The Intrepids of Albany: Filling in Some Historical Gaps

By Dr John Spencer

The book explores the history of exploration and cartography of what is now called King George Sound, Oyster Bay, The Kalgan River and the surrounding river systems. The book commences with the visit in 1621 of Nuyts, the Dutch man who was literally blown off course by the roaring 40s. Some of his maps and charts were of very high caliber even by today's standard. The book then describes the increasing territorial conflicts between the French and English and how even Napolean eventually became involved, commanding Boudin to claim the territory for France.

The involvement of George Vancouver and Matthew Flinders is described but also the role of Boudin, de Fraycinet , D'Urville and D'Entrecasteaux in the region. The number of French geographical place names on to days maps is a fascinating reminder not only of these early territorial disputes but also of the fact that all these explorers had to sail round the cape of Good hope to get there in the first place. Truly Intrepid people!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664104778

Dr John Spencer

Dr Spencer is an English born and bred psychiatrist who qualified in Medicine at the University of Sheffield before moving to Paris and the American Hospital where he was senior resident.Dr Spencer has worked as a psychiatrist in Vancouver,The Bahamas and Australia where was Associate professor at the University of Western Australia..In 1980 he was involved in setting up of the Albany and district psychiatric service He then moved to New South Wales where he worked in rural areas,the Black Dog depression institute, and the Mental Health tribunal service.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Dr John Spencer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/29/2021

Xlibris

AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)

AU Local: 0283 108 187 ([phone] from outside Australia)

www.Xlibris.com.au

827241

CONTENTS

The Intrepids of Albany

Pieter Nuyts and Francois Thijsson

George Vancouver

Bruni d’Entrecasteux

Matthew Flinders

Tims, Flinders’s Intrepid Cat

Baudin

Louis Freycinet

Rose Freycinet

Cape Leeuwin

Edward John Eyre

Charles Darwin, 1836

La Perouse

Black Jack Anderson

The Intrepids of Albany

Man cannot discover New Oceans until he

has courage to loose sight of the shore.

—André Guide

Henry Lawson, the famous Australian poet, visited Albany twice, once when he was a writer for the Albany Observer and several years later on his honeymoon. So it is reasonable to assume that he liked the town when he wrote, Albany has long been the first and last corner of Australia as far as the world is concerned. It is the first spot of Australian ground seen and trodden by the majority of immigrants, tourists and professional wanderers: the last by departing Australians.

Whilst this is a poetical pithy and accurate assessment of Albany in the eighteenth century, Lawson neglected to mention those earlier European visitors who first came and disrupted the established ancient cultures of indigenous peoples. Whatever our opinions are of Alan Moorhead’s description of the fatal impact may be, all the early explorers and navigators arrived in wind-blown boats, with crude navigational systems, no means of contact with the outside world, only a few crude maps and charts, and a vulnerability to the forces of nature, human fragility, and hostile cultures. These explorers and mariners were well aware that many previous expeditions had perished because of the hazards and mysteries of uncharted horizons or were wrecked on unknown rocks in foreign lands, died from starvation, froze to death, or perished from strange hitherto unknown tropical illness. Yet they went.

They went despite an awareness that there were unknown possible consequences. Such was the nature of those young men whose psychological profiles must have scored high on novelty seeking and low on harm avoidance. Some of them were just determined to escape the poverty, slums, and squalor of daily European existence.

Whatever our individual views on these seemingly fearless and bold men (and women), the word intrepid seems appropriate in describing them, and their names almost leap out at us when we look at our fold-up tourist maps and illustrated guide books. However, the essence of their intrepidity varies. Some of them were genuinely fearless, driven by insatiable curiosity despite underlying fear. Despite the obvious risks, others like Eyre seem to have been driven by an overwhelming compulsion that drove them on to what their contemporaries regarded as stubborn minded stupidly. So who were they?

Pieter Nuyts