Indigenous people have occupied the area that became the Tiwi Islands for at least 40,000 years.

Explorer Phillip Parker King (son of governor of New South Wales Philip Gidley King) named it for Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, first Lord of the Admiralty, who is also commemorated by the much larger Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Shortly after this, the British made the first attempt to settle Australia's north coast, at the short-lived Fort Dundas on Melville Island.

[2] During World War II the small Snake Bay Patrol manned by local Tiwi people was established as part of the military forces deployed to protect the island against any Japanese landings.

[citation needed] The island lies in the eastern Timor Sea, approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Darwin and west of the Cobourg Peninsula in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory.