INDEX

WHO DID DISCOVER AUSTRALIA?

COLONIAL EXPLORATION


Colonial Exploration: 1789 - William Dawes (1762 - 1836)


18 months after first settlement, Governor Phillip and his party rowed up the Hawkesbury River to the junction with the Grose River where it rushes out from the mountains. For the next 20 years, the mountains marked the edge of the colony's westward expansion.

On 27 June 1789, Captain Tench (right), then in charge of the newly-formed outpost of Rose Hill, started on an expedition to the westward. He was accompanied by Thomas Arndell, assistant surgeon of the settlement, Mr. Lowes, the surgeon's mate of the Sirius, two marines (of which Dawes was one), and a convict. They left the redoubt at Parramatta at daybreak on the 26th, climbed Prospect Hill and marched "west and by north" through seemingly deserted country. They dined on a crow for supper and camped the night. Next day, within an hour of setting out, they came upon a wide, deep stream, "nearly as broad as the Thames at Putney". This river was called the Nepean by Governor Phillip. It was later found to be the upper part of the Hawkesbury, which had been explored earlier from the Broken Bay end. There was plenty of evidence along its banks of native life: "hunting huts", marks on trees, possum traps and decoys for birds.

The journal of the trip is interesting, being the earliest record of land exploration, and also as containing the account of the discovery of the Nepean River: "I left the redoubt at daybreak, pointing our march to a hill distant five miles, in a westerly or inland direction, which commands a view of the great chain of mountains called the Caermarthen Hills, extending from north to south farther than the eye can reach. Here we paused, surveying 'the wild abyss, pondering over our voyage.' Before us lay the trackless, immeasurable desert in awful silence. At length, after consultation, we determined to steer west and by north by compass, the make of the land indicating the existence of a river. We continued to march all day through a country untrodden before by an European foot. Save that a melancholy crow now and then flew croaking overhead, or a kangaroo was seen to bound at a distance, the picture of solitude was complete and undisturbed. At four o'clock in the afternoon we halted near a small pond of water, where we took up our residence for the night, lighted a fire, and prepared to cook our supper-that was to broil over a couple of ramrods a few slices of salt pork, and a crow which we had shot. At daylight we renewed our peregrination, and in an hour after, we found ourselves on the banks of a river nearly as broad as the Thames at Putney, and apparently of great depth, the current running very slowly in a northerly direction. Vast flocks of wild ducks were swimming in the stream, but, after being once fired at, they grew so shy that we could not get near them a second time. Nothing is more certain than that the sound of a gun had never before been heard within many a mile of this spot."

Later in the year, in December 1789, Dawes (right), accompanied by two other experienced explorers, Lieutenant George Johnston and Surgeon's mate Lowes, forded the Nepean River near the present site of Penrith and headed towards Round Hill (Mount Hay). Three days later it is recorded that 'they returned, not having been able to proceed more than fifteen miles.' After meeting a 'sucession of deep ravines, the sides of which were frequently inaccessible' they had reached a point slightly north-west of Linden, beyond which, as far as the eye could see, the country was merely a repetition of that which they had just traversed with such difficulty. With a recorder of the expedition to Botany Bay and a captain of the marines, Watkin Tench, he discovered the upper Nepean River and opened the way to Cowpastures, south west of Parramatta. Like many who were to follow him, he had attempted the crossing by sticking to the valleys and got as far as Lapstone before sheer cliffs blocked his path. Two years later, Dawes and Tench climbed Knight Hill (Kurrajong) the view was just the same.

In August, 1790, Messrs. Tench, Dawes, and Morgan explored south and west of Rose Hill. They struck the Nepean higher up, nearer its source than on the former occasion, and remained out seven days, penetrating to a considerable distance in a south-west direction. Near the end of the same month, the same party made an excursion to the north-west of Rose Hill, and traced the Nepean to where it was first discovered by Tench's party in 1789. In April 1791, Dawes explored more of the Nepean and the Hawkesbury Rivers. He also laid out some of the first streets plus Sydney and Parramatta allotments.

 

WILLIAM DAWES (1762-1836)

The son of a Clerk of Works in the Ordnance Office, Portsmouth, William was an intelligent boy with a keen, inquisitive mind. When he wasn't gazing at the stars through a telescope set up in his bedroom, he was in his father 's office helping him copy old maps and adding detail to new ones. Living near the Royal Dockyard, he would have seen the ships of the King's Navy being built and dreamed of the day he would sail the high seas in search of adventure on one of them.

At the age of 17 after completing his education, William did what many young Portsmouth boy did and joined the Royal Navy. During his two years of service with the artillery as a second lieutenant, he saw plenty of action, which included the conflict at Bunker Hill, and action against the French at Chesapeake Bay in which he was wounded.

Dawes appears to have been in his father's office when Cook brought in the maps and charts of his voyage to New South Wales and he had a fascination for Cook's stories of adventure and discovery. When the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Lord Sydney, announced in August 1786 that a colony was to be established there, he was one of the first to sign on. Having built quite a reputation as a navigator, he was interviewed by Dr Maskeleyne, the Astronomer Royal, who offered him a task not dissimilar to the one he had entrusted to Lieutenant James Cook on his first expedition to the Pacific: to observe a comet that had last been seen in 1661 and which, according to his calculations, would appear again towards the end of 1788 but only in the southern hemisphere.

