British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
Gilbert Islands
The Gilbert Islands (;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this name applied o ...
) is named after him.
Biography
Thomas Gilbert and
John Marshall
John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American statesman, jurist, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remai ...
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
vessels of the
First Fleet
The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...
Botany Bay
Botany Bay (Dharawal language, Dharawal: ''Kamay'') is an open oceanic embayment, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point a ...
in 1788, when they sailed through the
Gilbert Islands
The Gilbert Islands (;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this name applied o ...
and described
Aranuka
Aranuka is an atoll of Kiribati, located just north of the equator, in the Gilbert Islands. It has an area of and a population of 1,057 in 2010. By local tradition, Aranuka is the central island of the Gilbert group.
Geography
Aranuka is an a ...
Abaiang
Abaiang, also known as Apaiang, Apia, and in the past, Charlotte Island, in the Northern Gilbert Islands, is a coral atoll of Kiribati, located in the west-central Pacific Ocean. Abaiang was the island of the first missionary to arrive in the G ...
and
Tarawa
Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati ''
First Fleet
The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...
carrying convicts to
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. They had sailed in a convoy under the command of
post-captain
Post-captain or post captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of captain in the Royal Navy. The term "post-captain" was descriptive only; it was never used as a title in the form "Post-Captain John Smith".
The term served to dis ...
Arthur Phillip
Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first Governor of New South Wales, governor of the Colony of New South Wales.
Phillip was educated at Royal Hospital School, Gree ...
,
New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
' first Governor.
The two vessels encountered their first island in the Gilberts on 17 June 1788.
In a 1944 article in ''
Life
Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...
''
Samuel Eliot Morison
Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and tau ...
wrote that this Island was told to be Abemama, but might have been
Aranuka
Aranuka is an atoll of Kiribati, located just north of the equator, in the Gilbert Islands. It has an area of and a population of 1,057 in 2010. By local tradition, Aranuka is the central island of the Gilbert group.
Geography
Aranuka is an a ...
. Gilbert visited
Tarawa
Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati ''
Second
The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...
and Third Thomas Shoals in the
Spratly Islands
The Spratly Islands (; zh, s=南沙群岛, t=南沙群島, p=Nánshā Qúndǎo; ; ) are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. Composed of islands, islets, cays, and more than 100 reefs, sometimes grouped in submerged old atoll ...
are named after Gilbert. They, along with the Scarborough shoal, were discovered during the ''Scarborough's'' voyages through the
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...
.
The modern country of
Kiribati
Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. Its permanent population is over 119,000 as of the 2020 census, and more than half live on Tarawa. The st ...
and its national language are also named after Gilbert, "Kiribati" being the pronunciation of his surname in the nation's indigenous language of Gilbertese.
Media
A character called Captain Paul Gilbert is portrayed by
James Mason
James Neville Mason (; 15 May 190927 July 1984) was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, three Golden Globes (winning once) and two ...