European exploration of Australia

The European exploration of Australia encompasses several waves of seafarers and land explorers. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. 164 years later Royal Navy Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook, after an assignment to make observations of the 1769 Venus Transit, followed Admiralty instructions to explore the south Pacific for the reported Terra Australis and on 19 April 1770 sighted the south-eastern coast of Australia and became the first recorded European to explore the eastern coastline. Explorers by land and sea continued to survey the continent for many years after settlement.

Early European sightings

The first documented and undisputed European sighting of and landing on Australia was in late February or early March 1606, by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard the Duyfken.^[1][2][3] It is possible that Luís Vaz de Torres, working for the Spanish Crown, sighted Australia when he sailed through the Torres Strait several months later, in October 1606.^[4]

Occasional claims have been made in support of earlier encounters, particularly for various Portuguese explorations. Evidence put forward in favour of this theory, particularly by Kenneth McIntyre,^[5] is primarily based on interpretation of features of the Dieppe maps. However, this interpretation is not accepted by most historians.^[6]

17th century Dutch exploration

The most significant exploration of Australia in the 17th century was by the Dutch. The Dutch East India Company traded extensively with the islands which now form parts of Indonesia, and hence were very close to Australia already. In early 1606 Willem Janszoon encountered and then charted the shores of Australia's Cape York Peninsula. The ship made landfall at the Pennefather River in the Gulf of Carpentaria on 26 February 1606.^[7] This was the first authenticated landing of a European on Australian soil. Other Dutch explorers include Dirk Hartog,^[8] who landed on the Western Australian coast, leaving behind a pewter plate engraved with the date of his landing; and Abel Tasman, for whom Tasmania was eventually named—he originally called it Van Diemen's Land after a senior member of the Dutch East India Company.^[9] Maps from this period and the early 18th century often have Australia marked as "New Holland" on account of the voyages of these Dutch explorers.^[10][11] Joan Blaeu's 1659 map on the right shows the clearly recognizable outline of Australia based on the many Dutch explorations of the first half of the 17th century.

When	Who	Ship(s)	Where
1606	Willem Janszoon	Duyfken	Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York Peninsula (Queensland)
1616	Dirk Hartog	Eendracht	Shark Bay area, Western Australia
1619	Frederick de Houtman[12] and Jacob d'Edel	Dordrecht and Amsterdam	Sighted land near Perth, Western Australia
1623	Jan Carstensz[13]	Pera and Arnhem	Gulf of Carpentaria, Carpentier River
1627	François Thijssen[14]	het Gulden Zeepaerdt	1800 km of the South coast (from Cape Leeuwin to Ceduna)
1642–1643	Abel Tasman	Heemskerck and Zeehaen	Van Diemen's Land, later called Tasmania
1696–1697	Willem de Vlamingh[15]	Geelvink, Nyptangh and the Wezeltje	Rottnest Island, Swan River, Dirk Hartog Island (Western Australia)

One Dutch captain of this period who was not really an explorer but who nevertheless bears mentioning was Francisco Pelsaert, captain of the Batavia, which was wrecked off the coast of Western Australia in 1629.^[16]

17th and 18th century British exploration

The Australian mainland was first sighted by English sailors as early as 1622. On 1 May 1622, the Tryall, a British East India Company owned vessel of approximately 500 tons, under the command of John Brooke, sighted the coastline of Western Australia at Point Cloates, although they mistook it for an island sighted in 1618 by Willem Janszoon and in 1816 named Barrow Island by Phillip Parker King. They did not land there, and a few weeks later were shipwrecked on an uncharted reef northwest of the Montebello Islands; the reef is now known as Tryal Rocks. The shipwreck caused the death of 93 men, but the captain and nine men escaped, and made their way to Batavia by longboat, and later back to England. This was the first known shipwreck in Australian waters, and it was this wreck that William Dampier came looking for almost seven decades later. Dampier was the first Englishman to set foot on the Australian mainland, when his ship was marooned in King Sound in January 1688.

Dampier contributed to knowledge of Australia's coastline through his two-volume publication A Voyage to New Holland (1703, 1709). His book of adventures; "A New Voyage around the World," created a sensation when it was published in English in 1697.^[17] Though he was briefly marooned on the NW Australian coast on the trip described in this book, only his second voyage seems to be of importance to Australian exploration.

