| Duration: | 250 days |
| Date: | 13 May 1787 to 20 January 1788 |
| Location: | Portsmouth, England and Botany Bay, Colony of New South Wales |
| Cause: | Counter French imperialism in the Pacific and Penal transportation |
| Motive: | Establishment of a Penal colony |
| Patron: | Lord Sandwich and Sir Joseph Banks |
| Organisers: | The Viscount Sydney as Secretary of State for the Home Office |
| Participants: | Captain Arthur Phillip, Governor of New South Wales and Major Robert Ross, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales |
| Outcome: | Beginning of European settlement in Australia |
| Reported Deaths: | 48 died at sea |
The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 British ships that took the first British colonists and convicts to Australia. It comprised two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, with over 1,400 people (convicts, marines, sailors, civil officers and free settlers), left from Portsmouth, England and took a journey of over 24000km (15,000miles) and over 250 days to eventually arrive in Botany Bay, New South Wales, where a penal colony would become the first British settlement in Australia from 20 January 1788.
Lord Sandwich, together with the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, the eminent scientist who had accompanied Lieutenant James Cook on his 1770 voyage, was advocating establishment of a British colony in Botany Bay, New South Wales.[1] Banks accepted an offer of assistance from the American Loyalist James Matra in July 1783. Under Banks's guidance, he rapidly produced "A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales" (24 August 1783), with a fully developed set of reasons for a colony composed of American Loyalists, Chinese and South Sea Islanders (but not convicts).[2] The decision to establish a colony in Australia was made by Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, Secretary of State for the Home Office.[3] This was taken for two reasons: the ending of transportation of criminals to North America following the American Revolution,[4] as well as the need for a base in the Pacific to counter French expansion.[5]
In September 1786, Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed Commodore of the fleet, which came to be known as the First Fleet, which was to transport the convicts and soldiers to establish a colony at Botany Bay. Upon arrival there, Phillip was to assume the powers of Captain General and Governor in Chief of the new colony. A subsidiary colony was to be founded on Norfolk Island, as recommended by Sir John Call and Sir George Young, to take advantage for naval purposes of that island's native flax (harakeke) and timber.[6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
The cost to Britain of outfitting and dispatching the Fleet was £84,000 (about £9.6 million, or $19.6 million as of 2015).[11]
On 25 October 1786 the 10-gun, lying in the dock at Deptford, was commissioned, and the command given to Phillip. The armed tender HMAT under command of Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball who was also commissioned to join the expedition. Lt. David Blackburn was the ship's Master.[12] [13] On 15 December, Captain John Hunter was assigned as second captain to Sirius to command in the absence of Phillip, whose presence, it was to be supposed, would be requisite at all times wherever the seat of government in that country might be fixed.
| Type | Master | Crew, Officials, Marines[14] | From | Arrived Botany Bay | Duration (days) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HMS Sirius | 10 gun | John Hunter | 200 | Portsmouth | 20 January 1788 | 252 | |
| HMAT Supply | Armed tender | Henry Lidgbird Ball | 55 + 2 (convicts transferred on route) | Spithead | 18 January 1788 | 250 |
Sirius was Phillip’s flagship for the fleet. She had been converted from the merchantman Berwick, built in 1780 for Baltic trade. She was a 520 ton, sixth-rate vessel, originally armed with ten guns, four six-pounders and six carronades, Phillip had ten more guns placed aboard.
