Matthew Flinders: The First Man To Sail Round Australia
An explorer who met with misfortune
Born in 1774 in Lincolnshire, Mathew Flinders was expected to pursue a medical career, as his father and grandfather had done. However, after reading Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, he wanted to set his sights a lot further afield.
He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 15, serving under Captain William Bligh in the South Pacific and West Indies. In 1795 he sailed to New South Wales aboard the Reliance.
While in Sydney, Flinders explored the local bays with the colony’s governor and was later sent to survey the Furneaux Islands to the south.
Together with George Bass he discovered the channel (now known as the Bass Strait) between the mainland and Van Diemen’s Land (modern Tasmania) before sailing all round the latter to confirm that it was an island.
In 1800, Matthew Flinders returned to England to raise funds for an exploration of the coasts of Australia. Among his supporters was Sir Joseph Banks, who had explored Australia’s Botany Bay 30 years previously.
In July 1801, Flinders set sail in the sloop Investigator, with a crew of 88 men and the naturalist James Brown. They sailed round Africa and reached the south-west point of Australia in December of that year.
