The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the British (and European) colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three storeships and six convict transports under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip. On 13 May 1787, the ships, with over 1,400 convicts, marines, sailors, and colonial officials on board, left Portsmouth and travelled over 24,000 kilometres (15,000 mi; 13,000 nmi) and over 250 days before arriving in Botany Bay, New South Wales, on 18 January 1788. Governor Arthur Phillip rejected Botany Bay, choosing instead Port Jackson to the north as the site for the new colony; the Fleet arrived there on 26 January 1788. The Fleet established the Colony of New South Wales as a penal colony; the first British settlement in Australia.
History
Lord Sandwich, together with the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, the eminent scientist who had accompanied Lieutenant James Cook on his 1770 voyage, advocated establishment of a British colony in Australia at Botany Bay. Banks accepted an offer of assistance from the American Loyalist James Matra in July 1783. Under Banks's guidance, Matra rapidly produced "A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales" (24 August 1783), with a fully developed set of reasons for a colony composed of American Loyalists, Chinese, and South Sea Islanders (but not convicts). The decision to establish a colony in Australia was made by Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, Secretary of State for the British Home Office. This was taken for two reasons: the ending of transportation of criminals to North America following the American Revolution, as well as the need for a base in the Pacific to counter French expansion.
In September 1786, Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed Commodore of the fleet, which came to be known as the First Fleet, which was to transport the convicts and soldiers to establish a colony at Botany Bay. Upon arrival there, Phillip was to assume the powers of Captain General and Governor in Chief of the new colony. A subsidiary colony was to be founded on Norfolk Island, as recommended by Sir John Call and Sir George Young, to take advantage for naval purposes of that island's native flax (harakeke) and timber.
The cost to Britain of outfitting and dispatching the Fleet was £84,000 (about £11 million or US$15.68 million in 2025).
Ships
Royal Naval escort
On 25 October 1786 the 10-gun HMS Sirius, lying in the dock at Deptford, was commissioned, and the command given to Phillip. The armed tender HMAT Supply (1759) was under command of Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, who was also commissioned to join the expedition. Lt. David Blackburn was the ship's Master. On 15 December, Captain John Hunter was assigned as second captain to Sirius to command in the absence of Phillip, whose presence, it was to be supposed, would be requisite at all times wherever the seat of government in that country might be fixed.
HMS Sirius
Sirius was Phillip's flagship for the fleet. She had been converted from the merchantman Berwick, built in 1780 for Baltic trade. She was a 520-ton, sixth-rate vessel, originally armed with ten guns, four six-pounders and six carronades, Phillip had ten more guns placed aboard.
After the fleet's arrival, the ship served the new colony, including a supply run to the Cape of Good Hope. Sirius was wrecked on a reef at Norfolk Island on 19 March 1790 while landing supplies, a disastrous loss for the isolated colony.
HMAT Supply
Supply was designed in 1759 by shipwright Thomas Slade, as a yard craft for the ferrying of naval supplies. Measuring 170 tons, she had two masts, and was fitted with four small 3-pounder cannons and six 1⁄2-pounder swivel guns. Her armament was substantially increased in 1786 with the addition of four 12-pounder carronades.
Food and supply transports
Ropes, crockery, agricultural equipment and a miscellany of other stores were needed. Items transported included tools, agricultural implements, seeds, spirits, medical supplies, bandages, surgical instruments, handcuffs, leg irons and a prefabricated wooden frame for the colony's first Government House. The party had to rely on its own provisions to survive until it could make use of local materials, assuming suitable supplies existed, and grow its own food and raise livestock.
Golden Grove
The reverend Richard Johnson, chaplain for the colony, travelled on the Golden Grove with his wife and servants.
Legacy
Scale models of all the ships are on display at the Museum of Sydney. The models were built by ship makers Lynne and Laurie Hadley, after researching the original plans, drawings and British archives. The replicas of Supply, Charlotte, Scarborough, Friendship, Prince of Wales, Lady Penrhyn, Borrowdale, Alexander, Sirius, Fishburn and Golden Grove are made from Western Red or Syrian Cedar.
Nine Sydney harbour ferries built in the mid-1980s are named after First Fleet vessels. The unused names are Lady Penrhyn and Prince of Wales.
People
The majority of the people travelling with the fleet were convicts, all having been tried and convicted in Great Britain, almost all of them in England. Many are known to have come to England from other parts of Great Britain and, especially, from Ireland; at least 14 are known to have come from the British colonies in North America; at least 15 are identified as black (born in Britain, Africa, the West Indies, North America, India or a European country or its colony). The convicts had committed a variety of crimes, including theft, perjury, fraud, assault, robbery, for which they had variously been sentenced to death, which was then commuted to penal transportation for 7 years, 14 years, or the term of their natural life.
Four companies of marines volunteered for service in the colony, these marines made up the New South Wales Marine Corps, under the command of Major Robert Ross, a detachment on board every convict transport. The families of marines also made the voyage.
A number of people on the First Fleet kept diaries and journals of their experiences, including the surgeons, sailors, officers, soldiers, and ordinary seamen. There are at least eleven known manuscript journals of the First Fleet in existence as well as some letters.
