Historical Specifics:

Weight of Piece *-2-9 * Presumed to be 8

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.

Contrary to published sources such as ‘THE SIRIUS PAST AND PRESENT’ (Henderson and Stanbury 1988) and ‘HMS SIRIUS 1790 An illustrated catalogue of artefacts recovered from the wreck site at Norfolk Island’ (Myra Stanbury 1994), it is considered the last digit of the serial number on the left trunnion is a 2. Where the first digit of the weight marking should be, the surface is completely gouged away which would make it impossible to say any marking is present. Again, contrary to the findings in ‘HMS SIRIUS 1790 An illustrated catalogue of artefacts recovered from the wreck site at Norfolk Island’ (Myra Stanbury 1994), the variation in weight between this and the other Sirius piece would be more likely to be just 14 Pounds rather than the 3 Quarters 14 Pounds for the size of these pieces and therefore it is considered the first digit should be an 8.

Custodian: Government of Norfolk Island

The 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. 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 1983 lying beneath the Sirius’s bower anchor and was raised in 1985 and given conservation treatment on the Island.