The Errol Flynn Blog

JANUARY 30 2022 – 12:00PM
Errol Flynn sword mystery takes a turn
• Chris Michaels
Local News

MYSTERY SWORD: Errol Flynn Society of Tasmanian Inc president Steve Randell.

The myth of the mysterious sword held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery has taken another turn, with the founders of the Errol Flynn Society of Tasmanian Inc throwing new light on an old story.

Steve and Genene Randell started the society after a family tragedy as a way of coping with loss.
“We lost a child to SIDS and we were obviously down and out and one night [Genene] woke up in the middle of the night and she watched an Errol Flynn movie on television, Captain Blood,” he said. “Watching it brought her back to life. It got her out of that misery and back into society again. We have followed Errol since then and both were living in New South Wales at the time. We then moved to Tasmania and did some research on Errol and decided we’d start up a society ourselves.”

Recently the QVMAG senior curator of public history, Jon Addison showed off a sword purported to have been owned by one of Flynn’s ancestors.

“There is a story that the museum holds a sword supposedly owned by Errol Flynn, which had been inherited from his mother.” Mr. Addison said. “We are more or less certain that we don’t have Errol Flynn’s family’s sword here. At best, it’s unlikely, and it is very unlikely to have been the sword we have here.

(Thanks to Karl Holmberg for finding this image …)

Mr Randell shed new light on the mystery.

“The story goes that Errol played with that sword, and he refers to that in his autobiography,” he said. “Then his father gave it to the army navy club in Tasmania and they had it up on the wall and then it went missing. Nobody has actually said that Dudley Ransom stole it, but when I was up at the army barracks and talking to a museum curator, they definitely knew about him. It was said that Mr Ransom actually tried to steal one of the guns located on the gates at the army base.”

In 1972 Dudley Ransom, a Second Lieutenant in the 12th Australian Infantry Battalion, donated various army and navy items to the QVMAG.

City of Launceston mayor Albert van Zetten said myths or not, the QVMAG was a fascinating place to explore Tasmania’s vast and unique history.

“Wherever you look in Launceston there are stories just beneath the surface, and they’re often absolutely fascinating,” he said.

— tassie devil