Fort Dundas, Melville Island (1824–1828): Northern Territory

The first outpost attempted by the British in Australia's north was Fort Dundas, named after Robert Sanders Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, head of the Admiralty. 

Fort Dundas, was located on the remote Melville Island (Yermalner in the native Tiwi language), in the Aspley Strait NT, from 1824 to February 1829. After the settlement was abandoned, the Tiwi Islanders continued to live as they had for thousands of years. 

The Tiwi People

The Tiwi Islands, which are located in the Northern Territory about 80 kilometres (50 mi) to the north of the Australian mainland, have been inhabited by the Tiwi people for thousands of years before European settlement in Australia and areknown to the Tiwi as Yermalner.

It is likely that Bathurst and Melville Islands were joined to the Australian mainland 20, 000 years ago, before sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age. The Tiwi people became isolated on their islands around this time and developed a distinctive culture.

These islands were created by the sea-level rise at the end of the last ice age, which finished about 11,700 years ago. Interestingly, the Tiwi people still tell a creation story about the formation of the Bathurst and Melville islands, that the islands were made back in the Dreamtime, the Palingarri, "the time long ago", by an old, blind woman named Murtankala. 

The old woman made the islands when she was crawling around with her children in a bark basket, looking for food. She then sat on the beach and lit up the world with a bark torch. Murtankala's children were the ancestors of the Tiwi people. Avoiding ampiji, or the rainbow serpent, who lives in a lake at Mangantu on Bathurst Island, was also necessary.

In the creation story, an old woman is described crawling between the islands, followed by a flow of water. Scientific evidence shows that the flooding around the islands occurred about 8,200 to 9,650 years ago.

On Melville Island, NT, Mail (Adelaide, SA : 1912 - 1954), Saturday 12 June 1937

Tiwi (means “we people” ) are culturally and linguistically distinct from other Aboriginal people on Australia's mainland. It appears that the Tiwi people developed as an isolated group.

Tiwi language and culture has the most complex verb structure of any Australian language, having 8 dialects, with two general types: Traditional and Modern. Traditional Tiwi, however, is no longer spoken. 

There are four skin groups (“yiminga”) to which Tiwi people belong, which determines who they may, and may not marry. These skin groups came through the mother. These are:

Wantarringuwi (sun)

Miyartiwi (pandanus)

Marntimapila (rock)

Takaringuwi (mullet)

All women were also required to be married whether they wanted to marry or not. Polygamy was common, with one man on Bathurst Island having 15 wives. Feuds over stolen wives were also common.

The dreaming or totem, however, is inherited from the father. These totems include, Buffalo, Horse, Turtle, Shark and crocodile.

Avoidance relationships were also integral to Tiwi culture. As bothers and sisters enter adulthood, they were no longer allowed to be alone together, without a chaperone. 

Believing in the reincarnation of spirits, the Tiwi believed that pregnancy is the result of a spirit child being dreamt of by the future father. After birth, the person is shaped by initiation rituals. After death, the iloti ritual ("for good") shifts the spirit into the spirit world.

Melville Islanders' death corroborees, NT, Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), Thursday 14 May 1936

Dressed to represent a frilled lizard, to keep his identity a secret from the evil spirits. Melville Island, NT, Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), Thursday 14 May 1936

Tiwi grave markers, NT, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 4 September 1919

Melville islanders, NT, Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Tuesday 20 February 1917

Melville Island, Nt, canoe, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 12 October 1912

Making fire, Melville Island, NT. Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 25 February 1925. Note the unique beard of the Millville Islanders with fringing from ear to ear

Europeans and Makassar people

Since the times of Ancient Greece, there was a belief that an Unknown Southen Land - "Terra Australis Incognita", must exist to balance the landmasses of the Northern hemisphere. 

During the Age of Exploration, which began early in the 15th century and lasted through the 17th century, various European nations set off to discover unknown parts of the world.

Map showing Melville and Croker Islands to illustrate James Stirling biography

1600s

In 1636, Dutch navigator Pieter Pieterszoon and his ships, Cleen Amsterdam and Wesel, explored the north coasts of Tiwi Islands and landed at Tinganoo Bay for freshwater. Pieterszoon called the area "van Diemenslandt' (after the Dutch governor of East Indies).

