James Cook (1728 - 1779)
Naval explorer. None of his six children lived to be old, nor had children themselves. His eldest son James (1763 - 1794) lived to be just 29, living with his mother Elizabeth (1741-1835) whom James Cook had married in 1762. Elizabeth lived modestly in England after her husband's death to the age of 93.
Arthur Phillip (1738 - 1814)
Naval officer and 1st governor of Australia (1788 - 1792)
- 11 Oct 1738. Born in London. His Dad, an able seaman, had been born in Frankfurt Germany, and was also a language teacher. His mother's family were also Navy people.
- 1761. Married a widowed lady named Margaret Denison (1722 - 1792).
- 1769. Separated.
- 1788. Oversaw the first settlement in Australia, at the age of 49.
On a sidenote, shortly after his arrival at Sydney Cove on 26th January, Governor Phillip ordered Lieutenant King to lead a party of 15 convicts and seven free men to take control of Norfolk Island, and prepare for its commercial development.
First discovered by James Cook in 1774, Norfolk Island is about 32 kilometres in circumference, 1400 kilometres directly east from Evans Head off the east coast of Australia, and was at the time uninhabited. The crew left in February, arriving on 6 March 1788. - 1792. Phillip returned to England, in poor health, at the age of 54. His first wife had died earlier that year.
- 8 May 1794. Married for a second time to Isabella Whitehead (1751 - 1823).
- 1796 Resumed active naval duties.
- 1798 After commanding several ships given a shore appointment as commander of the Sea Fencibles whose purpose was to defend against invasion by Napoleon.
- 1805 Retired.
- 31 Aug 1814. Died peacefully in Bath, at the age of 75. His wife was later buried beside him.
John Hunter (1737 - 1821)
Naval officer and 2nd governor of Australia (1795-1800). Never married...
Click here for a more detailed biography
Jan 1788 Arrived on First Fleet alongside Arthur Phillip. Oct 1788 Sailed to Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) via Cape Horn (South America), on what ended up being a fairly leaky ship "Sirius" for supplies for Sydney, circumnavigating the globe.
May 1789 arrived back in Sydney, with his ship leaking badly. Waited for "Sirius" to be refitted, then in Feb 1790 took a load of convicts to the settlement at Norfolk Island.
Feb 1790 While anchored on Norfolk Island, a violent storm drove "Sirius" onto a coral reef, wrecking it. Hunter stayed on island eleven months while Naval officer Philip King went back to England, to report, and to return.
March 1791 Hunter called back to England, a 13 month trip, arriving in England in April 1792. Court martialled for "Sirius" shipwreck, and honourably acquitted.
Oct 1793 Applied to become Governor of Australia, following Governor Phillip's return. Back in Dec 1792, Phillip, whose health was suffering, relinquished his governorship and sailed for England, arriving back in London in May 1793. Phillip had left the colony in the hands of Lieutenant Governor Grose, which had lasted until Dec 1794, then the colony was administered by senior military officer Captain William Paterson until Sep 1795. However, the Paymaster and Administrator of the NSW Corps, John Macarthur, appears to have pretty much run the show behind the scenes during those three years.
Jan 1794 Hunter was appointed Governor-in-chief of Australia.
Feb 1795 After a year's delay, with war developing between England and France, Hunter set sail for Australia.
Sep 1795 Finally he arrived back in Australia. Numerous issues with John Macarthur and the NSW Corps over their prisoner abuse and personal profiteering. Macarthur subsequently accused Hunter (to English authorities) of rum trading and economic mismanagement.
Sep 1800 Hunter was recalled to England to answer these issues. Produced a detailed paper of the economic difficulties the colony was having. Settled in England, in retirement.
He had been appointed successor to Governor Phillip in the event of Phillip's death/incapacity.
Started exploring the surrounding area, particularly around Parramatta.
Philip King (1758 - 1808)
Naval officer and 3rd governor of Australia (1800-1806).
Upon his arrival in Australia with Governor Phillip in 1788, sent to Norfolk Island to build a settlement with a number of convicts, including a seamstress Ann Inett (see pages 9,10,11 on that link) with whom King had two sons in 1789 and 1790. Click here for a more detailed biography.
Jan 1788 King arrived on First Fleet alongside Arthur Phillip.
