Biography arthur phillip

When Phillip was appointed as governor-designate of the colony and began to plan the expedition, he requested that the convicts that were being sent be trained; only twelve carpenters and a few men who knew anything about agriculture were sent. Seamen with technical and building skills were commandeered immediately. Phillip established a civil administration, with courts of law, that applied to everyone living in the settlement.

Two convicts, Henry and Susannah Kable, sought to sue Duncan Sinclair, the captain of the Alexander , for stealing their possessions during the voyage. Sinclair, believing that as convicts they had no protection from the law, as was the case in Britain, boasted that he could not be sued. Despite this, the court found for the plaintiffs and ordered the captain to make restitution for the theft of the Kables' possessions.

Phillip had drawn up a detailed memorandum of his plans for the proposed new colony. In one paragraph he wrote: "The laws of this country [England] will of course, be introduced in [New] South Wales, and there is one that I would wish to take place from the moment his Majesty's forces take possession of the country: That there can be no slavery in a free land, and consequently no slaves.

The settlement's supplies were rationed equally to convicts, officers, and marines, and females were given two-thirds of the weekly males' rations. They were sentenced to death; the ringleader, Thomas Barrett , was hanged that day. Phillip gave the rest a reprieve. They were banished to an island in the harbour and given only bread and water. The governor also expanded the settlement's knowledge of the landscape.

Phillip later joined them on an expedition to survey Broken Bay. The fleet's ships left over the next months, with Sirius and Supply remaining in the colony under command of the governor. They were used to survey and map the coastlines and waterways. Scurvy broke out, so Sirius left Port Jackson for Cape Town under the command of Hunter in October , having been sent for supplies.

The voyage, which completed a circumnavigation , returned to Sydney Cove in April, just in time to save the near-starving colony. As an experienced farmhand, Phillip's appointed servant Henry Edward Dodd, served as farm superintendent at Farm Cove , where he successfully cultivated the first crops, later moving to Rose Hill , where the soil was better.

James Ruse , a convict, was later appointed to the position after Dodd died in In June , more convicts arrived with the Second Fleet , but HMS Guardian , carrying more supplies, was disabled en route after hitting an iceberg, leaving the colony low on provisions again. In late , Phillip, whose health was suffering, relinquished the governorship to Major Francis Grose , lieutenant-governor and commander of New South Wales Corps.

The main challenge for order and harmony in the settlement came not from the convicts secured there on terms of good behaviour, but from the attitude of officers from the New South Wales Marine Corps. As Commander in Chief, Phillip was in command of both the naval and marine forces; his naval officers readily obeyed his commands, but a measure of co-operation from the marine officers ran against their tradition.

Major Robert Ross and his officers with the exception of a few such as David Collins , Watkin Tench , and William Dawes refused to do anything other than guard duty, claiming that they were neither gaolers, supervisors, nor policemen. In addition, there were 34 officers and men serving in the Ship's Complement of Marines aboard Sirius and Supply , bringing the total to who departed England.

Ross supported and encouraged his fellow officers in their conflicts with Phillip, engaged in clashes of his own, and complained of the governor's actions to the Home Office. Though firm in his attitude, he endeavoured to placate Ross, but to little effect. In the end, he solved the problem by ordering Ross to Norfolk Island on 5 March to replace the commandant there.

The official departure of the last serving marines from the colony was in December , with Governor Phillip on Atlantic. Phillip's official orders with regard to Aboriginal people were to "conciliate their affections", to "live in amity and kindness with them", and to punish anyone who should "wantonly destroy them, or give them any unnecessary interruption in the exercise of their several occupations".

When Phillip went ashore, gifts were exchanged, thus Phillip and the officers began their relationship with the Eora through gift-giving, hilarity, and dancing, but also by showing them what their guns could do. After the early meetings, dancing, and musket demonstrations, the Eora avoided the settlement in Sydney Cove for the first year, but they warned and then attacked whenever colonists trespassed on their lands away from the settlement.

By the end of the first year, as none of the Eora had come to live in the settlement, Phillip decided on a more ruthless strategy, and ordered the capture of some Eora warriors. The man who was captured was Arabanoo , from whom Phillip and his officers started to learn language and customs. Arabanoo died in April of smallpox , which also ravaged the rest of the Eora population.

