

Trim



Another animal associated with Australia is the famous tomcat Trim. He accompanied Matthew Flinders on his voyages to circumnavigate and map the coastline of Australia from 1801 to 1803. Trim was born in 1799, aboard HMS Reliance, on which his mother shipped, on a voyage from the Cape of Good Hope to Botany Bay. The kitten fell overboard, but swam back to the vessel, was thrown a rope and “took hold of it like a man and swarmed up it like a cat”. Flinders and his crew took a strong liking to the intelligent and obviously lovable animal. He was soon able to mount the gangway steps quicker than any member of the ship's crew. “He grew up to be one of the finest animals I ever saw”, observed his master; “his tail was long, large and bushy . . . his head was small and round - his physiognomy bespoke intelligence and confidence - his whiskers were long and graceful and his ears were cropped in a beautiful curve.” Trim normally weighed between 10 and 12 pounds. He was rather vain, and knowing himself to be equal to any officer aboard, always ate at the wardroom table, and preferred to sleep in an officer’s hat. Trim accompanied Flinders on HMS Investigator on his voyage around the Australian mainland, and survived the shipwreck of the Porpoise on Wreck Reef in 1803. The crew and cat were rescued by HMS Cumberland. This ship put into Mauritius for repairs, unaware that France and England were at war. Flinders was accused of spying and carrying forbidden papers and was imprisoned, taking the faithful feline with him. Alas, poor Trim disappeared after a short time, Flinders attributed this to his being stolen and eaten by hungry slaves. In 1996 a bronze statue of Trim by sculptor John Cornwell was erected on a window ledge of the Mitchell Library in Sydney, directly behind a statue of his master. The plaque under it says:

To the memory of Trim. The best and most illustrious of his race, the most affectionate of friends, faithful of servants, and best of creatures. He made the tour of the globe, and a voyage to Australia, which e circumnavigated, and was ever the delight and pleasure of his fellow voyagers. Written by Matthew Flinders in memory of his cat.

Trim is mentioned quite often in Matthew Flinders’ “Voyage to Terra Australis; undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803 .... With an account of the shipwreck of the Porpoise, arrival of the Cumberland at Mauritius, and imprisonment of the commander during six years and a half in that country” (2 volumes and an atlas. London, Nicol, 1814).

As a postscript, and to illustrate how highly sailors thought of their pets, especially cats, I would like to add this excerpt from Hakluyt to Trim’s story:

“It chanced by fortune that the shippes cat leapt into the sea, which being downe, kept her selfe very valiantly above water, notwithstanding the great waves, still swimming, the which the Master knowing, he caused the skiffe with half a dozen men to goe towards her and fetch her again, when she was almost halfe a mile from the shippe, and all this while the shippe lay on staies. I hardly believe they would have made such haste and meanes if one of our company had been in like peril.”