Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) was an English naval captain and hydrographer who prepared detailed charts of much of the Australian coastline.

Matthew Flinders was born on March 16, 1774, at Donnington, Lincolnshire, and educated in a local grammar school. Instead of becoming a surgeon like his father, he entered the Royal Navy at 15 and accompanied William Bligh on his second voyage to Tahiti in 1791. In 1794 Flinders saw action against the French in the English Channel and the following year went to New South Wales.

Accompanied in 1796 by George Bass, a naval surgeon, Flinders first explored Botany Bay and the coastline south of Sydney in an 8-foot open boat, the Tom Thumb. Between October 1798 and January 1799 Flinders and Bass, who had recently discovered the Bass Strait separating Tasmania from the mainland, sailed around Tasmania in the sloop Norfolk. In the summer of 1799 Flinders surveyed the coastline north of Sydney as far as Moreton Bay (Queensland).

After returning to England in 1800, Flinders published an account of his work, and the Admiralty decided that he should chart the whole Australian coastline. With the rank of commander, he was put in charge of H. M. S. Investigator and in July 1801, 3 months after his marriage, Flinders set out on a voyage which places him among the world's foremost navigators. From December 1801 Flinders made charts and collected botanical specimens along the unknown coast of the Great Australian Bight, and in April 1802 he met the French explorer Nicolas Baudin in Encounter Bay. After a refit, Flinders's expedition proceeded up the Queensland coast, passed through Torres Strait, and reached the Gulf of Carpentaria in November 1802. The Investigator became unseaworthy and, unable to complete the survey, Flinders sailed down the west coast and rounded the continent before returning to Sydney in June 1803.

In order to enlist support for a further expedition, Flinders embarked for England late in 1803. Forced to call at Mauritius, he was held captive for 6 years by the French governor because England and France were again at war. While Flinders worked on his journals, Baudin foreshadowed his discoveries by publishing maps of the "Terre Napoleon." Flinders returned to England in 1810 in poor health and published Voyage to Terra Australis the day before his death on July 19, 1814.

Flinders ranks second only to James Cook among the explorers of the period. His life was dedicated to discovery, and his careful scientific observations have stood the test of time. Seafarers were indebted to him for observations on the action of tides and on compass error produced by iron in ships. Flinders wanted to name the new continent Australia, but the Admiralty preferred New Holland.

Further Reading

Several books have modified the picture of Flinders presented in Ernest Scott's pioneer biography, The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders (1914). A straightforward account of Flinders's career which deals at length with the 1801-1803 survey is K. A. Austin, The Voyage of the Investigator (1964). James D. Mack, Matthew Flinders, 1774-1814 (1966), praises Flinders's scientific work. Sidney John Baker, My Own Destroyer (1962), explores a similar theme, attributing deficiencies in Flinders's character to the relationship between father and son. In Ernestine Hill, My Love Must Wait (1942), Flinders's career forms the basis of a charming novel.

Additional Sources

Ingleton, Geoffrey C.(Geoffrey Chapman), Matthew Flinders: navigator and chartmaker, Guildford, Surrey, England: Genesis Publications in association with Hedley Australia, 1986. □

Flinders, Matthew (1774–1814), British navigator and explorer who entered the Royal Navy in 1789, served at the battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794, and in the following year sailed as a midshipman to Australia in the Reliance taking Captain John Hunter to govern New South Wales. He struck up a close friendship with the surgeon on board, George Bass (1771–c.1803?), with whom he shared an enthusiasm for exploration by sea. After they reached Sydney in September 1795 the two, individually and in company, made several surveys, some of them in a small boat called Tom Thumb which Bass had brought with him from England. At that time it was thought that Tasmania, then called Van Diemen's Land, was part of the Australian mainland, but Bass and Flinders came to the conclusion, independently, that this might not be the case. Governor Hunter was interested in their theory and gave them the chance of testing it, and on 7 October 1798 they sailed from Port Jackson in the sloop Norfolk. After discovering the existence of what was later named Bass Strait, they accomplished the first circumnavigation of Tasmania. This was the last exploration the two made together and both returned to England. In 1803 Bass disappeared on a trading voyage to Peru.

In England, Flinders, who had been promoted to lieutenant while in Australia, was appointed to command the sloop Investigator. With his cousin John Franklin aboard he sailed in July 1801 to Australia where, between December 1801 and May 1802, he surveyed much of the Great Bight, including St Vincent's Gulf (where Adelaide now stands), Bass Strait, and Port Phillip (site of Melbourne), before reaching Port Jackson (Sydney). In July 1802 he continued the circumnavigation of Australia in his ship, now worn out and leaky, surveying parts of the Great Barrier Reef and the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, before sailing anticlockwise around the continent, returning to Port Jackson on 9 June 1803. It was a voyage of great privation for all aboard and resulted in the loss of many of Flinders's crew through scurvy and other causes, and damaged his own health.

Besides his extensive surveys, Flinders made many scientific studies, particularly regarding the deviation of the magnetic compass caused by the iron components of his ship, which were to prove of the greatest importance; the compensating bars placed in the binnacle of a magnetic compass are still named after him. With the massive collection of material and papers arising out of his voyages, he set off for England as a passenger, but was first of all wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef, and was then made a prisoner of war when the schooner he was travelling in stopped at the French island of Mauritius in December 1803. This misfortune was caused because his French passport, which should have protected him, was made out specifically for the Investigator and not for the ship he was on. His captivity lasted until 1811 and his health deteriorated further during his detention, but on his return to England he nevertheless managed to compile his splendid account of his accomplishments, A Voyage to Terra Australis, dying on the day that it was published.

Bibliography

Estensen, M. , The Life of Matthew Flinders (2003).

Flinders, Matthew (1774–1814). Flinders accurately delineated the coasts of Australia and began the practice of using that name for it. After joining the Royal Navy in 1789, Flinders served with Bligh before surveying the New South Wales coast in detail in 1795. In 1798–9 he and Bass circumnavigated Tasmania, proving its separation from the mainland and impressing naval and scientific opinion in Britain with his qualities as an explorer. A new scientific expedition led by him 1801–3 mapped the coasts of nearly all Australia with great accuracy, completing the basic exploration of the Pacific Ocean section of the world. Flinders became a prisoner of war of the French on his way home but was released from Mauritius in 1809.

Roy C. Bridges

Matthew Flinders 1774–1814, English naval captain and hydrographer, noted for his charting and coast surveys of Australia and Tasmania. From 1795 to 1799 and again from 1801 to 1803 he made valuable maps and charts of the water and coasts, circumnavigating both Australia and Tasmania. He is said to have been the first to perceive and correct compass errors caused by iron ships. He wrote A Voyage to Terra Australis (1814). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie was his grandson.

Bibliography: See biography by J. D. Mack (1966); study by M. Colwell (1970).

Flinders, Matthew (1774–1814). Flinders accurately delineated the coasts of Australia and began the practice of using that name for it. After joining the Royal Navy in 1789, Flinders served with Bligh before surveying the New South Wales coast in 1795. In 1798–9 he and Bass circumnavigated Tasmania. A new scientific expedition led by him 1801–3 mapped the coasts of nearly all Australia.