Thomas Gilbert and John Marshall were the captains of two East India Company vessels of the First Fleet, the Charlotte and the Scarborough, returning from carrying convicts to Botany Bay in 1788, when they sailed through the Gilbert Islands and described Aranuka, Kuria, Abaiang and Tarawa.
They had sailed in a convoy under the command of post-captain Arthur Phillip, New South Wales' first Governor.
[2] In a 1944 article in Life Samuel Eliot Morison wrote that this Island was told to be Abemama, but might have been Aranuka.
[4] The modern country of Kiribati and its national language are also named after Gilbert, "Kiribati" being the pronunciation of his surname in the nation's indigenous language of Gilbertese.
A character called Captain Paul Gilbert is portrayed by James Mason in the 1953 film Botany Bay.