Australian Explorers
Wednesday, August 20, 1794. : Henry Hacking leads one of the earliest expeditions to cross the Blue Mountains.
When the First Fleet landed on Australian soil in 1788, the European settlers began almost immediately to explore the new land they now occupied. In the early months, Governor Arthur Phillip set out to explore Sydney Harbour in search of more land suitable for settlement and farming. Phillip travelled as far as he could by boat up Sydney Harbour, tracing the Parramatta River to the point where Parramatta itself would be established six months later, as Rose Hill. Phillip’s party then travelled a further four days, heading west towards the Blue Mountains. Further progress was halted by impassable terrain and deep ravines, and when Phillip returned to Sydney Cove, he was determined to send out further exploration parties.
In 1789, Captain Watkin Tench of the Royal Marines led an exploration party west from Parramatta to the foothills of the Blue Mountains. He discovered the Nepean River and traced it to the Hawkesbury, but he, too, was prevented from further exploration by the impenetrable countryside he encountered. Numerous others followed in Tench’s footsteps, seeking to find a way beyond the Blue Mountains. One of the earliest attempts was made by Henry Hacking.
Henry Hacking was a quartermaster on HMS Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet. After the Sirius was wrecked off Norfolk Island in 1790, Hacking returned to England, but came back to New South Wales in 1792. Described as a good shot, Hacking led numerous hunting expeditions to supplement meat rations for Australia’s first settlers. This gave him extensive knowledge of the countryside around Sydney and helped develop his bush skills. Armed with such experience, on 20 August 1794 Hacking departed Sydney, hoping to find a way across the Blue Mountains. Although he was defeated as previous explorers had been, Hacking is believed to have penetrated twenty miles further inland than anyone who preceded him.
Australian Explorers
Monday, August 20, 1860. : Australian explorers Burke and Wills commence their expedition to cross the continent from south to north.
Robert O’Hara Burke and William Wills led the expedition that was intended to bring fame and prestige to Victoria: being the first to cross Australia from south to north and back again. They set out on Monday, 20 August 1860, leaving from Royal Park, Melbourne, and farewelled by around 15,000 people. The cost of the expedition was almost 5,000 pounds.
Because of the size of the exploration party, it was split at Menindee so that Burke could push ahead to the Gulf of Carpentaria with a smaller party. The smaller group went on ahead to establish the depot which would serve to offer the necessary provisions for when the men returned from the Gulf. The expedition to the Gulf took longer than Burke anticipated: upon his return to Cooper Creek, he found that the relief party had left just seven hours earlier, less than the amount of time it had taken to bury Gray, who had died on the return journey. Through poor judgement, lack of observation and a series of miscommunications, Burke and Wills never found the supplies left for them by the relief party. They perished on the banks of Cooper Creek. King alone survived to lead the rescue party to the remains of Burke and Wills, and the death of one of the most elaborately planned expeditions in Australia’s history.
Australian History
Wednesday, August 20, 1788. : Lieutenant William Bligh, Commander of the HMS Bounty, reaches Adventure Bay, Van Diemen’s Land.
William Bligh, known as the commander who was cast off his own ship in the mutiny on the Bounty, was an English sea captain, known for his strong self-discipline, and his high expectations of his crew. Sailing since he was only 8, he was appointed Master of HMS Resolution at age 22, joining Captain James Cook on his final, fateful voyage of exploration. After Cook’s death in Hawaii, it was left to Bligh to bring the Resolution and Discovery home to England. A brilliant seaman and navigator, Bligh was given his own command of the HMS Bounty in 1787 and commissioned to collect breadfruit plants at Tahiti. First noticed by Joseph Banks when he sailed with Cook to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus, breadfruit was intended to be cultivated in the West Indies and used as a cheap staple diet for feeding slaves working on the plantations there.
Bligh’s orders were to sail to Tahiti, rounding Cape Horn at the tip of South America rather than taking the longer route around South Africa. However, due to the British Admiralty’s delay in sending Bligh his sailing orders, and the strong winds that developed while the Bounty waited in port during late November, the ship did not get away until 23 December 1787. Consequently, by the time the Bounty reached the tip of South America in March, it met with prevailing westerly gales that prevented further progress. After battling the stormy seas for 29 days, Bligh turned the Bounty eastward to Africa. Travelling with the winds instead of against them, the ship made quick progress across the Atlantic Ocean. The Bounty put in at the Cape of Good Hope, where she spent 38 days being refitted and repaired before recommencing her journey in early July.
The Bounty reached an island, now Bruny Island, off the southern coast of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) on 20 August 1788. During the two weeks the ship was anchored at Adventure Bay, Bligh and the crew collected timber and water, and planted apple trees, plantain trees, various vines, and assorted fruit seeds and stones such as oranges, lemons, cherries, plums, apricots, peaches and pears. Bligh also observed a high, flat mountain to the north, which he named Table Hill on his return in 1792. Table Hill is now known as Mount Wellington.
Australian History
Saturday, August 20, 1836. : Colonel William Light arrives in South Australia to survey a site for the first settlement.
Colonel William Light was born in Malaya in 1786, the son of the founder and Governor of Penang. Educated in England, he joined the British navy at age 14. Following an illustrious naval career, he sold his commission at the age of 35. He travelled Europe and northern Africa, and in Egypt worked with John Hindmarsh, who was appointed first Governor of South Australia in 1835. It was upon Hindmarsh’s recommendation that Light became the Surveyor General in the new colony.
