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About the First Fleet What was happening in England at the time? From the sixteenth century, lots of people were sent to gaol. The crimes they committed were often things that today we would not think were serious. English gaols were overcrowded and filthy. Many prisoners died from diseases they caught in gaol. Many prisoners were kept on hulks, which were battleships that were too old for the navy to use. The hulks were anchored in the middle of some of the harbours and large rivers. Soon the hulks were as bad as the prisons and new places were needed to put all the prisoners. This is what a hulk looked like:
Activity: Find out what crimes were committed by some of the First Fleet convicts.
What did the English decide to do? England decided to send prisoners to their colonies overseas. From the middle of the seventeenth century convicts were sent to colonies in America and Africa. In 1770, Capt James Cook claimed “The Great South Land” for England. Today it is called Australia. The authorities decided it was a good place to start a new settlement for convicts. The authorities had to make sure that they did not harm the trading that British, Dutch and French companies were doing in the Pacific and Indian Oceans so it took a long time to organise a fleet of ships to make the trip from England to Australia. What was the First Fleet? The First Fleet was a group of eleven ships that brought the first group of convicts, officers and soldiers to Australia. Five ships transported convicts, three carried stores and two were British naval ships – His Majesty’s Ship Sirius and His Majesty’s Armed Tender Supply. The Sirius was the flagship, or lead ship, captained by John Hunter. The newly appointed Governor of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip was on the Sirius. The Supply’ had to keep all the ships together and take messages between the ships. The transport ships were Alexander, Charlotte, Friendship, Lady Penryhn and Prince of Wales. The store ships were Borrowdale, Fishburn and Golden Grove. It took many months to get the Fleet organised because people disagreed about how it should be done. The idea for the journey was first proposed in 1785 but it did not set sail from Portsmouth until the May 3rd, 1787. The incredible journey had begun. Many stops were made along the way to get fresh supplies of food and water. The first main stop was at the Canary Islands and then they sailed across the Atlantic to Rio de Janiero. They then sailed back across the Atlantic to Cape Town. They had to stop at cape Town to buy livestock and feed for them. They then sailed across to Australia. Activity: Find these places on a map and draw the path that the First Fleet took.
The First Fleet sailed around the bottom of Tasmania then up the east coast to Botany Bay. They couldn’t find a good supply of fresh water there so Captain Phillip explored up the coast and discovered Port Jackson (now called Sydney Harbour). They settled at Sydney Cove on January 26th 1788. A few weeks later, on the 6th March 1778 a settlement was started on Norfolk Island. The transport and store ships unloaded their cargoes and went back to England. The Sirius and the Supply were the only ships left at Port Jackson. They were the only ships for the new colony until the Second Fleet arrived two years later in the middle of 1790. Who was on HMS Sirius? The Officers who came on HMS Sirius were: PHILLIP Arthur RN. Captain – Governor of NSW KING Philip Gidley, 2nd Lieutenant JACKING Henry, quartermaster PALMER John, purser MILLER Andrew, commissary WORGAN George Bouchier, surgeon Activity: Choose three of these people and find out about the jobs they did.
The Seamen on the Sirius were: KELTIE James, master Activity: Imagine you were one of these seamen. Write a diary entry about your day when there was a storm.
What happened to the Sirius after the First Fleet arrived in Port Jackson?
A trip to South Africa for HMS Sirius The Supply made regular trips to Norfolk Island, taking more convicts and Marines. It returned to Sydney taking back grain and salt meat produced on Norfolk Island to Sydney. Sydney needed extra food, animals and tools so the Sirius was sent to Cape Town. Captain John Hunter was worried about the condition of the ship but it set sail in October 1788. It was a hard voyage because they had to sail from west to east to catch the winds. Hunter’s concern that the ship had lots of leaks was correct. The crew had to pump the water out from the ship every two hours. They became weak and scurvy became a problem as food became scarce. The weather was severe. The winds were very cold and the ship had to round Cape Horn and dodge enormous icebergs. When they got to Cape Town the ship bought six months’ supply of flour, various stores and twelve months’ provisions for the colony. They set sail for Sydney in February 1789. The trip home up the east coast of Tasmania nearly ended in disaster. Captain John Hunter wrote “We had every moment reason to fear that the worst might, by the ship striking, launch the whole of us to eternity”. The ship met terrible storms and took 91 days to reach Sydney. The Sirius was beached in the harbour and it took five months to repair it.