Equipped to set up the first observatory ever in the southern hemisphere, Dawes set sail aboard the the Sirius with the First Fleet, an Officer of Engineers and Artillery in the staff of Major Robert Ross, of the detachment of Marines, transferring to HMS Supply with Governor elect Arthur Phillip and Lieutenant Gidley King at Table Bay. His task during the journey south was to take charge of the flagship's chronometer and chart the course of the whole fleet into the unknown waters of the Southern and Pacific Oceans. Dawes' meteorological journal provides a detailed chronology of the early weather of the colony from September 1788 until his departure for England in December 1791.

Upon arrival after the site of the settlement had been established, Dawes was given permission to set up his observatory on the rocky point to the west of Sydney Cove, which was named in honour of Dr Maskeleyne. Faced with the task of building a colony from scratch but utilising a workforce with little or no engineering skills, Phillip recalled his conversations with Dawes on the journey out in which he told of his experiences working with his father in the Ordnance Office. Phillip sought his assistance and not being one to turn down an opportunity, Dawes accepted Phillip's offer of employment as Sydney's first assistant town planner and sidekick to the surveyor-general Augustus Alt in March 1788. In that capacity he laid out George, Harrington and Cumberland Streets in the main settlement after an earlier plan by Gov. Phillip proved somewhat impractical and constructed four batteries around the harbour including one alongside his obsevatory. Six months later, he laid out the Parramatta town centre, following the grid pattern he had seen so often on maps in his father's office.

On expeditions up the Parramatta and Hawkesbury Rivers, Dawes' exceptional skills as a mathematician, surveyor, draughtsman and botanist came to the fore. When it came time to find a way across the Blue Mountains, Dawes was again ready and willing to take up the challenge and volunteered to lead the first expedition in 1789. Like many who were to follow him, he attempted the crossing by sticking to the valleys and got as far as Lapstone before sheer cliffs blocked his path. Three expeditions and 24 years later the mountains would finally be onquered when Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth took a different tack, following the peaks rather than the valleys.

A descendant of Sir William Dawes who was the Archbishop of York in the early 18th Century, the First Fleeter was a devout christian who believed that God had made all men equal, and he was not afraid to come to the aid of convicts or Aborigines if he felt they were being mistreated. Dawes was one of the few early settlers who did not see the Aborigines as unintelligent savages, but rather a kindly, deeply religious people at harmony with their environment who had risen to and met the challenges of survival in a hostile environment. He was fascinated by their culture and spent many hours listening to their stories of the dreamtime and learning about their complex culture. Whereas Capt. Hunter and Capt. Tench made one-on-one lists of Aboriginal words and their English equivalents, in his unpublished notes, titled The Vocabulary of the Language of N.S. Wales, Dawes documented a number of conversations he had with a native woman, looking beyond the words themselves, translating expressions and documenting responses. His notes give a rare insight into a culture that was to vanish during the course of his own lifetime.

In December 1790, Dawes was part of a group sent by Governor Phillip to bring justice a group of Aborigines who had attacked and killed a white settler in the Botany Bay area. The punishment demanded by Phillip was particularly severe and Dawes, appalled at what he was expected to do, refused to go. After a long talk with the colony's chaplain Samuel Johnston he finally consented to go, but his initial refusal and public statements about the incident later caused a rift between him and Phillip that would never be healed. Dawes lost the respect of Phillip and his standing in the colony and when he applied for a second three-year term of service as an ensign in the newly formed NSW Corps, his request was granted provided he apologise for his public statements. This he refused to do and sailed with the Marines in December 1791.

On his return to Britain, he spent some time working with William Wilberforce and became very active in the cause of the abolition of slavery. Within a year he had accepted a post in Sierra Leone where a colony was being established for former slaves to live in peace and freedom. His years in Sierra Leone were some of the happiest of his life. During his time there he married and had three children, and was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. He became a counselor to the Governor and played a major role in Freetown's design and construction, a mirror of his role in Sydney. He held the post of Governor three times and was one of the commissioners of enquiry who oversaw the transition of power when Sierra Leone became a Crown colony in 1808. With that task successfully completed, he returned to England. Following the death of his wife, he worked with the Church Missionary Society training missionaries. In 1823 he married one of the trainees and moved to the Caribbean island of Antigua where they were actively involved in the anti-slavery cause. He died in Antigua in 1836, survived by his second wife, a son and a daughter.

His son, William Dutter Dawes (1799-1868), followed in his father's footsteps and became both a Nonconformist clergyman and a leading British astronomer. He established the Dawes Limit used by astronomers and among his scientific discoveries are the "crepe rings" of Saturn and Jupiter's Great Red Spot. He has a crater on Mars and one on the Moon named after him.

Over the years, the exploits of his father have been overshadowed by those of other First Fleeters like Arthur Phillip and Gidley King. Had the name of Maskeleyne Point not been changed to Dawes Point in honour of the young lieutenant who established an observatory there in 1788, the memory of this enthusiastic pioneer who excelled in everything he put his hand to and the significant role he played in the establishment of the colony of Sydney might well have been forgotten forever.