Navigating by the Southern Cross: A History of the European Discovery and Exploration of Australia by Kenneth Morgan

Author:Kenneth Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury

11

The hydrographic surveyors

After Phillip Parker King had completed his surveying voyages most, but not all, of Australia’s coastline had been explored and charted. There still remained some loose ends. Between King’s departure from Australia in 1823 and the arrival of the Beagle in 1837, several Royal Navy ships undertook minor survey tasks around Australia’s coasts. In 1822–3, Mark Currie, commander of the Satellite, undertook surveys on the New South Wales coast, including an examination of the penal colony at Newcastle. In 1824, Captain James Bremer sailed from Sydney to Melville Island to establish a colony, but this was abandoned four years later because the site was unhealthy, expensive to upkeep, and lacking in trading opportunities. In 1827, James Stirling took the Success from Sydney to examine and chart the Swan River, Western Australia, which he recommended as a site for settlement. In 1828, Captain Henry Rous in the Rainbow explored northeastern New South Wales, notably the Port Stephens area. In 1830, Robert Beecroft, master of the Crocodile, made a sketch of Jervis Bay. In 1836, Lieutenants T. M. Symonds and H. R. Henry, in the Rattlesnake, surveyed and oversaw the first nautical chart of Port Phillip and William Hobson investigated and produced a report on Port Phillip Bay. This was followed up by a further survey of Port Phillip’s waters by John Clements Wickham in HMS Beagle in 1838. Finally, in 1839 Lieutenant Owen Stanley in the brig Britomart explored the Cobourg Peninsula.1

Surveys of the remaining parts of Australia’s coasts and offshore islands were the focus of Royal Navy hydrographic voyages between the mid-1830s and the mid-1850s. In the period 1837–43, successive commanders of the Beagle, John Clements Wickham and John Lort Stokes, surveyed Torres Strait, Bass Strait and the west and northwest Australian coasts not yet charted. From 1842 to 1845, this was followed up by a detailed survey of the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait by Captain Francis Blackwood in HMS Fly. Between 1847 and 1850, some of this work was extended by Captain Owen Stanley in the frigate HMS Rattlesnake, which had a particular remit for charting Torres Strait, the Louisiade Archipelago and eastern New Guinea. Finally, in the period 1853–61 Henry Mangles Denham in HMS Herald undertook hydrographic surveys of Bass Strait, Shark Bay, King George Sound, Sydney Harbour, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island and several Pacific islands beyond Australian waters.2

The Beagle’s voyages, 1836–43

In 1829, the Irish naval officer Francis Beaufort was appointed Admiralty hydrographer, the post he held for a quarter of a century. Beaufort promoted voyages that undertook detailed hydrographical surveying and scientific expeditions to increase knowledge of the natural world. He encouraged contributions to natural history from civilian naturalists, naval surgeons and the men on his survey vessels.3 Beaufort wanted to complete the work of surveying the blank spaces on charts of Australia’s coasts.4 Accordingly, in 1831 he played a major role in preparing an ambitious voyage in the Beagle under the command of Robert Fitzroy, a 26-year-old graduate of the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth.

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