Feb 1788 Sailed for Norfolk Island, arriving 6 March.
During the next two years, King lived with Ann Inett a dressmaker convict as his housekeeper-mistress. On 8 January 1789, Norfolk King their first son was born. Mar 1790 Following the "Sirius" shipwreck that came after John Hunter's arrival with further convicts, King and his young family were called back to Sydney. King then sailed for England on Phillip's orders to report on the difficulties of the whole settlement. Ann remained in Sydney where their second son was born on 25 June 1790 and baptised at St Philip's Church Sydney on 9 July 1790, named Sydney King. Mar 1791 King left England and sailed back to Norfolk Island to oversee the settlement on the Island over the next five years. He had married Anna Josepha Coombe in England just before returning, and his first two children with Ann were now supported by himself with his new wife. Their first son, Phillip Parker King, was born in December.
Ann Inett now married Richard John Robinson on 18 November 1792 at St John's Church, Parramatta. He, also being a convict was serving a life sentence but was later freed by pardon in 1804 (by King, now Governor, incidentally).
In Oct 1796 King returned to England, leaving the Norfolk Island settlement in the hands of a Lieutenant Governor John Towson.
Sep 1800 King returned to Australia with wife Anna and one young daughter (b.1797), appointed as the new Governor in place of Governor Hunter. They had left their older children behind, now being educated in England.
Immediately, he ran into an issue with John Macarthur. Apparently a certain Lt Marshall had been imprisoned for 12 months for assaulting Macarthur and an officer Abbott when they were investigating a theft.
Marshall had protested having an officer of the Corps hear his case at trial, but his objection had been ignored.
Governor King upheld the objection, freed him, then sent him to England for trial.
Macarthur, miffed at King's actions, in an endeavour to ostracize the Governor socially, ended up in a duel with Lieutenant Governor William Paterson, wounding the man in the shoulder. Macarthur now returned to England, for trial. He subsequently resigned from the Corps and returned to Australia in 1805.
In 1806 Governor King returned to England, and was replaced by Gov Bligh. He died in England in 1808.
In that same year, 1790, went briefly back to England while Ann and the two children stayed behind in Parramatta. In 1791, King returned to Sydney and Norfolk Island as a newly wed husband...
In 1808 at age 19, a few weeks after his father’s death, Norfolk King had risen to the rank of Acting SubLieutenant. In 1812 became Lieutenant in the command of HMS Ballahu. He later married Philadelphia Montague.
Sydney, like his father and brother before him, also joined the Royal Navy and attained the rank of Lieutenant on 8 March 1815. He later married Mary Butler in Worcester, United Kingdom.
Click here for his family, with links to his descendants
- a son Phillip (1791-1856) (with a double "l")
- a grandson Philip (1817-1904) (with a single "l") who sailed as a midshipman with Charles Darwin on his historic voyage to South America and Australia in 1831-1836 and who later became first Mayor of Tamworth
- a daughter Anna (1793-1852) who married John Macarthur's nephew Hannibal (1788-1861)
- a granddaughter Elizabeth Macarthur (1815-1899) who married her cousin, Philip.
- a granddaughter Anna Macarthur (1816-1852) who married John Wickham (1798-1864) who also sailed with Darwin and who later became first Police Magistrate in Brisbane,
- and another granddaughter Catherine Macarthur (1818-1894) who married Patrick Leslie (1815-1881), the first settler on the Darling Downs and the man who founded the town of Warwick.
John Macarthur (1767 - 1834)
Paymaster-administrator and sheep farmer. Became perhaps the richest man in Australia. Shortly before coming to Australia, married Elizabeth (1766-1850) in 1788 and had six children, most of whom lived long lives but died childless. Only one, Mary Bowman (1795-1852), married in 1823 and bore him grandchildren, though her husband was apparently both cruel and unfaithful...
Click here for a more detailed biography
1790 Arrived on Second Fleet with a British military force, the NSW Corps. Just 23 years old.
In January 1793, following Governor Phillip's return to England, he was appointed Resident at Parramatta by Lieutenant-Governor Grose who found himself personally unable to manage the whole of the affairs of Government, owing to the spread of the settlements. Macarthur obtained a grant there of 100 acres of land. Called it Elizabeth Farm (his wife's name) where he lived with his wife, his young boys, and his convict servants. He was also administrator, a rank that included paymaster.