Supply was designed in 1759 by shipwright Thomas Slade, as a yard craft for the ferrying of naval supplies. Measuring 170 tons, she had two masts, and was fitted with four small 3-pounder cannons and six -pounder swivel guns. Her armament was substantially increased in 1786 with the addition of four 12-pounder carronades.
| Type | Master | Crew | Marines | Arrived Botany Bay | Duration (days) | Convicts arrived (boarded) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Males | Females | ||||||||
| Alexander | Barque | Duncan Sinclair | 30 | 41 | 19 January 1788 | 251 | 210 Two were pardoned | 0 | |
| Charlotte | Transport | Thomas Gilbert | 30 | 32 | 20 January 1788 | 252 | 100 | 24 | |
| Friendship | Brig | Francis Walton | 25 | 42 | 19 January 1788 | 251 | 80 | 24 To Cape of Good Hope only, transferred to Lady Penrhyn | |
| Lady Penrhyn | Transport | William Cropton Server | 30 | 18 | 20 January 1788 | 252 | 0 | 101 | |
| Prince of Wales | Barque | John Mason | 29 | 45 | 20 January 1788 | 252 | 2 | 47 | |
| Scarborough | Transport | John Marshall | 30 | 50 | 19 January 1788 | 251 | 208 | 0 |
Ropes, crockery, agricultural equipment and a miscellany of other stores were needed. Items transported included tools, agricultural implements, seeds, spirits, medical supplies, bandages, surgical instruments, handcuffs, leg irons and a prefabricated wooden frame for the colony's first Government House.[15] The party had to rely on its own provisions to survive until it could make use of local materials, assuming suitable supplies existed, and grow its own food and raise livestock.
| Type | Master | Crew | Arr. Botany Bay | Duration (days) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| storeship | William Sharp | 22 | 20 January 1788 | align=right | 252 | ||
| storeship | Robert Brown | 22 | 20 January 1788 | align=right | 252 | ||
| Borrowdale | storeship | Hobson Reed | 22 | 20 January 1788 | align=right | 252 |
The reverend Richard Johnson, chaplain for the colony, travelled on the Golden Grove with his wife and servants.
Scale models of all the ships are on display at the Museum of Sydney. The models were built by ship makers Lynne and Laurie Hadley, after researching the original plans, drawings and British archives. The replicas of Supply, Charlotte, Scarborough, Friendship, Prince of Wales, Lady Penrhyn, Borrowdale, Alexander, Sirius, Fishburn and Golden Grove are made from Western Red or Syrian Cedar.[16]
Nine Sydney harbour ferries built in the mid-1980s are named after First Fleet vessels. The unused names are Lady Penrhyn and Prince of Wales.
See also: List of convicts on the First Fleet and Journals of the First Fleet.
The majority of the people travelling with the fleet were convicts, all having been tried and convicted in Great Britain, almost all of them in England.[17] [18] Many are known to have come to England from other parts of Great Britain and, especially, from Ireland; at least 14 are known to have come from the British colonies in North America; 12 are identified as black (born in Britain, Africa, the West Indies, North America, India or a European country or its colony).[19] [20] The convicts had committed a variety of crimes, including theft, perjury, fraud, assault, robbery, for which they had variously been sentenced to death, which was then commuted to penal transportation for 7 years, 14 years, or the term of their natural life.[21] [22]
Four companies of marines volunteered for service in the colony, these marines made up the New South Wales Marine Corps, under the command of Major Robert Ross, a detachment on board every convict transport. The families of marines also made the voyage.[23]
A number of people on the First Fleet kept diaries and journals of their experiences, including the surgeons, sailors, officers, soldiers, and ordinary seamen. There are at least eleven known manuscript Journals of the First Fleet in existence as well as some letters.[24]
The exact number of people directly associated with the First Fleet will likely never be established, as accounts of the event vary slightly. A total of 1,420 people have been identified as embarking on the First Fleet in 1787, and 1,373 are believed to have landed at Sydney Cove in January 1788. In her biographical dictionary of the First Fleet, Mollie Gillen gives the following statistics:
| Embarked at Portsmouth | Landed at Sydney Cove | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Officials and passengers | 15 | 14 | |
| Ships' crews | 323 | 306 | |
| Marines | 247 | 245 | |
| Marines' wives and children | 46 | 45 + 9 born | |
| Convicts (men) | 582 | 543 | |
| Convicts (women) | 193 | 189 | |
| Convicts' children | 14 | 11 + 11 born | |
| Total | 1,420 | 1,373 |
While the names of all crew members of Sirius and Supply are known, the six transports and three store ships may have carried as many as 110 more seamen than have been identified – no complete musters have survived for these ships. The total number of persons embarking on the First Fleet would, therefore, be approximately 1,530 with about 1,483 reaching Sydney Cove.
