Did you know this about
The Great Explorers?
Did you Know?
The endeavours of three Lincolnshire men, Sir Joseph Banks, George Bass and Matthew Flinders, opened up the natural history and mapping of Australia.
Banks sailed with Captain Cook on HMS Endeavour (1768-71) acting as the expedition's chief naturalist. Banks brought back huge collections from Australia, including over 30,000 plant specimens. Today you can see the exotic plants he helped discover in the courtyard of The Joseph Banks Centre. Banks kept kangaroos on his estate at Revesby in Lincolnshire and clearly had sufficient stock to send a spare to Paris in 1789.
Banks was influential in the mounting of Flinders's voyage on HMS Investigator, in particular ensuring there were plenty of naturalists on board. This led to the circumnavigation and mapping of the mainland, Flinders's 1804 chart being the first to show the complete coastline of Australia.
Flinders had made a previous journey to Australia accompanied by his friend George Bass on HMS Reliance. Bass sailed in an open whaleboat down the coast of New South Wales and proved that Tasmania was wholly separated from the Australian mainland, by what is now known as the Bass Strait. He was also the first European to encounter and describe a wombat, "The wombat is about the size of a turnspit dog. It is a squat, short-legged and rather inactive quadruped with an appearance of great stumpy strength. Its figure and movements, if they do not resemble those of the bear at least remind one of that animal….".
Of these three great explorers, only one, Banks, ended his life in his home country at a ripe old age.
Bass was last seen in 1803 when he left Sydney en route to Chile, he was buried at sea.
Flinders died aged 40, his health broken by his gruelling voyages, his masterpiece, A Voyage to Terra Australis had just been published. The story does not end here, the coffin of Matthew Flinders, complete with its brass plaque, was found during the building of HS2 at Euston and its final resting place will be at the church where he was baptised, in his home village of Donington.
