Historical Specifics:Slide-Out Panel 2

Weight of Piece 8-2-23

Condition: Fair to Good (surface is sealed). There are many dings and surface chunks missing due to service wear, damage during the shipwreck, and more than 90 years accumulating concretions in a corrosive tidal environment. There has been sufficient corrosion and pitting to obscure the right trunnion markings. During the visit it was not possible to observe directly the left trunnion markings due to the lighting around the exhibit and the fact that this side of the piece was too close to a wall. There appeared to be two digits of the serial number, 83, and a ‘P’ beneath them. Brian Hubber, Director and Curator of the Norfolk Island Museum, Kingston, Norfolk Island, estimates that there could have been two digits before the ‘83’ and he observed a ‘-‘ before the ‘P’. This compares with a similar carronade (Reg No. 290020207) in the Great Spur Caponier Passage in Dover Castle with left trunnion marking of ‘18P’ over ‘1780’.

This carronade was assigned to HMS Sirius, Flagship of the First

Fleet. On loaded to the Sirius at Longreach on the Thames River on 16 December 1786. it was lost overboard in the events immediately following the wrecking of the HMS Sirius at Kingston, Norfolk Island, on 19 March 1790. The piece was located in 1988 during the Sirius Project expedition. This piece was cathodically protected in situ for two years prior to recovery by Norfolk Island divers in March 1993 and given conservation treatment on the Island¹.

¹ ‘HMS SIRIUS 1790 An illustrated catalogue of artefacts recovered from the wreck site at Norfolk Island’ (Myra Stanbury 1994