Model of the Zuytdorp, Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery and Visitor Centre
Some time in June 1712, the 700 ton Dutch ship Zuytdorp (meaning ‘South village’), captained by Marinus Wijsvliet, was wrecked on the Western Australian coast, refered to as New Holland at that time, crashing onto rocks at the bottom of cliffs 65km north of Kalbarri, close to the most westerly point of the Australian mainland.
The 33 metre long three-masted Zuytdorp had been built in Zeeland - probably Vlissingen - in 1701 for the VOC (Dutch United East India Company) as a trading vessel. On 1 August 1711, the vessel left its home port Wielingen in Zeeland (Netherlands) with 286 people on board, bound for the trading port of Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia). It was also carrying a cargo of trade goods and silver including some 248,000 guilders in newly minted coins for the VOC. Many trading ships of the time had started to use a "fast route" to Indonesia, which used the strong Roaring Forties winds to carry them across the Indian Ocean to within sight of the west coast of New Holland (Australia) whence they would make a left turn and head north towards Indonesia.
It lost 112 persons on the way to the Cape of Good Hope where it arrived on 23 March 1712. Another 22 left the ship there. About 130 new crew members (replacing those that died and left the ship) may have been brought on board for the trip to Batavia. They left the Cape of Good Hope, Table Bay, with the ship Kockenge on 22 April 1712. The Zuytdorp pulled ahead of the Kockenge due to her being a much larger and faster vessel. Due to the departure being in April, opposed to the more favourable March, the skipper decided to make up time by sailing east until sighting New Holland, before turning north for Batavia.
The Zuytdorp never arrived at its destination. No search was undertaken, presumably because the VOC had no idea whether and where the ship had been wrecked or taken by pirates, and possibly due to prior expensive but fruitless attempts to search for other missing ships, even when an approximate wreck location was known.
Those on board were never heard from again. Their fate was unknown until the 20th century when the wreck site was discovered on a remote part of the Western Australian coast between Kalbarri and Shark Bay, approximately 40 km north of the Murchison River, now named the Zuytdorp Cliffs. It was the first Dutch wreck to be found and identified on the coast of Western Australia.
The wrecksite. Photo: WA Museum
Something, perhaps a violent storm, had occurred and the Zuytdorp had been wrecked on this desolate section of the West Australian coast. If the ship had, without warning, struck the honeycombed reefs in turbulent water at the foot of the cliffs, there would have been no time to launch boats. The ship would have been flung on to its side, and few survivors would have got away. Anyone who succeeded would probably have been crushed against the reef platform or sucked into the blowholes underneath. The only hope for those on board would have been to scale the rigging (if the masts still stood) and drop onto dry land, or jump from the poop deck on to the reef platform.
If, on the other hand, there had been time to set the anchors, there would have been a chance for survivors to leave the ship, perhaps with part of the cargo of silver normally carried by East India Company vessels. If that was the case, their remains would now lie somewhere between the wreck and their intended destination, Batavia. The answer to that puzzle lay in the number of anchors on the wreck and the number that might be found further out to sea. As East India Company ships carried at least five anchors, unless they were found on the wreck, it seemed likely the vessel had set some anchors to seaward.
During reasonably good conditions in May and June 1988, a WA Museum team of maritime archaeologists and divers located eight anchors grouped around what was once the bow of the vessel. Four appeared to have been housed in the traditional fashion, two each side of the bow. A further two lie in shallow water just aft of the bow anchors on top of a large rock, against which the wreck lies, another two 12 metres forward and lightly inshore of the bow anchors.
Neither anchors nor cannon were found seaward of the site. These discoveries suggest that the ship struck the reefs without its anchors set, but came to rest close enough to the reef platform to allow some of those on board to bridge the tantalisingly small gap and reach apparent safety. Neither those on the wreck nor those who got ashore survived to tell the tale.
Steep Point, Zuytdorp Cliffs, the most westerly point on the Australian mainland
The discovery of a considerable amount of material from the wreck on the scree slope and top of the cliffs established that at least some of the estimated 280 people on board managed to get off the stricken vessel and on to shore. This material included coins, cannon breech-blocks, lead sheeting, large bottles, navigational instruments, the remains of chests and barrels, a brass dish, clay pipes, callipers, pins, writing slates, a pistol and musket balls. Two, possibly three, campsites appear to have been established at the time in close proximity to the wreck site, indicating, along with the ashes of a large fire beacon, that the survivors were present in the area for some time after their unfortunate accident. Exactly how many survived this particular episode is uncertain, however. Estimates, no more than educated guesses really, vary from 30 up to 180.
