Matthew Flinders
Navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders (1774 – 1814) was involved in several voyages of discovery between 1791 and 1803, the most famous of which was the circumnavigation of Australia. On an earlier expedition, he and George Bass confirmed that Van Diemen's Land was an island. He is credited as the first person to use the name Australia to describe the continent. He regarded it as "more agreeable to the ear" than previous names, including Terra Australis, New Holland, and the South Land.
He had served on William Bligh's second breadfruit voyage on HMS Providence (1791-3) and aboard HMS Bellerophon in the most significant fleet action during the French Revolutionary Wars (the Glorious First of June), then joined the Sydney-bound. HMS Reliance, where he became acquainted with the newly appointed governor, Captain John Hunter and the ship's surgeon, George Bass.
After HMS Reliance arrived in Port Jackson in September 1795, Bass and Flinders undertook an expedition in a small open boat (Tom Thumb) to Botany Bay and the Georges River. A second expedition in the Tom Thumb II in March 1796 investigated the Illawarra region. Subsequent investigations further south suggested a strait existed between New South Wales and Abel Tasman's Van Diemen's Land; a voyage in the schooner Norfolk (7 October 1798 — 12 January 1799) along Van Diemen's Land's uncharted coasts confirmed the presence of what subsequently became known as Bass Strait and circumnavigated the island which subsequently renamed Tasmania.
Another voyage without Bass examined parts of the Queensland coast preceded a return to England, where he published his Observations on the Coasts of Van Diemen's Land, on Bass's Strait and its Islands, and on Part of the Coasts of New South Wales and began preparations for an expedition to explore Australia's unknown coasts in detail. Although he had married in the meantime, his bride was not allowed to accompany him when The Investigator sailed from England in July 1801. Flinders sighted Cape Leeuwin on 6 December, reached the western extreme of the uncharted coast at the end of January 1802, then proceeded to chart a coastline that included Spencer Gulf, Kangaroo Island and Gulf St Vincent. A meeting with Captain Nicolas Baudin's corvette Le Géographe (8 April) gave Encounter Bay its name; the Investigator anchored in Port Jackson on 9 May.
After an overhaul, the Investigator travelled north on 22 July to survey Queensland's coast and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Although an examination of the vessel's hull soon after she passed through Torres Strait revealed the Investigator was so rotten that she was likely to founder in heavy weather, Flinders completed his examination of the Gulf and brought the Investigator back to Sydney via Cape Leeuwin on 9 June 1803.
With the investigator unsuitable for further expeditions, Flinders attempted to return to England aboard the Porpoise to obtain a replacement; when the ship was lost on a reef off the Queensland coast, Flinders navigated her cutter over more than a thousand kilometres back to Port Jackson, arranged for his wrecked shipmates to be rescued and sailed for England in the schooner Cumberland, which soon proved unfit for service. A decision to seek assistance from the French saw Flinders arrive in Mauritius the day after Baudin's Le Géographe had left for France.
Despite written requests for assistance to British ships forced to call at Mauritius in return for the treatment he and other French sailors had received in New South Wales, the island's governor, General De Caen, refused to recognise Flinders' French passport, which referred to the Investigator rather than the Cumberland, placed him under arrest and confined him on the island for the next six years. While attempts were made to secure his release, Flinders worked on his journals, log books and papers,
Flinders eventually sailed for England on 14 June 1810, arrived on 23 October and received a belated promotion, but his health was failing. He died the day after A Voyage to Terra Australis was published on 18 July 1814.
Although most of his work was made in unsuitable vessels under unfavourable conditions, Matthew Flinders was among the world's most accomplished hydrographers. He made most of the bearings and angles used to draw up his charts from the deck or the masthead. Flinders is also remembered for improvements in the science of navigation, research on the tides, and investigations into compass deviation caused by the presence of iron in ships.
Links to add:
New Holland
The South Land
Captain John Hunter
George Bass
Botany Bay
Bass Strait
Tasmania
Cape Leeuwin
Spencer Gulf
Kangaroo Island
Gulf St Vincent
Captain Nicolas Baudin
Encounter Bay
Porpoise
schooner Cumberland
