Abstract
On 13 May 1787, a convict fleet of 11 ships left Portsmouth, England, on a 24,000 km, 8-month-long voyage to New South Wales. The voyage would take the ‘First Fleet’ under Captain Arthur Phillip via Tenerife (Canary Islands), the port of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Table Bay at the southern extremity of the African continent and the southernmost cape of present-day Tasmania to their destination of Botany Bay. Given the navigation tools available and the small size of the convoy’s ships, their safe arrival within a few days of one another was a phenomenal achievement. This was particularly so, because they had not lost a single ship and only a relatively small number of crew and convicts had died. Phillip and his crew had only been able to ensure success because of the presence of navigators who were highly proficient in practical astronomy, most notably Lieutenant William Dawes. This chapter explores his educational background and the events leading up to Dawes’ appointment by the Board of Longitude as the convoy’s official astronomer. In addition to Dawes, John Hunter, second captain of the convoy’s flagship H.M.S. Sirius, and Lieutenants William Bradley and Philip Gidley King were also experts in navigation and astronomical longitude determination, proficient at using both chronometers and ‘lunar distance’ measurements. The historical geographic of the First Fleet’s voyage is remarkably accurate, even by today’s standards.
This chapter is based on de Grijs and Jacob (2021).
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Notes
- 1.
At the time of the First Fleet’s voyage, the British penal colony of New South Wales encompassed the area of present-day Australia east of the 135° East meridian, a North–South line bisecting present-day Australia about 20 km east of the South Australian town of Coober Pedy and ~115 km east of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Governor-designate Arthur Phillip’s instructions of 25 April 1787 to proclaim the colony for Great Britain also included “… all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean …” (Coltheart & The Museum of Australian Democracy, 2011; King, 1998) between latitude 10°37′ South—Cape York in far north Queensland—and 43°39′ South, the latitude of South East Cape, the southernmost point of the Tasmanian mainland. Incidentally, this area includes most of New Zealand.
- 2.
- 3.
In the British Royal Navy’s rating system at the time of the First Fleet’s departure, a sixth-rate warship carried 20–28 carriage-mounted ‘9-pounder’ guns on a single deck. Sixth-rate ships carrying fewer than 28 guns were categorised as ‘post ships’, so that they could still sail under a full captain rather than a commander. The Sirius was an exception, in the sense that she only carried ten guns yet was still classified as a sixth-rate vessel.
- 4.
All ships, not only the food and supply store-ships, were stocked to the brim with provisions, agricultural and camp equipment, clothing for the convicts, baggage and numerous other items (Collins, 1798).
- 5.
A normal human pregnancy, from ovulation to natural childbirth, lasts 268 ± 9 days (standard deviation; Jukic et al., 2013: Table 1), which implies that all children born in transit were most likely conceived prior to the First Fleet’s departure. Statistics of births in the colony are sparse for the first few years. In a letter of 12 February 1790 to Lord Sydney, Phillip (1790b: 144) states, “As near two years have now passed since we first landed in this country … [f]ifty-nine children have been born in the above time.” Given the timeframe, this statement does not tell us whether any children were conceived during the voyage. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a number of births occurred in the first few months after the convoy’s arrival, however (e.g., Australian Town and Country Journal, 1883; Daily Telegraph, 1888; National Library of Australia, n.d.; Nepean Times, 1883).
- 6.
The small town of Wallabadah in the New England area of present-day New South Wales is home to the First Fleet memorial garden. The local visitors’ centre maintains a list of those known to have sailed on the First Fleet, which as of 2021 contained 1186 names. However, the list does not fully tally with the names engraved on stone tablets scattered around the garden (Liverpool Plains Shire Council, 2020; N. Robertson, personal communication).
- 7.
- 8.
References to ‘Nicolas’ as William Dawes’ middle name are found only on Wikipedia/WikiTree—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dawes_(British_Marines_officer), https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dawes-1222—but not anywhere else.
- 9.
This was the Atlantic season’s fourth hurricane, known as the 1871 Santa Juana hurricane (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1871_Atlantic_hurricane_season).