Four months after Bennelong escaped from Sydney, Phillip was invited to a whale feast at Manly. Bennelong greeted him in a friendly and jovial way. Phillip was suddenly surrounded by warriors and speared in the shoulder by a man called Willemering. He ordered his men not to retaliate. Friendly relations were reestablished afterwards, with Bennelong even returning to Sydney with his family.

Even though there were now friendly relations with the Indigenous people around Sydney Cove, the same couldn't be said about the ones around Botany Bay, who had killed or wounded 17 colonists. On 11 December , when Phillip returned to Britain, Bennelong and another Aboriginal man named Yemmerrawanne or Imeerawanyee travelled with him on the Atlantic.

In the ordinary course of events he was promoted to Rear-Admiral on 1 January Phillip suffered a stroke in , which left him partially paralysed. In , Geoffrey Robertson alleged that Phillip's remains were no longer in St Nicholas Church, Bathampton, and had been lost: "Captain Arthur Phillip is not where the ledger stone says he is: it may be that he is buried somewhere outside, it may simply be that he is simply lost.

But he is not where Australians have been led to believe that he now lies. A monument to Phillip in Bath Abbey Church was unveiled in Another was unveiled at St Mildred's Church , Bread Street, London, in ; that church was destroyed in the London Blitz in , but the principal elements of the monument were re-erected at the west end of Watling Street, near Saint Paul's Cathedral , in A different bust and memorial is inside the nearby church of St Mary-le-Bow.

Steadfast in mind, modest, without self seeking, Phillip had imagination enough to conceive what the settlement might become, and the common sense to realize what at the moment was possible and expedient. When almost everyone was complaining he never himself complained, when all feared disaster he could still hopefully go on with his work.

He was sent out to found a convict settlement, he laid the foundations of a great dominion. As part of a series of events on the bicentenary of his death, a memorial was dedicated in Westminster Abbey on 9 July He is shown as compassionate and just, but receives little support from his fellow officers. Contents move to sidebar hide.

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Biography arthur phillip

British colonial administrator — Captain Arthur Phillip, , by Francis Wheatley. Kingdom of Great Britain Kingdom of Portugal. Royal Navy Portuguese Navy. Early life [ edit ]. Early maritime career [ edit ]. Whaling and merchant expeditions [ edit ]. Royal Navy and the Seven Years' War [ edit ]. Retirement and the Portuguese Navy [ edit ]. Recommissioned into Royal Navy [ edit ].

Survey work in Europe [ edit ]. Colonial service [ edit ]. See also: Convicts in Australia. And hence his patience with his otherwise insufferable, cantankerous and disloyal Lieutenant Governor, Marines Major [16] Robert Ross. Arthur Phillip, enlightened Governor through almost the first five years of the nascent colony, would certainly have studied the best charts [17] , and the laws of the day appertaining to the establishment of the colony and the founding of New South Wales.

The land ownership laws in and would have been known in detail, and carefully followed, by Cook and Phillip. There has been discussion among academics recently of Terra Nullius [19] , the meaning of which has altered over time, as the authoritative international historian and lawyer, Damen Ward, Senior Crown Counsel of New Zealand, has kindly explained.

The relevant 18 th Century understanding is of land belonging to no-one; territory which has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, thus without a sovereign. A further relevant definition — or interpretation — of Terra Nullius has to do with paucity of inhabitants, and, as opposed to nomadic hunting, the absence of permanent cultivation or agriculture that could establish proprietorial rights.

Some modern Aboriginal leaders have spoken of their people belonging to the land, rather than the other way around. The British authorities were also clear that sovereignty over territory which was Terra Nullius could be acquired through occupation. I believe that it would never have entered the minds of officials or politicians in London, nor of the carefully instructed James Cook, that his land claim on behalf of George III represented or implied anything other than peaceful and lawful occupation.

Nor could Arthur Phillip ever have considered that his peaceful and — firmly against the early odds, ultimately successful — endeavours were remotely comparable to invasion. His endeavours were to create, not a convict gaol half a world away, but a new economy and country; and to foster the development and subsequent acquisition of an ally for Great Britain.