At that time, John Palmer was the official commissary in Sydney, empowered to draw bills of exchange on the British Treasury countersigned by the governor. He kept the public accounts and funds of the colony and was at once official supplier, contractor and banker to the settlement, though he appears to have kept a fairly discreet profile.
In the same month as Phillip's departure the American trading ship, the 'Hope', arrived with 7,500 gallons of rum in her cargo. The other goods she carried were desperately needed but the Hope's captain insisted that he would sell nothing to the colonists unless they also bought all of his rum. The New South Wales Corps officers accordingly formed a syndicate with regimental paymaster John MacArthur fixing the necessary IOUs against the regiment's funds in England, bought this cargo, then distributed it at a sizeable profit. The vast pool of rum flooded into the market place at grossly inflated prices and at once became a means of exchange. Macarthur now became very wealthy via the rum trade that was being used in place of money, and pretty much ran the show.
1794 Began first experiments in improving wool growth in sheep by crossing hair-bearing Bengal ewes from India with Irish wool rams. Farm now 200 acres.
1796 With a dearth of provisions in the colony, two sloops, the 'Reliance' and 'Supply', were despatched by Governor Hunter, under command of Captains Kent and Waterhouse, to the Cape of Good Hope for relief supplies. It happened that on their arrival some rare merino sheep from the celebrated Escurial flock were about to be sold. 1801 Having been involved in a quarrel between Governor King and the officers of the New South Wales Corps over the traffic in spirits, challenged by his commanding officer William Paterson, Macarthur wounded him in an irregularly conducted duel on 14 September. Macarthur was put under arrest and ordered to Norfolk Island for service, and required to enter into recognisances (bonds that obligate the wrongdoer) to keep the peace. Both he declined to do — he demanded a court-martial, and refused to quit arrest. King accordingly sent him to England. A bulky document written by the earlier governor, Governor Hunter accusing him of various abuses accompanied the ship's captain on the same ship, though it somehow disappeared on the voyage. No penalty accrued to him at his trial, the Horse Guards considered the Governor had erred in judgment, and released Macarthur from arrest. However he was ordered to go back, and "do as he was told". 1803 While in England, having taken samples of the wool with him, he reported to all who would hear how his merino sheep, where they had had a 3lb fleece in 1801, he had now learned they had become a 5lb fleece in 1802, also with much improved quality. He was examined by a committee of the Privy Council, at the insistence of wool manufacturers, on the subject of wool-growing in Australia, and Lord Camden ordered that a grant of 5000 acres be made to him. This land he selected at the Cowpastures, Camden. He brought with him on his return to the colony two merino ewes and three rams from the flock of George III.
1805 Back in Australia. Immediately issues arose with King and Bligh over all the good land he was claiming for his sheep at Camden Park. Both Governor King and Governor Bligh disputed his claim, but were overruled by the Colonial Office in England.
1808 Military coup, following Bligh's arresting of Macarthur. The issue was over a £900 bond forfeiture. A ship had earlier failed to keep to landing regulations and a convict had, thus, escaped on it. When the ship returned, a bond it had paid was then deemed forfeited. Macarthur, who owned the vessel and held that money, refused to hand it over and refused to come to court. Bligh insisted Macarthur be arrested. In protest on the day of his trial, on 26th January 1808, Australia Day, Macarthur was released and 400 soldiers in the Corps under Major George Johnston arrested Governor Bligh instead. A rebel government was installed, and Governor Bligh was placed under house arrest. 1809 In January the New South Wales Corps selected William Paterson as acting Governor of New South Wales upon his arrival from Launceston in Van Diemen's Land where he had been in charge. In March, accompanied by some of their supporters, Macarthur and Johnston sailed back to England. Governor Bligh was given a vessel wherewith to sail to England, but he instead sailed to Hobart seeking the Lieutenant Governor's aid against the rebellion. It was not forthcoming. Upon Governor Macquarie's arrival in Sydney on 28th December, and officially taking over on 1st January, Bligh returned from Hobart.
