By Anne Gibson. Watkin Tench, First Fleet Marine, in his Account of the Settlement of Port Jackson, does not mention how the new settlers celebrated their first Christmas in the young colony. It is probably more correct to say the manner in which Christmas was observed rather than how Christmas was celebrated. Captain David Collins stated, Christmas-day (1788) was observed with proper ceremony. Mr Johnson preached a sermon adapted to the occasion, and the major part of the Continue Reading »
Ann Inett
Ann was born at Abberley, in 1754, the youngest of four children of Samuel and Mary Inett. As a young woman, she made her living from dress-making and had two illegitimate children - Thomas, in 1778, when she was aged 24, and Constance, in 1781, when she was 27. Both were christened at Bayton Church, near Rock. At the age of 31, she was, for some unknown reason, driven into crime. Berrow's Worcester Journal of 14 July, 1785, first reported: The dwelling-house of Susannah Brookes in Grimley has Continue Reading »
Port Phillip Settlement Planned
AUSTRALIAN CHRONICLEVol.1, 1810-1810 No.3 PORT PHILLIP SETTLEMENT PLANNEDCaptain Collins in ChargeThe Home Government has approved the proposal for a new settlement to be set up in the Port Phillip district. Captain David Collins, who served as Judge-Advocate under Government Phillip and departed the Colony for Home in 1796, has been appointed to lead an expedition from England to found the Port Phillip settlement. His Excellency Governor King has urged settlement of Port Phillip since he Continue Reading »
The Journal of Philip Gidley King: Lieutenant, R.N. 1787-1790
By Anne Gibson. Philip Gidley King kept a number of journals during his service in the Southern Seas. His Official journal, kept on Sirius became the basis of the Norfolk Island Report in some early books concerning Australia. It was purchased in 1897 for the Sydney Public Library and is now in the Mitchell Library there. Another journal written by King and referred to as the private journal was purchased by the Mitchell Library from the P.G. King estate in 1933. It is Continue Reading »
Early Australian Freemasonry
Freemasonry has been associated with the British discovery and settlement of Australia from the very beginning. Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), the naturalist who sailed into Botany Bay with James Cook in 1770 became a Freemason prior to 1768 and was a member of the Old Horn Lodge No. 4 in England. Thomas Lucas (1759-1815) a Private in the 23rd Company Marine Corps and a member of Lodge of temperance No 225 in England, arrived with the First Fleet. Captain Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) Continue Reading »
First Fleet Scribes
How fortunate we are to have journals, diaries, letters, reports and logbooks written by officers who arrived with Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788. Without these scribes our knowledge of the voyage, the settlement, and its people would have passed into history unknown. David Blackburn (1753–1795) HMAT Supply, Master A party of gentlemen with their servants and 4 soldiers were walking to Botany Bay … met with a body of 300 natives all armed with spears and targets. They did not seem too Continue Reading »
Henry Waterhouse
Midshipman Henry Waterhouse arrived with the First Fleet aboard HMS Sirius. He was the eldest son of William and Susanna (Brewer) Waterhouse, born 13 December 1770 and christened 28 December 1770 at St James Middlesex. William had be page to the Duke of Cumberland who was Henry’s god-father. He entered the navy at an early age (16) and on 20 November 1786 joined HMS Sirius as midshipman (having been recommended to Captain Phillip), raising to the rank of acting third lieutenant on 28 Continue Reading »
First Fleet Surgeons
John WHITE (c1757–1832)–Surgeon-General Entered the Navy in 1778 as third Surgeon’s mate, receiving his promotion to Surgeon on 9 October 1780, aged 23. He held Surgeon’s appointments in numerous Naval ships until being appointed Surgeon-General of the expedition to Botany Bay under Captain Arthur Phillip: his salary was £182.10s a year. White had three Assistant Surgeons, each on half his salary. A hospital built on the west side of Sydney was described by White as very Continue Reading »
Watkin Tench
was a soldier and writer, who was born at Chester on 6 October 1758 in the county of Cheshire in England. He joined the Royal Marine Corps, Plymouth division, as a Second Lieutenant in 1776, and served in the American War of Independence, during which he was a prisoner-of-war for some months. In December 1786, Tench’s offer to re-enter the Corps for a three-year tour of Botany Bay was accepted, and he sailed aboard Charlotte. Before sailing with the Fleet, he arranged with a London Continue Reading »
Nancy Yates
Like many of his fellow officers, Captain David Collins who became the Colony’s Judge Advocate, took convict women as mistresses during his years in Sydney Cove and Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land. One of his mistresses was convict milliner Nancy / Ann Yates / Yeates. She was tried as a single-woman aged 17, at Yorkshire Summer Assizes held at York on 9 July 1785 with Jonathan Howard for burglary. Breaking and entering into the dwelling of John Strickland in the township of Milton Continue Reading »