Back in 1712, Australia had no colonies to which the survivors could turn for help. Survivors are likely to have stayed near the wreck for as long as possible because Dutch captains of this era were instructed to sight the coast at 27 degrees south, almost the exact
latitude of the Zuytdorp wreck. It is believed they built bonfires from the wreckage to signal to fellow trading ships that would pass within sight of the coast, however fires seen in the vicinity tended to be dismissed as "native fires", so there is no record of help having come.
What became of the survivors of the Zuytdorp remains one of Australia's most intriguing unsolved mysteries. As water is scarce in the area other than in winter, the survivors would probably have died during the hot summer unless they had received the help of local Aboriginal people. The wrecksite is located on the coast between two major Aboriginal encampments Wale Well, 55 km north of the Zuytdorp wreck site to the north on Tamala Station, and Billiecuthera Well to the south east on Murchison House Station, so it is possible that the survivors may have joined the tribes that travelled between those two centres.
Leyden Tobacco Tin
A few relics, presumed to belong to survivors of the Zuytdorp, have been found over the years, and are tantalising clues as to what happened to the survivors. An inscribed brass tin, known as a Leyden Tobacco Tin , similar to those found at other wreck sites, was discovered at Wale Well in April 1990. It is thought to possibly have come from a survivor of the wreck. A single coin, also probably derived from the Zuytdorp, was given to a station owner at Shark Bay in 1869 by a man named War-du-marah, who declared he found it at Woomerangee Hill, 40 km north of the Zuytdorp wreck site.
It has been speculated that survivors may have traded with or may have intermarried with the local aboriginal community between present-day Kalbarri and Shark Bay. In 1834, Aborigines told a farmer near the recently colonised Perth about a wreck some distance to the North. With references to a wreck and coins on the beach, details strongly point to the Zuytdorp, however the colonists presumed it was a recent wreck and sent rescue parties who failed to find the wreck or any survivors.
A considerable body of observational evidence also exists, based on reports by explorers and others from the early colonial period, regarding the physical appearance of Aboriginal groups along, and inland from, the West Australian coast. Most of this evidence relates to encounters with Aboriginal people who appeared to have atypically fairer skin, lighter coloured hair and eyes. A. C. Gregory, for example, reported that when exploring in the Hutt River region in 1848 he came across a tribe whose "colour was neither black nor copper, but that peculiar colour that prevails with a mixture of European blood." These people Gregory wrote elsewhere had "light flaxen hair, the eyes approaching the colour of the same." Pastoralist Augustus Oldfield claimed in 1865 that he was "very much surprised to find in some of the old natives in the Geraldton area features nearly approaching the European type, although these parts have been settled but a few years."
Other genetic indicators embrace factors such as tallness and baldness as signs influence of Europeans prior to colonisation of Western Australia. Baldness appears to have been uncommon in all Aboriginal populations except along the Murray River in south eastern Australia. However, anecdotal evidence indicates it was a feature in the central west of Western Australia, from the coast to the western edge of the Western Desert. Surveyor Phillip Chauncy commented that in the 1840s and 1850s the "only bald natives I ever saw are the warran [yam] diggers [of the central west coast region]."
Perhaps the most dramatic, albeit unverified, claim of unusual physical attributes of Aboriginal populations from the cental west of Western Australia was made in 1861 when the Perth Gazette reported: "From Champion Bay [Geraldton] we hear that a tribe of natives have made their appearance at the eastern most sheep stations upon the north branch of the Upper Irwin, who differ essentially from the aborigines previously known, in being fair complexioned with long light coloured hair flowing down to their shoulders, fine robust figures and handsome features: their arms are spears ... which they throw underhanded."
The Zuytdorp Cliffs
In April 1927, Tom Pepper, a young boundaryrider searching after a marauding dingo, discovered a survivor's campsite at the top of the cliffs above what was later found to be the Zuytdorp's wrecksite, mid way between Tamala and Murchison House Stations. Atop and at the foot of cliffs he also found silver coins (some dated 1711), bottle fragments, timbers including a spar, a carved female figure (see below), breech blocks from swivel guns and other objects including evidence of a deliberately lit fire, were seen, but no signs of human remains. Wreck material had also been seen by his Aboriginal family including Lurlie, her sister Ada and her husband Ernest Drage.
A carved console from the stern of the ship in form of grotesque woman's figure. It was found at the foot of the cliffs adjacent to the website by Tom Pepper. A replica of the console currently on display at the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery and Visitor Centre. The small plump face of a woman is turned back and has a placid expression. A wreath surrounds the head and the bust is in the form of a lion's head. Probably from the starboard side of the stern.
