Arthur Phillip
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Admiral Arthur Phillip (1786 portrait by Francis Wheatley, National Portrait Gallery, London) |
Admiral
Arthur Phillip (
11 October 1738 –
31 August 1814) was a
British naval officer and colonial administrator. Phillip was appointed
Governor of
New South Wales, the first European colony on the
Australian continent, and was the founder of the city of
Sydney.
Arthur Phillip was born in
London in 1738, the son of Jacob Phillip, a German-born language teacher, and his English wife, Elizabeth, who had remarried after the death of her previous husband, a Royal Navy captain. Phillip was educated at the school of the
Greenwich Hospital and at the age of 13 was apprenticed to the
merchant navy.
Phillip joined the
Royal Navy at fifteen, and saw action at the outbreak of the
Seven Years' War in the
Mediterranean at the
Battle of Minorca in 1756. In 1762 he was promoted to
Lieutenant, but was placed on half pay when the Seven Years War ended in 1763. During this period he married, and farmed in
Hampshire.
In 1774 Phillip joined the
Portuguese Navy as a captain, serving in the war against
Spain. In 1778 England was again at war, and Phillip was recalled to active service, and in 1779 obtained his first command, the
Basilisk. He was promoted to captain in 1781, and was given command of the
Europe, but in 1784 he was back on half pay.
Then, in October
1786, Phillip was appointed captain of
HMS Sirius and appointed Governor-designate of
New South Wales, the proposed British
penal colony on the east coast of Australia. The appointment seems to have been the work of
George Rose, Under-Secretary of the Treasury and a neighbour of Phillip in Hampshire. He would have known of Phillip's experience in farming.
Phillip had a very difficult time assembling the fleet which was to make the eight-month sea voyage to Australia. Everything a new colony might need had to be taken, since Phillip had no real idea of what he might find when he got there. There were few funds available for equipping the expedition. His suggestion that people with experience in farming, building and crafts be included was rejected. Most of the 778 convicts were petty thieves from the London slums. Phillip was accompanied by a contingent of
marines and a handful of other officers who were to administer the colony.
The
First Fleet, of eleven ships, set sail on 13 May 1787. The leading ship reached
Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. Phillip soon decided that this site, chosen on the recommendation of
Sir Joseph Banks, who had accompanied
James Cook in 1770, was not suitable, since it offered no secure anchorage and had no reliable water source. After some exploration Phillip decided to go on to Port Jackson, and on
26 January the marines and convicts were landed at
Sydney Cove, which Phillip named after
Viscount Sydney, the
Home Secretary.
The early days of the settlement were chaotic and difficult. With limited supplies, the cultivation of food was imperative, but the soils around Sydney were poor, the climate was unfamiliar, and moreover very few of the convicts had any knowledge of
agriculture. Farming tools were scarce and the convicts were unwilling farm labourers. The colony was on the verge of outright
starvation for an extended period. The marines, poorly disciplined themselves in many cases, were not interested in convict discipline. Almost at once, therefore, Phillip had to appoint overseers from among the ranks of the convicts to get the others working. This was the beginning of the process of convict emancipation which was to culminate in the reforms of
Lachlan Macquarie after 1811.
Phillip showed in other ways that he recognised that
New South Wales could not be run simply as a prison camp. Two convicts, Henry and Suzannah Kable, sought to sue the captain of one the transport ships for stealing their possessions during the voyage. Convicts in Britain had no right to sue. But Phillip not only allowed this, he found in their favour, and ordered the captain to make restitution. Phillip had said before leaving England: "In a new country there will be no slavery and hence no slaves," and he meant what he said. Nevertheless, Phillip believed in discipline, and floggings and hangings were commonplace.
Phillip also had to adopt a policy towards the
Eora Aboriginal people, who lived around the waters of
Sydney Harbour. Phillip ordered that they must be well-treated, and that anyone killing Aboriginal people would be hanged. Phillip befriended an Eora man called
Bennelong, and later took him to England. On the beach at
Manly, a misunderstanding arose and Phillip was speared in the shoulder: but he ordered his men not to retaliate. Phillip went some way towards winning the trust of the Eora, although the settlers were at all times treated extremely warily. Soon,
smallpox and other European-introduced epidemics ravaged the Eora population.
The Governor's main problem was with his own military officers, who wanted large grants of land, to which Phillip would not agree. The officers were expected to grow food, but they considered this beneath them. As a result
scurvy broke out, and in October 1788 Phillip had to send
Sirius to
Cape Town for supplies, and strict rationing was introduced, with thefts of food punished by hanging.
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Arthur Phillip |
By 1790 the situation had stabilised. The population of about 2,000 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 others followed. But in June 1790 the
Second Fleet arrived with hundreds more convicts, most of them too sick to work.
Sirius was wrecked in March 1790, depriving Phillip of vital supplies. In an attempt to relieve the overcrowding, Phillip established a satellite settlement at
Norfolk Island, which later developed a terrible reputation as a place of severe punishment.
By December 1790 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 1791 he was advised that the government would send out two convoys of convicts annually, plus adequate supplies. But July, when the vessels of the
Third Fleet began to arrive, with 2,000 more convicts, food again ran short, and he had to send a ship to
Calcutta for supplies.
By 1792 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 1792 Phillip, whose health was suffering from the poor diet, at last received permission to leave, and on 11 December 1792 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 4,221, of whom 3,099 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 1793. He tendered his formal resignation and was granted a pension of £500 a year.
Phillip's wife, Margaret, had died in 1792. In 1794 he married Isabella Whitehead, and lived for a time at
Bath. His health gradually recovered and in 1796 he went back to sea, holding a series of commands and responsible posts in the wars against the French. In January 1799 he became a Rear-Admiral. In 1805, 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. He died at Bath in 1814.
Phillip was buried in St Nicholas's Church,
Bathampton. Forgotten for many years, the grave was discovered in 1897 and the Premier of New South Wales,
Sir Henry Parkes, had it restored. A monument to Phillip in
Bath Abbey Church was unveiled in 1937. Another was unveiled at St Mildred's Church, Bread St, London, in 1932; that church was destroyed in the
London Blitz in 1940, but the principal elements of the monument were re-erected at the west end of Watling Street, near
Saint Paul's Cathedral, in 1968. There is a statue of him in the
Botanic Gardens, Sydney. There is an excellent portrait in the
National Portrait Gallery, London. His name is commemorated in Australia by
Port Phillip,
Phillip Island and many streets, parks and schools.
Alan Serle wrote of Phillip in the
Australian Dictionary of Biography: "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."
*
M. Barnard Eldershaw,
Phillip of Australia, Angus and Robertson 1938
*
Free ebook of Arthur Phillip at
Project Gutenberg*
The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay With an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of
Port Jackson and
Norfolk Island (
1789) - from
Project Gutenberg*
Arthur Phillip High School,
Parramatta - state high ( years 7-12) school named for Phillip