Shipwrecked on Norfolk Island: March 19, 1790 Why did the Sirius come to Norfolk Island? By about February 1790, both settlements in Sydney and Norfolk Island were running low on supplies. They needed blacksmiths’ tools, uniforms, eating utensils, everything except food, which was adequate at that time. They decided to send the Sirius and the Supply to China to get the supplies. On the way, the ships took more convicts and Marines to Norfolk Island. They also delivered some goods that the Sydney colony could spare. The two ships set sail on March 5 and reached Norfolk Island on March 13. The weather was too bad to risk anchoring the ships near the settlement at Sydney Bay. The ships sailed around the island to Cascade Bay, where the sea was a little calmer. They unloaded the convicts and Marines who walked overland to the settlement at Kingston. Both ships were blown out to sea, out of sight of the Island. They could not return until the sea and the wind calmed down. By March 19 the weather was better and the ships returned to anchor in Sydney Bay (which is now called Slaughter Bay). They sailed across the Bay to the western point and swung around to get to the anchorage. How did the wrecking happen? Just as the ships were swinging around, the wind changed. The Supply, was much smaller and lighter and wasn’t carrying cargo. It managed to get out of trouble and sail away from the reef. The Sirius was a larger ship of over 500 tons. It had a crew of approximately 130 as well as cargo and could not change direction so she was blown straight on to the reef. She struck the reef with her stern (back) but the strength of the wind swung her around so her side hit the reef too. She was holed right along her bottom. Attempts to get her off the reef failed and eventually the captain decided to abandon the ship. How did everyone get to shore? All goods that they thought would float were thrown overboard but much of it was lost on the reef or the shoreline. Marines on the shore tried to stop the convicts stealing the goods. Some convicts did manage to get some things as they floated ashore. One of the marines, Lieutenant Ralph Clark kept a diary. He complained that he lost all his things as his trunk was wrecked but, several days later, he saw a seaman wearing one of his shirts. Activity: Imagine you are Lieutenant Clark writing in your diary. Explain how you felt during the wrecking OR when you saw the seaman wearing your shirt.
Luckily, no lives were lost. A rope was tied to a barrel and floated to shore. There it was tied to a pine tree. The men scrambled to land along the rope. Only the surviving livestock remained on the ship. Two convicts volunteered to swim out and release the animals. They did that but then realised that they were the only people on the ship so set out to see what they could take. They found the grog store, got drunk and set fire to the ship. A marine swam out to the ship and put the fire out. He then brought the convicts ashore. When the fire aboard the Sirius was finally put out, it had burnt through to the gun deck. The heavy guns had fallen into the hold on top of the much needed supplies that were stored there. The ship was stripped to provide some of the hardware that was needed. Every thing was removed; sails, ropes, masts and spars, fittings and the timbers of the ship itself until she was down to the waterline. It took two years to do this and the cannons were finally removed in 1792. Did the convicts make a causeway? At a low tide on the reef today you can see a causeway (a causeway is a raised road across wet land). It goes across the reef to where the wreck occurred. There is no record from the time of the wrecking about the building of a causeway but it might have been built then to bring ashore the carronades and cannons on their gun carriages. A few articles were probably too heavy or too big to carry and the causeway might have been used bring them to shore. The 18 pound carronades have the weight stamped on them and they weigh more than half a ton. They are made of cast iron which was difficult to break up, haul over the reef or carry on the backs of convicts. The causeway may be the oldest surviving man-made structure from European settlement in Australia. What happened after the wrecking? Because of the wrecking of the Sirius, John Hunter and some of the crew had to stay on the island. They were rescued the following year. King wrote in his journal on March 22, that Martial Law was declared and that Major Robert Ross of the Royal Marines was to be the Governor. Two days later King left for Sydney on board the ship Supply. He took two officers and 22 of the crew of the Sirius. When the news that the Sirius was wrecked got to Sydney the authorities seriously thought about closing both settlements and going back to England. Now there was only one ship to serve both places. Governor Phillip was devastated. After the wreck, the situation on Norfolk Island was critical. It was a small agricultural settlement and it had an extra 400 people to feed. The people of the colony nearly starved. In desperation the settlers began to kill the local Mount Pitt birds for food. They called them the “Providence” petrel. The settlers took so many that the bird became extinct on Norfolk Island. In recent years a small colony of “Providence” petrels has become established on Phillip Island, seven kilometres to the south of Norfolk. Lieutenant Ralph Clark of the Royal Marines kept a total in his diary of the number of birds that were killed each night and about 200,000 were killed over the four months before the relief ships arrived. He wrote in a letter in August 1790: “The Birds come to the island about the middle of March and, by the middle of April, eggs were plentiful. It would be impossible for me to give an account of the number of birds and eggs...by the middle of May to the beginning of June there was no scarcity in any part of the Town and they were bartered at a very cheap rate. On the 19th April, the Birds became so very plentiful (and our Store so lean) the Governor issued out a condition that if every person would give up half a pound of his salt meat they might kill and bring home as many birds as he pleased (as long as it did not interfere with their Work)…It is worthy of remark that these birds were coming in when our sad and melancholy Catastrophe happened and were very scarce at the arrival of the relief”. Activity: Write a paragraph about how the people on Norfolk Island survived in 1790 The Justinian and the Surprize arrive on August 7th so the people on Norfolk Island did not starve. The loss of the Sirius was very serious because the colony had not received the supplies it needed. The people didn’t have enough clothes, shoes or cooking utensils. The troops from the Sirius who had lost their personal things were very badly affected. Captain Hunter goes to Court Because his ship had been wrecked, Captain Hunter faced a court martial (a military court). The court found that the accident was not the fault of Captain Hunter or any other officer on board when she struck the reef. The court found that they did everything possible to save the ship. Arrival of Pigeons on Norfolk Island One of the sailors from the Sirius recorded in his diary that on the First Fleet voyage, a pigeon landed on board when the ship was off Rio de Janiero. Another pigeon landed on board off the Cape of Good Hope. They were a pair and survived the wreck, breeding well. The pigeons on Norfolk Island today are descended from that pair from the Sirius. In her book “Norfolk Island…The Birds”, 2005, Margaret Christian says “today pigeons are as common around the coast as in the island’s interior, perhaps still scanning the ocean for the lost ship of their ancestors”. Activity: Draw the pair of pigeons which came to Norfolk Island on the Sirius.
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