The Tiwi people were the first Australians to encounter Europeans, 65 years before the arrival of Captain Cook, when Dutch explorers spent three months in 1705 exploring parts of Arnhem Land and Bathurst and Melville Islands.

The Dutch, threatened by the expeditions of William Dampier, sent Maarten van Delft, who led the Dutch expedition. When the seafarers landed on Melville Island, they were met by Tiwi warriors brandishing spears. A shot was fired by the Dutch, and a Tiwi man was wounded. The Dutch wrote various observations of the Aboriginal people that they encountered, including that the people:

"..possess nothing which is of value . . . and have ... only a stone which is ground and made to serve as a hatchet. They have no habitations, either houses or huts; and feed on fish which they catch with harpoons of wood, and also by means of nets, putting out to sea in small canoes, made of the bark of trees ...Some of them had marks on their body, apparently cut or carved ... Their diet seems to consist of fish, and a few roots and vegetables ... No one was able to understand their language."

And

"they grow up always active and nimble; their diet seems to consist of fish, and a few roots and vegetables, but no birds or wild animals of any kind are used as food, for though animal food exists, and was found by our men in abundance, the natives appeared indifferent to it. “

1700s

Makassar people from modern-day Indonesia began visiting the coast of northern Australia, in praus-wooden sailing boats, with rectangular sails, sometime around the middle of the 1700s. 

These trepang (sea cucumber) gathering fleets, were sent by Chinese traders in Macassar (Indonesia), to obtain trepang, that was sent to China, where it was prized as a delicacy and aphrodisiac.

Macassans and Malays probably tried to use the Tiwi Islands as a base for obtaining trepang but its very likely that they were “... speared or driven out."

Maarten van Delft, a Dutch navigator with ships Vosenbosch, Hollandia and Wajer, spends weeks exploring the coastline of the Tiwi Islands, landing often and interacting with the Tiwi. Delft's descriptions and observations of the Tiwi and Aboriginal Australians are detailed and comprehensive.

1800s: Matthew Flinders

In February 1803, Matthew Flinders was circumnavigating Australia when he came across eleven Macassan praus (wooden boats) off Arnhem Land. His Malay cook translated, and Flinders talked with Pobasso, the commander, who told him there were 60 praus in their fleet, with more than a thousand men.

French explorer, Nicholas Baudin, also explores the south-west coast of Bathurst Island in 1803.

Malay praise, Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), Saturday 27 December 1941

Matthew Flinders, English explorer, Unknown date, c. 1800 (British explorer Matthew Flinders was the first person to circumnavigate Australia.)

In 1818, the British navigator and explorer Phillip Parker King established the existence of two land areas and named them Bathurst Island and Melville Island. As King explored the island, he found that the local Aboriginal people knew some Portuguese words.

During an encounter with Tiwi people, at this time, a stand for a navigational instrument, called a theodolite, was taken. This stand had been left behind by crew, when they were chased back into their boats by the Tiwi. King offered hatchets in exchange for the stand, but the Tiwi refused. King also wrote in his journal that the Tiwi pretended that he was interested in two women instead of the stand.

Photograph of Admiral Phillip King aged 64. Philip Parker King, in addition to being a pastoralist, became an eminent Australian born Rear Admiral in the British Navy and an important NSW Colonial Government official. He was also commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company 1834-44

1824: British Settlement

Failed Northern Settlements

Fort Dundas (1824–1828)
Fort Wellington (1818-18290
Port Essington (1838–1849)
Escape Cliffs (1864–1867)

Captain William Barnes of the trading schooner Minstrel wrote to Earl Bathurst, Secretary for the Colonies in July 1823, claiming that the Dutch were preparing to set up a trading post on unclaimed land in the north, which caused alarm.

Early in 1824, Captain Gordon Bremer in H.M.S. Tamar sailed to take possession of "the North Coast of New Holland" and establish a fortified outpost. They had food rations for six months.

After claiming two thousand miles of "uninhabited" coastline for Britain, at Port Essington, Captain Bremer could find little fresh water. And so, a few days later, set sail for Captain King's twin islands of Bathurst and Melville.

