The Iwaidja People lived in this region for thousands of years, and later, it was the site of an isolated English military port, which was abandoned and fell into ruin.
John Sweatman, a surveyor on the HMS Bramble voyage to northeast Australia, New Guinea, Port Essington and Timor, wrote in his journal that both shields and boomerangs were unknown in the Port Essington area.
Sweatman also wrote that some of the Port Essington Aboriginal people became quite close associates of the British and some who travelled with the British, some as far as Sydney, gained proficiency in English.
Écorce d’eucalyptus et pigments, H 75 cm x L 20 cm, Musée d'ethnographie de Genève - MEG. The earliest surviving bark-paintings from northern Australia derive from the Cobourg Peninsula and may have been acquired by Paul Foelsche in the late 1800s
1817: Captain Phillip Parker King, R.N., sailed along the Great Barrier Reef and around the coast of the Northern Territory between 1817 and 1821.
Port Essington 1838-1849
Two ships, the Alligator and Britomart, left Plymouth on 19th February 1838, to try again, to establish a settlement in the north of Australia, with Captain Bremer in charge and Captain John McArthur, second in command of a crew of Royal Marines and others, including a botanist and linguist.
On reaching Sydney, the supply ship Orontes joined the expedition, with food provisions and various pre-fabricated buildings being taken on board: two houses, two barrack rooms, a kitchen, storehouse, a hospital and a church.
The ship’s surgeon, Wallace, writing in the journal of H.M.S. Alligator on 30 October 1838, reported that guards hardly seemed necessary, as the Aboriginal people were generally friendly, following the soldiers everywhere and sleeping beside their tents.
On 5 February 1869, George Goyder, the Surveyor-General of South Australia, established a small settlement of 135 people at Port Darwin between Fort Hill and the escarpment. The settlement, named Palmerston, was successful and in 1911, renamed Darwin.
The Northern Territory, which had been administered from South Australia, was transferred to the Commonwealth in 1911.
However, Lewis was later forced to abandon the enterprise. And the area was absorbed by the jungle. The remains of Lewis' hut, built in the 1870s, can be seen today.
Born at Oxford, England, in 1847, Edward Oswin Robinson, was living in Australia by 1873. In March 1878, Robinson established a trepanging station on Croker Island, but when his friend was murdered by Aboriginal people, he gave up the venture.
The Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, located in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, is about 7 hour's drive from Darwin and is only open during the dry season. You will need a 4WD and plenty of fuel. The park is also accessible by boat.
Permits to visit the Cobourg Peninsula
The Iwaidja People
The Aboriginal people of West Arnmen Land, including the Iwaidja People, believed in the Ancestral being, the Rainbow Serpent, (snake woman-named Imberombera or Warramurrungundji) depicted with a womb or dilly bags, full of babies.
The Rainbow Serpent originated northeast of the Cobourg Peninsula, according to creation myths, coming out of the sea.
Major John Campbell, Commandant of Fort Dundas on Melville Island, visited Port Essington in 1828 when he was looking to relocate the military settlement. In his memoirs, he describes and contrasts the Tiwi and Iwaidja People.
Campbell noted that the Aborigines of the Cobourg area wore necklaces, netted girdles and headbands. Netted panels of fabric were worn suspended from the neck to hang down the back, which according to T B Wilson, were called, a mungedera.
According to Campbell, "war" spears of the Iwaidja, called burreburai, were serrated rather than barbed.
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| Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 8 August 1929 |
From earlier than 1700 until 1907, many fishermen sailed to the Arnhem Land coast each year with the monsoon winds, from Makassar on the island of Sulawesi (now Indonesia), an area they called Marege (wild country). The Makasar people traded with Aboriginal people for trepang (sea cucumber) turtle shells, and pearl shells. The Makassar boiled down the sea cumbers, dried them on their boats and traded with the Chinese, who used them for food and medicine.
