Australian Explorers
Sunday, August 8, 1802. : Explorer Matthew Flinders discovers Port Curtis in Queensland, now the site of Gladstone.
Matthew Flinders was an English sea explorer, and the first European to circumnavigate Australia. Between December 1801 and June 1803, Flinders charted the entire coastline of Australia. In July 1802, he undertook to survey the coast of Queensland and Torres Strait, with the intention of improving current charts and maps of the area. Hope still abounded that an entrance might be found from the Gulf of Carpentaria to a navigable inland sea. To that end, he was accompanied by another ship, the ‘Lady Nelson’, which had sliding keels, enabling it to sail any body of water more than 1m 80cm deep.
On 8 August 1802, Flinders discovered an excellent harbour, sheltered and deep, on what is now the central Queensland coast. He named it Port Curtis after Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, commander-in-chief at the Cape of Good Hope. The port city of Gladstone now stands at that site.
Australian History
Saturday, August 8, 1789. : The first police force in the convict colony of New South Wales is formed.
Australia was settled by the convicts and officers of the First Fleet in January 1788. It was believed that the colony’s isolation from any civilisation would be deterrent enough for convicts attempting to escape. Many thought they could reach China by escaping into the bush; some returned, exhausted and starving, to the flogging that inevitably awaited them. Many never returned, and stories abounded that skeletons of convicts who escaped but could not survive littered the bushland surrounding Port Jackson and Sydney Cove.
It was necessary to establish a police force to pursue the errant convicts, and to also guard against petty thievery that went on. On 8 August 1789, Australia’s first police force was established in the colony of New South Wales. A dozen of the best-behaved convicts were appointed by Governor Phillip and became the Night Watch and the Row Boat Guard.
The NSW police force has continued to develop and change over the years. The force in its current form was established in 1862 with the passing of the Police Regulation Act and drew upon members of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Australian History
Tuesday, August 8, 1893. : The Act to allow socialist-style village settlements to be established in South Australia is introduced to parliament.
When Great Britain colonised New South Wales in 1788, it sought to offset France’s interest in the Australian continent by establishing new colonies. Explorer Matthew Flinders was the first Englishman to investigate the possibilities for settlement on the coast of what is now South Australia, doing so in 1802. Captain Charles Sturt’s discovery in 1830 that the Murray River was a mighty, navigable waterway which emptied into the ocean off the southern coast suggested that a viable colony could be built on the southern coast. As a result, the British authorities moved to establish an official colony, which would be known as South Australia. The South Australia Act, enabling the founding of the colony of South Australia, was passed by British Parliament in 1834. The colony of South Australia was officially proclaimed in England two years later, in February 1836, and then in South Australia itself in December of that year, several months after the arrival of the first settlers in July.
South Australia was the driest colony in the continent and it struggled to maintain itself economically. Colonial planners had ignored recommendations from Surveyor-General Charles Goyder that settlement be limited to the south according to the Goyder Line, a theoretical line of demarcation between the southern areas of reliable landfall and where the vast tracts of saltbush began, signalling arid lands. When economic depression hit the Australian colonies in the 1890s, South Australia was particularly affected by drought, low prices for produce, and unemployment.
In an attempt to combat the economic problems, the South Australian opted to establish communal settlements, under the Village Settlement Scheme. Within this scheme, settlements of twenty of more people would be established to utilise otherwise wasted land for irrigation, working the land communally and sharing the profits. Within each settlement was to be a village association which would be governed by socialist-based rules allowing for the division of labour amongst the villagers, the distribution of profits and the regulation of industry and trade. Initially, coupons were to be used for currency, rather than a monetary system. The government granted each of the settlers an advance to establish agricultural production, with the first instalment of the repayment to be paid within three years. The Crown Lands Amendment Act, which included provision for village settlements, was introduced to parliament on 8 August 1893. It was given assent four months later, on 23 December 1893.
In all, thirteen village settlements were founded in South Australia. Most of them were along the Murray River and included Lyrup, Waikerie, Holder, Pyap, Kingston, Gillen, New Era, Moorook, Murtho, Ramco and New Residence. Each village settlement floundered for a variety of reasons, usually the inability of the settlers to work communally, and the scheme in all settlements was disbanded by 1903. However, some of these settlements thrived as agricultural centres once the regions were incorporated into the respective Irrigation Areas in the early 20th century and land was leased to individuals.