Landing on the Aspley Strait, Melville Island, in September 1824, the British set about constructing Fort Dundas. With about 120 soldiers, sailors, marines and convicts. A fort was built and seven naval guns set upon it. Bremer noted the smoke from "native fires".

Interestingly, as the north of Australia lay outside the jurisdiction of the government of New South Wales, all the convicts were volunteers. By July 1825, jurisdiction had extended to include the Cobourg Peninsula and Melville Island. 

Convict volunteers were induced to go to remote Fort Dundas by the offer of a ticket-of-leave, after 12 months service.

The fort was named for Robert Sanders Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, head of the Admiralty.

John Septimus Roe surveyed the anchorage to Fort Dundas, which guarded the establishment at Melville Island.

John Septimus Roe, 1870

Convicts Set to Work

The convicts and crew then set about building a convict barracks, hospital, a magazine, church, commissariat store, Governor's residence and houses. A trading post was also established, with the intention of competing with the French and Dutch for Macassan trade.

Bremer then sailed for India, leaving Major Maurice Barlow in charge.

Engraving of Fort Dundas, by John Septimus Roe. 1825

The Tiwi were both scared and aggressive toward the British. Their response to the British fort was hit-and-run attacks and the taking of tools and livestock.

Barlow did not wish to retaliate against Tiwi theft. He wished to establish a friendly relationship and treat them with kindness. This did not come to pass. 

The trade with the Macassans did not come about. And there were a great many other problems. Unlike the Iwaidja people at the later settlement of Port Essington, the Tiwi were aggressive and not used to strangers.

Whist exploring a small river on Bathurst Island, on 25 October 1824, near the settlement, Bremer came into contact with a party of ten Tiwi men. Bremer described them as initially defensive and aggressive, calming down upon the presentation of gifts.

That same day, two convicts were seized by the Tiwi, but when troops appeared, they let the convicts go but made off with their axes.

Attacks by the Tiwi became common, occurring "sometimes daily". Two people were speared to death. One of the deaths was Dr Gold, who was found with 31 spear wounds. Seven spearheads remained in his body. One had passed through his head "from ear to ear". The storekeeper John Green had 17 spear wounds, and his skull was smashed open.

 

Bremer commented, however, that the inhabitants of the fort “...found that the natives’ activity was astonishing and their speed remarkable...."

The difficulty of growing vegetables caused scurvy, followed by malaria. Feelings of isolation caused many of the convicts to resort to drunkenness.

Port Cockburn (Fort Dundas) Melville Island, British settlement in Australia’s far north (1824-28) NT Library

Pirates

The trader, Captain William Barnes, visited Fort Dundas in the Stedcombe. Barnes then sailed for the Indies in search of cargo, but the ship was attacked by the local inhabitants at Timor Laut in 1825. All onboard the Stedcombe were kiiled except the two crewmen who were kept as slaves.

In September 1826, Major Barlow was relieved by Brevet-Major John Campbell of the 57th of Foot (the Middlesex Regiment). Despite all the difficulties and illness, Campbell instituted a strict daily routine and working hours for convicts. Though, work was not required in the wet season when extreme humidity tested the Europeans to a great extent. 

Ticket-of-leave 

Convicts, at Fort Dundas as in other parts of the colony, received payment for their labours. 

It is notable that in August 1825, Caplaln Barlow granted the convicts their ticket-of-leave with "very few exceptions".

Fort Dundas from the point near Port Cockburn, below Melville & Bathurst Islands, Australia, Smith, Charles Hamilton, [185-?]

Abandoned

Major George Hartley replaced Campbell in 1828. Less than a year later, the settlement was abandoned.

Hartley's letter to Colonial Secretary Macleay in June 1828 implies much about the socio-economic background of many of those situated at Fort Dundas:

"...no individual either amongst the military or prison population of our little community capable of writing or making out ordinary returns even with moderate accuracy..."

Hartley also mused that for the British, the settlement at Fort Dundas would prove to be "....an infirmary for one portion of its population, a cemetery for the other".

Late in 1828, Captain Humphrey Hartley received orders to abandon Fort Dundas and Melville Island. 

By April 1829, all the Europeans were gone.

However, the British left behind some Timorese water buffalo they had used for milk, meat and heavy labour.