Peter Spillett who wrote a book about the Port Essington's British settlement, called “Forsaken Settlement” (1972), has suggested that the name Iwaidja, may have been a label used by the Macassans for the Aboriginal people, who were found around the customs station at Port Essington. The word means, "place of payment"
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| Aboriginal people at their camp, Port Essington, Northern Territory, circa 1877 |
T. B Wilson (Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, 1835.) wrote:
"In this part of the coast, the natives are divided into three distinct classes, who do not intermarry. The first and highest is named Mandro-gillie, the second Man-bur-ge, and the third, Mandro-willie. (Wilson. 1835:165)
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| Photo of woman from Port Essington, NT, by Paul Heinrich Matthias Foelsche in 1877 (this photo is cropped), Musée d'ethnographie de Genève |
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| Iwaidja young man by the name of Mallenginah or Mallaguah, aged 17 at time of photograph, Port Essington, Northern Territory, 1877. By Paul Foelsche |
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| "Port Essington native, N.T." Aboriginal man, with body markings and decoration, smoking pipe. Date circa 1910s |
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| Port Essington Aboriginals, NT, Geraldton Guardian and Express (WA : 1929 - 1947), Tuesday 24 December 1929 |
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| Iwaidja, Australie, Territoire du Nord, Terre d’Arnhem, île Croker, Minjilang |
1802: The British
Lieutenant Matthew Flinders, R.N., was forced to abandon his coastal survey of the mainland, near the Wessel Islands, off the north-east tip of Arnhem Land, in 1802, as his vessel, the Investigator, was rotting and decaying dangerously.
Near present-day Nhulunbuy, Flinders came upon a Macassan fleet of praus (wooden boats), part of a fleet of 60 Malay praus. Flinders was able to communicate with a Makassan captain, Pobasso, through his cook, who was also a Malay.
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| HMS Investigator was a survey ship of the Royal Navy. In 1802, commanded by Matthew Flinders |
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| "A native praus, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 21 May 1936 |
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| Phillip Parker King was an early explorer of the Australian coast, miniature by an unknown artist |
British Settlements Northern Australia
Four attempts were made to settle the north of Australia before finally succeeding with Darwin. These were:
Fort Dundas (1824–1828) on Melville Island
Fort Wellington (1827–1829) Raffles Bay, Cobourg Peninsula
Fort Victoria or Victoria (1838–1849) Port Essington, Cobourg Peninsula
Escape Cliffs (1864–1867) Cape Hotham peninsula, Adelaide River, near Darwin
Victoria Settlement
Torres Strait was increasingly being used by shipping, with growing numbers of shipwrecks.
So a decision was made to establish a settlement on Australia's north coast.
However, the Dutch were also preparing to set up a trading post on the northern coast of Australia, still officially called New Holland. In order to protect British interests, a fortified outpost was required.
The Victoria Settlement, established on the Cobourg Peninsula in northwestern Arnhem Land, was the third of four settlements abandoned before Palmerston (Darwin) was successfully established in 1869.
A Brief Settlement in 1824
Captain Gordon Bremer set sail on HMS Tamar from Port Jackson on the 24 August 1824 to colonise the northern part of Australia, with stores, marines, and convicts, with instructions to sail north to Port Essington, and establish a fortified outpost.
Captain Gordon Bremer set sail on HMS Tamar from Port Jackson on the 24 August 1824 to colonise the northern part of Australia, with stores, marines, and convicts, with instructions to sail north to Port Essington, and establish a fortified outpost.
Officially named the Victoria Settlement after Queen Victoria, but popularly known as Port Essington, Captain Phillip Parker King, R.N, who surveyed the northern coasts of Australia (1817-19), chose Port Essington and described the harbour as "equal to if not superior, to any I ever saw...".
The harbour was named after an admiral of Trafalgar, Vice-Admiral Sir William Essington.
However, within days, Bremer abandoned Port Essington and sailed for the twin islands of Bathurst and Melville, as he could not find any freshwater at Port Essington.
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| Sir James John Gordon Bremer, between 1842 and 1850 |
February 9th 1825, the Colonial brig Lady Nelson sailed from Port Dundas and was taken by pirates off the island of Babar, near Timor.
Then on 23 February, the Stedcombe was on a voyage from Melville Island to Van Diemen's Land when inhabitants of Timor Laut (Indonesia) attacked the Stedcombe. Only one crew member from the two vessels survived the attacks. Joseph Forbes ("Timor Joe") was rescued from slavery on Timor Laut on 31 March 1839.