In 1768 British Lieutenant James Cook was sent from England on an expedition to the Pacific Ocean to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti, sailing westwards in HMS Endeavour via Cape Horn and arriving there in 1769. On the return voyage he continued his explorations of the South Pacific, in search of the postulated continent of Terra Australis.

He first reached New Zealand, and then sailed further westwards to sight the south-eastern corner of the Australian continent on 20 April 1770. In doing so, he was to be the first documented European expedition to reach the eastern coastline. He continued sailing northwards along the east coast, charting and naming many features along the way.

He identified Botany Bay as a good harbour and one potentially suitable for a settlement, and where he made his first landfall on 29 April. Continuing up the coastline, the Endeavour was to later run aground on shoals of the Great Barrier Reef (near the present-day site of Cooktown), where she had to be laid up for repairs.

The voyage then recommenced, eventually reaching the Torres Strait and thence on to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia). The expedition returned to England via the Indian Ocean and Cape of Good Hope.^[18]

Cook's expedition carried botanist Joseph Banks, for whom a great many Australian geographical features and at least one native plant are named. The reports of Cook and Banks in conjunction with the loss of England's penal colonies in America after they gained independence and growing concern over French activity in the Pacific, encouraged the later foundation of a colony at Port Jackson in 1788.^[19]

18th century French exploration

In 1756, French King Louis XV sent Louis-Antoine de Bougainville to look for the Southern lands. After a stay in South America and the Falklands, Bougainville reached Tahiti in April 1768, where his boat was surrounded by hundreds of canoes filled with beautiful women. "I ask you," he wrote, "given such a spectacle, how could one keep at work 400 Frenchmen? He claimed Tahiti for the French and sailed westward, past Samoa and Vanuatu, until his passage was blocked by a mighty reef. With his men weak from scurvy and disease and no way through he sailed north. When he returned to France in 1769, he was the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe and the first European known to have seen the Great Barrier Reef.

In 1772, two French expeditions set out to find Terra Australis. The first, led by Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne, found and named the Crozet Islands, and, in Blackmans Bay claimed Van Diemen's Land for France. He was the first to set foot there since Tasman and the first to make contact with the island's Aborigines. He sailed on to New Zealand where he and some crewmen were killed by Maori warriors. The survivors retreated to Mauritius.^[20]

Also in 1772, the two ships of the second French expedition were separated by a storm. The leader turned back but the second in command, Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn, sighted Cape Leeuwin and followed the coast to Shark Bay. He landed on Dirk Hartog Island and claimed the land for the French king.

In 1788, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse visited Botany Bay,^[21] and in 1792, Bruni d'Entrecasteaux landed and named Esperance in Western Australia. His expedition also resulted in the publication of the first general flora of New Holland.^[22]

Later exploration from the sea

Once settlement in Sydney was established, the charting of Australia's coast continued into the 19th century. Matthew Flinders was one of the most important explorers of this period, and was the first to circumnavigate the continent.^[23]

When	Who	Ship(s)	Where
1773	Tobias Furneaux[24]	Adventure	South and east coasts of Tasmania
1776	James Cook	Resolution	Southern Tasmania
1788	Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse	Astrolabe and Boussole	encountered First Fleet in Botany Bay
1796	Matthew Flinders	Tom Thumb	Coastline around Sydney
1798	Matthew Flinders and George Bass[25]	Norfolk	Circumnavigated Tasmania
1801–1802	Nicolas Baudin, accompanied by Thomas Vasse and numerous naturalists (see below)[26]	Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste	The first to explore Western coast; met Flinders at Encounter Bay
1801	John Murray[27]	Lady Nelson	Bass Strait; discovery of Port Phillip
1802	Matthew Flinders	Investigator	Circumnavigation of Australia
1817	King expedition of 1817 – Phillip Parker King[28] accompanied by Frederick Bedwell	Mermaid	Circumnavigation of Australia; charting of the north-western coasts

Land exploration 1788–1900

The opening up of the interior to European settlement occurred gradually throughout the colonial period, and a number of these explorers are very well known. Burke and Wills are the best known for their failed attempt to cross the interior of Australia, but such men as Hamilton Hume and Charles Sturt are also notable—if only because major geographical features, landmarks, and institutions have been named after them. For many years, plans of westward expansion from Sydney were thwarted by the Great Dividing Range, a large range of mountains which shadows the east coast from the Queensland-New South Wales border to the south coast. The part of the range near Sydney is called the Blue Mountains. Governor Philip Gidley King declared that they were impassable, but despite this, Gregory Blaxland successfully led an expedition to cross them in 1813. He was accompanied by William Lawson, William Wentworth and four servants. This trip paved the way for numerous small expeditions which were undertaken in the following few years.^[29]

