Matthew Flinders’ final journeyMatthew Flinders’ final journey 

Matthew Flinders’ final journey, centuries after he put Australia on the map

The British Naval Captain Matthew Flinders (1774 - 1814) could never have imagined that he would be reburied with fanfare in 2024, almost 200 years after his extraordinary life was cut short. 

But that’s exactly what is planned from July 12, 2024, when he will be laid to rest in his birthplace in England, after his missing coffin was finally found.

However, no amount of fanfare could fully account for the life of the bold and brave explorer, who became one of the world's greatest maritime adventurers, and whose circumnavigation and mapping of Australia was the pinnacle of his career.

Ultimately, though, it all came at a huge personal cost that saw Flinders lose everything he loved and sent him to an early grave. 

Flinders made maritime history when he was in his twenties.

The British Naval officer was a man of determination who left a legacy of historic and extraordinary achievements still revered today, adventures most couldn’t imagine – all peppered with romance and tragedy.  

His greatest achievement – putting Australia on the map - was completed before he was 30, but unfortunately Flinders had also been jailed and his career was over. He was denied the glory of his remarkable achievement, his freedom and his adored wife. His death at 40 was painful.  

Flinders was buried in London in 1814, but the exact location became a mystery until it was rediscovered in 2019.  

Flinders legacy is so rich, that the unearthing of his coffin immediately set in motion plans for his reburial in July 2024 - a grand naval ceremony in his birthplace of Donington, England.  

Full of drive and ambition 

Matthew Flinders joined the British Royal Navy when he was 15. It was a natural fit for him.  

“From childhood Flinders was fascinated by the natural world around him. As a boy he was intrigued by the maritime adventure novel Robinson Crusoe which he likened to a match on the straw of his mind” Mr Kieza said. “Flinders was also extremely ambitious to make a name for himself in history and to create some sort of fortune for his family.”  

Flinders had been expected to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who were surgeons, but he chose his passion instead.  

On his journey to becoming a history-making navigator, Flinders sailed with the master seaman, William Bligh, from whom he learnt practical navigation and chart making. Then, while sailing from England to the colony of New South Wales, he befriended ship surgeon, George Bass. They both believed that a strait separated the mainland from Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and went there in October 1798 to prove it.  Flinders concentrated on charting the island while Bass explored it. Flinders named it Bass Strait.

Flinders circumnavigated and named Australia 

Flinders eventually became commander of the ship, HMS Investigator. He was instructed to go to 'New Holland for the purpose of making a complete examination and survey' of the southern and northern coasts and, if he had time, the rest of the west and the north-west.  

At the time, it was thought the lands known as New Holland to the west and New South Wales to the east were separate land masses.

Captain Flinders proved otherwise – that they were both part of a single continent. He took three years to circumnavigate it, finishing in 1803. Flinders also named the land mass.  

Flinders had achieved all this by the time he was 29.  

The job was done, and he desperately wanted to get back to his wife  

Flinders was in a hurry to return to England to see Ann.  At that stage, they hadn’t seen each other in three years – they'd married just three months before Flinders left England on his mission to Australia in 1801.  

Flinders wanted Ann to go with him, but the Royal Navy wouldn’t allow it.  They were separated for most of their married life and it took almost ten years and many love letters before Flinders and Ann could be reunited.  

Flinders’ urgency to return to England was a disaster  

When Flinders tried to return home, he left behind a damaged Investigator, but there was trouble with his replacement ship, and he was forced to stop for repairs at the French colony, Mauritius.  

He also had no idea then that France and England were at war. Flinders was arrested on arrival in Mauritius, accused of being a spy and spent six-and-a-half years under house arrest. Mr Kieza says things could have worked out very differently if Flinders wasn’t so “arrogant and impetuous”.

“His ‘bull at a gate’ personality led him to rush home in a dilapidated vessel to see his wife in England after the circumnavigation of Australia...  If he had been more prudent, he would have waited for a more seaworthy vessel and could have avoided having to stop at Mauritius for repairs to his ship”. Mr Kieza said.

A ‘broken man’, he lost his freedom, years of his marriage and then, his beloved cat, Trim. Flinders had circumnavigated Australia with his cat, Trim, by his side. The black and white feline was with Flinders when he was detained, and the cat was allowed to wander the island.  

Then one day, in 1804, Trim disappeared. Mr Kieza says Flinders was devastated. “Trim’s death caused him [Flinders] a great deal of anxiety and the seven years he spent longing for a return to England left him very much a broken man”.

Flinders' love of Trim propelled him to write a book about their relationship, which includes this excerpt:

Flinders was finally able to return to England in 1810, and he immediately started preparing charts and documentation of his circumnavigation of Australia. Two years later, he and Ann had a daughter - their only child. 

The bad luck continued even after Flinders was buried. 

Troubled by kidney disease for 20 years, it finally claimed his life after months of pain, and he died in 1814 when he was just 40. Flinders' career choice is believed to be largely responsible for his sickness.

“Flinders’ death from kidney disease was no doubt a result of the privations and dehydration he suffered during long ocean voyages” Kieza says.

 And Flinders died the day after the landmark summary of his life’s work, A Voyage to Terra Australis was published.

Flinders was laid to rest in London, England, but his grave’s location became a mystery.  The headstone on Flinders’ grave disappeared in the 1840s, and his remains were lost.  

It took almost two centuries to find his grave, which was unearthed during excavation of the burial ground in London January 2019.  The discovery sparked a passionate campaign by his descendants and locals, to have Flinders reburied in the town he was born – Donington, England.  

The legendary seafarer’s final voyage.  

The campaign succeeded and the ceremony celebrating the life and accomplishments of Matthew Flinders was arranged to span three days, from the 12th of July 2024. Hundreds of guests were invited from across the world, including Australia and Mauritius. The ceremony featuring an 18-gun salute and the burial of Flinders in sacred ground.

A fitting tribute for a determined and passionate man whose accomplishments cost him his career, his loves, his passions and ultimately his life.