Port Essington 1838-1849
After abandoning the Fort Dundas and Fort Wellington settlements, the British decided to return to the Port Essington site, to establish a fortified settlement.
When the ships reached South Australia, Assistant Surgeon Whipple also joined the expedition.
26th October 1838
The ships, Alligator, Britomart and Orontes, reached Port Essington on 26th October, and the local Aboriginal people helped the British find water.
Owen Stanley, the captain of the Britomart, wrote that on arrival, the Aboriginal people tried to incorporate him and his ship into their relationship system.
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| Captain Owen Stanley RN in 1837, National Trust |
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| Mildirn, sometimes spelt Medlone, also known as Jack Davis, Old Jack Davis or Port Essington Jack (c. 1835–c. 1914) was a well-known Aboriginal leader, translator and advisor for Port Essington, a site of early British settlement in the Northern Territory of Australia. At the time of the photos the oldest inhabitant in the NT, aged 94. Referred to in Elsie Masson's book as 'Old Jack Davis'. |
Convicts
Convicts sent to Port Essington were put to work erecting the prefabricated buildings. After this, bricks were made for buildings and chimneys of ironstone and quarried locally. The kiln, built in 1838, fired the bricks made from local ironstone, rocks and clay. Lime for the mortar came from shells fired in the kiln.
Within the first six months, Government house was built, a garden was set out, and 24 houses built on the settlement.
French explorer Jules Dumont D'Urville wrote of his 1839 visit to Port Essington: "The British consider themselves the owners of the whole of New Holland. It is mainly to indicate that assumption of ownership and to secure this vast territory that they are so persistent about establishing an outpost on these inhospitable shores." (Dumont D'Urville vol. 2, p. 390).
Between 1824 and 1840, d’Urville visited and revisited various areas of Australia. Interestingly, it was later discovered that his naval orders were to search for the potential site for a French penal colony and naval base on the Australian coast. (see here)
In 1839, the H.M.S Beagle arrived at Port Essington, commanded by Captain J.C. Wickham. Wickham later named Port Darwin in honour of former shipmate Charles Darwin, who had joined the Beagle's second voyage.
"The trees came down in every part of the settlement; the marines' houses were all blown down; the church, only finished a week, shared the same fate...H.M.S. Pelorus, having parted her cables, was driven on shore, and thrown over on her beam ends, on the north-east point of the settlement, where heeling over 82 degrees, her starboard side was buried nine feet in the mud, leaving the keel three feet clear of the ground."
Grave Matters
According to a newspaper article from May 1840: "town allotments at Port Essington are offered on lease for seven years". This article went on to say:
Shipwrecked Priest
Interesting Observations
The marine Hydrographers of the British Admiralty commissioned the H.M.S Rattlesnake, a 28-gun frigate of the Royal Navy, to chart a safe passage through the Great Barrier Reef and the gap between the northern tip of Australia and Papua New Guinea.
"At last the Meander, under
Captain Keppel, carried away the few
sorry settlers that were left, and fired
broadside after broadside into the settlement,
George (Samuel) Windsor Earl, who was a skilled linguist, hydrographer, navigator, and draughtsman, opposed the choice of Port Essington in a memorandum to the Colonial Office, stating that while it was a gathering place for Macassan trepangers, its shores were shallow and not suitable for European vessels.
Earl recommended Barker’s Bay in Bowen’s Strait, but the views of Captain P P King and Major J Campbell, who had been commandant at Melville Island, were given preference. Earl, however, tried to communicate with the Aboriginal people, but as they insisted on conversing in Macassan pidgin, he gained little knowledge of their language.
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| George Windsor Earl (1813–1865) |
The first hospital was a prefabricated building which later became a storehouse. Many of the huts, however, had to be replaced every three years due to white ants. Raising buildings on piles eight feet from the ground was found to be an effective method of discouraging the white ants from devouring the buildings.
The Commandant of the British marine settlement at Victoria, Bremer, left in 1839 and was replaced by Captain John McArthur, a nephew of John McArthur of Camden, NSW. His son was the clerk and storekeeper.