In 1824, Governor Thomas Brisbane asked Hamilton Hume and William Hovell to travel from Hume's station near modern-day Canberra, to Spencer Gulf (west of modern-day Adelaide). However, they were required to pay their own costs. Hume and Hovell decided that Western Port was a more realistic goal, and they left with a party of six men. After discovering and crossing the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers, they eventually reached a site near modern-day Geelong, somewhat west of their intended destination.^[30][31]

Inland Sea

After the Great Dividing Range had been crossed at numerous points a great many rivers discovered; the Darling, Macquarie, Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers. All of these rivers flowed west. A theory was developed of a vast inland sea into which these rivers flowed. Another reason behind the idea of an inland sea was that Matthew Flinders, who had very carefully mapped much of Australia's coast had discovered no great river delta where these rivers should have emerged by had they reached the coast. The Murray-Darling basin actually drains into Lake Alexandrina. Matthew Flinders had noted this on his maps but viewed from the sea does not look like the outfall of a large watershed, but instead as a gentle tidal basin.

The mystery was solved by Charles Sturt, who in 1829–30 undertook an expedition similar to the one which Hume and Hovell had refused: a trip to the mouth of the Murray River. They followed the Murrumbidgee until it met the Murray, and then found the junction of the Murray and the Darling before continuing on to the mouth of the Murray. The search for an inland sea was an inspiration for many early expeditions west of the Great Dividing Ranges. This quest drove many explorers to extremes of endurance and hardship. Charles Sturt's expedition explained the mystery. It also led to the opening of South Australia to settlement.^[32]

The theory of the inland sea had many adherents. Major Thomas Mitchell, the Scottish born Surveyor-General of New South Wales. He set out to disprove Sturts claims and in doing so made a significant discovery in 1836. He led an expedition along the Lachlan River, down to the Murray River. He then set off for the southern coast, mapping what is now western Victoria. There he discovered the richest grazing land ever seen to that time and named it Australia Felix. He was knighted for this discovery in 1837. When he reached the coast at Portland Bay, he was surprised to find a small settlement. It had been established by the Henty family, who had sailed across Bass Strait from Van Diemen's Land in 1834, without the authorities being informed.^[33]

Perhaps the most famous Australian explorers were Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills who in 1860–61 led a well equipped expedition from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Due to an unfortunate run of bad luck, oversight and poor leadership, Burke and Wills both died on the return trip.^[34]

Expeditions (in chronological order):

When	Who	Where
1804	William Paterson	Port Dalrymple, Tamar River, North Esk River (Tasmania)
1813	Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson	From Sydney across the Great Dividing Range via the Blue Mountains; first penetration into inland New South Wales
1817–1818	John Oxley[35]	Interior of New South Wales; discovered Lachlan River and Macquarie River
1818	Throsby, Meehan, Hume and Wild	Throsby and Wild discovered an overland route from Sydney to Jervis Bay via the Kangaroo and Lower Shoalhaven rivers Meehan and Hume followed the Shoalhaven upriver and discovered Lake Bathurst and the Goulburn Plains[36]
1820	Joseph Wild[37]	discovered Lake George[38]
1823	Currie, Ovens and Wild	Region south of Lake George;[39] discovered Isabella Plains (now a suburb of Canberra), charted the upper reach of the Murrumbidgee River and discovered Monaro[40]
1824	Hume and Hovell expedition	Sydney to Geelong; discovered Murray River
1828–1829	Charles Sturt and Hamilton Hume	Macquarie River area; discovered Darling River
1829	Currie, Drummond, Dr Simmons and Lieut Griffin	South of Fremantle; explored region, now Rockingham and Baldivis, and sighted the Serpentine River[41]
1829	Dr Collie and Lieut.Preston	discovered Harvey, Collie and Preston rivers
1829–1830	Charles Sturt	Along the Murrumbidgee River; found and named Murray River, and determined that western-flowing rivers flowed into the Murray-Darling basin
1830	John Molloy	Blackwood River, Western Australia
1830–1834	Alfred and John Bussell	Blackwood River and the Vasse, Western Australia
1831	Robert Dale and George Fletcher Moore	Avon River area in Western Australia
1831	Collet Barker	Mount Lofty and the Murray Mouth
1834	Frederick Ludlow	Augusta to Perth; discovered Capel River
1834–1836	George Fletcher Moore	Avon River and Swan River; discovered that they are the same river; discovered rich pastoral land near the Moore River
1839–1841	Edward John Eyre[42]	The Flinders Ranges and Nullarbor Plain
1840	Paweł Strzelecki[43]	Ascended and named Mount Kosciuszko, New South Wales
1840	Patrick Leslie	Condamine River, New South Wales
1840–1842	Clement Hodgkinson[44]	North-eastern New South Wales, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay
1844	Charles Sturt	North-western New South Wales and north-eastern South Australia; discovered the Simpson Desert
1847	Anthony O'Grady Lefroy and Alfred Durlacher	Gingin, Western Australia
1854	Austin expedition of 1854 – Robert Austin, Kenneth Brown	Geraldton, Mount Magnet, Murchison River
1858–1860	John McDouall Stuart[45]	North-western South Australia; discovered water sources used as staging points for later expeditions; found and named Finke River, MacDonnell Ranges, Tennant Creek
1860	Burke and Wills expedition including Robert O'Hara Burke, William John Wills	Melbourne to Gulf of Carpentaria (traversing Australia south to north); determined non-existence of inland sea
1897	Frank Hann[46]	Pilbara region of Western Australia; named Lake Disappointment

