Qualla: Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Croft, CC BY-SA 2.0. A boy in the flat fenland of Lincolnshire read Robinson Crusoe and could not shake it loose. Matthew Flinders went to sea at fifteen against his family's wishes, and over the next twenty years he charted a coastline longer than the one Crusoe ever dreamed of. In July 1799 his little sloop Norfolk slipped into Moreton Bay, the first European vessel to probe these waters in earnest. Aboard with him was Bungaree, an Aboriginal man whose skill at reading country and reading people Flinders came to depend on. Together they would help put this stretch of the world on the map, though the map would cost Flinders almost everything.

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Image: Richard Croft | CC BY-SA 2.0

Matthew Flinders: Six Days into Moreton Bay

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Flinders and Bungaree reached Moreton Bay on 14 July 1799, six days out from Sydney, hunting for a great river the navigator was sure must drain this coast. He never found the Brisbane River, hidden behind its bars and islands, but he charted what he could. He named a narrow chan...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Matthew Flinders: All the Way Around

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Summerdrought, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two years later he returned with a proper ship, the Investigator, a botanist, an artist, and a commission to chart the whole continent then called New Holland. Bungaree sailed again, and so did a cat. Trim, born aboard ship in 1799, black with white paws, chin and chest, became t...

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Image: Summerdrought | CC BY-SA 3.0

Matthew Flinders: A Name for a Continent

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit State Government Photographer, CC0. Flinders gave the place its name. Sailors and mapmakers had called it New Holland or the clumsy Latin Terra Australis; Flinders preferred Australia, a word he found 'more agreeable to the ear.' In 1804 he wrote to his brother, 'I call the whole island Australia.' The choice took ...

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Image: State Government Photographer | CC0

Matthew Flinders: The Prisoner of Mauritius

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 3.0. The cruelest chapter came on the way home. Forced by a leaking ship to put in at French-held Mauritius in December 1803, Flinders expected the scientific nature of his mission to protect him. It did not. War had reopened between Britain and France, and the suspicious governor, De...

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Image: Mattinbgn | CC BY-SA 3.0