The French
In February 1839, the Aboriginal people alerted the British to the arrival of boats at Raffles bay. These boats were French, the Welee and the Astrolabe searching for the La Pérouse expedition, which left Botany Bay in 1788 and then vanished.
The French ships came to Port Essington and were greeted cordially, staying for 3 days. Interestingly, The French had earlier planned an invasion of Sydney. (read here)
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| L'Astrolabe et La Zélée, Jules Dumont d'Urville, Gide Paris, 1846 |
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| New Victoria in 1839. Lithograph from Voyage au Pôle Sud et en Océanie by Jules Dumont d'Urville |
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| Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l'Océanie sur les corvettes L'Astrolabe et La Zélée, Jules Dumont d'Urville, Gide Paris, 1846. Exemplaire de la bibliothèque patrimoniale de Gray.70100 France |
In May 1839, lieutenant Stewart of the Alligator spent a week exploring the Cobourg Peninsular. He found fertile ground and plenty of water. Stewart also came upon buffaloes which had been released from the Raffles Bay settlement. These buffalo herds would later become quite large.
The Voyage of The Beagle
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| Reproduction of frontispiece from Darwin, Charles (1890), Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle etc. |
Powerful Hurricane
On 25 November 1839, Port Essington was hit by a powerful hurricane. The brig Pelorus was driven ashore and twelve people lost their lives. The captain of H.M.S. Britomart, Owen Stanley, wrote about the event in the Nautical Magazine (September 1841):
A navigation beacon was constructed at Port Essington in 1843 to 1845.
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| HMS Pelorus at low water, 1840, Port Essington, Northern Territory, Australia. 1840. Owen Stanley. This painting by Montagu Frederick O'Reilly - an artist and Royal Navy officer who volunteered for service on board H.M.S. Pelorus, shows the aftermath the following morning. The trees are badly damaged, and several tents and temporary houses have been erected to house the ship's crew. |
The Gilmore reached the inlet of Port Essington 12 July on 1840 with supplies for the outpost, which had been ravaged by the hurricane some months before.
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| The Habitation of the crew of H.M.S Pelorus after she had been wrecked at Port Essington November 26, 1839 / Montagu Frederick O'Reilly, circa 1839. This painting by Montagu Frederick O'Reilly - an artist an Royal Navy officer who volunteered for service on board H.M.S. Pelorus - shows the aftermath of the hurricane. State Library of New South Wales |
The Port Essington Cemetery is located at the west end of the settlement near the mouth of the Skeena River at its confluence with the Ecstall River. The haunting grave of Mrs Emma Lambrick, who died in 1846, still exists here.
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| Mrs Lambrick and child. Wife of Lieutenant Lambrick. Died Port Essington 1838(?)-1848 |
The Very Worst
"Of all places in Australia, one would suppose Port Essington
the very worst; it is void of all that is necessary to man, or nearly
so. It is quite out of the world. Months
and months pass away without the slightest
communication from a civilized place during
the south-east monsoon. No trade or busi-
ness can be done with the neighbouring
islands, since it will take several weeks to
return, and during the north-west monsoon,
no vessels would come from the East Indies
Tor Islands, as it would take them the same
tedious time to beat back again. The communication
so. It is quite out of the world. Months
and months pass away without the slightest
communication from a civilized place during
the south-east monsoon. No trade or busi-
ness can be done with the neighbouring
islands, since it will take several weeks to
return, and during the north-west monsoon,
no vessels would come from the East Indies
Tor Islands, as it would take them the same
tedious time to beat back again. The communication
with Sydney during the north...."
The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (WA : 1833 - 1847) Sat 2 May 1840
How It Looked
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| Victoria Settlement, Port Essington, Cobourg Peninsula, NT, 1842 |
Fever and Death
Fever and illness hit the settlement at Port Essington in 1843. Scurvy was rife as the sick men had little in the way of vegetables, as they could not tend the garden. The livestock, buffalos and Timor ponies, were not attended to and went wild.
There was no medicine, and no ship had been sighted for a year. The digging of graves was the only thing to alleviate the boredom.
