The Botany Bay Medallion

‘When leaving Botany Bay [for Sydney Cove 25 January 1788] Phillip noticed two French ships in the  offing….there would seem to be “some justification for the saying that England won Australia by six days”. Edward Jenks, History of the Australian Colonies, cited H.E. Egerton, A short History of British Colonial Policy, Methuen, London 1928

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‘Our wealth and power in India is their [France ] great and constant object of jealously; and they will never miss an opportunity of attempting to wrest it out of our hands’. Sir James Harris cited, Michael Pembroke, Arthur Phillip Sailor Mercenary Governor Spy, Hardie Grant Books. Melbourne, London, 2013

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‘English clockmaker John Harrison, a mechanical genius who pioneered the science of portable precision timekeeping…invented a clock that would carry the true time from the home port, like an eternal flame, to any remote corner of the world’. Dava Sobel, Longitude, Fourth Estate, 1998

Harrison H-4 Chronometer

‘Military and police raids against dissenting Aboriginal groups lasted from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries…These raids had commenced by [on 14th] December 1790’.  Professor Bruce Kercher, An Unruly Child, A History of Law in Australia, Allen & Unwin, 1995.

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‘Bring in six [6] of those natives who reside near the head of Botany Bay; or if that should be found impracticable, to put that number [6] to death…bring back the heads of the slain’. Governor Arthur Phillip RN, General Orders to Marine Captain Watkin Tench, 13 December 1790. Cited Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, L.F. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1961

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‘Lieutenant William Dawes whose tour of duty it was to  go out with that party refused that duty by letter’. Professor G.A. Wood, Lieutenant William Dawes and  Captain Watkin Tench, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal; Vol. 19, Part 1, 1924

Australia knows little of the ‘eternal flame’ or the remarkable role it played in the invasion of New Holland and dispossession of its First Peoples.

Warranne – 26 January 1788:  K I – a faithful replica of John  Harrison’s  H-4 a ‘sea-going pocket watch’, was given by Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne into the care of marine  Lieutenant William Dawes,. It fetched up at one particular ‘remote corner of the world’  – Sydney Cove – aboard HMS Supply one (1) of  eleven (11) First Fleet ships.

It’s voyages from Sydney in February 1788 to occupy Norfolk Island in order to stymie La Perouse, to Africa in 1788-9 for food and, to Jakarta in 1790 again for medicines and supplies, were essential to the survival of the British invaders and played its part in the near destruction of Australia’s First Nations’ Peoples. See: Missing In Action – 1790 HMS Sirius (wrecked) HMS Supply – Jakarta 

‘He [Dawes] was the scholar of the [First Fleet] expedition, man of letters and man of science, explorer, mapmaker, student of language of anthropology, teacher and philanthropist’. Professor G. Arnold Wood. op.cit.

Non-indigenous Australia knows almost nothing of Dawes and those who do turn a blind eye.  Perhaps he is Daniel Rooke, Kate Grenville’s cardboard cut-out hero of The Lieutenant.

‘Dawes whose tour of duty it was to go out with that party’ [to] ‘ bring back the heads of the slain’ refused that duty by letter’. Wood. ibid.

Australia either knows nothing of, or hose who do turn a blind eye, on Lieutenant Dawes. Yet his initial refusal to participate in first raid – the 13th December 1790 – played a pivotal role in revealing the how ,why and wherefore of the ‘war nasty and decidedly lacking in glory’ Britain waged against Australia’s First Nations’ Peoples. 

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‘He [John Harrison] wrested the world’s whereabouts from the stars, and locked the secret in a pocket watch’. Dava Sobel, Longitude, Fourth Estate, London, 1998

Harrison H-4 Chronometer

Since earliest times Europe’s sea-faring nations England, Portugal, France, Spain the Netherlands vied with each other to solve – the Holy Grail of Navigation – longitude – calculating with precision a ship’s position at sea while beyond sight of land.

Cornwell – 1707:  In heavy weather six (6) of Admiral Clowdisley Shovell’s ships lost their bearings off the Cornish coast and dashed to pieces against the Scilly Isles with the loss of 1500 lives

1714  – Westminster: An enquiry into England’s first recorded 18^th century maritime disaster resulted in legislation- The Act of Longitude 1714.