The Mabo decision of in effect overturned the older legal treatment of Aboriginal interests in land: the modern Australian Court holding that Aboriginal interests were a proprietary title which common law now recognised. Terra Nullius is, in my view, in some logical conflict with the modern, courteous practice and gesture, at the start of official speeches, of acknowledging the original or traditional owners of the land on which the speech is given.

The British practice today in Australia of acknowledging traditional owners is thus unnecessary in law, even arguably inadvisable in law, but is understandable as a matter of contemporary political judgment. It seems possible I owe this thought to our own Professor of Australian History and member of the Cook and Britain-Australia Societies, Carl Bridge, who gave this address in the year that the acknowledgement practice, which also exists in New Zealand and North America, may have spread from North America.

In New Zealand, the Maoris were not nomadic and could properly be regarded as owning the land they both farmed and permanently inhabited. In North America, other legal considerations and proprieties applied. Australia, as in so much, stands alone. Nelson, of course, died at 47, a hero and a Vice-Admiral. Phillip became a full Admiral and died at Arthur Leonard Schawlow.

Arthur Korn. Arthur J. Arthur III. Arthur Findlay College. Arthur D. Little, Inc. Arthur Cayley. Arthur B. Arthur Andersen LLP. Arthur and the Invisibles. Arthropods: Insects, Arachnids, and Crustaceans. Arthropod-borne Disease. Arthropathy-camptodactyly syndrome. Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. Arthur Rock. Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. Arthur Tedder. Soon, smallpox and other European-introduced epidemics ravaged the Eora population.

Despite his best efforts, he was unable to achieve a real peace between the Aborigines and the settlers. No regard was given at the time to the fact that Australia was literally stolen off its inhabitants, nor to the legal basis of settlement. Later, the fiction developed that Australia was "no one's land" terra nullius because the Aborigines had no concept of owning the land.

In fact, their sense of a bond with the land was so strong that they saw it as owning them, rather than vice versa. The Governor's main problem was with his own military officers, who wanted large grants of land, which Phillip had not been authorized to grant. The officers were expected to grow food, but they considered this beneath them. As a result, scurvy broke out, and in October , Phillip had to send Sirius to Cape Town for supplies, and strict rationing was introduced, with thefts of food punished by hanging.

By , the situation had stabilized. The population of about 2, was adequately housed and fresh food was being grown. Phillip assigned a convict, James Ruse, land at Rose Hill now Parramatta to establish proper farming, and when Ruse succeeded he received the first land grant in the colony. Other convicts followed his example. Sirius was wrecked in March , at the satellite settlement of Norfolk Island , depriving Phillip of vital supplies.

In June , the Second Fleet arrived with hundreds more convicts, most of them too sick to work. By December , Phillip was ready to return to England, but the colony had largely been forgotten in London and no instructions reached him, so he carried on. In , he was advised that the government would send out two convoys of convicts annually, plus adequate supplies.

But in July, when the vessels of the Third Fleet began to arrive, with 2, more convicts, food again ran short, and he had to send a ship to Calcutta for supplies. By , the colony was well-established, though Sydney remained an unplanned huddle of wooden huts and tents. The whaling industry was established, ships were visiting Sydney to trade, and convicts whose sentences had expired were taking up farming.

John Macarthur and other officers were importing sheep and beginning to grow wool. The colony was still very short of skilled farmers, craftsmen, and tradesmen, and the convicts continued to work as little as possible, even though they were working mainly to grow their own food. In late , Phillip, whose health was suffering from the poor diet, at last received permission to leave, and on December 11, , he sailed in the ship Atlantic, taking with him Bennelong and many specimens of plants and animals.

The European population of New South Wales at his departure was 4,, of whom 3, were convicts. The early years of the colony had been years of struggle and hardship, but the worst was over, and there were no further famines in New South Wales. Phillip arrived in London, in May Phillip's wife, Margaret, had died in In , he married Isabella Whitehead, and lived for a time at Bath.

His health gradually recovered and in , he went back to sea, holding a series of commands and responsible posts in the wars against the French. In January , he became a Rear-Admiral. In , aged 67, he retired from the Navy with the rank of Admiral of the Blue, and spent most of the rest of his life at Bath. He continued to correspond with friends in New South Wales and to promote the colony's interests with government officials.