Australian History
Sunday, August 8, 1926. : The first aircraft produced by Qantas is turned out.
Qantas is Australia’s national airline service and the name was formerly an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services”. Qantas was born out of a need to bring regular passenger services to remote communities. W Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, former Australian Flying Corps officers who had served at Gallipoli, had the inspiration after their plans to enter a major air race fell through. In March 1919, the Australian Federal Government offered a £10,000 prize for the first Australians to fly from England to Australia within 30 days. Necessary funding for the two war veterans was cancelled when wealthy grazier and sponsor, Sir Samuel McCaughey, died before the money could be delivered, and his estate refused to release the promised funds. Undaunted, Fysh and McGinness undertook an assignment from the Defence Department to survey part of the route of the race, travelling almost 2200km from Longreach in north-western Queensland to Katherine in the Northern Territory in a Model T Ford. The journey took 51 days and covered territory which no motor vehicle had negotiated before, and the difficulties highlighted the need for a regular aerial service to link remote settlements in the Australian outback.
Fysh and McGinness gained sponsorship for a regular air service from wealthy grazier Fergus McMaster, whom McGinness had once assisted in the remote outback when his car broke an axle. As a regular traveller through difficult terrain, McMaster needed no convincing, and even secured further investment from his own business acquaintances. Originally purchased under the name of The Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, or Qantas, was launched in November 1920, with McMaster as Chairman.
Based in Winton, western Queensland, the original Qantas fleet was made up of just two biplanes: an Avro 504K with a 100-horsepower water-cooled Sunbeam Dyak engine and a Royal Aircraft Factory BE2E with a 90 horsepower air-cooled engine. The men’s former flight sergeant Arthur Baird was signed on as aircraft mechanic. Initially, the service operated just for joyrides and demonstrations. Qantas commenced its first regular airmail and passenger service, between Cloncurry and Charleville in November 1922, and in 1925 extended the service another 400km west to Camooweal.
Mechanic Arthur Baird was placed in charge of a building programme in 1926. The first aircraft, a DH50A, was turned out under the Qantas banner on 8 August 1926. This was the first time an aircraft had been built in Australia under licence from overseas manufacturers.
World History
Thursday, August 8, 1963. : The Great Train Robbery in England occurs, in which £2.6m is stolen in used, untraceable bank notes.
For 125 years, the Post Office train, known as the Up Special, had run its nightly service. On 8 August 1963, the train was carrying over 2.6 million pounds ($AU7.5 million) in used, untraceable bank notes destined for burning at the Bank of England, when it was stopped by a red light at 3:15am local time in Buckinghamshire. Police investigators later found that the signals had been tampered with and telephone wires had been cut. After the train was stopped, thieves attacked driver Jack Mills, 58, with an iron bar, uncoupled the engine and front two carriages and drove them to Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, near Mentmore. There they loaded 120 mail and money bags into a waiting truck.
13 of the thieves were caught and tried six months later. Ronnie Biggs became the best known of the criminals when he escaped from prison and headed for Brazil, remaining free for 28 years. He returned to England needing medical treatment, but knowing he would be arrested as soon as he arrived back in his home country. Biggs continued to serve out his sentence until his death on 18 December 2013.
World History
Monday, August 8, 1988. : Princess Beatrice, the first child of Prince Andrew and his wife Sarah, is born.
Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice of York (Beatrice Elizabeth Mary Mountbatten-Windsor), the Queen’s fifth grandchild and fifth in line to the throne, was born on 8 August 1988. Princess Beatrice was born at Portland Hospital in London, and weighed 6 lb 12 oz. Her birth was greeted with 41-gun salutes at Hyde Park and Tower Green. Whilst some would say she was born on an auspicious day (8/8/88), the number eight has continued to figure in her life in a less auspicious way: Beatrice’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of York (Prince Andrew and Sarah nee Ferguson) divorced when Beatrice was eight years old.