1887: Government Expedition

In October 1887, a Government party set out from Palmeston (Darwin) with 5 Chinese coolies and six Aboriginal people. A newspaper article of the time stated:

"The aboriginals were
taken to assist the Europeans in night
watching, and it is doubtful if they
enjoyed a good sleep during the journey.
It is history with them that Melville
Island, in days gone by, was easily
reached in canoes, and that the islanders

were always very warlike-hence
the fear of our natives on the expedi-
tion, of seeing their native enemies."

"The natives had been closely
dodging our footsteps since the mornting

and it was here we noticed that
their number had increased, and also
that they were armed with spears."

"After a short rest, Messrs.
Saunders and Hingston left the camp
in an easterly direction, hoping to find
a creek to replenish the water bags,
and in 200 yards came on a wide, per-
manently watered creek. They were
returning to the camp, and not more
than 80 yards distant, when two
spears fell at their feet, grazing both
their arms, and they saw the natives not
more than 15 yards away, and surround-
ing us. It was the third spear that
struck Saunders through the lower
part of the arm."

"As the boats from the "Active" were
coming ashore, the party gathered on the
beach, but, although some were carefully
watching the wooded rocky point above
the sands, the natives managed to
creep down and fling five spears right
into the midst of us."

Northern Territory Times and Gazette (Darwin, NT : 1873 - 1927), Saturday 29 October 1887

1890s: Buffalo Business

Robert Joel (Joe) Cooper and his brother George and E. O. Robinson landed on Melville Island in May 1893, despite the evident hostility of the Tiwi. Seeing thousands of buffalo, Joe Cooper set up camp there in 1895.

After Joe was speared in the shoulder by the Tiwi, he abducted four Tiwi Aboriginal people, including two women and escaped to the mainland.

Joe treated his Tiwi captives kindly and learned their language. Then in 1905, he returned to Melville Island with them and twenty Port Essington Aboriginal people. He sent the Melville islanders ashore first to establish contact and then managed to become the first European settler since Fort Dundas was abandoned in 1828.

R. J. Cooper with two workers, Melville Island, Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Tuesday 20 February 1917

Staying for ten years on Melville island, Joe and his workers shot 1000 buffalo a year for their hides and horns, cut down Cyprus pine and found trepang, which he transported to Darwin on his lugger, Buffalo.

Team employed by Joe Cooper, Melville Island, NT, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 18 July 1917

Alice, Joe's "wife", was an Iwaidja Aboriginal person from Port Essington, she bore him three children.

Joe Cooper was later appointed as Sub-Protector of Aborigines. “...(O)ne of his roles was to be responsible for a number of mainland Aborigines who were banished to Melville Island as punishment for crimes...”

1900s

Catholic Mission

A Mission run by the Roman Catholic Church opened on nearby Bathurst Island in 1911. In 1914, the first nuns from the Sisters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart arrived on Bathurst Island.

Sisters of the Sacred Heart and children, Bathurst Island, Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Saturday 14 September 1912

Canoeing scenes on Cooper's anchorage, Melville Island, circa 1912, NT, J.P. Campbell, National Library of Australia

Looking across to Melville Island, NT, Joe Cooper's buffalo ranch on the shore [picture] / J.P. Campbell, circa 1912, National Library of Australia 

Canoeing scenes on Cooper's anchorage, Melville Island, circa 1912, NT, J.P. Campbell, National Library of Australi

An Aboriginal man inspecting the remains of an old kiln, Garden Point, Melville Island, Northern Territory : part of mixed selection of lantern slides and negatives from John Flynn's teaching days in Gippsland, and early AIM [Australian Inland Mission] activities / John Flynn. [between 1912 and 1930]. National Library of Australia

Shelter on Melville Island, NT, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 27 October 1917

King's Cove, Melville Island, NT, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Friday 25 April 1919

One of the old gun mountings at Fort Dundas, Melville Island, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Friday 25 April 1919

1920s

Father Long, M.S.C, celebrating First Mass at Fort Dundas, Melville Island, Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), Thursday 28 January 1926

1930s

Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), Thursday 1 September 1932

The Percival Gull plane "Chateu Tanunda" which made an aerial survey of Melville Island, Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 - 1950), Thursday 24 August 1933

Washing day at Bathurst Island Mission, in a canoe, Catholic Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1932 - 1942), Thursday 13 December 1934

Garden Point

The present settlement of Pirlangimpi, then called Garden Point, was established in 1937 as a police post because of concerns about the activities of Japanese pearling luggers.

Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), Thursday 22 October 1936

For the Exhibition to be held in Pans this year, Australia is sending examples of (A)boriginal art and manufactured goods. (1) Travel goods used by the natives of Melville and Bathurst Islands. Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 21 February 1937

Possible Jewish Settlement

 

Advocate (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Monday 12 September 1938

His Lordship Bishop Gsell, M.S.C., chatting with the Honourable Edmund Rothschild, heir to the Rothschild millions, outside the "pine palace" at Darwin. The building in the background is the Cathedral. Mr. Rothschild discussed with his Lordship the Jewish refugee problem, and hired the mission lugger, "St. Francis," to visit Melville Island, where he examined the prospects of a Jewish settlement. He is holding in his hands a bundle of native spears presented to him by Bishop Gsell for the adornment of hisLondon flat.Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 27 October 1938

1940s and WWII

Melville Island Mission, NT, Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 19 March 1942

Brother John Pye of the Catholic mission introduced Australian Rules football to the mission. Three Norm Smith Medalists – Maurice Rioli, Michael Long and Cyril Rioli – were raised at the mission at Pirlangimpi. (The mission school closed in 1968)

In 1939, the stones used to construct Fort Dundas were retrieved and a memorial to the early settlement at Darwin's garrison which was unveiled in 1945.

Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 - 1947), Monday 8 May 1939

Early in the morning of Thursday, 19 February 1942, Father McGrath on Melville island heard a frightening noise in the sky. As he looked up, he was horrified to see many aircraft in the northwest.

Radioing Darwin, Father McGrath said, “I have an urgent message. An unusually large air formation bearing down on us from the northwest. Identity suspect. Visibility not clear.”

The Japanese heard this warning and three aircraft flew over Melville Island and using their machine guns, shot up the shed in which Father McGrath was sending the message.

After bombing Darwin, Japanese Sergeant Hajime Toyoshima, pilot of one of the 188 aircraft that had just bombed Darwin killing 236 people, crashed on Melville Island. Matthias Ulungura, a Tiwi man was with a group of hunters when they came upon the Japanese airman. They captured him and handed him over to an Australian sergeant on Bathurst Island.

In Ulungura's words:

"I walked after him and grabbed his wrist near gun. He got proper big fright. I take revolver from his right side near his knee. Then I walk backwards pointing gun, I say "Stick 'em up, two hands, no more holding hands on head."
— Matthias Ulungura

Japanese Zero shot down after the bombing of Darwin. The Japanese pilot was captured by an Aboriginal Tiwi men. AWM

1942: Girls and nuns evacuated from Garden Point (Pirlangimpi) but boys remain.

The Long Flight of the Children 

"Melbourne yesterday. 

The children's ages range from 11 months to 14
years. Many of them were sick, and
all were exhausted. They were shivering

with cold in the tattered remnants

of their scanty Melville Island

clothing.
The party, which had been transferred

 from Alice Springs to the
island half-caste mission only eight
months ago, had been evacuated to
Darwin. They arrived there just in
time for the raids, and for some days
they "went bush," camping out In the
open till , they could get a truck to
start them on the first stage of their
long trek to Alice Springs. Over 1000
miles of the journey they did in open
trucks, and when they arrived in
Alice Springs they found the town
overcrowded with refugees and short
of food. So they decided to push on
to Adelaide, and then to Melbourne,
where they have found a temporary
haven at Mandeville Hall. When
they arrived there yesterday the
whole party dropped wearily Into bed
—to sleep for the best part of the
day. "
Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), Thursday 12 March 1942

Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 19 March 1942

Off Melville Island

"DARWIN, NT. 1942-02-19. MV DON ISIDRO COMPLETELY GUTTED BY FIRE, AGROUND OFF MELVILLE ISLAND FOLLOWING THE JAPANESE AIR ATTACK."

