Museum of Tropical Queensland
Fast facts
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During the first two years of operation, the museum was known as Queensland
Museum, North Queensland Branch until it was renamed as the Museum of Tropical
Queensland in 1989-90.
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The Museum of Tropical Queensland is the northern most campus of the
Queensland Museum and shares the stories of North Queensland’s heritage.

The ‘new’ Museum of Tropical Queensland building was architecturally designed and
purpose-built in 2000. The main gallery in the museum features a true-to-size recreation of the bow of HMS Pandora, the ship sent by British Admiralty in 1790 to
capture the Bounty and her mutinous crew.

The Museum of Tropical Queensland showcases objects recovered from the wreck
of Pandora which was rediscovered in 1977.

In 2010-11, the Museum of Tropical Queensland experienced record visitor numbers
attracting just under 100,000 visitors.

The Museum of Tropical Queensland’s peak visitation periods are January and July
each year, coinciding with the staging of two of its most popular holiday programs in
Creepy Crawlies Alive and Dino Discoveries.

The Museum of Tropical Queensland has won 14 North Queensland Tourism Awards
and has been inducted into the Hall of Fame twice for consecutive wins in the
Heritage and Cultural Tourism category.

The Historical Diving Society of the United States awarded The Museum of Tropical
Queensland, together with the donor of the Langley Diving Collection, with its
prestigious Nick Icorn Award in 2009 for the Museum’s contribution to diving history
education.
Behind the scenes

A day in the life of a Museum Preparator - crocs, cannons and Cowboys!
The Museum’s Preparator takes on many different tasks from exhibition installation
and maintenance to making ‘things’ come to life. Moulding and casting objects is a
huge part of our Preparator’s role and some of his moulding and casting highlights
are: a five foot live crocodile, cannons from HMS Pandora and HMS Bounty and the
torsos of players from the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys NRL team (the latter
for a fundraising event).

The Museum of Tropical Queensland is home to the Staghorn corals of the World
Collection.
Staghorn corals are the main reef-building corals in the world today. Around 25,000
specimens from Australia and around the world are housed at the Museum of
Tropical Queensland. This collection is providing the basis for confirmation of species
for a myriad of scientific studies seeking to understand the evolution and
biogeography of coral reefs as well to ensure the care and protection of living coral
reefs worldwide.

Eureka! In 1984 the journal Science published the first description of mass-spawning
of reef corals, seen at Magnetic Island by a group of researchers from James Cook
University including Dr Carden Wallace. Dr Wallace continued her research on masscoral spawning based at the Museum of Tropical Queensland and in 1992 Dr
Wallace and her research group was presented with the prestigious Eureka prize for
environmental research.

A silver and gold fob watch recovered from the wreck of HMS Pandora, thought to
belong to Pandora’s surgeon Dr Hamilton underwent conservation treatment after
which it was revealed that with the addition of just a few metal springs it could be
made to work again, even after 186 years undersea.

A trio of Polynesian war clubs are arguably the most significant objects in the
Pandora collection. The importance of these ‘curiosities’ is that they can be exactly
dated because they were collected by the crew during the short period they were at
Matavai Bay during April and May in 1791. Anthropologists can use these objects as
a reference point to compare with undatable objects to identify stylistic changes in
traditional manufacturing methods over time.

Australia’s oldest heritage dive helmet and the second oldest known diving helmet
in the world, the Augustus Siebe helmet manufactured in 1870 is part of the Museum
of Tropical Queensland’s Langley Diving Collection donated by the Langley family of
Hobart.