Norfolk Island 2021 Museum: Maritime Models/Ships Mini Sheet of 2 Stamps MUH

Issue date: 13 July 2021

Archaeological material indicates that Norfolk Island was settled first by Polynesians between the 13th and 15th centuries. These seafaring people had long abandoned the island by the time the British first established a settlement there in March 1788, with a handful of convicts and free settlers arriving on HMAT Supply, the smallest of the 11 ships of the First Fleet. The convict settlement grew but was abandoned in 1814, due to the island’s isolation and difficult landing options, with remaining convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land.

A second British settlement occurred between 1825 and 1855, and this was a notoriously brutal phase of convict incarceration. Norfolk’s third phase of settlement commenced the following year, when descendants of HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian families, numbering 194 individuals, were resettled from Pitcairn Island, more than 6,000 kilometres east across the Pacific. Descendants of these Pitcairn Islanders now make up around half of the island’s population.

This history of settlement is preserved through the collection of the Norfolk Island Museum. The collection is displayed across four historical buildings, each of which is part of the Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Heritage Area (KAVHA). The museum has three key collection areas: HMS Sirius, comprising approximately 3,000 items that have been recovered from the wreck of this ship; KAVHA, with around 14,000 mainly convict-related artefacts from the area; and Norfolk Island Museum Trust, which is a diverse collection comprising items brought by the Pitcairn Islanders to Norfolk Island in 1856, along with material assembled since. This stamp issue depicts two timber model ships held in the museum collection.