. Findley, the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company s New Zealand representative, and the other, a small sawn-off section of a copper bar, to the chief steward, Mr S. J. Gibling. One of the Mataroa’s round-trip passengers, Commodore C. A. Bartlett, stated that he spoke about the discovery to a man named Christian, who was a magistrate and the chief person on the island. Mr Christian had assured him there was little doubt of the rudder belonging to the Bounty which was scuttled by mutineers in 1789, since when the presence of the remains of the ship had been a mystery. He also said that islanders were searching the seabed in the hope of regaining some more wreckage. Commodore Bartlett advised him to take the first opportunity of sending the rudder to the United Services Museum in London. He remarked tonight that he would try to get some more information about the discovery on the Mataroa’s visit to the island on her homeward voyage.