Download coordinates as: Somerset is a coastal locality split between the Shire of Torres and the Northern Peninsula Area Region, Queensland, Australia.

[50][51] This rapid decline was caused by a number of factors, including introduced disease, exclusions from traditional hunting grounds and frontier violence.

[52][53] Reverend Frederick Charles Jagg, a missionary at Somerset appointed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,[54][55] gave an indication of the relationship between European and Indigenous peoples when he reported in 1867 that "The aborigines have been described as the most degraded, treacherous and bloodthirsty beings in existence by the present Police Magistrate, and those whose only idea is to shoot them down whenever they were seen".

[58] With its separation from New South Wales on 10 December 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) of coastline extending as far north as Cape York Peninsula.

The colony's first parliament passed a resolution in 1860 favouring direct connection with England via the Torres Strait.

Bowen informed Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Colonies, that the government of Queensland would be willing to undertake the formation and management of a station at Cape York and to support a civil establishment there.

[59][57] On 27 August 1862, Bowen left Brisbane on HMS Pioneer to select an eligible site for the proposed settlement.

It has also made known...how much ... or rather, how little, of the 'York Peninsula' is adapted for pastoral occupation, whilst its success in taking the first stock overland, and forming a cattle station at Newcastle Bay, has ensured to the Settlement at Somerset a necessary and welcome supply of fresh meat...".The Jardine River was named after them by order of Governor Bowen.

Jardine was also suspended for a time from his duties as Police Magistrate whilst being investigated in relation to using his position to obtain a pearl diving licence.

[82][57] Somerset became redundant as a port once a safer shipping route to the Torres Strait was found and a settlement on Thursday Island was built from 1876.

[85] During this time, Jardine continued to maintain a beef cattle herd; was engaged in the pearling industry; and created a coconut/copra plantation at Somerset.

Kobori Itchimatsu came from the village of Nishi Mukai in Wakayama prefecture, an area that provided 80 per cent of the 7,000 Japanese who left their country to become pearl divers.