Diving suit used by Mr Doug Seton when searching for Investigator anchors

View this record on the National Museum of Australia's website

Type: Diving equipment
Date: 1965
Materials: Metal - non specific, Plastic, Textile - non specific, Velcro
Collection: Doug Seton collection no.1
Accession number: 2008.0069.0002

Description

The top section of a blue hooded diving suit with black edging, stitching and velcro fixings. Stitched to the proper left side is a black label with the word 'CHALLENGER' in yellow. There is also yellow text on the arms reading 'MORAY'.

About the collection

The Doug Seton Collection comprises objects relating to the recovery of two anchors from the ship Investigator commanded by Matthew Flinders: the air cylinders and diving suit used by recovery expedition leader Mr Seton and an underwater metal detector made by expedition member Mr Peter Koch and fellow members of the Underwater Explorers Club of South Australia. The anchors were lost in May 1803 when Investigator was leaving Goose Island Bay, off Middle Island in the Recherche Archipelago. Flinders cut the cables to the best bower and stream anchors to stop the ship being pulled on to rocks. Mr Robert Sexton, maritime historian of Adelaide conducted research into His Majesty's Sloop Investigator commanded by Matthew Flinders during his voyage of discovery 1801-1803. Flinders sailed around the land mass he later named Australia, a circumnavigation which proved its island status after many years of conjecture and uncertainty about the Great South Land. In 1969 Mr Sexton wrote that during the course of his research he found 'reference to an incident in South Australian waters in which two of the Investigator's anchors were lost. Instead of recovering the anchors as was usual practice, he [Flinders] left them to be picked up at a later date. His long imprisonment on the Ile de France [Mauritius] ended all chance of the voyage being resumed.' The anchors lay in the dangerous and relatively undisturbed waters of the Recherche Archipelago for 170 years until recovered by Mr Seton and his team in 1973. This collection highlights and reconnects with one of the important voyages of discovery and the naming of Australia by Matthew Flinders.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 6:20:36 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-07-29. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.