The exact number of people directly associated with the First Fleet will likely never be established, as accounts of the event vary slightly. A total of 1,420 people have been identified as embarking on the First Fleet in 1787, and 1,373 are believed to have landed at Sydney Cove in January 1788. In her biographical dictionary of the First Fleet, Mollie Gillen gives the following statistics:
While the names of all crew members of Sirius and Supply are known, the six transports and three store ships may have carried as many as 110 more seamen than have been identified – no complete musters have survived for these ships. The total number of persons embarking on the First Fleet would, therefore, be approximately 1,530 with about 1,483 reaching Sydney Cove.
According to the first census of 1788 as reported by Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, the non-indigenous population of the colony was 1,030 and the colony also consisted of 7 horses, 29 sheep, 74 swine, 6 rabbits, and 7 cattle.
The following statistics were provided by Governor Phillip:
The chief surgeon for the First Fleet, John White, reported a total of 48 deaths and 28 births during the voyage. The deaths during the voyage included one marine, one marine's wife, one marine's child, 36 male convicts, four female convicts, and five children of convicts.
Notable members of First Fleet
Officials
- Captain Arthur Phillip, R.N, Governor of New South Wales
- Major Robert Ross, Lieutenant Governor and commander of the marines
- Captain David Collins, Judge Advocate
- Augustus Alt, Surveyor
- John White, Principal Surgeon
- William Balmain, assistant Surgeon
- Richard Johnson, chaplain
Soldiers
- Lieutenant George Johnston
- Captain Watkin Tench
- Lieutenant William Dawes
- Lieutenant Ralph Clark
Sailors
- Captain John Hunter, commander of HMS Sirius
- Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, commander of HMAT Supply
- Lieutenant William Bradley, 1st lieutenant of HMS Sirius
- Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, commandant of Norfolk Island
- Arthur Bowes Smyth, ship's surgeon on Lady Penrhyn
- Lieutenant John Shortland, Agent for Transports
- John Shortland, son of above, 2nd mate of HMS Sirius
Convicts
- Thomas Barrett, first person executed in the colony
- Mary Bryant, with her husband, children and six other convicts escaped the colony and eventually returned to England
- John Caesar, bushranger
- Matthew Everingham, farmer, explorer and district constable
- Henry Kable, businessman
- James Martin, was part of the escape with Mary Bryant, wrote an autobiography
- James Ruse, farmer, one of the only ones in the colony at its establishment
- Robert Sidaway, baker, opened the first theatre in Sydney
- James Squire, brewer
- Frances Williams, first Welsh woman to settle in Australia
Voyage
Preparing the fleet
In September 1786 Captain Arthur Phillip was chosen to lead the expedition to establish a colony in New South Wales. On 15 December, Captain John Hunter, was appointed Phillip's second. By now HMS Sirius had been nominated as flagship, with Hunter holding command. The armed tender HMAT Supply (1759) under command of Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball had also joined the fleet.
With Phillip in London awaiting Royal Assent for the bill of management of the colony, the loading and provisioning of the transports was carried out by Lieutenant John Shortland, the agent for transports.
On 16 March 1787, the fleet began to assemble at its appointed rendezvous, the Mother Bank, Isle of Wight. His Majesty's frigate Sirius and armed tender Supply, three store-ships, Golden Grove, Fishburn and Borrowdale, for carrying provisions and stores for two years; and lastly, six transports; Scarborough and Lady Penrhyn, from Portsmouth; Friendship and Charlotte, from Plymouth; Prince of Wales, and Alexander, from Woolwich. On 9 May Captain Phillip arrived in Portsmouth, the next day coming aboard the ships and giving orders to prepare the fleet for departure.
Leaving Portsmouth
Phillip first tried to get the fleet to sail on 10 May, but due to a dispute by sailors of the Fishburn about pay, they refused to leave until it was resolved. The fleet finally left Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787. The journey began with fine weather, and thus the convicts were allowed on deck. The Fleet was accompanied by the armed frigate HMS Hyaena until it left English waters. On 20 May 1787, one convict on Scarborough reported a planned mutiny; those allegedly involved were flogged and two were transferred to Prince of Wales. In general, however, most accounts of the voyage agree that the convicts were well behaved. On 3 June 1787, the fleet anchored at Santa Cruz at Tenerife. Here, fresh water, vegetables and meat were brought on board. Phillip and the chief officers were entertained by the local governor, while one convict tried unsuccessfully to escape. On 10 June they set sail to cross the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, taking advantage of favourable trade winds and ocean currents.
The weather became increasingly hot and humid as the Fleet sailed through the tropics. Vermin, such as rats, and parasites such as bedbugs, lice, cockroaches and fleas, tormented the convicts, officers and marines. Bilges became foul and the smell, especially below the closed hatches, was over-powering. While Phillip gave orders that the bilge-water was to be pumped out daily and the bilges cleaned, these orders were not followed on Alexander and a number of convicts fell sick and died. Tropical rainstorms meant that the convicts could not exercise on deck as they had no change of clothes and no method of drying wet clothing. Consequently, they were kept below in the foul, cramped holds. On the female transports, promiscuity between the convicts, the crew and marines was rampant, despite punishments for some of the men involved. In the doldrums, Phillip was forced to ration the water to three pints a day.