An Excellent Job

Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1954), Sunday 2 September 1945

During World War II, 35 Tiwi from Melville Island were responsible for patrolling Melville Island and Bathurst Island, Northern Territory. They were armed and equipped by the Royal Australian Navy, right to left: Brownie Wilson, Harry One, Ginger Moreen and Melon Henda. Remaining men unidentified. Australian War Memorial

Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Saturday 4 November 1944

A shooting party of officers and sailors from HMAS Moresby, with Aboriginal guides from Snake Bay, display some of the ducks and geese shot during an expedition to a swamp near by. Melville Island, circa 1944

Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1954), Sunday 2 September 1945

Escaped Americans

Catholic priests from Garden Point, Melville Island, assisted seventeen US marines who had escaped from the Japanese assault on Bataan in the Philippines. The Americans arrived on the Quail and later left their ketch to the mission.

June 1942, 17 Americans landed at Garden Point Mission on Melville Island. Piloted down the Apsley Straits between Bathurst Island and Melville Island by local Tiwi people. The Americans escaped from Corregidor in the Philippines in an open boat in 31 days, after their own ship the USS Quail was scuttled. U.S.N. Rear-Admiral John Morrill "South from Corregidor" published in 1943

The Quail, towing a raft of Cyprus pine logs down the Apsley Strait to the Nguiu timber mill to be used in housing. NT Archives Service (Brogan collection) 

Tiwi Heroes: World War Two

Special Permission

"ON Melville Island, off the Northern Territory 
coast, the Commonwealth Government has 
begun a small-scale, cautious experiment in 

aboriginal welfare. The island has been declared a

reservation, white men may
land there only by special
permission. Instead of send
ing natives to gaol for minor
offences, the Government
will send them to Melville
Island, teach them farming,
trades in community settle
ments, separate them from the
effects of too much contact with
white men."

Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 24 November 1946

Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 24 November 1946

Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 24 November 1946

Tiwi man wearing feathers called dolaka ready for the pukamuni ceremony, Snake Bay, Melville Island, Northern Territory, October 1948, Axel Poignant, National Library of Australia

Alie decorated with white pipe clay with his daughter after pukamuni ceremony, Snake Bay, Melville Island, Northern Territory, October 1948, Axel Poignant, National Library of Australia

Pukumani dancers with body decoration, spirit balls, fake beards, feathered head ornaments and armbands, Melville Island, Tiwi Islands, NT, 1948.

Dancers and a didgeridoo player at a Pukumani ceremony, Melville Island, Tiwi Islands, NT, 1948. NLAUST

1950s: Film Star

Robert Tudawali (1929 – 26 July 1967), also known as Bobby Wilson and Bob Wilson, was born and raised on Melville Island to Tiwi parents. He is known for his leading role in the 1955 Australian film Jedda.

Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 - 1954), Friday 10 December 1954

INDULGENT father takes his sons off fishing when the school day is over at the native settlement at Snake Bay, Melville Island, off Darwin. Sea-foods caught by the aborigines still form a major part of their diet. Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 8 June 1955

1960s

RAAF C47 Dakota at Snake Bay 1961, RAAF Darwin's Base Squadron C47 Dakota flown by Ron Lawford after landing at Snake Bay airstrip. This airstrip on Melville Island was part of a complex built in 1944 as RAAF Austin but the war moved on and no squadrons were based there. Ken Hodge

1970s: Fort Dundas Site

An excavation of the Fort Dundas site was completed in 1975. A 3rd Regiment brass badge or "Shako Plate" was found. It is now located at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Fannie Bay in Darwin. (Captain Maurice Barlow - with 27 Royal Marines; 24 soldiers of the 3rd Regiment -the Buffs)

3rd Regiment Shako Plate or brass badge from Fort Dundas in the Northern Territory of Australia now held at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. REC 0332

1980s

Milikapiti School is located at Milikapiti on the north coast of Melville Island, NT, circa 1983, Robyn Jay

"woops - Melville Island 1984" by robynejay is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Around Melville Island

Melville Harbour, close to the former Port Dundas settlement, Melville Island, NT

Milikapiti, or Snake Bay, Melville Island, NT

Those who served at Fort Dundas, Melville Island 1824-1827

Hector is a cumulonimbus thundercloud that forms regularly nearly every afternoon on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory of Australia, from approximately September to March each year, Snake Bay, Melville Island, NT

Fort Dundas, Melville Island, NT

Snake Bay, Melville Island, NT

Snake Bay Airport located at Milikapiti, Northern Territory, on the northern coast of Melville Island,
was built by the RAAF, during World War II