According to the first census of 1788 as reported by Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, the non-indigenous population of the colony was 1,030 and the colony also consisted of 7 horses, 29 sheep, 74 swine, 6 rabbits, and 7 cattle.[25]
The following statistics were provided by Governor Phillip:[26]
| Male | Female | Children | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Convicts & their children | 548 | 188 | 17 | 753 | |
| Others | 219 | 34 | 24 | 277 | |
| Total | 767 | 222 | 41 | 1,030 |
The chief surgeon for the First Fleet, John White, reported a total of 48 deaths and 28 births during the voyage. The deaths during the voyage included one marine, one marine's wife, one marine's child, 36 male convicts, four female convicts, and five children of convicts.[27]
In September 1786 Captain Arthur Phillip was chosen to lead the expedition to establish a colony in New South Wales. On 15 December, Captain John Hunter, was appointed Phillip’s second. By now had been nominated as flagship, with Hunter holding command. The armed tender HMAT under command of Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball had also joined the fleet.
With Phillip in London awaiting Royal Assent for the bill of management of the colony, the loading and provisioning of the transports was carried out by Lieutenant John Shortland, the agent for transports.
On 16 March 1787, the fleet began to assemble at its appointed rendezvous, the Mother Bank, Isle of Wight. His Majesty's frigate Sirius and armed tender Supply, three store-ships, Golden Grove, Fishburn and Borrowdale, for carrying provisions and stores for two years; and lastly, six transports; Scarborough and Lady Penrhyn, from Portsmouth; Friendship and Charlotte, from Plymouth; Prince of Wales, and Alexander, from Woolwich. On 9 May Captain Phillip arrived in Portsmouth, the next day coming aboard the ships and giving orders to prepare the fleet for departure.
Phillip first tried to get the fleet to sail on 10 May, but a dispute by sailors of the Fishburn about pay, they refused to leave until resolved. The fleet finally left Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787.[30] The journey began with fine weather, and thus the convicts were allowed on deck.[31] The Fleet was accompanied by the armed frigate until it left English waters.[32] On 20 May 1787, one convict on Scarborough reported a planned mutiny; those allegedly involved were flogged and two were transferred to Prince of Wales. In general, however, most accounts of the voyage agree that the convicts were well behaved. On 3 June 1787, the fleet anchored at Santa Cruz at Tenerife. Here, fresh water, vegetables and meat were brought on board. Phillip and the chief officers were entertained by the local governor, while one convict tried unsuccessfully to escape.[33] On 10 June they set sail to cross the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, taking advantage of favourable trade winds and ocean currents.
The weather became increasingly hot and humid as the Fleet sailed through the tropics. Vermin, such as rats, and parasites such as bedbugs, lice, cockroaches and fleas, tormented the convicts, officers and marines. Bilges became foul and the smell, especially below the closed hatches, was over-powering.[34] While Phillip gave orders that the bilge-water was to be pumped out daily and the bilges cleaned, these orders were not followed on Alexander and a number of convicts fell sick and died. Tropical rainstorms meant that the convicts could not exercise on deck as they had no change of clothes and no method of drying wet clothing. Consequently, they were kept below in the foul, cramped holds. On the female transports, promiscuity between the convicts, the crew and marines was rampant, despite punishments for some of the men involved. In the doldrums, Phillip was forced to ration the water to three pints a day.