In 1844, Ludwig Leichhardt became the first European explorer to travel through the north of Australia. His Journal, an Overland Expedition in Australia from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, describes this journey.
Leichhardt left the Darling Downs in Queensland for Port Essington with nine men, seventeen horses, sixteen bullocks, food, and other supplies. An overland journey of nearly 4,830 kilometres.
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| Map of the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt's route in Australia |
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| Port Essington, circa 1845, Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia, Ludwig Leichhardt |
Capital Shot
John MacGillivray, a famous British ornithologist and sometime Regius professor of natural history at Marischal College, Aberdeen, Scotland, spent over three years around the Australian coast and New Guinea surveying the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait.
When MacGillivray's vessel, the Fly, left Port Essington in 1845, a young Aboriginal man named, Neinmil accompanied McGillivary as a sort of servant, half protege. According to John Sweatman, Neinmil "...soon learnt to speak English as well as we did, was a capital shot, a good singer, clever fisherman and a most amusing companion in a cruise . . ."
Father Angelo Confalonieri survived being shipwrecked on 24 April 1846. He and other survivors were rescued by a passing vessel and taken to Port Essington. Here he lived with the local Aboriginal people for two years, compiling a dictionary of the Iwaidja language.
John Sweatman, was informed by some Aboriginal people that some clan members were teaching Father Confalonieri obscenities that he used in his sermons, unaware of the meaning. Father Confalonieri died of Malaria in 1848, aged 35.
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| Shipwrecked |
Captain of the Meander, Henry Keppel wrote (Papers 1847-79 ):
"While working up the Australian coast, we were boarded by a canoe with a crew of six of the veriest looking savages I had yet beheld: one of them, wearing a pair of trousers, the only article of apparel among them, announced himself, in tolerable English, as one of the tribe attached to the settlement at Port Essington". (Keppel, 1853:150).
Another observation from Keppel:
"When riding through the jungle on a shooting excursion, I gave my gun to a naked savage to carry: I was rather astonished at his addressing me in very good English with "should an opportunity offer, sir, I shall fire!”. This man was frequently with me afterwards. One day he said to me “If you English could thrash Bonaparte whenever you liked, why did you put him on an island, and starve him to death?” (p.158)
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| This is the beach below Victoria Settlement in Port Essington, NT, 1877 - Paul Foelsche set up a tent to photograph the Iwaidja people for the up-coming Paris Exhibition. The Chinese cook Kite, mate & possibly Captain Duncan at far right. PH1060-63 NTG Moire Album |
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| Cropped version of photo of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Keppel, "The Navy and Army Illustrated" (magazine), 1896 |
Confrontation
The only serious incident which occurred between the Aboriginal people and the British at Port Essington occurred in 1847 when Constable Masland pursued two Aboriginal men by boat to arrest them for theft. The prisoners were warned by Masland, that if they attempted to escape, he would shoot them.
The prisoners slipped overboard and Masland ordered them to stop, but they did not. Masland fired at one of them. He was found dead the next day. Masland was then arrested and charged with the killing. However, he claimed in his own defence that he was carrying out his duty as an officer, to prevent the prisoner from escaping.
The Aboriginal people avenged this death not by killing one of the British, but by spearing Neinmal, an Aboriginal man.
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| Aboriginal Customary Laws and "Punishment". If an Aboriginal person was killed, many types of customary law called for a "payback" killing. Any member of the guilty opposing "tribe" could be singled out for execution |
Leaving Port Essington
The marine Hydrographers of the British Admiralty commissioned the H.M.S Rattlesnake, a 28-gun frigate of the Royal Navy, to chart a safe passage through the Great Barrier Reef and the gap between the northern tip of Australia and Papua New Guinea.
This passage would open up the new colony to the East Indies trade. The captain of the Rattlesnake was Owen Stanley, an amateur artist.
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| H.M.S. Rattlesnake, leaving Port Essington, NT, Owen Stanley. Ship at sea with a canoe of Aboriginal people rowing towards it. 1846-1849 |
The End
Captain Keppel, carried away the few
sorry settlers that were left, and fired
broadside after broadside into the settlement,
reducing it to ruins. On the
very day of its abandonment, the wife
and two children of the surgeon were
buried there. When the South Australian
very day of its abandonment, the wife
and two children of the surgeon were
buried there. When the South Australian
geologist-explorer, H. Y. I,
Brown, visited ttie settlement in 1905
he found it jungled in competely, for
70 years abandoned to the quis qualis
creeper and the ants."
