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Kelly Tarlton

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Kelly Tarlton
Born31 October 1937
Te Kōpuru, New Zealand
Died17 March 1985(1985-03-17) (aged 47)
CitizenshipNew Zealand
Occupation(s)Marine archaeologist and treasure-hunter
Known forThe founding of Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World, Auckland, New Zealand (1985)

Kelvin Ewart Tarlton (31 October 1937 – 17 March 1985) was a marine archaeologist and treasure-hunter who established Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World in Auckland, New Zealand.[1]

Early life, education and family

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Tarlton was born on 31 October 1937 in Te Kōpuru in the Northland Region of New Zealand.[2] His parents were Elsie Alexander and Ewart Fritz Tarlton and he had one sister, Althea. His father was an engineer.[3] They moved to Auckland where he went to Pasadena Intermediate School, although he spent nine months in hospital owing to a reaction to penicillin and a kidney condition.[3] The family moved to Christchurch where he attended Christchurch Boys’ High School. On leaving school he qualified as a telephone exchange technician at the Post and Telegraph Department in 1961.[2]

Kelly was married to Rosemary Tarlton from 1965 to his death in 1985. They had two daughters Nicole and Fiona. Kelly's grandson Tane Tarlton was born in 2001.[4][5][6]

Connection to the ocean

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Recreationally he was a mountaineer and joined the Canterbury Mountaineering Club.[1] He then became a diver joining the Canterbury Underwater Club inspired by Jacques Cousteau’s movie The Silent World.[1] His first dive was in 1956.[2] He set a New Zealand freediving record in 1959 at Curious Cove, Queen Charlotte Sound, (depth of 24 metres).[2] Over the next few years, Tarlton organised and took part in diving trips in places such as Wuvulu Island and the Poor Knights Islands, moving to live in Whangarei near the Poor Knights, which is now a marine reserve.[2] During these trips Tarlton collected marine specimens, discovered new species, and explored and developed ways of taking photographs and films underwater.[2]

Tarlton became a professional diver in 1966.[2] He worked on construction and also salvaged and explored many shipwrecks in New Zealand waters and around the world including in the late 1970s with Mel Fisher looking for treasure in the Caribbean for the Atocha and Santa Margarita (sunken Spanish galleons).[1][2] In 1974 he and two others found items from the steamer Tasmania which sank off Mahia Peninsula in 1897.[7] In 1970 and 1975 Tarlton led expeditions to the Auckland Islands in search of the General Grant shipwreck (1866) and it's gold.[2] In 1980 he was part of an international consortium searching for gold bullion in Lutine, sunk off the Netherlands in 1799.[8][9]

Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World

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Photo of acrylic tunnels going under a large aquarium
Tunnels through the aquarium at Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World
Main article: Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Aquarium

After his time in the Netherlands, Tarlton decided to build a new style of aquarium. The attraction was constructed in a collection of disused municipal stormwater and sewerage tanks in Auckland, and opened by Tarlton in 1985, as Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World.[10] The design of the aquarium was innovative at the time. Prior to its construction, aquariums typically had tanks with flat glass fronts for visitors to look through.[11] Tarlton's design, with its curved acrylic tunnels underwater that visitors go through on a conveyor belt, looking all around at the underwater life in the tanks, has been influential for many aquariums overseas.[3][12] The aquarium was designed to replicate a reef zone from the Hauraki Gulf. In 2015 the aquarium still held a stingray caught by Tarlton 30 years previously.[10]

Kelly Tarlton's Museum of Shipwrecks

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Tarlton converted the old sugar lighter 'Tui' into a Museum of Shipwrecks[13] tourist attraction after relocating the barque to Waitangi, then undertaking extensive renovations, adding masts and rigging. Artefacts displayed in the museum were recovered off New Zealand shipwrecks from expeditions led by Kelly with his dive team, such as the Rothschild's Jewels from the Tasmania, gold and silver coins from the SS Elingamite and a cannon off the L'Alcmène.

The museum closed in 2002, but has won two national tourism awards:

  • 1974 Busk Cup for the most outstanding contribution to Tourism in Northland
  • 1977 Tourism Design Award for meritorious planning of a tourist facility, from the NZ Minister of Tourism

Jean de Surville's Anchors

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In 1974 Kelly Tarlton was the first to locate one of the three massive anchors dropped by French explorer Jean de Surville off his ship St Jean Baptiste in Doubtless Bay in 1769. This de Surville anchor is mounted on the entrance wall of Te Papa.[14] That anchor and it's twin anchor are the earliest authenticated European artefacts in New Zealand.[15] Tarlton located a third de Surville anchor in 1982 which remains on the seabed.[5]

Awards

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Kelly Tarlton has been posthumously inducted into three Halls of Fame:

Death

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Tarlton died from a heart condition in 1985 only seven weeks after Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World was opened.[19][10]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Grzelewski, Derek (2007). "Kelly Tarlton". New Zealand Geographic. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lynette Townsend and Sarah Burgess (2020). "Story: Tarlton, Kelvin Ewart (Kelly)". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.
  3. ^ a b c d "'So proud of dad' - Kelly Tarlton to join NZ Business Hall of Fame". 1 News. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  4. ^ Sale, E.V. (1988). Kelly: the adventurous life of Kelly Tarlton. Auckland, New Zealand: Heinemann Reid. ISBN 0790000091.
  5. ^ a b Locker-Lampson, Steve (1996). Throw Me the Wreck Johnny: Memories of Kelly Tarlton. Halcyon Publishing. ISBN 978-0908685684.
  6. ^ "My Auckland: Symonds Street - Lifestyle News". NZ Herald. 16 July 2011. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
  7. ^ "Treasure search". Canberra Times. 19 December 1974. Retrieved 8 April 2023.
  8. ^ "Attempt to lift gold off wreck". Canberra Times. 25 June 1980. Retrieved 8 April 2023.
  9. ^ "Delay for gold seekers". Papua New Guinea Post-Courier. 13 August 1980. Retrieved 8 April 2023.
  10. ^ a b c Dougan, Patrice (23 January 2015). "30 years of underwater wonder". NZ Herald. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  11. ^ Stace, F. N. (1990). Engineering to 1990 (PDF). Wellington, New Zealand: The Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand. p. 8.
  12. ^ "Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World | Engineering New Zealand". Engineering NZ. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  13. ^ "National Library of New Zealand, catalogued images and interviews".
  14. ^ "Te Papa Collections, De Surville's Anchor".
  15. ^ "Early Encounters; The de Surville Anchors, Curated from the Te Ahu Museum Collections" (PDF).
  16. ^ "Stuff". www.stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
  17. ^ "Kelly Tarlton Award". New Zealand Underwat. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
  18. ^ "IAAPA Hall of Fame - Kelly Tarlton | IAAPA". www.iaapa.org. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  19. ^ Shaw, Aimee (6 February 2023). "Sea Life Kelly Tarlton's remains closed after Auckland floods damage cliff above". Stuff. Retrieved 6 April 2023.

Further reading

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  • Throw Me The Wreck Johnny: memories of Kelly Tarlton, the man behind the legend by Steve Locker-Lampson, Halcyon Press, [1996]
  • Interviews about Kelly Tarlton, Steve Locker-Lampson, 3 March 1995 - 18 January 1996
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