The Fleet reached Rio de Janeiro on 5 August and stayed for a month. The ships were cleaned and water taken on board, repairs were made, and Phillip ordered large quantities of food. The women convicts' clothing had become infested with lice and was burnt. As additional clothing for the female convicts had not arrived before the Fleet left England, the women were issued with new clothes made from rice sacks. While the convicts remained below deck, the officers explored the city and were entertained by its inhabitants.[35] A convict and a marine were punished for passing forged quarter-dollars made from old buckles and pewter spoons. Ellen Fraser, Mother of second child of English parents born in the colony (John Fraser born 7 June 1789), is thought to be the female convict transferred from the "Prince of Wales" to the " Charlotte" during the stop over in Rio on 13 August 1787. Her husband, William Fraser was a convict on "Charlotte".[36]
The Fleet left Rio de Janeiro on 4 September to run before the westerlies to the Table Bay in southern Africa, which it reached on 13 October.[37] This was the last port of call, so the main task was to stock up on plants, seeds and livestock for their arrival in Australia.[38] The livestock taken on board from Cape Town destined for the new colony included two bulls, seven cows, one stallion, three mares, 44 sheep, 32 pigs, four goats and "a very large quantity of poultry of every kind".[39] Women convicts on Friendship were moved to other transports to make room for livestock purchased there. The convicts were provided with fresh beef and mutton, bread and vegetables, to build up their strength for the journey and maintain their health. The Dutch colony of Cape Town was the last outpost of European settlement which the fleet members would see for years, perhaps for the rest of their lives. "Before them stretched the awesome, lonely void of the Indian and Southern Oceans, and beyond that lay nothing they could imagine."[40]
Assisted by the gales in the "Roaring Forties" latitudes below the 40th parallel, the heavily laden transports surged through the violent seas. In the last two months of the voyage, the Fleet faced challenging conditions, spending some days becalmed and on others covering significant distances; Friendship travelled 166 miles one day, while a seaman was blown from Prince of Wales at night and drowned.[41] Water was rationed as supplies ran low, and the supply of other goods including wine ran out altogether on some vessels. Van Diemen's Land was sighted from Friendship on 4 January 1788. A freak storm struck as they began to head north around the island, damaging the sails and masts of some of the ships.
On 25 November, Phillip had transferred to Supply. With Alexander, Friendship and Scarborough, the fastest ships in the Fleet, which were carrying most of the male convicts, Supply hastened ahead to prepare for the arrival of the rest. Phillip intended to select a suitable location, find good water, clear the ground, and perhaps even have some huts and other structures built before the others arrived. This was a planned move, discussed by the Home Office and the Admiralty prior to the Fleet's departure.[42] However, this "flying squadron" reached Botany Bay only hours before the rest of the Fleet, so no preparatory work was possible.[43] Supply reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788; the three fastest transports in the advance group arrived on 19 January; slower ships, including Sirius, arrived on 20 January.[44]
This was one of the world's greatest sea voyages – eleven vessels carrying about 1,487 people and stores had travelled for 252 days for more than 15,000 miles (24,000 km) without losing a ship. Forty-eight people died on the journey, a death rate of just over three percent.
It was soon realised that Botany Bay did not live up to the glowing account that the explorer Captain James Cook had provided.[45] The bay was open and unprotected, the water was too shallow to allow the ships to anchor close to the shore, fresh water was scarce, and the soil was poor.[46] First contact was made with the local indigenous people, the Eora, who seemed curious but suspicious of the newcomers. The area was studded with enormously strong trees. When the convicts tried to cut them down, their tools broke and the tree trunks had to be blasted out of the ground with gunpowder. The primitive huts built for the officers and officials quickly collapsed in rainstorms. The marines had a habit of getting drunk and not guarding the convicts properly, whilst their commander, Major Robert Ross, drove Phillip to despair with his arrogant and lazy attitude. Crucially, Phillip worried that his fledgling colony was exposed to attack from those described as "Aborigines" or from foreign powers. Although his initial instructions were to establish the colony at Botany Bay, he was authorised to establish the colony elsewhere if necessary.[47]
On 21 January, Phillip and a party which included John Hunter, departed the Bay in three small boats to explore other bays to the north.[48] Phillip discovered that Port Jackson, about 12 kilometres to the north, was an excellent site for a colony with sheltered anchorages, fresh water and fertile soil. Cook had seen and named the harbour, but had not entered it. Phillip's impressions of the harbour were recorded in a letter he sent to England later: "the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security ...". The party returned to Botany Bay on 23 January.