A Board of Longitude was established under the Act. Its task to invite and evaluate submissions and award a prize of £20,000 to whom-so-ever solved the problem of determining longitude at sea.

The contest,  to the detriment of the world’s seafarers, developed into a naked grab for cash. A king’s ransom, reckoned now at more than £400,000,000, did much to delay recognition of the solution at the cost of countless lives.  See: Lotto and Longitude

‘John Harrison, the man who solved longitude in 1759’. Peter Ackroyd, Revolution, Macmillan, London, 2016 See: Lieutenant William Dawes & ‘The Eternal Flame’‘

There had only two (2) viable contenders for the Longitude Prize. Astronomer Royal Rev. Nevil Maskelyne’s Nautical Almanac , a system of  Luna Tables  and Star Cataglog favoured by a succession of Astronomer Royals and a sea-going ‘pocket-watch’ the invention of John Harrison a Yorkshire carpenter.

‘The Board of Longitude was top-heavy with astronomers, mathematicians and navigators…the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne the fifth astronomer royal, who contested his [Harrison’s] claim to the [Longitude] prize money and whose tactics at certain junctions can only be described as foul-play’. Dava Sobel. ibid.

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‘The Royal Society had accepted the recommendation of [Maskelyne] the Astronomer [Royal] that [Dalrymple] the well-known hydrographer of the Pacific should be chosen as ‘a proper Person to be sent to the South Seas’. H.C. Cameron, Sir Joseph Banks, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1968

Greenwich: Rev. Nevil Maskelyne, Britain’s fifth Astronomer Royal may have judged Alexander Dalrumple, a Fellow of the Royal Society; ‘a proper Person’ the Admiralty however would have none of Alexander Dalrymple. See: Malicious Maskelyne 

South Seas: Instead Admiralty chose James Cook, then a lowly Warrant Officer of the Royal Navy, to lead a scientific expedition to the ‘South Seas’.

The expedition was a two-for-the-price-of-one venture.  Edmond Haley of comet fame earlier had predicted a celestial phenomenon the, Transit of Venus, would occur in early June 1769.  The Royal Society favoured Tahiti as an ideal place to observe the Transit.

The Society could not bear the full cost of sending observers there and went into partnership with the Admiralty who supplied a ship and paid its captain and crew.

Tahiti:  After the Transit Cook was to open the Admiralty’s ‘secret instructions’ and sail his ship – HMS Endeavour – deep into southern latitudes in search of the fabled Great South Land.

‘[Cook] Whose remarkable qualities as a seaman and as a navigator and cartographer the Admiralty had learned to value because of his outstanding service in the operation under [General] Wolfe in Canada [Seven Years War 1756-1763]. Cameron. ibid. 

Yorkshire – 1728: James Cook was born on 27 October 1728 in Marston, Yorkshire. Vanessa Collingridge Captain Cook The Life, Death and Legacy of History’s Greatest Explorer, Random House, 2003 says he spent most of his childhood; ‘in the lee of the largest peak in Yorkshire’s North Riding’.

Whitby – 1747:  Leaving school in 1747 Cook worked as deckhand on a Whitby barque bringing coal from Newcastle to Hull and London. By 1752 he was Mate on a collier Friendship.

1755: War with France was looming and in 1755 Abel Seaman Cook enlisted in the Royal Navy where his experience made for steady progress..

1756: The Seven Year’s War broke out in 1756 with Britain, Prussia and Hanover ranged against France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden and Spain. Military historians classify The Seven Years’ War 1756-1763 as the world’s first truly global war.

1757 – June:  Cook passed his sailing master’s examination at Trinity House in mid 1757 and joined the crew of HMS Eagle .

1757 – October: He was posted to HMS Pembroke an impressive  sixty-four (64) gun fighting ‘Ship of the Line’.

1757:  Towards the end of 1757 William Pitt [Elder], Britain’s Prime Minister, ‘gained control of the [war] strategy’. Under his influence England’s primary struggle with France,  swung away from the Continent with the intention of seizing French colonies in North America and India.