Tom Pepper, a European who had married Lurlie Mallard, a local Aboriginal woman, appears to have informed the manager of Tamala station of his find, who in turn informed Dr J. S. Battye, then the State Librarian and author of the standard 'History of Western Australia'. Because of the remoteness and inaccessibility of the site and at a time when the Depression was closing in on Western Australia, no attempt was made to follow up Pepper's find immediately. Undoubtedly he was the first to report the discovery of the relics near the site to the responsible authorities, and thus to identify the locality of an historic wreck, although without discovering the wreck itself. It was another 30 years before it was realised that this was indeed the wreck site of the Zuytdorp.
In 1939, Hughie Drage received a report that an Aboriginal had discovered what were later determined to be a number of Zuytdorp relics while fishing. He took a party to investigate and reported his findings to The West Australian and the Geraldton Guardian newspapers, both of which published stories in September 1939. It is reasonable to assume that the Aboriginal fisherman was Charlie Mallard, brother of Tom Pepper's wife, who acted as guide to the Sunday Times expedition in 1941. That expedition was undertaken by Victor Courtney and party from the Sunday Times and included a visit to the Peppers. Interesting film evidence survives from this expedition.
A Zuytdorp survivors' camp site found by the 1954 expedition
A young geologist, Dr Phillip Playford, became fascinated by the wreck upon meeting Tom Pepper at Tamala in 1954. As a result, Dr Playford undertook the detailed historical research which led to the positive identification and pin-pointing of the Zuytdorp wrecksite. Playford subsequently produced a report describing and identifying the site mainly from the coins dated 1711.
Playford's interest encouraged West Australian Newspapers to undertake two expeditions to the Zuytdorp Cliffs, one by John Stokes and Jay Winter (a nom de plume: this writer was actually Sir James Cruthers) in 1954 and a second led by Hugh Edwards and sponsored by the Daily News (newspaper) in 1958. Press photographer Doug Burton, who accompanied the expedition, had previously played an important role training Australian airmen during the second world war, and also gained the distinction of capturing the first image of an atomic blast on Australian territory, following the war on the morning of October 3rd 1952.
Zuytdorp Wreck Site 1954 Expedition with Phillip Playford and Jim Cruthers. Courtesy of The West Australian
Both expeditions were initiated by Dr Phillip Playford, whose energies to a considerable degree eventually resulted in the WA Museum’s involvement in marine archaeology. They had found many broken gin bottles and various other items. Three survivors’ camp sites were identified inland from the wreck, and later expeditions found evidence that some people may have reached a large spring frequented by Aboriginal people of the Malgana Tribe, 50 km north of the wreck.
Each expedition recovered relics and added to knowledge of the locality, but because of the extreme difficulty of the wrecksite it was not until 1964, in one of the rare intervals of calm weather in that locality, that anyone dived on the wreck. A team led by Geraldton identity Tom Brady, and including Graham and Max Cramer, conducted the first dive on the wreck. They saw 2 anchors, iron guns (cannon), lead ingots, ballast stones and a small, badly eroded brass cannon. Although unable to see the whole site, they began the difficult and dangerous work of drawing a plan of the wreck.
The divers made their research available to the Museum, and the site was declared a protected wreck. In 1967, Brady, Gordon, Hancock, Eric Baker and Neil McLaughlan were able to have a good look at the stern section where they were amazed to find a virtual ‘carpet of silver’.
In 1994 a parliamentary select committee met in order to formally credit all who were involved in locating the British ship Tryall or Trial and the Dutch East Indiamen Batavia, Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon), Zuytdorp and Zeewijk. Many submissions were received from those who felt that they, or their deceased relatives, had a role in the discoveries. Tom Pepper and the young geologist Dr Phillip Playford were regarded by the committee as primary discoverers and that Ada Drage, Max Cramer, Graham Cramer and Tom Brady be recognised as secondary discoverers.
Remnants of pipes, recovered from Zuytdorp Wreck. WA Museum, currently on display at the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery and Visitor Centre
News of the dive on the wreck spread fast and the Geraldton team was soon followed by other groups, such as the Underwater Explorer’s Club, the controversial salvage diver Alan Robinson, and the Royal Australian Navy. More details were added to the site plan, more cannons and numerous schemes put to the Museum (which at the time had no divers on its staff). During these expeditions, only two anchors were seen and recorded.