On the morning of 24 January, the party was startled when two French ships, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, were seen just outside Botany Bay. This was a scientific expedition led by Jean-François de La Pérouse. The French had expected to find a thriving colony where they could repair ships and restock supplies, not a newly arrived fleet of convicts considerably more poorly provisioned than themselves.[49] There was some cordial contact between the French and British officers, but Phillip and La Pérouse never met. The French ships remained until 10 March before setting sail on their return voyage. They were not seen again and were later discovered to have been shipwrecked off the coast of Vanikoro in the present-day Solomon Islands.[50]
On 26 January 1788, the Fleet weighed anchor and sailed to Port Jackson. The site selected for the anchorage had deep water close to the shore, was sheltered, and had a small stream flowing into it. Phillip named it Sydney Cove, after Lord Sydney, the British Home Secretary. This date is celebrated as Australia Day, marking the beginning of British settlement.[51] Contrary to popular belief, the British flag was not officially planted until 7 February 1788 when possession was formally proclaimed. There was, as always, a British naval ensign erected at the site of the military encampment, and this had been performed on the evening of 25 January 1788[52] in a small ceremony conducted by Phillip and some officers and marines from Supply, with the remainder of Supplys crew and the convicts observing from on board ship. The remaining ships of the Fleet did not arrive at Sydney Cove until later that day.[53] Writer and art critic Robert Hughes popularized the idea in his 1986 book The Fatal Shore that an orgy occurred upon the unloading of the convicts, though more modern historians regard this as untrue, since the first reference to any such indiscretions is as recent as 1963.[54] [55]
The First Fleet encountered Indigenous Australians when they landed at Botany Bay. The Cadigal people of the Botany Bay area witnessed the Fleet arrive and six days later the two ships of French explorer La Pérouse, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, sailed into the bay.[56] When the Fleet moved to Sydney Cove seeking better conditions for establishing the colony, they encountered the Eora people, including the Bidjigal clan. A number of the First Fleet journals record encounters with Aboriginal people.[57]
Although the official policy of the British Government was to establish friendly relations with Aboriginal people, and Arthur Phillip ordered that the Aboriginal people should be well treated, it was not long before conflict began. The colonists did not sign treaties with the original inhabitants of the land.[58] Between 1790 and 1810, Pemulwuy of the Bidjigal clan led the local people in a series of attacks against the colonists.[59]
The ships of the First Fleet mostly did not remain in the colony. Some returned to England, while others left for other ports. Some remained at the service of the Governor of the colony for some months: some of these were sent to Norfolk Island where a second penal colony was established.
1788
1789
1790:
On Sat 26 January 1842 The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser reported "The Government has ordered a pension of one shilling per diem to be paid to the survivors of those who came by the first vessel into the Colony. The number of these really 'old hands' is now reduced to three, of whom, two are now in the Benevolent Asylum, and the other is a fine hale old fellow, who can do a day's work with more spirit than many of the young fellows lately arrived in the Colony."[80] The names of the three recipients were not given, and is academic as the notice turned out to be false, not having been authorised by the Governor. There were at least 25 persons still living who had arrived with the First Fleet, including several children born on the voyage. A number of these contacted the authorities to arrange their pension and all received a similar reply to the following received by John McCarty on 14 Mar 1842 "I am directed by His Excellency the Governor to inform you, that the paragraph which appeared in the Sydney Gazette relative to an allowance to the persons of the first expedition to New South Wales was not authorised by His Excellency nor has he any knowledge of such an allowance as that alluded to". E. Deas Thomson, Colonial Secretary.