Other 19th-century explorers

Other explorers by land (in alphabetical order):

John Baxter Francis Cadell David Carnegie Robert Dale Henry Dangar George Evans Alexander Forrest[47] John Forrest[48] Alfred Gibson

Alfred Giles Ernest Giles[49] William Gosse George Goyder Augustus Charles Gregory George Grey[50] John Ainsworth Horrocks Edmund Kennedy[51] William Landsborough

William Lawson[52] Ludwig Leichhardt[53] Patrick Leslie William Paterson Watkin Tench[54] William Tietkens Frederick Walker Peter Warburton[55]

20th-century explorers

By the turn of the 20th century, most of the major geographical features of Australia had been discovered by European explorers. However, there are some 20th-century people who are considered explorers. They include:

• Ted Colson (First to cross the Simpson Desert in 1936.)^[56]
• Donald George Mackay (Five major expeditions to survey and accurately map the Northern Territory, discoverer of Lake Mackay)^[57]
• Cecil Madigan (Major scientific expedition to the Simpson Desert in 1939. In 1930, Madigan coined the name "Simpson Desert" after Alfred Allen Simpson, following an aerial survey.)^[58]
• Len Beadell^[59]

Indigenous Australians participating in European exploration

A number of Indigenous Australians participated in the European exploration of Australia. They include:

• Jackey Jackey (aka Galmahra), who accompanied Kennedy's expedition.^[60]
• Tommy Windich, who joined John Forrest in his search for Ludwig Leichhardt
• Wylie, who accompanied Eyre's expedition across the Nullarbor

Naturalists and other scientists

There are a number of naturalists and other scientists closely associated with European exploration of Australia. They include:

• Daniel Solander, accompanied Cook's 1770 expedition.^[61]
• Jacques Labillardière, accompanied Bruni d'Entrecasteaux.
• Allan Cunningham, accompanied Oxley's 1817 expedition.^[62]
• John Gilbert, accompanied Leichhardt's expedition.
• Ferdinand von Mueller, accompanied Augustus Gregory's expedition.^[63]
• Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, François Péron and Charles Alexander Lesueur, accompanied Baudin's 1801 expedition.
• John Lhotsky^[64]
• Gerard Krefft^[65]
• Olive Pink^[66]
• Scientists of the Horn Expedition of 1894, including Walter Baldwin Spencer, Edward Charles Stirling and Ralph Tate^[67]

Uncategorised explorers

Francis Barrallier James Calvert[68] Louis de Rougemont George Frankland

Frank Gregory Alfred William Howitt Robert Logan Jack

Alexander William Jardine Frank Jardine Edmund Lockyer Carl Sofus Lumholtz

John MacGillivray Michael Terry[69] Frederick Walker Lawrence Wells

References

External links

• Explorers page at Project Gutenburg Australia
• Australian Discovery page at Project Gutenburg Australia
• original documentation from 17th Century Dutch exploration at Project Gutenburg Australia

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