to use the name Australia. Before that, it had
been known as both New Holland and New
South Wales. The first of those terms was
bestowed by the Dutch mariner Abel Tasman
in 1644, while the second was a name applied
to the eastern coast by James Cook on his
voyage of 1770, when he found a site near
where Sydney stands today that he believed
had prospects for a new colony.
The 1801-03 circumnavigation by Flinders,
on HMS Investigator, proved its composition
as a single land mass. On an earlier
expedition he had also proved that the island
to the south, today called Tasmania, was
indeed just that – an island. Until then there
had been suspicions that it was joined to the
mainland. These discoveries would forever
benefit those who took to the sea, cutting the
sailing time between Britain and Sydney andAbove, HMS Investigator depicted in an
etching by Geoffrey Ingleton, 1937. Right,
Flinders served with Captain William Bligh,
famous for the “mutiny on the Bounty” affair