In 1969 the Western Australian Museum became responsible for the site and it commenced the recovery of the silver. Since then, there has been considerable unauthorised looting of the site on occasions when the weather allowed diving nonetheless. In 1980 the WA Museum decided to position a watchman at the cliffs in order to guard the site from treasure hunters, he lived alone in a caravan. Travelling to Kalbarri for supplies the watchman returned to find that his van had been firebombed. No one was ever charged with the offence. However in 2010 an investigation led to the recovery of 1400 coins. In 1981 the dangers of the site, in water, on the land, (including in the air due to a very dangerous airstrip) and human factors (including the firebombing of the caretaker's quarters) led to the programme being shelved and a resident abalone diver appointed watchkeeper.
In 1986 the Museum's programme was resurrected under the leadership of Dr M. McCarthy concentrating as much on the social elements of the tragedy as it did on the recovery of what little remained of the silver and other objects. It also looked towards the production of a site plan designed to examine theories about the wrecking and the possibility that survivors had got ashore. The expanded programme also focussed on the possible movement of survivors away from the wreck site and on the archaeological examination of the survivor's camps for evidence of intermingling with Indigenous people.
Timbers, guns, anchors and a carpet of silver coins are among the many items that have been found strewn across the sea floor. Divers from the Western Australian Maritime Museum have raised raised artefacts from the Zuytdorp, some of which are on display to the WA Museum in Fremantle and Geraldton. A collection of coins is on display at the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery & Visitor Centre. Along with: a Swivel gun, Iron bolts, barrel hoop fragments, ballast stone, Batavia ware porcelain bowl , bronze breech block, pulley sheave, glass case bottle fragment, wine glass stems, brass tufting nails, fine red earthenware fragments, clay pipe stems and bowls.
In January 2016, silver coins from the 1712 shipwreck Zuytdorp worth an estimated $70,000 were put up for sale by Andrew Crellin, owner of Sterling & Currency, Fremantle, WA. Crellin was approached by a Geraldton collector to sell 23 coins, recovered from the wreck site of the Dutch trader. The coins represnted almost a third of all known coins from the Zuytdorp in private hands. The coins, which include unique stuivers and Mexican currency, were purchased by the collector from Russell Cooper, a Geraldton fisherman who had retrieved them from lumps of limestone found at the wrecksite. They were registered and issued certification as part of an amnesty introduced by the federal government in 1993 (under the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976, it is an offence to remove relics from historical shipwrecks in Australian waters and significant penalties apply for doing so). The amnesty provided that holders of such relics could legally retain the items if they were brought forward and declared.
Of the coins in Mr Crellin's possession are some believed to have been newly minted for two ships departing the Netherlands at that time: the Zuytdorp and the Belvliet. Unlike the Zuytdorp, the Belvliet s journey to Batavia was a success, however no such coins ever surfaced. Mr Crellin believes that shows the Belvliet didn t end up with any of the coins, making the Zuytdorp discovery unique.
Artefacts recovered from Zuytdorp Wreck. WA Museum, currently on display at the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery and Visitor Centre
Divers from the Western Australian Museum surveyed and removed items from the wreck at various times during the 1970s when conditions were good enough to dive. Between visits by Museum divers, the wreck was looted by unknown persons and hundreds of silver coins were removed. The person who looted the wreck is almost certainly the arsonist who burnt a caravan used by the Museum's diving team as its base.
The wreck site, one of the few restricted zones under the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976, remains under regular surveillance. The Western Australian Museum in both Fremantle and at Geraldton has produced exhibitions on the wreck, a website, and many reports.
The wreckage site, which lies approximately 70km north of Kalbarri, is heritage protected and cannot be accessed by the public. Due to inhospitable cliffs and hostile weather and tide conditions, it is accessible only a few days of the year. Still, over the years, looters have risked the treacherous dive. In 2010, an investigation by the federal environment department led to the recovery of more than 1400 coins from a home in Geraldton. The coins were subsequently handed over to the WA museum.
In June 2012, the Shire of Northampton unveiled a commemorative plaque in Kalbarri commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Zuytdorp's wrecking. The plaque also mentions two other Dutch East India Company ships that were wrecked in the area: the Batavia and the Zeewijk.
Australia Post released a commemorative Shipwrecks stamp issue on 29 August 2017. The isses presented three historically and archaeologically significant shipwrecks - the Zuytdorp, HMS Pandora and the PS Clonmel. The stamps feature paintings by maritime artists of each wreck event, together with a recovered relic, to show the context of each voyage.
The 59, 000 hectare Zuytdorp Nature Reserve above the wreck area was declared in 1992. The reserve includes most of the permanent and
seasonal soaks that shipwreck survivors would have relied on for water. Access to the reserve and wreck site is restricted. The wreck and adjacent land is a protected zone and permission is required from the WA Maritime Museum and indigenous land managers to enter this area. Diving on the wreck is prohibited for safety reasons and to protect historic relics.
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