senior pilot Matthew Flinders with the Royal Navy may be accredit with the first circumnavigation of Australia and its namesake , but the famously doomed Royal Naval man endure a life story of unfortunate events . For starters , not a undivided person has knowingly visited his grave accent in the last 150 year simply because nobody knew where it was – until now .
archaeologist working on a light runway project in London have describe the grave accent of Captain Flinders by a lead breastplate station on top of his coffin , along with the clay of 40,000 other humans once interred in St. James inhumation ground in Euston .
“ Given the telephone number of human remains at St. James ’s , we were n’t confident that we were run to get him . We were very lucky that Captain Flinders had a breastplate made of spark advance mean it would not have rust . We ’ll now be able to study his skeleton to see whether life at sea provide its mark and what more we can learn about him , ” said Helen Wass , HS2 Head of Heritage , in astatement .
Captain Flinders is famously get it on as the air force officer of theHMS Investigator . Having first position sail in 1801 on a missionary station to graph the coastline of Australia , he successfully navigated around the entire coast and later on became the first soul to voyage around the country and confirm it was , in fact , a continent . But the story does n’t originate there .
After having just marry his wife Ann , Flinders was say to set cruise and leave her behind – fornineyears . Upon hearing of his father ’s death and Ann ’s serious unwellness , he set cruise for England only to be shipwrecked on the Great Barrier Reef . ( Before you express mirth , that happeneda lot . ) Sir Matthew Flinders thenrowedback to Sydney , picked up two other ships , and rescued all the survivors , include his brother . He then set off for England but was squeeze to stop in Mauritius for repair , not knowing that Britain and France were at war . Here , he was detained as a captive for more than six geezerhood .
Ultimately , Flinders made it back to Britain and bring forth a daughter with Ann . alas , he died just two years after in 1814 – the sidereal day after his leger and single-valued function were published – and buried in the St James burial ground where Euston station would later be built . It was here that in the 1840s his headstone was removed as part of an enlargement and his remains fall behind . For years , an urban legend held that Captain Flinders was swallow up under Platform 15 .
Nevertheless , the discovery of his corpse helps place his important role in chronicle .
“ The breakthrough of Captain Matthew Flinders ’s remains is an incredible chance for us to learn more about the life and remarkable achievements of this British navigator , hydrographer and scientist . maitre d' Matthew Flinders put Australia on the map due to his tenacity and expertise as a navigator and explorer , ” say Wass .
Given the largeness of socioeconomic backgrounds , archaeologists say further analysis of the graves will help oneself paint a picture of what London life story was like during the 18th and 19th centuries .
