John Finnegan (explorer)

Last updated April 12, 2019

John Finnegan, a convict of the colony of New South Wales (now Australia), was one of four men who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823.^[1] The men were caught in a severe storm and driven north 728 km^[2] to Moreton Island off the coast of Brisbane, becoming the first Europeans to live in the area and the first to discover the Brisbane River.

New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Tasman Sea to the east. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state. New South Wales' state capital is Sydney, which is also Australia's most populous city. In September 2018, the population of New South Wales was over 8 million, making it Australia's most populous state. Just under two-thirds of the state's population, 5.1 million, live in the Greater Sydney area. Inhabitants of New South Wales are referred to as New South Welshmen.

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of 25 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Port Jackson and extends about 70 km (43.5 mi) on its periphery towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, 40 local government areas and 15 contiguous regions. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". As of June 2017, Sydney's estimated metropolitan population was 5,230,330 and is home to approximately 65% of the state's population.

Prior to this a number of earlier explorers had sailed the Moreton Bay area. Most notable was Matthew Flinders who spent 15 days in the general vicinity during his 1799 expedition from Port Jackson to Hervey Bay. Due to the difficulty of finding coastal rivers by seaward exploration, none of these explorers became aware of the existence of the Brisbane River.^[3] Later in 1823, when the Surveyor General, John Oxley, was commissioned by Governor Brisbane to find sites for further penal settlements, he made a trip to the Moreton Bay area. If not for a chance meeting with one of Finnegan’s surviving partners, Thomas Pamphlett, and the men telling him of a large freshwater river they had stumbled across some months earlier, Oxley may never have made the exploration that led to the establishment of Brisbane Town some years later.

Moreton Bay bay in Queensland, Australia

The Moreton Bay is a bay located on the eastern coast of Australia 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) from central Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources. The waters of Moreton Bay are a popular destination for recreational anglers and are used by commercial operators who provide seafood to market.

Captain Matthew Flinders was an English navigator and cartographer who led the first circumnavigation of Australia and identified it as a continent.

Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman Sea. It is the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The location of the first European settlement and colony on the Australian mainland, Port Jackson has continued to play a key role in the history and development of Sydney.

The 'Timbergetting' Voyage

The four men, Thomas Pamphlett, Richard Parsons, John Thompson and Finnegan himself, left Sydney on 21 March 1823 bound for the ‘Five Islands’ (Illawarra). They had been hired to fetch cedar wood. Shortly after they departed a fierce storm blew them out to sea and they were forced to go 21 days without water. During this time Thompson died and was buried at sea a few days later, his friends not being able to put their boat ashore. The three survivors were beached on Moreton Island on 16 April 1823 and made friends with the local Aborigines.^[4]

Thomas Pamphlett (1788?–1838), sometimes Pamphlet, also known as James Groom, was a convict in colonial Australia. He is best known for his time as a castaway in the Moreton Bay area, halfway up the eastern coast of Australia, in 1823. He was marooned with two others, Richard Parsons and John Finnegan, until rescued by explorer John Oxley on HMS Mermaid on 29 November of that year. They were the first white people to live in the area.

Richard Parsons, a sawyer and convict of the colony of New South Wales, was one of four free or ticket-of-leave men and the half proprietor of a boat who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823. The men were caught in a severe storm and driven north 728 km seeing their boat smashed at the northern end of Moreton Island off the coast of Brisbane, becoming possibly the first Europeans to live in the area and the first to discover the Brisbane River.

John Thompson, a convict of the colony of New South Wales, was one of four men who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823. The men were caught in a severe storm and driven north 728 km to Moreton Island of the coast of Brisbane, becoming the first Europeans to live in the area and the first to discover the Brisbane River.

Assuming themselves to be somewhere south of Jervis Bay, the explorers determined to get back to Sydney. The natives took them by boat across the passage to Stradbroke Island where they spent approximately six weeks with the Noonucal tribe before heading across to the mainland, pulling in somewhere around the Cleveland area. They then began to travel north in hope of reaching civilization. It wasn't long before the trio stumbled across a large river which they were unable to cross. They trekked upstream for almost a month, weakened due to lack of good food and hardly able to swim many of the creeks they encountered en route. Upon reaching Oxley Creek, however, they procured a canoe and attempted their first crossing of the river.^[5]

Jervis Bay is a 102-square-kilometre (39 sq mi) oceanic bay and village on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, said to possess the whitest sand in the world.

Cleveland is a major city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. The city proper has a population of 385,525, making it the 51st-largest city in the United States, and the second-largest city in Ohio. Greater Cleveland is ranked as the 32nd-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with 2,055,612 people in 2016. The city anchors the Cleveland–Akron–Canton Combined Statistical Area, which had a population of 3,515,646 in 2010 and is ranked 15th in the United States.

The Brisbane River is the longest river in South East Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay. John Oxley, the first European to explore the river, named it after the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane in 1823. The penal colony of Moreton Bay later adopted the same name, eventually becoming the present city of Brisbane.

