2020 reflections on Australian foundation narratives In January 2019 the coincidence of three important events provided a rare moment to reflect on Australian history and its on-going relevance for Australians today. The first of these, Australia Day, has since 1988 - the bicentenary of European settlement, become a major public holiday and national anniversary celebrated on 26 January, the date historically that the colony of New South Wales was officially established with the raising of the Union flag in Sydney Cove in 1788. Prior to 1988, amongst the seven states and territories forming the national federation, the 26 January tended to be looked at as a singularly New South Wales anniversary, leaving the other states to celebrate anniversaries relating to their own distinct colonial foundations. It should be remembered that the initial British settlement in Australia was confined to the east coast of the continent, to that part claimed by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770 during his survey of the east coast on board the bark Endeavour. By 1787, in the commission appointing Arthur Phillip Governor of the new colony, the territory of New South Wales had grown considerably and was defined as: …extending from the northern cape or extremity of the coast, called Cape York, in latitude of ten degrees thirty-seven minutes south, to the southern extremity of the said territory of New South Wales or South Cape, in the latitude of Forty-three degrees thirty-nine minutes south, and of all the country inland to the westward, as far as the one hundred and thirty-fifth degree of east longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Greenwich, including all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean, within the latitudes aforesaid… At the time, the rest of the continent was known as New Holland, the name given to it by the Dutch East India Company following the Dutch discovery of it early in the 17th century and their subsequent mapping of large sections of its coast. British colonial expansion and gradual claim to the entire continent progressed throughout the 19th century with settlements established in Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia between 1803 and 1836. The second event of note that occurred in January, was the announcement by archaeologists of the discovery of the grave of Captain Matthew Flinders amongst thousands of graves exhumed at London’s Euston railway station as part of preparatory works for the high-speed London to Birmingham rail link. Opened in 1837, Euston’s expansion fifty years later resulted in the construction of platforms over the adjacent St James’s Church burial ground where Flinders was buried in 1814. Coming on the 25 January, only a day before the anniversary of the foundation of British settlement in Australia, the timing of the announcement could not have better, and indeed the event was major news across Australian media. Of all the early British naval explorers associated with exploration of Australia’s coasts after Cook, Matthew Flinders looms largest. A midshipman tutored under William Bligh aboard HMS Providence during the second breadfruit voyage, Flinders sailed out to New South Wales in 1795 aboard HMS Reliance bringing the new Governor, John Hunter to the colony. Also aboard the Reliance was surgeon George Bass, who in the course of the next five years, completed a number of small boat expeditions with Flinders, including the circumnavigation of Van Diemen’s Land in 1798. As a result of this work Flinders was promoted Lieutenant and in 1800 returned to England where he gained the support of Sir Joseph Banks in an ambitious plan to survey the entire coast of Australia. At that time, most of Australia’s south coast remained unexplored by Europeans and although large sections of the west and north coasts had been mapped by the Dutch, and Cook had mapped most of the east coast, no single survey of the entire coast existed. As a result of Sir Joseph’s influence, the Admiralty agreed to place Flinders in command of a ship and provided the armed vessel Xenophon, refitted it for a voyage of discovery, and renamed it appropriately, HMS Investigator. Sir Joseph Banks was deeply involved in planning the expedition, and as a veteran of the Endeavour voyage where the work of his artists had proven so vital in creating a visual record of the lands and people encountered in the Pacific and Australia, he saw the inclusion of accomplished botanical and landscape artists along with a botanist, an astronomer, a geologist and a gardener to the ship as critical to the ultimate success of the enterprise. The young William Westall was selected as the landscape artist and produced numerous pencil drawings and watercolour paintings of panoramic views, coastal profiles, and Indigenous people encountered during the voyage. Despite its great achievements surveying on the south and east coasts of Australia, the expedition was severely hampered by the generally poor and continually worsening condition of the Investigator, so that by the time Flinders reached the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1803, he judged the ship to be too unseaworthy to continue the slow and painstaking work, gambling instead that his best option was to sail back to Sydney as quickly as possible and there to leave the Investigator while he returned to England for a suitable replacement vessel. Flinders and the crew of the Investigator survived the counter-clockwise voyage around Australia to return to Sydney but unfortunately were wrecked on an uncharted reef in the Coral Sea only a few weeks later when sailing as supernumeries aboard HMS Porpoise on the passage home to England. Although sodden and, in some cases, slightly damaged by the shipwreck, William Westall’s drawings survived and many of these original works are now held by the National Library of Australia. The National Maritime Museum collection in Greenwich also includes ten oil paintings by Westall based on his Investigator works, commissioned by the Admiralty in 1809. Nine of these were later engraved and used to illustrate Matthew Flinders’ 1814 publication A Voyage to Terra Australis. The third event that occurred in January was the Prime Minister of Australia’s announcement of millions of dollars of financial support to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s first voyage to Australia and the Pacific. With an overall government allocation of $48.7 million for the anniversary, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated: “That voyage is the reason Australia is what it is today and it’s important we take the opportunity to reflect on it.” The announcement provoked an immediate social media deluge of comments, ranging from outright support for the initiative, to criticism at the ‘waste of tax-payer money’, to outrage at the inappropriateness of funding an anniversary regarded by many Indigenous Australians as the beginning of the end of their culture, to ‘Who was Captain Cook’? For those forewarned of the announced funding, the public reaction was not surprising. Like all societies, Australian society is complex and dynamic, continually changing in response to political, cultural and financial influences that affect the way Australians view our history, and our present and future place in the world. In 1788 when the colony of New South Wales was formed by just over 1000 convicts, guards, and administrators on the other side of the world from Europe it was totally dependent on Britain for supplies, the vast majority of the new arrivals were British, and Captain Cook had been dead less than ten years. Locally, around the new settlement in Sydney, the arrival of Europeans had a devastating impact on the traditional inhabitants with the introduction of smallpox estimated to have killed at least fifty per cent of the population living around Sydney harbour. From about 1815 the European population of Australia grew rapidly and by 1820 numbered over 33,000. A decade later the population had reached 70,000 and it continued to more than double in each successive decade so that by 1850 the European population of Australia was 405,356. This rapid increase mirrored economic growth as the colonial economy developed around wool and other rural commodities, and new settlements were established around the Australian coastline. The settlement of Albany (1826) and the Swan River (Perth) three years later signalled the consolidation of British claims to the entire continent during this period. The discovery of gold in the Port Phillip district (Victoria) in 1851 and the subsequent influx of new settlers to the region marked a radical shift in colonial dynamics. Before the discovery of gold, New South Wales had the largest European population but by 1855 its position had been eclipsed by Victoria where the population hovered just under 350,000. Bolstered by its new financial position, Victoria became the first Australian colony to achieve self-government from New South Wales, setting an example which was followed by Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland in the following years. Throughout Australia’s colonial period (1788-1901) it depended on Britain for its security and established legal and political systems that mirrored those in Britain and in 1901 when the Australian colonies voted for independence from Britain, they did so in the understanding that Australia would continue to pay allegiance to the British monarchy through the office of the Governor General of Australia. Australia’s loyalty to Britain was beyond question during the First World War when In the course of that war, over 416,000 Australians enlisted, of whom more than 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded or taken prisoner. For Australia, with a population of less than five million at the time, the impact on society was profound and the legacy of that sacrifice has become an integral thread of our national identity.