46 Facts About Matthew Flinders

Captain Matthew Flinders was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland.

Matthew Flinders is credited as being the first person to utilise the name Australia to describe the entirety of that continent including Van Diemen's Land, a title he regarded as being "more agreeable to the ear" than previous names such as Terra Australis.

Matthew Flinders' health had suffered and although he returned to Britain in 1810, he did not live to see the success of his widely praised book and atlas, A Voyage to Terra Australis.

Matthew Flinders was born in Donington, Lincolnshire, the son of Matthew Flinders, a surgeon, and his wife Susannah.

On this voyage Matthew Flinders, became friends with the ship's surgeon George Bass who was three years his senior and had been born at Aswarby 11 miles from Donington.

Bass had by this stage returned to Britain and in his place Matthew Flinders recruited his brother Samuel Matthew Flinders and a Kuringgai man named Bungaree for the voyage.

In March 1800, Matthew Flinders rejoined Reliance and returned to Britain.

Matthew Flinders' work had come to the attention of many of the scientists of the day, in particular the influential Sir Joseph Banks, to whom Matthew Flinders dedicated his Observations on the Coasts of Van Diemen's Land, on Bass's Strait, etc.

Aboard Investigator, Matthew Flinders reached and named Cape Leeuwin on 6 December 1801, and proceeded to make a survey along the southern coast of the Australian mainland.

In nearby Oyster Harbour, Matthew Flinders found a copper plate that Captain Christopher Dixson, on Elligood, had left the year before.

On 8 April 1802, while sailing east, Matthew Flinders sighted Geographe, a French corvette commanded by the explorer Nicolas Baudin, who was on a similar expedition for his government.

Matthew Flinders named the bay in which they met Encounter Bay.

Matthew Flinders scaled Arthur's Seat, the highest point near the shores of the southernmost parts of the bay, and wrote that the land had "a pleasing and, in many parts, a fertile appearance".

Matthew Flinders spent 12 weeks in Sydney resupplying and enlisting further crew for the continuation of the expedition to the northern coast of Australia.

Matthew Flinders set sail again on 22 July 1802, heading north and surveying the coast of what would later be called Queensland.

Matthew Flinders ordered muskets be fired above their heads to disperse them.

Matthew Flinders exited the reefs near to the Whitsunday Islands and sailed Investigator north to the Torres Strait.

At nearby Caledon Bay, Matthew Flinders took a 14-year-old boy named Woga captive in order to coerce the local people to return a stolen axe.

On 17 February 1803, near Cape Wilberforce, the expedition encountered a Makassan trepanging fleet captained by a man called Pobasso, from whom Matthew Flinders obtained information about the region.

Matthew Flinders sailed to Sydney via Timor and the western and southern coasts of Australia.

Matthew Flinders navigated the ship's cutter across open sea back to Sydney, and arranged for the rescue of the remaining marooned crew.

The relationship between the men soured: Matthew Flinders was affronted at his treatment, and Decaen insulted by Matthew Flinders' refusal of an invitation to dine with him and his wife.

Decaen was suspicious of the alleged scientific mission as the Cumberland carried no scientists and Decaen's search of Matthew Flinders' vessel uncovered a trunk full of papers that were not permitted under his scientific passport.

Matthew Flinders had been confined for the first few months of his captivity, but he was later afforded greater freedom to move around the island and access his papers.

Matthew Flinders used the name New Holland on his map only for the western part of the continent.

Matthew Flinders was in poor health but immediately resumed work preparing A Voyage to Terra Australis and his atlas of maps for publication.

Matthew Flinders died, aged 40, on 19 July 1814 from kidney disease, at his London home at 14 London Street, later renamed Maple Street and now the site of the BT Tower.

Part of the gardens, located between Hampstead Road and Euston railway station, was built over when Euston station was expanded, and Matthew Flinders' grave was thought to possibly lie under a station platform.

Matthew Flinders's coffin was identified by its well-preserved lead coffin plate.

The 'Matthew Flinders Bring Him Home Group' and the Britain-Australia Society, as well as Flinders' direct descendants, campaigned to have his remains interred at the Church of St Mary and the Holy Rood in Donington.

On 17 October 2019 HS2 Ltd announced that Matthew Flinders remains could be reinterred in the church in Donington, where he was baptised.

On 17 April 1801, Matthew Flinders married his longstanding friend Ann Chappelle and had hoped to take her with him to Port Jackson.

Matthew Flinders brought Ann on board ship and planned to ignore the rules, but the Admiralty learned of his plans and reprimanded him for his bad judgement, and ordered him to remove her from the ship.

The Lords of the Admiralty have heard that Mrs Matthew Flinders is on board the Investigator, and that you have some thought of carrying her to sea with you.

Matthew Flinders was not the first to use the word "Australia", nor was he the first to apply the name specifically to the continent.

Matthew Flinders owned a copy of Alexander Dalrymple's 1771 book An Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, and it seems likely he borrowed it from there, but he applied it specifically to the continent, not the whole South Pacific region.

Later that year, he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks and mentioned "my general chart of Australia", a map that Matthew Flinders had constructed from all the information he had accumulated while he was in Australian waters and finished while he was detained by the French in Mauritius.

Matthew Flinders continued to promote the use of the word until his arrival in London in 1810.

The book was published on 18 July 1814, but Matthew Flinders did not regain consciousness and died the next day, never knowing that his name for the continent would be accepted.

Banks wrote a draft of an introduction to Matthew Flinders' Voyage, referring to the map published by Melchisedech Thevenot in Relations des Divers Voyages, and made well known to English readers by Emanuel Bowen's adaptation of it, A Complete Map of the Southern Continent, published in John Campbell's editions of John Harris's Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, or Voyages and Travels.

Matthew Flinders' book was widely read and gave the term "Australia" general currency.

Matthew Flinders is seen as being particularly important in South Australia, where he is considered the main explorer of the state.

Matthew Flinders coined the term "dodge tide" in reference to his observations that the tides in the very shallow Spencer and St Vincent's Gulfs seemed to be completely inert for several days, at select locations.

Flinder's Memorial in Maconde, Mauritius - The Captain Matthew Flinders Memorial is a stone memorial located close to Maconde, Mauritius on the ocean's edge.

The memorial is located close to where Captain Matthew Flinders landed on the 17th December 1803, whilst commanding HMS Cumberland.

The details show Captain Matthew Flinders, sitting at his desk with a map showing the Indian Ocean and Australia.