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Port Essington is an inlet and historic site located on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park in Australia's
Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
. It was the site of an early attempt at British settlement, but now exists only as a remote series of ruins.


Settlement

In August 1618 Lenaert Jacobszoon, the captain of the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
vessel ''
Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...
'', marked the point on the entrance to what was later called Port Essington, on the Dutch charts as Kape Schildpad (Cape Turtle). In the early 19th century, the British government became interested in establishing a settlement on Australia's northern coastline in order to facilitate trade with
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
. Port Essington was named on 23 April 1818 by
Phillip Parker King Rear Admiral Phillip Parker King, FRS, RN (13 December 1791 – 26 February 1856) was an early explorer of the Australian and Patagonian coasts. Early life and education King was born on Norfolk Island, to Philip Gidley King and Anna ...
in 'as a tribute of my respect for the memory of my lamented friend, Vice-Admiral Sir William Essington', who was in command of '' Triumph'' at the
battle of Camperdown The Battle of Camperdown (known in Dutch as the ''Zeeslag bij Kamperduin'') was a major naval action fought on 11 October 1797, between the British North Sea Fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Batavian Navy (Dutch) fleet under Vice-Admiral ...
in October 1797. Sir J.G.Bremer took possession of the mainland on 20 September 1824 and founded the short-lived colony. A local Aboriginal leader Medlone, also known as Jack Davis, acted as a messenger and manager for relations with the local Aboriginal people. In 1824 Port Essington was proposed as the first such settlement, but was later passed over in favour of Fort Dundas on Melville Island and Fort Wellington at Raffles Bay. In 1831, a small station was constructed in the area, on Wurango clan land, in the hope of using it as a stopping point for ships, but it was rarely used. When both Fort Dundas and Fort Wellington failed within several years, the Port Essington site was revisited. As a result, a settlement, officially named Victoria Settlement after the young
Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...
, but popularly known as Port Essington, was established by Sir J. Gordon Bremer in 1838 and surveyed by
Charles Tyers Captain Charles James Tyers RN FRSV (13 September 1806 – 20 September 1870) was a 19th-century Anglo-Australian surveyor and explorer, and the Commissioner of Crown Lands for Portland (1842–43) and Gippsland (1844–67). There are many Au ...
in 1839. It consisted of 24 houses and a hospital. A description of the harbour and settlement was communicated to the Royal Geographical Society, London, in 1839. On 24 August 1839 the only play ever staged in Port Essington was performed, the 1797 comedy in five acts ''Cheap Living'' by Frederick Reynolds."Victoria's secrets reveal death and noble failure"
by Mark Day, ''
The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'' (30 October 2010). Accessed 9 April 2011
The set and costume design was by Owen Stanley (1811–1850). The play was performed again in 2010 with a grant from the Government of the Northern Territory, with
Tom Pauling Thomas Ian Pauling (born 13 December 1946) is an Australian lawyer and a former Administrator of the Northern Territory. Career Born in Sydney, Pauling was educated at Drummoyne Boys' High School, and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) fr ...
, Administrator of the Northern Territory, acting as narrator in the play. While the British government intended to establish Port Essington as a major trading port, along the lines of Singapore, the new settlement suffered from the same adverse conditions that had previously plagued Fort Dundas and Fort Wellington. The settlement lacked resources and supplies and skilled labour. While some prefabricated buildings were brought from Sydney, many had to be built with what materials could be found in the area, and due to the unskilled nature of the builders, many of these were of poor quality. Disease was also rampant among the small population, and living conditions were poor. Consequently, it struggled to attract settlers, and the post was much-disliked by the troops stationed there.