Typical house at Milikapiti (Snake Bay), Melville Island, NT

Milikapiti (Snake Bay), Melville Island, NT

The Tiwi forestry plantations on Melville island, NT

"Fishing on Melville Island" by philoye is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Garden Point, Melville Island, NT

Things To Do and Places To Go

Map of Melville Island

Patakijiyali Culture Museum

Jilamara Arts & Crafts Association

Victoria Settlement, Port Essington, Northern Territory: Remote Ruins

Port Essington, on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, in the Northern Territory, is 300 kilometres north of Darwin. 

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. 

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.

Multi-functional baskets, which are called marruny in the Iwaidja language today, were made of palm leaves (Kentia palm). These baskets were an important item and are still made today.

Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 8 August 1929

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.

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"

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)

It also appears that the contact language of the Iwaidja changed from a Macassan Pidgin to an English-based pidgin, with the arrival of the British garrison.

Photo of woman from Port Essington, NT, by Paul Heinrich Matthias Foelsche in 1877 (this photo is cropped), Musée d'ethnographie de Genève

Iwaidja young man by the name of Mallenginah or Mallaguah, aged 17 at time of photograph, Port Essington, Northern Territory, 1877. By Paul Foelsche

"Port Essington native, N.T." Aboriginal man, with body markings and decoration, smoking pipe. Date circa 1910s

Port Essington Aboriginals, NT, Geraldton Guardian and Express (WA : 1929 - 1947), Tuesday 24 December 1929

Iwaidja, Australie, Territoire du Nord, Terre d’Arnhem, île Croker, Minjilang

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

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.

HMS Investigator was a survey ship of the Royal Navy. In 1802, commanded by Matthew Flinders

"A native praus, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 21 May 1936

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

When the ships reached South Australia, Assistant Surgeon Whipple also joined the expedition.

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.

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.

Captain Owen Stanley RN in 1837, National Trust

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.

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.
 

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.

George Windsor Earl (1813–1865)

Within the first six months, Government house was built, a garden was set out, and 24 houses built on the settlement.

 

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)

 L'Astrolabe et La Zélée, Jules Dumont d'Urville, Gide Paris, 1846

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)

New Victoria in 1839. Lithograph from Voyage au Pôle Sud et en Océanie by Jules Dumont d'Urville

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

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.

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):

"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." 

A navigation beacon was constructed at Port Essington in 1843 to 1845.

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.

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

Grave Matters

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.

 Mrs Lambrick and child. Wife of Lieutenant Lambrick. Died Port Essington 1838(?)-1848

The Very Worst

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:

"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

 with Sydney during the north...."

The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (WA : 1833 - 1847) Sat 2 May 1840

How It Looked

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.

Map of the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt's route in Australia

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 . . ."

Shipwrecked Priest

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.

Shipwrecked

Interesting Observations

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)

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

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. 

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.

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

"At last the Meander, under
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

 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."

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

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.

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.

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.

Lewis was elected to parliament and became a legislator. His son, Essington Lewis (named after the settlement), became chairman of the BHP.

John Lewis, Observer (Adelaide, SA : 1905 - 1931), Saturday 24 January 1914

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

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. 

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.

E. O. Robinson, Buffalo Bill, Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), Saturday 17 November 1917

Natives at Cobarg Cattle Station, Port Essington, November 1877. National Library of Aust.

1900s

Iwaidja men at Port Essington, Northern Territory, early 1900s.

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

Part of the men's quarters, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 9 February 1921

Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 8 August 1929

The Remains 

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. 

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 

Ruins of the Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT

Ruins of the Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT

Lime kiln,  Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT

The Magazine at Victoria Settlement in Port Essington, NT

Ruins of the Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT

Coastline views, Victoria Settlement at Port Essington, NT

Graves at Victoria Settlement, Port Essington, Nt, Victoria Settlement, Ian Cochrane

Graves at Victoria Settlement, Port Essington, Nt, Victoria Settlement

Smith Point, Port Essington, NT

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

"The visit to Port Essington made me realise that the past – those early settlements in Australia – had once been as real as the present, which is always an electrifying realisation" (Clendinnen 2003:1-2)