Tom Pepper
“…a star fell out of the sky, and I looked around and I found a big chocolate rock…”
From “The Northern Times,” (circa 1990):
How did a bronze plaque bearing the moulded features of the old British war hero, Lord Kitchener, find its way to the isolated wastes of Dirk Hartog Island off the West Australian coast?
Initially unearthed in the bush on the island by Shark Bay station worker, Tom Pepper Jnr., the plaque has been concealed and only recently revealed.
The plaque, in an excellent state of preservation, is oval shaped and measures approximately 12 inches by 9 inches. Beneath the head of Lord Kitchener, at the base, are the initials, “K.O.K.,” which is understood to mean “Kitchener of Khartoum.”
The discoverer of the historic artefact is the 61-year-old son of the late Tom Pepper Snr, who, in 1922, secretly located the wreck of the 17th century Dutch vessel, “Zuytdorp,” retaining news of his find for many years before West Australian maritime authorities were notified.
North West rumours still abound regarding old Tom Pepper’s discovery: tales of treasures buried in clandestine places in the bush, valuable ship’s cargo quietly sold for exorbitant sums to wealthy international collectors, etc.
Tom Pepper Jnr. does little to curtail the fanciful stories with his version of how the Kitchener plaque came into his possession.
Tom commented: “I was way out in the scrub when I found the Kitchener thing, roughly, about half a mile from the beach. I was driving along with a tractor and trailor and I was watching the trailor wheel as I was turning around to make sure I didn’t run over a stump. The next thing I knew this thing (the plaque) jumped up out of the ground. It wasn’t buried. It was just lying there in the bush. It must have been there for donkey’s ages.”
The actual site of the historic find Pepper describes as being “about half a mile north-west of the old homestead and about 50 yards from what used to be an old rubbish dump.”
This, he suddenly announced, occurred in 1953!
So why did the old stockman deliberately conceal his discovery for all those years?
He shrugs non-commitally, saying: “Yair. I’ve had it hidden away all that time. Well, you see, there’s a few other things I’ve got to go down and find yet. I think I can still remember where they are. There’s still a few things off the Zuytdorp I’ve got to find, too. When I was 7 years old, or something like that, my old Dad was riding along on his horse with me and he showed me where he had buried some stuff off the ship. I haven’t had a chance to go down that way again, but I’d better do it soon because I’ll be 62 in July. I want to go down there and dig ‘em up. Otherwise, if I don’t, it’s away out in the bush country and no one will ever find ‘em.”
Ambiguously, he refers to the alleged maritime artefacts as “all bronze things – you know, you stick ‘em in the cannons before you fired ‘em, like a bolt in a rifle.”
Tom continued: “Yair, that’s right, me old Dad showed me the exact spot. There’s a lot of our history buried down there along that coast. The trouble is, I’m always going too flat out mustering, fencing, even shearing. I think I ought to give up working on stations and start looking around for more old things …”
Nostalgically, while patting his dog, he muses: “I know a place where a star fell down near that same country I’ve been talking about. The old Yammatjis (Aborigines) told me that story, where a star fell out of the sky, and I looked around and I found a big chocolate rock, away out in the never-never on a sandplain. It was as smooth as anything. It looked like a meteorite. Big shiny chocolate, it was.
“That was a good 50 years ago. I haven’t been back there, but I know where it is. It would only take me a few days of poking around to find it again.”
Returning to the Lord Kitchener plaque: Tom explained: “I remember I picked it up and took it with me back to the camp so I could have a really good look at it. At the time I didn’t have a clue what it was.”
Eventually, Tom took the plaque to show his famous father, Tom Pepper Snr, hoping for enlightenment.
“My father was an Englishman,” Tom Jnr. explained. “He knew the sort of metal it was made of straight away. Bronze, he said. He also told me the bloke on the plaque was Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. My old Dad died a few years back, but we still own the Zuytdorp’s wooden figurehead that’s on show in the Geraldton Museum, and we also own some 17th century coins down there at the Fremantle Museum. When I go down there next, I’m going to stir them up. We’d like to know if they’ve still got ‘em, or what’s going on.”
With a speculative glint in his eye, Tom Pepper remarked: “I showed the Kitchener plaque to one fella who said he would take it down to Perth for me to get it valued. But I said, ‘No, thanks, I’ll take it down myself,’
But I never bothered. I hid it away. Then recently I pulled it out again and thought I’d see what’s what with it. Somebody gave me a rough value for it – $20,000 – but I reckon it’s worth a lot more than that. If I don’t sell it, I’ll just hang on to it a bit longer …”
After examining a photograph of Tom Pepper’s bronze plaque, the Curator of Military Heraldry at the Australian War Memorial, in Canberra, Mr Peter Aitken, commented” “I am afraid I am unable to give you as much information as I would like, other than to say that the plaque is typical of the patriotic memorabilia which was around the period of the Boer War. The lettering on the bottom of the plaque does stand for ‘Kitchener of Khartoum.’ Kitchener had become a popular hero prior to this time for his fruitless effort to save Gordon of Khartoum.
“These types of patriotic items were produced in abundance at this time and the portraits of popular military personalities featured on everything from biscuit tins, wall plates, ceramic and porcelain ware, drinking glasses, money boxes, to clay pipes. I am afraid I can only scratch my head when it comes to wondering how the plaque was discarded on Dirk Hartog Island in West Australia.”
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