Travelling on the ship “Rapid” from London, Colonel Light arrived at Kangaroo Island on 20 August 1836. His task was to survey the area around Nepean Bay in order to establish the first settlement in South Australia. However, the lack of surface water or suitable arable land caused him to seek a better site on the mainland. He surveyed the west coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, around Rapid Bay, following up on the exploration of Captain Collet Barker, who had already recommended the current site of Adelaide, but who had been speared by Aborigines while exploring around the Murray mouth. Although Light’s chosen site for Adelaide clashed with Governor Hindmarsh’s preference for a more openly coastal site, in the end Light’s decision prevailed.
Colonel Light began surveying Adelaide in January 1837, and completed his survey in March 1837. He then commenced the task of naming streets and squares in the new town on 23 May 1837.
Australian History
Thursday, August 20, 1857. : 121 people die when the ship, the ‘Dunbar’, runs aground at The Gap, Sydney.
The Dunbar was a first class sailing vessel, and, at 1,320 tonnes, was the largest of the time to be built at Sunderland shipyards in England. The vessel left Plymouth on 31 May 1857, carrying 63 passengers and 59 crew.
On the night of 20 August 1857, the Dunbar approached the heads of Sydney Harbour. It seems that the captain, though experienced in Sydney waters, was disoriented by the driving rain and gale conditions. Possibly he mistook ‘The Gap’, a spectacular ocean cliff near South Head, for the entrance to Sydney Harbour. The swell pushed the ship into the reef at the foot of South Head and the Dunbar began to break up immediately. Only one person survived: 23-year-old Irish seaman James Johnson, who was flung into the cliffs where he managed to gain a foothold, remaining there until he was noticed clinging to a ledge in the morning.
A mass funeral was held on 24 September for those who died in the shipwreck, as many of them were unidentified. A monument to the victims still sits at St Stephen’s Cemetery, Camperdown.
Australian History
Thursday, August 20, 1908. : The first successful Australian transcontinental motor car journey is completed.
Australia’s love affair with the car as a means of travelling the continent’s huge distances began with the first transcontinental motor car trip. Engineer Horace Hooper Murray Aunger was born on 28 April 1878 at Narridy, near Clare, South Australia. He collaborated with cycle maker Vivian Lewis and Tom O’Grady to build the first petrol-driven motorcar in South Australia. Aunger teamed up with Henry Hampden Dutton to be the first to cross Australia from south to north by motorcar. Their first attempt left Adelaide in Dutton’s Talbot car on 25 November 1907, and travelled north through countryside suitable only for a modern 4WD. When the pinion in the Talbot’s differential collapsed south of Tennant Creek, the car had to be abandoned as the wet season was approaching. Travelling on horseback, the men met the railhead at Oodnadatta, from where they returned to Adelaide.
Dutton then purchased a larger, more powerful vehicle, again a Talbot. The men made their second attempt to cross the continent from south to north, leaving Adelaide on 30 June 1908. They were joined at Alice Springs by Ern Allchurch. Reaching the abandoned Talbot at Tennant Creek, the car was repaired, and they drove in convoy to Pine Creek, where the original Talbot was freighted by train to Darwin. The men continued in the second Talbot, reaching Darwin on 20 August 1908. The car in which the men completed their journey now sits preserved in the Birdwood museum, South Australia.
World History
Thursday, August 20, 1908. : The ‘Great White Fleet’ arrives in Sydney, Australia.
The ‘Great White Fleet’, consisting of 16 new battleships of the Atlantic Fleet, was sent around the world by US President Theodore Roosevelt. Launched on 16 December 1907, it travelled down the eastern coast of America, around the southern cape and back up the western coast, as the Panama Canal had not yet been completed. After this, it continued on to various ports around the world. The fleet reached its final destination on 22 February 1909. The purpose of the fleet seemed to be as a show of American sea power, even though some of the ships were technically obsolete and no longer fit for battle.
The ‘Great White Fleet’ arrived in Sydney Harbour on 20 August 1908. After remaining there for seven days, it continued on to Melbourne, where it remained again for a week. The fleet then arrived in Albany, Western Australia, on September 11th, remaining for another week before setting sail for Manila.
World History
Saturday, August 20, 1977. : The Voyager 2 spacecraft is launched, to become the first probe to visit Uranus and Neptune.
The Voyager programme was originally part of NASA’s ‘Mariner’ programme. It involved sending unmanned space probes to Jupiter and Saturn, with Voyager 2 having the capability to continue on to Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2 was launched on 20 August 1977, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It carried a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.
The mission provided valuable information about the nature of the gas giants. Voyager 2 closely examined the rings of Saturn but a problem with the steerable platform on which its optical instruments were mounted resulted in the loss of some significant high-resolution data. The problem corrected itself by the time the craft reached Uranus over four years later.
By late June 2010 Voyager 2 had completed 12,000 days of continuous operations. As of 1 November 2009, the spacecraft was located at 19.733 hours Right Ascension and -54.59 degrees declination. As observed from earth, it appeared to be in the constellation Telescopium. Still functioning in 2022, the spacecraft is expected to continue transmitting into the 2030s.