History of Norfolk Island

[1] Their main village site has been excavated at Emily Bay, and they also left behind stone tools, the Polynesian rat, and banana trees as evidence of their sojourn.

Andrew Kippis as the biographer of this voyage puts it as follows: As the Resolution pursued her course from New Caledonia, land was discovered, which, on a nearer approach, was found to be an island, of good height, and five leagues in circuit.

The alternative source of Norfolk Island for these, (or in the case of flax and hemp, similar) supplies is argued by some historians, notably Geoffrey Blainey in Tyranny of Distance, as being a major reason for the founding of the convict settlement of New South Wales by the First Fleet in 1788.

[5]Sir John Call, Member of Parliament, member of the Royal Society, and former chief engineer of the East India Company, stated the advantages of Norfolk Island in a proposal for colonisation he put to the Home Office in August 1784: "This Island has an Advantage not common to New Caledonia, New Holland and New Zealand by not being inhabited, so that no Injury can be done by possessing it to the rest of Mankind…there seems to be nothing wanting but Inhabitants and Cultivation to make it a delicious Residence.

The Timber, Shrubs, Vegetables and Fish already found there need no Embellishment to pronounce them excellent samples; but the most invaluable of all is the Flax-plant, which grows more luxuriant than in New Zealand.

Though unaware of the British intention to settle Norfolk Island, which was not announced until 5 December 1786, Forster referred to "the nearness of New Zealand; the excellent flax plant (Phormium) that grows so abundantly there; its incomparable shipbuilding timber", as among the advantages of the new colony.

[7] The proposal written by James Matra under the supervision of Sir Joseph Banks for establishing a settlement in New South Wales, stated that Botany Bay was: “no further than a fortnight from New Zealand, which is covered with timber even to the water's edge.

The flax and ship timber of New Zealand were attractive, but these prospective advantages were balanced by the obvious impossibility of forming a settlement there in the face of undoubted opposition from the native Maori.

[11] This implicit threat to the viability of the Royal Navy became apparent in mid-September (a month after the decision had been taken to settle Botany Bay) and caused the Pitt Administration to begin an urgent search for new sources of supply, including from Norfolk Island, which was then added to the plan to colonise New South Wales.

The need for an alternative non-Russian source of naval stores is indicated by the information from the British Ambassador in Copenhagen, Hugh Elliott, who wrote to Foreign Secretary, Lord Carmarthen on 12 August 1788: “There is no Topick so common in the Mouths of the Russian Ministers, as to insist on the Facility with which the Empress, when Mistress of the Baltic, either by Conquest, Influence, or Alliance with the other two Northern Powers, could keep England in a State of Dependence for its Baltic Commerce and Naval Stores”.

The Daily Universal Register of 11 November 1786 had stated: "the Botany Bay scheme is laid aside, as there is a strong presumption that a squadron from Brest are now, or soon will be, in possession of the very spot we meant to occupy in New Holland".

He had instructions to investigate any colonies the British may have established and learned of the intention to settle Botany Bay and Norfolk Island from despatches sent to him from Paris through St. Petersburg and by land across Siberia to Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, where he received them on 26 September 1787, just four days before his departure from that port.

How far these deficiencies can be improved by art and the hand of man, time must decide.”[citation needed] An idealised vision of the new British settlement was given in the novel by Therese Forster, Abentheuer auf einer Reise nach Neu-Holland [Adventures on a Voyage to New Holland], published in the German women's magazine, Flora for 1793 and 1794: We went towards the centre of this small island where at the foot of a round hill a crystal-clear river rushes forth, dividing up further on into several arms.

This attempt to relieve the pressure on Sydney turned to disaster when Sirius was wrecked and, although there was no loss of life, some stores were destroyed, and the ship's crew was marooned for ten months.

Norfolk Island in 1793 was described by Josef Espinosa y Tello, an officer of the Spanish expedition led by Alessandro Malaspina that visited New South Wales.

The colony of Norfolk, settled shortly after that at Port Jackson, merits little attention both because of the small size of that island and because of the hilly nature of its terrain, and the particular circumstance of its lacking entirely an anchorage or a place where longboats can be drawn up with any security.

The flax brought there from New Zealand bears a good aspect, but no great hopes are rested on its cultivation, and it seems that the second trials of this plant made in London have not achieved the happy outcome of the first.

[20] Lieutenant governors of the first settlement: Norfolk Island was governed by a succession of short-term commandants for the next 11 years, starting with King's replacement, Robert Ross, from 1789 to 1790.

When Joseph Foveaux arrived as Lieutenant Governor in 1800, he found the settlement quite run down, little maintenance having been carried out in the previous four years, and he set about building it up, particularly through public works and attempts to improve education.

Commandants of the second settlement: In 1824 the British government instructed the Governor of New South Wales Thomas Brisbane to occupy Norfolk Island as a place to send "the worst description of convicts".

The convicts detained have long been assumed be a hardcore of recidivists, or 'doubly-convicted capital respites' – that is, men transported to Australia who committed fresh colonial crimes for which they were sentenced to death, and were spared the gallows on condition of life at Norfolk Island.

Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of convicts sent to Norfolk Island had committed non-violent property sentences, the average length of detention was three years, and the scale of punishments inflicted upon the prisoners was significantly less than assumed.

[23] His successor, Governor Ralph Darling, was even more severe than Brisbane, wishing that "every man should be worked in irons that the example may deter others from the commission of crime" and "to hold out [Norfolk Island] as a place of the extremest punishment short of death".

A widespread and popular notion of the harshness of penal settlements, including Norfolk Island, has come from the novel For the Term of his Natural Life by Marcus Clarke, which appears to be based on the writings and recollections of witnesses.

Following a convict mutiny in 1834, Father William Ullathorne, vicar general of Sydney, visited Norfolk Island to comfort the mutineers due for execution.

The 1846 report of magistrate Robert Pringle Stuart exposed the scarcity and poor quality of food, inadequacy of housing, horrors of torture and incessant flogging, insubordination of convicts, and corruption of overseers.

Only a handful of convicts left any written record and their descriptions (as quoted by Hazzard and Hughes) of living and working conditions, food and housing, and, in particular, the punishments given for seemingly trivial offences, are unremittingly horrifying, describing a settlement devoid of all human decency, under the iron rule of the tyrannical autocratic commandants.

In addition, the commandants relied on a large number of military guards, civil overseers, ex-convict constables, and convict informers to provide them with intelligence and carry out their orders.

Of the commandants, only Alexander Maconochie appeared to reach the conclusion that brutality would breed defiance, as demonstrated by the mutinies of 1826, 1834 and 1846, and he attempted to apply his theories of penal reform, providing incentives as well as punishment.

The action was justified on the grounds it was necessary "to address issues of sustainability which have arisen from the model of self-government requiring Norfolk Island to deliver local, state and federal functions since 1979".