The Bell Mystery Solved

By Robert Langdon

The mystery of a 249-year-old bell that has intrigued and baffled Australian historians and the British Admiralty for the past five months has finally been solved.

The bell, which is at the Lockhart River Mission, North Queens land, is inscribed: “The gift of Lady Herbert, daughter of Sir John Knatchbull, of Mearchim Hatch in Kent, in the Kingdom of England, November 30, 1711”.

Two yachtsmen claimed last December that during a cruise along the Barrier Reef they had recovered the bell from an old wreck, which several people, including myself, later suggested might be that of HMS “Pandora” of mutiny on the “Bounty” fame.

However, as I described in last month’s “PIM”, the yachtsmen’s story was a hoax. No wreck was ever found, and the bell, which has been at Lockhart River Mission for many years, was merely shown to the yachtsmen when they called at the mission for repairs.

In last month’s article, I said it still seemed likely that the bell had belonged to the “Pandora”, as the mission was less than 100 miles south of where the “Pandora” went down in 1791.

But I have now learned that the bell is not a ship’s bell at all.

It was apparently brought from a church in Ireland!

I got this information from the Right Rev. Stephen H. Davies, of Sydney, who was Bishop of Carpentaria from 1922 to 1949.

Bishop Davies said that the bell was brought to the mission in the early ’Thirties by a Mr. H. Rowan, who was mission superintendent from 1923 to 1938. Mr. Rowan, an Englishman, had brought it back with him after a visit to the British Isles on leave.