- 10.
- 11.
English parish registers usually only recorded baptisms rather than births. In England, civil registration started in 1837.
- 12.
Graduates from the Royal Naval Academy were often appointed as midshipman-by-order or ‘midshipman ordinary’ to make a clear distinction from the midshipmen who had been trained on board. The latter were paid higher wages (Lewis, 1939: 217).
- 13.
In the late eighteenth century, the British Marine Corps were soldiers associated with the Royal Navy, not with military forces. Wright (1927) reported that, on 27 September 1926, the Adjutant-General of the Royal Marines at the Admiralty in London responded to a request from the Royal Australian Historical Society about Dawes’ career, confirming that “… [the] only particulars shown in official records are as follows: Granted Commission as 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Marines, 2nd September, 1779; …” This is, in fact, an odd response from the official body, given that the Marines did not become Royal until 1802.
- 14.
In the British Royal Navy’s rating system, from the 1720s a third-rate warship carried 64 to 80 guns, typically on two gun decks.
- 15.
Maskelyne had convinced Dawes that taking on the role of the voyage’s official astronomer might lead to further career opportunities, and therefore Dawes did not seek financial compensation for the appointment (Clarke, 2015).
- 16.
Laurie (1988) suggests that Dawes may have approached Maskelyne directly, given his father’s standing in the Portsmouth Ordnance Office and the elder Dawes’ acquaintance with the Royal Naval Academy staff and with the family of Lord Samuel Hood (1724–1816), previously Commissioner at the dockyard and then-Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth. This seems less likely than Bayly’s approach, however.
- 17.
Dawes was required to seek Maskelyne’s approval for any adjustments to the instruments. At times, this caused strained relations between the men, since Dawes (based at Portsmouth) was left feeling as if he was being micromanaged from afar (Saunders, 1990: 46, 52).
- 18.
Dawes’ relatively quick acceptance of his assignment on the Sirius was likely driven, at least in part, by the fact that he was near the top of the Marines’ rotation roster, which implies that he would have shortly been allocated to another vessel if he had remained in Portsmouth (Bayly, 1786).
- 19.
- 20.
Dawes’ name and achievements are conspicuously absent from Phillip’s (1790a) account of the voyage to New South Wales.
- 21.
This watch had been taken on Cook’s second and third voyages of exploration to the Pacific in the care of his astronomer, William Wales (Howse and Hutchinson, 1969: 139–140).
- 22.
- 23.
However, Hunter (1793: 17) cast doubt on the party’s longitude determinations: “It will appear hereafter that we had not the true rate of the watch, and consequently that the above longitude is not correct”.
- 24.
Note that Phillip only mentions King as having transferred with him to the Supply (Phillip, 1790a: 50). He does not mention Dawes.
- 25.
Hunter (1793: 38–39) noted that “The latitudes and longitudes of the different points or capes, seem to have been very correctly determined by Captains Cook and [Tobias] Furneaux, when they were here; … Such observations as we had an opportunity of making near this coast, agree very well …”.
- 26.
See http://astro-expat.info/Data/First_Fleet_positions.html. This webpage has been saved for posterity at http://web.archive.org/web/20201116085541/http://astro-expat.info/Data/First_Fleet_positions.html by the Wayback Machine.
- 27.
As noted in our online database (note 24), White—who was based on the Charlotte without access to a chronometer or astronomical equipment—indicates time and time again that his geographic locations were obtained from measurements displayed by the Sirius.
- 28.
The modern coordinates provided for ‘Swilly Rock’ are only approximate. Matthew Flinders (1774–1814) identified Swilly Rock as the westernmost of a pair of islets: “They had, a little before, passed two cliffy islets lying to seaward; of which the westernmost (Swilly of Furneaux) is like Pedra Blanca near the coast of China; the easternmost (Eddystone of Cook) resembles an awkward tower, and is about sixteen miles from the mainland.” (Flinders, 1814: Section IV, part I).
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de Grijs, R., Jacob, A. (2023). Practical Astronomy on the ‘First Fleet’ from England to Australia. In: William Dawes. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38774-6_1
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