Abandonment Issues: An Assessment of Military Vessel Discard Trends Derived from Australasia's Torpedo Boat Defences, 1884-1924

Abandonment Issues: An Assessment of Military Vessel Discard Trends Derived from Australasia's Torpedo Boat Defences, 1884-1924

Session 1
Contexts of War and Conflict in Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage Research and Management

Between 1884 and 1924, a total of fourteen torpedo boats served in the naval defence of Australia and New Zealand. Australasia’s colonial governments purchased these vessels as a consequence of fears of seaborne invasion by Imperial Russia and other foreign powers during the 1870s and 1880s. All were eventually decommissioned, put up for sale, stripped of their most valuable components, and abandoned. Archaeological investigation of four of these discard sites has revealed abandonment attributes distinctly different from documented disposal trends associated with commercial watercraft of the period. This paper will highlight these unique discard trends, and explore tentative explanations for their presence through the filter of site formation process.

James W. Hunter, III

November 2011