Matthew Flinders and the Charting of Australia's Coasts, 1798-1814

Abstract

This paper argues that the connections between the maritime explorer Matthew Flinders, the hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple, the mapmaker Aaron Arrowsmith, and the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, were crucial for improved knowledge about Australia’s coastal geography and cartography in the early nineteenth century. The paper also explains how geographical knowledge of Australia was advanced by the professional skills of these individuals. Flinders’s naval career was mainly focused on navigation and exploration in Australian waters. He undertook (with George Bass) the first circumnavigation of Van Diemen’s Land (in 1798/9), proving it was an island. Flinders led the first voyage to circumnavigate Australia in HMS Investigator between 1801 and 1803. Flinders used the latest scientific instruments and hydrographic techniques to explore Australia’s coastline. Drawing on the patronage of Banks and the hydrographical expertise of Dalrymple, Flinders and Arrowsmith combined their talents to produce a highly accurate atlas of Australia to accompany Flinders’s A Voyage to Terra Australis (1814).