George Austin (gardener)

Together with fellow gardener James Smith, Austin travelled on the storeship HMS Guardian carrying supplies to the new colony as a follow-up to the ships of the First Fleet which had arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788.

He had designed and paid for construction of a ‘special plant-cabin’ to protect the more fragile plants from wind and salt spray.

[2] The Guardian’s quarter-deck was crowded with over 100 boxes and tubs of trees, bulbs, plants and seedlings, at least some of which supplied by Hugh Ronalds, a nurseryman in Brentford.

[2] The Guardian under the command of Lieutenant Edward Riou set sail from Spithead on 8 September 1789, and had an uneventful voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, arriving on 24 November 1789 loaded with provisions, farm machinery, agricultural crops and livestock to a value of some £70,000, together with convicts and their overseers.

Riou managed to struggle back to the Cape taking nine weeks and here the ship was run aground to prevent her sinking, only to be wrecked during a hurricane.