1810 Governor Lachlan Macquarie arrived with a new regiment. The previous regiment went to England for trial together with Captain Bligh in May, arriving back in England in October. Following the trial in June 1811, an arrest warrant was authorized by Lord Castlereagh in the event Macarthur should ever return to Sydney. But, it was the time of the Napoleonic War, other than that, there was no penalty for him. Johnston was cashiered, and subsequently returned to Sydney "as an ordinary settler" in May 1813.
1817 Having made some powerful friends in England, Macarthur was finally allowed to return, unconditionally. Devoted himself to his merino wool farming, plus horses, also a vineyard. The export of wool soon made Macarthur the richest man in New South Wales. In 1822, the Society for the Arts in London awarded him two medals for exporting 150,000 lb (68,000 kg) of wool to England and for increasing the quality of his wool to that of the finest Saxon Merino. Suffering failing mental health in 1832, he died in 1834.
A bit of background. The King of Spain had presented to the Dutch Government some years back some of the finest pure merino sheep from his jealously guarded "Escurial" flocks, once owned by King Philip II. These sheep had been sent under the care of a Scots gentleman to the Cape of Good Hope, but the gentleman died shortly afterwards, and after many arguments with his widow, twenty of the sheep were thus sold to Kent and Waterhouse who recognized their great worth. Three rams and five ewes of this number then ended up with John Macarthur, who carefully preserved them, increasing their number and improving the quality of the wool.
Macarthur instead retired from military service.
Macarthur declared himself Colonial Secretary of this rebel government in 1808, sending his 19 year old son Edward to London to convey Macarthur's version of the events. Accompanying him was the first bale of Australian wool to be exported. The British woollen mills were desperate for wool at the time because of the Napoleonic blockade, and the Australian bale sold for a record price.
Matthew Flinders (1774 - 1814)
Naval officer and explorer. Married his longtime friend Ann Chapelle (1772 - 1852) in 1801, but he was forbidden to take her with him to Australia by the Admiralty. As a result, Ann was obliged to stay in England and would not see her husband for nine years, following his imprisonment on the Isle de France in Mauritius (a French possession) on his return journey in 1805. When they finally reunited, Matthew and Ann had one daughter, Anne (1812 - 1892), who later married William Petrie (1821–1908). They had a son William Petrie (1853–1942) who according to that link grew up in a family of "devoted Christians".
William Bligh (1754 - 1817)
Naval officer and 4th governor of Australia (1806 - 1808). Famous for two mutinies
- As Naval Officer, the
Mutiny on the Bounty on 28 April 1789 - As Governor of NSW, the Rum Rebellion, an army coup d'etat led by John Macarthur and Lieutenant Colonel George Johnstone on 26 January 1808. It followed Bligh's command to George Johnstone to arrest John Macarthur (for his refusal to hand over a controversial bond that had been forfeited by one of his ships). Eventually, a new Governor, Lachlan Macquarie, arrived on 28 Dec 1809, and in 1810 all parties to the mutiny were sent back to England for trial. However, there was a war going on with France, and unsurprisingly, minimal penalties.
- At a domestic level, Bligh married Glasgow-born Elizabeth Betham in 1781, niece of a prosperous ship-owner, with whom he had six children. All grew up in England with their mother. One of them, Mary (1783 - 1864), came to Australia with her father in 1806 while her mother remained behind. Mary had recently married John Putland, who served as William Bligh's aide-de-camp, though John's health deteriorated shortly after his arrival in Australia, and he died on 4th January 1808 just before the rebellion. Mary was subsequently placed under temporary house arrest along with her father. Apparently she got on well with Elizabeth Macquarie, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie took over in 1810. That year, Mary married the new Irish Lieutenant-Governor Maurice O'Connell who had arrived with Macquarie, but as resentments and tensions grew in the colony in the aftermath of the mutiny, O'Connell was posted with his wife to Ceylon, in 1814.
Lachlan Macquarie (1762 - 1824)
Army officer and 5th governor of Australia (1810 - 1821). Married twice. His first wife was Jane whom he married in 1793 but who died in 1796. His second wife was Elizabeth (1778 - 1835) whom he married in 1807, and they had two children, Jane, born in 1808 who died at three months, and Lachlan in 1814. Lachlan married Isabella Campbell in 1836, but died without issue in May 1845, aged just 31.