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‘The grim roll-call broke his [Cook’s) heart…the death of the astronomer Charles Green marked a wave of those who ‘departed this life’….By the end of January [1771] they had barely enough men to man the ship [HMS Endeavour]’. Vanesssa Collingridge, Captain Cook, The Life, Death and Legacy of History’s Greatest Explorer, Ebury Press, 2002

Swinton- 1734: Charles Green son of ‘a prosperous’ free-hold Yorkshire farmer, born in Swinton towards the end of 1734, received a broad education with a strong emphasis on science.

London: John his elder brother took Holy Orders and established a school in Soho, London.  It was there Charles found his ‘heavenly passion’ astronomy. After graduating he stayed on teaching mathematics.

Greenwich 1760: In 1760 Charles applied successfully for the position of Assistant Astronomer at Greenwich Observatory. He went on to serve as Chief Assistant to three (3) Astronomer Royals, James Bradley, Nathaniel Bliss and briefly Reverend Nevil Maskelyn.

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In 1675 King Charles II engaged Sir Christopher Wren to design a National Observatory. Wren considered the ruins of Greenwich Castle a perfect site. Although Oliver Cromwell’s Roundhead Model Army, during The Protectorate Interregnum (1653-59) , destroyed its buildings the foundations were intact.

Greenwich: In 1676, Rev. John Flamsteed, Britain’s inaugural Astronomer Royal, took up residence in the newly minted Greenwich Observatory. He remained in the role until his death in 1719.

In 1720 Edmond Halley of comet fame succeeded Flamsteed. He held the post for twenty-two (22) years until his death in 1742.

Rev. James Bradley followed Halley. His tenure too was lengthy 1742-1762. Bradley is celebrated principally for his work on the speed of light. In 1728 he estimated light moved at the speed of 295,000 km (183,000 miles) per second.

Not until three (3) centuries later were Bradley’s calculations amended to 299,790 km (186,290 miles) per second.

Arguably had Bradley stuck to light and left longitude to Mr. John Harrison inventor of the H-4 sea-going ‘pocket-watch’ many a sea-farer may not have met a watery end. Bradley died in 1762

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‘The Transit [of Venus] was more than just an astronomical curio, it was the key to a wealth of information about the universe, information that would be seized upon by the intensely curious men of science who characterised the age’. Vanessa Collingridge, Captain Cook, The Life, Death and Legacy of History’s Greatest Explorer, Random House, 2003

England – 1663: In 1663 during the reign of King Charles II (1660-1685) a collection of ‘intensely curious men of science’ – the ‘Invisible College’ – morphed into the Royal Society.

A century later, the Society flowered under the patronage of King George III (1720-1820), to become one of the world’s most celebrated scientific institutions.

Tahiti: In 1767 with the Transit of Venus in the offing – 3 June 1769 – its second appearance that decade – the Society petitioned King George III for financial support to send observers to send an expedition to Tahiti and report on the phenomenon.

‘That the passage of the Planet Venus over the Disc of the Sun, which will happen on the 3^rd of June in the year 1769, is a Phaenomenon (sic) that must, if the same be accurately observed in proper places, contribute greatly to the improvement of Astronomy on which Navigation so much depends.

 As the [Fellows] are in no condition to defray this Expense about £4,000 pounds, exclusive of the Expense of the Ships…with all humility and submit the same to your Majesty’s Royal consideration’. Cited, H.C. Cameron, Sir Joseph Banks, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1968

1768 – February: To that end James Douglas 14^th Earl of Morton, then President of the Royal Society, on 15 February 1768 penned a Memorial requesting the Monarch’s financial support.

Royal money was forthcoming for it was clear accurate and reliable ‘Navigation on which so much depends’ equated with domination over the world’s oceans. Domination would expedite expansion of territory and trade. Strategically placed ‘bases’ would more likely assure victory in time of conflict.

‘And the sum of £4,000 pounds clear of fees, [was] to be placed at the disposal of the Society…On March 5^th of the next year, 1768, the Navy Board was instructed by the Admiralty to purchase a suitable vessel for the great voyage to the South Seas’. Cameron, Sir Joseph Banks, Angus and Robertson, 1968

Deptford -1768, 5 March: Admiralty settled on the Earl of Pembroke. Renamed Endeavour she was a typical coal carrier ‘cat-built bark’ of 368 tons ‘stoutly built, flatly bottomed of shallow draught’.

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