History of The Northern Territory - European Exploration and Settlement

European Exploration and Settlement

Following the European settlement of Australian in 1788, four unsuccessful attempts were made to settle coastal areas of the Northern Territory prior to the establishment of Darwin. On 30 September 1824 British Captain James Gordon Bremer established Fort Dundas on Melville Island as a part of the Colony of New South Wales. Fort Dundas was the first settlement in Northern Australia, however poor relations with the Tiwi, cyclones and other difficulties of tropical living, led to the Fort being abandoned in 1828. A second settlement was established on the Cobourg Peninsula at Raffles Bay on 18 June 1827. Fort Wellington was founded by Captain James Stirling, however it was also abandoned in 1829.

The British made a third attempt in 1838, establishing Fort Victoria at Port Essingtonon 27 October 1838. Bremer was in command of the new settlement, in July 1839 the HMS Beagle and her crew visited the settlement. Bremer left the settlement in 1839 and following his departure conditions in the settlement deteriorated. Explorer Ludwig Leichhardt travelled from Moreton Bay, overland to Port Essington. An unsuccessful migration scheme was tried, and the first Catholic priest Father Angelo Confalonieri in the area arrived in 1846, however the settlement disbanded on 1 December 1849.

European explorers made their last great, often arduous and sometimes tragic expeditions into the interior of Australia during the second half of the 19th century – some with the official sponsorship of the colonial authorities and others commissioned by private investors. By 1850, large areas of the inland were still unknown to Europeans. Trailblazers like Edmund Kennedy and the Prussian naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt, had met tragic ends attempting to fill in the gaps during the 1840s, but explorers remained ambitious to discover new lands for agriculture or answer scientific inquiries. Surveyors also acted as explorers and the colonies sent out expeditions to discover the best routes for lines of communication. The size of expeditions varied considerably from small parties of just two or three to large, well equipped teams led by gentlemen explorers assisted by smiths, carpenters, labourers and Aboriginal guides accompanied by horses, camels or bullocks.

In 1862, John McDouall Stuart succeeded in traversing Central Australia from south to north. His expedition mapped out the route which was later followed by the Australian Overland Telegraph Line.

Uluru and Kata Tjuta were first mapped by Europeans in 1872 during the expeditionary period made possible by the construction of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line. In separate expeditions, Ernest Giles and William Gosse were the first European explorers to this area. While exploring the area in 1872, Giles sighted Kata Tjuta from a location near Kings Canyon and called it Mount Olga, while the following year Gosse observed Uluru and named it Ayers Rock, in honor of the Chief Secretary of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers. These barren dessert lands of Central Australia disappointed the Europeans as unpromising for pastoral expansion, but would later come to be appreciated as emblematic of Australia.

In 1863 the Northern Territory was annexed by South Australia by Letters patent. Following annexation of the Territory by South Australia a fourth attempt at settlement occurred in 1864 at Escape Cliffs, about 75 km from present day Darwin. Colonel Boyle Travis Finniss was responsible for the settlement, there were numerous confrontations with the local Marananggu Aborigines, and when he was recalled to Adelaide in 1867 the settlement disbanded. The South Australian government also tried to find sites for additional settlements, sending explorer John McKinlay to search in the region of the Adelaide River, however he had no success.

Finally, on 5 February 1869, George Goyder, the Surveyor-General of South Australia, established a small settlement of 135 men and women at Port Darwin. Goyder named the settlement Palmerston, after the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston. In 1870, the first poles for the Overland Telegraph were erected in Darwin connecting Australia to the rest of the World. The construction of the Overland Telegraph led to more exploration of the interior of the Territory and the discovery of gold at Pine Creek in the 1880s further boosted the young colony's development. In the late 19th century the Northern Territory was known as Alexandria Land.