In the 19th Century small sailing ships visited South Africa’s sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands after their seals. Fur seals were exploited for their skins but elephant seals were targeted for their blubber that produced a high-quality oil. To extract the oil the blubber, once removed from the seal carcass, had to rendered down by heat. A peculiar type of cooking vessel, known as a trypot, was used for the purpose to “try out” the oil. It must have been difficult to manhandle the heavy cast-iron trypots ashore through rough surf from small boats and over boulder beaches so it is not surprising that they were often left ashore.
Trypots are thus to be found to the present day on beaches and shorelines of a number of sub-Antarctic islands, including Marion and Prince Edward. The most well-known trypot on Marion Island is to be found on Trypot Beach towards East Cape. Trypots, or broken pieces of them, also occur at Ship’s Cove, Bullard Beach and at Good Hope Bay.
The Antarctic Legacy of South Africa project has been collecting historical photos for its archive from when South Africa annexed the Prince Edwards in 1948. Early photos of trypots allow us to see what may have changed over the years and it has come to light that two trypots have disappeared from the islands.
The Bullard Beach trypots
In the first half of 1948, Marion’s first team leader, Allan Crawford, used his surveying skills to produce a map of the eastern side of the island. We are fortunate that he took a number of photos while in the field and that his son, Martin Crawford has made all his father’s pictures available to ALSA. Two of his photos depict two trypots side by side at Bullard Beach on Marion’s eastern coast. Only one of these trypots now remains and ALSA’s enquiries to team members and island visitors back to the 1960s have revealed only one trypot has been known from the locality, as do various photos taken over the years. So the other trypot (the larger) must have been removed early on, presumably to South Africa.
The Cave Bay trypot on Prince Edward Island
The presence of a trypot within the cave at Cave Bay on Prince Edward Island was written about in 1948 at the time of annexation – and reported on in a team member’s diary entry in March 1965, but the first photograph of it found so far by ALSA was taken in May 1982. In September 1982 members of the crew of the S.A. Agulhas removed this trypot via rubber raft to the ship as shown from pictures taken by Jay Gates, then the ship’s Radio Officer. On the same visit the trypot on Trypot Beach was also removed to Cape Town where I remember seeing it crated up in the then Government Antarctic stores in Leeuwen Street. It turned out that both trypots were removed without permission, so the order went out to return the Trypot Beach one, which was duly done. However, it seems the Cave Bay trypot was not returned as no trypot is now visible in the cave or nearby, as I confirmed during visits to the island in 2001 and 2008.
Returning the “stolen” trypots?
ALSA now sees its task as to track down what happened to the two missing trypots, and if they are found ensuring they are either returned to the islands from where they were taken, or see them deposited in the Social History Collections Department of the Iziko Museums of South Africa, which is the official depository for sealing artefacts from the Prince Edwards. Needless to say, any information on where the two missing trypots may have ended up will be welcomed!
With thanks to Chris Brown, Graham Clarke, Martin Crawford, Robert Crawford, Bruce Dyer, Jay Gates, Martin Grobbelaar and Bill Leith for information and photographs.
Feature photograph: only one trypot is now present at Bullard Beach on Marion Island. Bruce Dyer on left in April/May 1994, taken by Robert Crawford.
John Cooper, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, 04 December 2015
