History
Polynesian people settled the Kermadec Islands in around the 14th century (and perhaps previously in the 10th century), but the first Europeans to reach the area—the Lady Penrhyn in May 1788—found no inhabitants. The islands were named for the French captain Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec, who visited the islands as part of the d'Entrecasteaux expedition in the 1790s. European settlers, initially the Bell family, lived on the islands from the early nineteenth century until 1937, as did whalers. One of the Bell daughters, Elsie K. Morton, recounted the family's experience there in her memoir, Crusoes of Sunday Island.
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