Setbacks

Port Essington suffered a further setback when the settlement was demolished by a cyclone on 25 November 1839. The cyclone killed twelve people, drove the ship HMS ''Pelorus'' aground, and caused a 3.2 metre storm surge. The settlement was rebuilt afterwards, with some stone and brick buildings, due to the assistance of a brick maker who had been shipwrecked during the storm. Despite these setbacks, there was still widespread hope that Port Essington might be able to break the curse, as evidenced by
Ludwig Leichhardt Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (), known as Ludwig Leichhardt, (23 October 1813 – c. 1848) was a German explorer and naturalist, most famous for his exploration of northern and central Australia.Ken Eastwood,'Cold case: Leichhardt's dis ...
's 1844/1845 expedition. The New South Wales government had hoped to establish a direct line of communication with Asia, India and the Pacific, and supported Leichhardt's journey, which successfully charted an overland route between Moreton Bay (now Brisbane) and Port Essington. A detailed map of Ludwig Leichhardt's route in Australia from Moreton Bay to Port Essington (1844 & 1845), from his Original Map, adjusted and drawn... by John Arrowsmith was ranked #8 in the ‘Top 150: Documenting Queensland’ exhibition when it toured to venues around Queensland from February 2009 to April 2010. The exhibition was part of Queensland State Archives’ events and exhibition program which contributed to the state’s Q150 celebrations, marking the 150th anniversary of the
separation of Queensland The Separation of Queensland was an event in 1859 in which the land that forms the present-day State of Queensland in Australia was excised from the Colony of New South Wales and created as a separate Colony of Queensland. History European set ...
from New South Wales. In 1844, a group of convicts, which included trained masons and quarry men among them, was stationed at Port Essington. They were able to build a hospital of some quality at a beacon. This was followed by the 1846 decision of Father Angelo Confalonieri to found a Catholic mission nearby, in an attempt to convert the local population. He had some success, converting around 400 people, but he died of fever in 1848, and the mission died with him. Port Essington was still failing to attract settlers, and it was becoming increasingly clear both that the 1844 works had come too late, and that the settlement was unsustainable. Visiting the settlement in December 1848, soon before its closure, British scientist
Thomas Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stori ...
wrote that Port Essington was "most wretched, the climate the most unhealthy, the human beings the most uncomfortable and houses in a condition most decayed and rotten".


Abandonment

Finally, in 1849, Port Essington was, like the two previous attempts, abandoned. The demise of the settlement saw the end of British attempts at occupying the north coast. There would be one further unsuccessful attempt, by the
Government of South Australia The Government of South Australia, also referred to as the South Australian Government, SA Government or more formally, His Majesty’s Government, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of South Australia. It is modelled o ...
and Frederick Henry Litchfield in 1864, at Escape Cliffs (also known as Palmerston) near the mouth of the Adelaide River, before the first permanent settlement was established at Darwin (also initially known as Palmerston), in 1869. The ruins of Port Essington still exist today, and while access is difficult, it is possible to do so by several means. It is possible to fly in through tours that can be arranged in Darwin, or to travel to the area alone by four-wheel drive or boat – although, as the ruins lie on Aboriginal land, a permit must be obtained first. Cabins and some camping sites are available at Black Point Ranger Station. The Australian industrialist Essington Lewis was named after Port Essington.


References


Further reading

* ''Cobourg Peninsular historic sites: Gurig National Park''. Darwin, N.T. Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory. 1999–2000. 7 volumes
v. 1. Cobourg Peninsular historic sites conservation plan – v. 2. Executive summary – v. 3. Raffles Bay heritage precinct – v. 4. Victoria Settlement heritage precinct – v. 5. Port Essington heritage precinct – v. 6. Cape Don Lighthouse complex – v. 7. Cobourg Peninsular historic sites original reference documentation
Record
at the
National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "maint ...
* Alan Powell, ''World's End: British military outposts in the ring fence around Australia'', Melbourne University Press, 2016. *Jim Allen, ''Port Essington: The historical archaeology of a north Australian nineteenth-century outpost,'' Sydney University Press in association with the Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology, 2008; . A typescript of the 1969 thesis on which this book is based is available at th
Australian National University's Open Research Library
* Mark McKenna, ''From the Edge: Australia's lost histories'', Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2016. *


External links


Port Essington
NT Place Names Register Extract
Photographs in 2009 from Northern Territory LibraryBibliography from Northern Territory LibrarySearch for historic photos on Port Essington
{{Coord, 11, 21, 38, S, 132, 09, 12, E, display=title, type:adm1st_region:AU-NT Bodies of water of the Northern Territory History of the Northern Territory 1838 establishments in Australia 1849 disestablishments Cobourg Peninsula Abandoned settlements in the Northern Territory Inlets of Australia Ghost towns in the Northern Territory