James Hunter

James Hunter is the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Curator of Naval Heritage and Archaeology. He received his PhD in maritime archaeology from Flinders University in 2012, and MA in history and historical archaeology from the University of West Florida in 2001. He has been involved in the fields of historical and maritime archaeology for nearly three decades and participated in the investigation of several internationally significant shipwreck sites in the United States, including the American Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley and the Emanuel Point Shipwreck, a Spanish galleon wrecked in Pensacola Bay, Florida in 1559. James’ doctoral research explored the history and archaeology of torpedo boat defences utilised by the colonial and early national navies of Australia and New Zealand. He was appointed to his role at the museum in January 2015 and has participated in several of its maritime archaeology projects, including shipwreck surveys of Australia’s first submarine AE1 in Papua New Guinea, the Second World War light cruiser HMAS Perth (I) in Indonesia, and the search for, and identification of, the wreck site of James Cook’s HMB Endeavour in the United States. He recently curated an exhibition about the shipwreck site of the early-nineteenth century English immigrant vessel South Australian and intends to undertake archaeological investigation of newly discovered and as-yet undiscovered historic shipwrecks in Sydney Harbour and at the entrance to the Hunter River in Newcastle.