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left-of-center2012

(34,195 posts)
Mon Jan 28, 2019, 03:43 PM Jan 2019

Matthew Flinders: Australia explorer's remains found

Captain Flinders led the first circumnavigation of Australia and is credited with naming the country. Some 61,000 skeletons will be removed from St James's Gardens, where the station for the HS2 rail route will be built near London Euston station.
A recently discovered coffin showed the captain was buried on 23 July 1814.

Captain Flinders, who was from Lincolnshire, made several significant journeys, notably as commander of HMS Investigator. In the ship he became the first known person to navigate around the entire coast of Australia, confirming it as a continent.

He is also credited with giving Australia its name - although he was not the first to use the term, his work popularised its use.

But the man credited with mapping this vast country and identifying it as a continent also has a lesser-known legacy. Matthew Flinders also found time to write a biography of Trim, his ship's cat.

Trim survived storms, a fall overboard and a shipwreck before, according to Captain Flinders, eventually being eaten by starving slaves in Mauritius. There is even a statue in Sydney to celebrate Trim, and the obvious affection shown to him by his intrepid, seafaring owner.

Captain Flinders will be reinterred with the buried population of St James's Gardens at a location to be announced.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-46974247?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c1038wnxyy0t/archaeology&link_location=live-reporting-story

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Matthew Flinders: Australia explorer's remains found (Original Post) left-of-center2012 Jan 2019 OP
So, they're building a rail station on the site of a ... gulp ... burial ground? mr_lebowski Jan 2019 #1
since Ghosts don't exist maxsolomon Jan 2019 #2
Oh, I know! It was a joke reference to Poltergeist :) (nt) mr_lebowski Jan 2019 #3
Obviously maxsolomon Jan 2019 #6
It's just a man in a ghost costume. Throckmorton Jan 2019 #8
I see a movie in the near future about a haunted railway station. /NT sdfernando Jan 2019 #4
You moved the headstones, but not the bodies!!!! LakeSuperiorView Jan 2019 #5
That actually happened in San Francisco Retrograde Jan 2019 #7
Man, I love the spot where the Legion of Honor is ... mr_lebowski Jan 2019 #9
 

mr_lebowski

(33,643 posts)
1. So, they're building a rail station on the site of a ... gulp ... burial ground?
Mon Jan 28, 2019, 03:51 PM
Jan 2019

What could possibly go wrong ...

Retrograde

(10,150 posts)
7. That actually happened in San Francisco
Mon Jan 28, 2019, 04:32 PM
Jan 2019

The Palace of the Legion of Honor, one of the city's art museums, is built on a 19th century cemetery. When all the cemeteries were moved out to Colma c. 1900 one contractor took the money and moved all the headstones. There are still people buried underneath the museum and the adjacent golf course.

 

mr_lebowski

(33,643 posts)
9. Man, I love the spot where the Legion of Honor is ...
Mon Jan 28, 2019, 04:58 PM
Jan 2019

Now you done ruined it for me ...

Just kidding!

The golf course there, and the nearby houses out on (and just off of) Lake Avenue ... El Camino Del Mar, Sea Cliff Avenue ... such a freaking beautiful area.

One of my favorite 'driving tours' in SF is to drive out Lake Ave to Legion of Honor, then down to the Sutro Baths ruins and the trails in that area ... it don't get much better ...

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