INDEX

• Introduction
• Maps
• Significant Places in Australia's Maritime History
• Naming Australia
• Naming Australia's Coastal Features

WHO DID DISCOVER AUSTRALIA?

• The Phoenecians & Egyptians
• The Greeks & Romans
• The Chinese
• The Muslims
• The Portuguese
• The Dutch
• The British
• The French

COLONIAL EXPLORATION

• Index
• The French
• The British
• Other
• Inland explorers

Colonial Exploration: George William Evans (1780 - 1852)

In 1812 surveyor George William Evans and his party, guided by an Aboriginal man named Bundle, journeyed from Jervis Bay to the Shoalhaven River. They crossed it in a bark canoe about where Nowra Animal Park is now located and climbed Cambewarra Mountain, where Evans remarked upon the magnificence of the view, which took in Kangaroo Valley. They then descended to Broughton Creek and struck out to the coast before returning to Appin.

Late in 1813, Evans, in his role as Assistant Surveyor-General, was sent to confirm the account of Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson and to establish beyond doubt the existence of the valuable lands to the west. They reached Mount Blaxland in 8 days and pushed onto the western plains reaching the Macquarie River.

In 1817, Governor Macquarie sent the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, John Oxley, with his assistant George Evans as second in command, on an expedition to follow the Lachlan River. They surveyed and mapped the river and discovered good grazing land west of Bathurst. When swamps blocked his way Oxley led the explorers north and returned to Bathurst, following the Macquarie River. In 1818, Oxley led another expedition to trace the course of the Macquarie River. As before on the Lachlan River he was blocked by swamps and marshes. Oxley led his men north-east and discovered the Castlereagh River and the fertile lands of the Liverpool Plains. Travelling east, the explorers crossed the Great Dividing Range, discovered the Hastings River and followed it to its mouth on the coast. Oxley named the coastal area Port Macquarie, after the governor, and then returned to Sydney.

George William Evans

Born England, 5th January 1780. Died Hobart, 16 October 1852. Short apprenticeship with an engineer and architect and some elementary training in surveying, Naval Store-Keeper's Department, Table Bay 1798-1802, store-keeper in charge of the receipt and issue of grain at Parramatta 1802-03, acting surveyor-general 1804-05, farming, Hawkesbury 1805-09, surveying, New South Wales 1809-12, deputy-surveyor of lands, Van Diemen's Land 1812-25, recalled to Sydney 1813 to try to find a passage into the interior (on this expedition he was the first European to cross the Great Dividing Range), in 1815 to act as guide on a tour of the country he had discovered in 1813, in 1817 to act as second-in-command to Oxley in an expedition setting out from Bathurst to determine the course of the Lachlan River and in 1818 to fill the position of second-in-command to Oxley in an attempt to trace the Macquarie River to its termination, art teacher, England 1826-32, bookseller and stationer, then drawing master , The King's School, then housed in Harrisford, George Street, Parramatta while his wife conducted a finishing school for young ladies, Hobart 1844-52. Commemorated by statues in Bathurst, Melbourne, Adelaide and the Mitchell Library, Sydney.