Following is a list of persons known to be living at the time the pension notice was published, in order of their date of death. At this time New South Wales included the whole Eastern seaboard of present day Australia except for Van Diemen's Land which was declared a separate colony in 1825 and achieved self governing status in 1855-6. This list does not include marines or convicts who returned to England after completing their term in NSW and who may have lived past January 1842.
convict per Friendship died 16 March 1846 at Windsor, aged 84.
Historians have disagreed over whether those aboard the First Fleet were responsible for introducing smallpox to Australia's indigenous population, and if so, whether this was the consequence of deliberate action.
In 1914, J. H. L. Cumpston, director of the Australian Quarantine Service put forward the hypothesis that smallpox arrived in Australia with First Fleet.[95] Some researchers have argued that any such release may have been a deliberate attempt to decimate the indigenous population.[96] [97] Hypothetical scenarios for such an action might have included: an act of revenge by an aggrieved individual, a response to attacks by indigenous people,[98] or part of an orchestrated assault by the New South Wales Marine Corps, intended to clear the path for colonial expansion.[99] [100] Seth Carus, a former Deputy Director of the National Defense University in the United States wrote in 2015 that there was a "strong circumstantial case supporting the theory that someone deliberately introduced smallpox in the Aboriginal population."[101]
Other historians have disputed the idea that there was a deliberate release of smallpox virus and/or suggest that it arrived with visitors to Australia other than the First Fleet.[102] [103] [104] [105] It has been suggested that live smallpox virus may have been introduced accidentally when Aboriginal people came into contact with variolous matter brought by the First Fleet for use in anti-smallpox inoculations.[106] [107] [108]
In 2002, historian Judy Campbell offered a further theory, that smallpox had arrived in Australia through contact with fishermen from Makassar in Indonesia, where smallpox was endemic.[109] [110] In 2011, Macknight stated: "The overwhelming probability must be that it [smallpox] was introduced, like the later epidemics, by [Indonesian] trepangers ... and spread across the continent to arrive in Sydney quite independently of the new settlement there."[111]
There is a fourth theory, that the 1789 epidemic was not smallpox but chickenpox – to which indigenous Australians also had no inherited resistance – that happened to be affecting, or was carried by, members of the First Fleet.[112] [113] This theory has also been disputed.[114] [115]
After Ray Collins, a stonemason, completed years of research into the First Fleet, he sought approval from about nine councils to construct a commemorative garden in recognition of these immigrants. Liverpool Plains Shire Council was ultimately the only council to accept his offer to supply the materials and construct the garden free of charge. The site chosen was a disused caravan park on the banks of Quirindi Creek at Wallabadah, New South Wales. In September 2002 Collins commenced work on the project. Additional support was later provided by Neil McGarry in the form of some signs and the council contributed $28,000 for pathways and fencing. Collins hand-chiselled the names of all those who came to Australia on the eleven ships in 1788 on stone tablets along the garden pathways. The stories of those who arrived on the ships, their life, and first encounters with the Australian country are presented throughout the garden.[116] On 26 January 2005, the First Fleet Garden was opened as the major memorial to the First Fleet immigrants. Previously the only other specific memorial to the First Fleeters was an obelisk at Brighton-Le-Sands, New South Wales.[117] The surrounding area has a barbecue, tables, and amenities.
First Fleet Park is situated in The Rocks, near the site of the First Fleet's landing. The area has remained in public ownership continually since 1788, under the control of various agencies. It was previously used for a hospital, Queen's Wharf, shops and houses, the first Commissariat Store and the first post office.[118] [119] Archaeological remains are extant on the site dating back to the earliest days of settlement.