Brown, visited ttie settlement in 1905
he found it jungled in competely, for
70 years abandoned to the quis qualis
creeper and the ants."
Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), Saturday 15 June 1935,
Let's Try Again
From June 1864 to January 1867, the fourth attempt at a settlement in the north was attempted at Escape Cliffs. The site, at the mouth of the Adelaide River, was declared the capital and centre of administration of the Northern Territory of South Australia. |
GEORGE Woodroffe Goyder, Esq., J.P., Surveyor-General of South Australia, Illustrated Sydney News (NSW : 1853 - 1872), Thursday 18 February 1869 |
The Northern Territory, which had been administered from South Australia, was transferred to the Commonwealth in 1911.
Lost African Explorers
John Lewis ran away from home when he was young and ended up in the Northern Territory.In 1874, two African explorers, Permain and Borrodale, were exploring the country between Darwin and Port Essington, but they became lost. John Lewis set off to find the two men and found that they had been murdered by Aboriginal people near Tor Rock.
After this, Lewis decided to establish a cattle station on the old settlement at Port Essington. He ran buffaloes and wild Timor ponies and tried hard to establish himself in this wild spot.
After this, Lewis decided to establish a cattle station on the old settlement at Port Essington. He ran buffaloes and wild Timor ponies and tried hard to establish himself in this wild spot.
Lewis was elected to parliament and became a legislator. His son, Essington Lewis (named after the settlement), became chairman of the BHP.
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| John Lewis, Observer (Adelaide, SA : 1905 - 1931), Saturday 24 January 1914 |
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| Port Essington in 1875 (mango tree in the background). The Port Essington outpost on the Cobourg Peninsula was the third attempt by the British to establish a military settlement on the north coast. The newcomers worked hard to establish fruit trees and grow crops despite the difficult conditions, but the settlement was abandoned in 1849 due to cyclones, isolation and strong resistance from local Aboriginal people. This mango survived however, with local people posing for this photograph 30 years after the fort was abandoned. |
Buffalo Bill
Robinson then managed the Coburg Cattle Co.'s station at Port Essington, and in 1881, he was appointed a customs officer. Robinson camped at the Old Victoria settlement. In the 1880s, he began buffalo shooting on the Cobourg Peninsula.
1900s
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| E. O. Robinson, Buffalo Bill, Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), Saturday 17 November 1917 |
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| Natives at Cobarg Cattle Station, Port Essington, November 1877. National Library of Aust. |
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| Iwaidja men at Port Essington, Northern Territory, early 1900s. |
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| This photograph shows two seated men, their figures silhouetted as they look out to sea. One holds a gun. [On back of photograph] 'Port Essington / Mr. Harley Thomas (left) and the Administrator S.J. Mitchell awaiting the boat to convey them to the site of Stuart's tree, on the north coast of the Northern Territory. 1911. SLSA |
1920s
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| Part of the men's quarters, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 9 February 1921 |
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| Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 8 August 1929 |
The Remains
The remains of the hospital, bakery, a lime kiln, blacksmith’s forge, store-house, ammunition magazine, John Lewis' hut and cemetery, can be found here today.
Around Port Essington
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| Ruins of the Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT |
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| Ruins of the Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT |
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| Lime kiln, Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT |
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| The Magazine at Victoria Settlement in Port Essington, NT |
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| Ruins of the Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT |
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| Coastline views, Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT |
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| Graves at Victoria Settlement, Port Essington, Nt, Victoria Settlement, Ian Cochrane |
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| Graves at Victoria Settlement, Port Essington, Nt, Victoria Settlement |
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| Smith Point, Port Essington, NT |
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| Construction of the Smith Point Beacon, which assisted navigation around the Orontes shoal, began in 1843, when the ship's company of the Camelion constructed the base of the Beacon, Victoria Settlement, NT |
Permits to visit the Cobourg Peninsula