A BRITISH explorer who helped put Australia on the map is to return home this year – more than 200 YEARS after his death. The long journey of Matthew Flinders is finally coming to an end.

His may not be a household name back home in the UK, but Captain Flinders was the first man to circumnavigate Australia, and more than 100 landmarks are named after him Down Under.

Not to worry. He will be certainly be hitting the headlines this summer when his remains, carried by Royal Navy pall bearers, are reburied in his home village of Donington in Lincolnshire.

Born in 1774, Captain Flinders died in 1814 but his body was not rediscovered until 2019 by HS2 archaeologists working at the St James’s Gardens burial ground near London’s Euston.

The exact spot of his original interment had been long lost in the mists of time until the HS2 high-speed rail dig. Experts were able to identify his coffin by a lead breast plate placed on top.

There were plans then to bring him home but they were delayed by the pandemic which brought the world to a standstill, and the reburial has now been confirmed for Saturday July 13 this year.

The ceremony will take place at the Church of St Mary and the Holy Rood, in Donington, where he was baptised, with a special celebration weekend event currently being planned.

His home village already has a memorial to him in the church, there’s a statue in the Market Place and, although the original house where he was born is now gone, the site is commemorated with a blue plaque.

It will be the first time in more than 200 years that a burial has taken place within the church, and organisers believe that the event will attract strong interest, especially from Australia, where he is a national hero.

In 1804 he drew the first complete map of the continent and he was the first to use the name Australia on an accurate chart, instead of the British Government’s preferred name, Terra Australis.

Inspired by Captain Cook’s discoveries and after reading Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Flinders left for a life at sea when just 15 years old, and served with Captain William Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame.

He went on to become a celebrated navigator and cartographer, making several coastal explorations of Australia and completing the complete circumnavigation in 1803.

For updates on the reburial and village celebrations, visit www.matthewflinders.net. For information on visiting, and staying in, Lincolnshire, see www.visitlincolnshire.com