Found

It was later in the year when John Oxley made his entrance into Moreton Bay. An extract from his diary on 19 November 1823 describes his unexpected meeting with Pamphlett:

"We rounded the Point Skirmish about 5 o'clock and observed a number of natives running along the beach towards the vessel, the foremost much lighter in colour than the rest. We were to the last degree astonished when he came abreast the vessel to hear him hail us in good English."

At the time of the meeting Finnegan was away on a hunting trip and Parsons had continued north in search of Sydney, an endeavour the other two men had decided to abandon, choosing rather to return to the Bribie Island area to live with the natives. When Finnegan returned the two men related to Oxley their discovery of the large river. Oxley was determined to explore it and, taking Finnegan with them as their guide, he and Stirling set off on 1 December 1823, entering the river the following day.

Bribie Island is the smallest and most northerly of three major sand islands forming the coastline sheltering the northern part of Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia. The others are Moreton Island and North Stradbroke Island. Bribie Island is 34 kilometres long, and 8 kilometres at its widest. Archibald Meston believed that the name of the island came from a corruption of a mainland word for it, Boorabee. meaning 'koala bear'.

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Allan Cunningham was an English botanist and explorer, primarily known for his travels in Australia to collect plants.

Captain Patrick Logan was the commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement from 1826 until his death in 1830 at the hands of Aboriginal Australians who objected to him entering their lands. As he had been hated by convicts, there were rumours that escaped convicts living in the bush had attacked him, but there is no evidence of this.

Moreton Island is an island on the eastern side of Moreton Bay on the coast of South East Queensland, Australia. The Coral Sea lies on the east coast of the island. Moreton Island lies 58 kilometres (36 mi) northeast of the Queensland capital, Brisbane. 95% of the island is contained within a national park and a popular destination for day trippers, four wheel driving, camping, recreational angling and whale watching and a 75-minute ferry ride from Brisbane. It is the third largest sand island in the world. Together with Fraser Island, Moreton Island forms the largest sand structure in the world. It was the traditional country of the Ngugi before the onset of colonization.

Stradbroke Island, also known as Minjerribah, was a large sand island that formed much of the eastern side of Moreton Bay near Brisbane, Queensland until the late 19th century. Today the island is split into two by the Jumpinpin Channel.

Redcliffe Peninsula Town in Queensland, Australia

Redcliffe Peninsula is a former municipality north-northeast of Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. The area covers the suburbs of Clontarf, Kippa-Ring, Margate, Newport, Redcliffe, Rothwell, Scarborough and Woody Point.

Brisbane's recorded history dates from 1799, when Matthew Flinders explored Moreton Bay on an expedition from Port Jackson, although the region had long been occupied by the Jagera and Turrbal aboriginal tribes. The town was conceived initially as a penal colony for British convicts sent from Sydney. Its suitability for fishing, farming, timbering, and other occupations, however, caused it to be opened to free settlement in 1838. The town became a municipality in 1859 and a consolidated metropolitan area in 1924. Brisbane encountered major flooding disasters in 1893, 1974 and 2011. Significant numbers of US troops were stationed in Brisbane during World War II. The city hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games, World Expo 88, and the 2014 G20 Brisbane summit.

The Oxley Creek is a creek that is a tributary of the Brisbane River, located in suburban Brisbane in the South East region of Queensland, Australia.

Yeronga, Queensland Suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Yeronga is a residential suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia located on the Brisbane River 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) south of the Brisbane central business district.

The following lists events that happened during 1824 in Australia.

The Breakfast Creek is a small urban stream that is a tributary of the Brisbane River, located in suburban Brisbane in the South East region of Queensland, Australia.

The Teviot Range, also referred to as the Flinders Peak Group, is a mountain range located on the northern edge of the Scenic Rim Region, south west of Logan City and south east of the City of Ipswich in South East Queensland, Australia.

HMS Mermaid was a cutter built in Howrah, India, in 1816. The British Royal Navy purchased her at Port Jackson in 1817. The Navy then used her to survey the Australian coasts. In 1820 she grounded and in 1823 was condemned for survey work. The Navy sold her to the colonial government which used her to run errands until she was wrecked in 1829.

The Quandamooka people are an Aboriginal Australian group that live around Moreton Bay in Southeastern Queensland. They are composed of three distinct tribes, the Nunukul, the Goenpul and the Ngugi, and they live primarily on Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands, that form the eastern side of the bay. Many of them were pushed out of their lands when the English colonial government established a penal colony near there in 1824. Each group has its own language. A number of local food sources are utilised by the tribes.

The Djindubari, also written Jindoobarrie or Joondubarri, were an indigenous Australian people of southern Queensland, whose traditional lands were located on Bribie Island. They are thought to be a horde or clan of the Undanbi.

The Undanbi were an indigenous Australian tribe of southern Queensland.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

References

↑ Narrative of Thomas Pamphlet
↑ Check information source for geographical distance
↑ The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders, R.N.
↑ Field's New South Wales p.89 (published 1825)
↑ Extract from account by Pamphlett Archived July 21, 2008, at the Wayback Machine .

John Finnegan (explorer)

Contents

The 'Timbergetting' Voyage

Found

Related Research Articles

References

See also