Arthur Phillip - Early life and naval career, Governor of New South Wales, Stabilising the colony, Later life

Admiral, founder and first governor of New South Wales, born in London, UK. He trained at Greenwich, joined the merchant navy at 16 and the Royal Navy at 23, saw service in the Mediterranean, and was at the taking of Havana. He retired from the navy after the Seven Years' War (1763), married, and settled as a gentleman farmer in Hampshire. After the failure of the marriage, he returned to the sea, serving with the Portuguese navy, and in 1778 rejoining the Royal Navy. In 1787 he was appointed commander of the ‘First Fleet’ carrying convicts to Australia, and founded a penal colony settlement at Sydney the following year. He returned to England in poor health in 1792, and was made vice-admiral in 1810. He married again, and retired to Bath. The site and foundations of his 1788 Government House still exist in Bridge Street, Sydney, the oldest piece of colonial heritage in the country.

Admiral Arthur Phillip RN (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British naval officer and colonial administrator. Phillip was appointed Governor of New South Wales, the first European colony on the Australian continent, and was the founder of the city of Sydney.

Early life and naval career

Arthur Phillip was born in London in 1738, the son of Jacob Phillip, a German-born language teacher, and his English wife, Elizabeth, who had remarried after the death of her previous husband, a Royal Navy captain. Phillip was educated at the school of the Greenwich Hospital and at the age of 13 was apprenticed to the merchant navy.

Phillip joined the Royal Navy at fifteen, and saw action at the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in the Mediterranean at the Battle of Minorca in 1756.

In 1774 Phillip joined the Portuguese Navy as a captain, serving in the war against Spain. While with the Portuguese Phillip conveyed a fleet of convict ships from Portugal to Brazil, with a very low death rate, and this may have been the reason for the surprise choice of Phillip to lead the expedition to Sydney. In 1778 England was again at war, and Phillip was recalled to active service, and in 1779 obtained his first command, the Basilisk.

Governor of New South Wales

Then, in October 1786, Phillip was appointed captain of HMS Sirius and appointed Governor-designate of New South Wales, the proposed British penal colony on the east coast of Australia. The appointment seems to have been the work of George Rose, Under-Secretary of the Treasury and a neighbour of Phillip in Hampshire. He would have known of Phillip's experience in farming.

Phillip had a very difficult time assembling the fleet which was to make the eight-month sea voyage to Australia. Everything a new colony might need had to be taken, since Phillip had no real idea of what he might find when he got there. Phillip was accompanied by a contingent of marines and a handful of other officers who were to administer the colony.

The First Fleet, of 11 ships, set sail on 13 May 1787. Phillip soon decided that this site, chosen on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, who had accompanied James Cook in 1770, was not suitable, since it offered no secure anchorage and had no reliable water source. After some exploration Phillip decided to go on to Port Jackson, and on 26 January the marines and convicts were landed at Sydney Cove, which Phillip named after Viscount Sydney, the Home Secretary.

Shortly after establishing the settlement at Port Jackson, on the 15th February 1788, Phillip sent Lieutenant Philip Gidley King with 8 free men and a number of convicts to establish the second British colony in the Pacific at Norfolk Island.

The early days of the settlement were chaotic and difficult. Almost at once, therefore, Phillip had to appoint overseers from among the ranks of the convicts to get the others working.

Phillip showed in other ways that he recognised that New South Wales could not be run simply as a prison camp. Phillip had said before leaving England: "In a new country there will be no slavery and hence no slaves," and he meant what he said. Nevertheless, Phillip believed in discipline, and floggings and hangings were commonplace, although Philip commuted many death sentences.

Phillip also had to adopt a policy towards the Eora Aboriginal people, who lived around the waters of Sydney Harbour. Phillip ordered that they must be well-treated, and that anyone killing Aboriginal people would be hanged. Phillip befriended an Eora man called Bennelong, and later took him to England. On the beach at Manly, a misunderstanding arose and Phillip was speared in the shoulder: but he ordered his men not to retaliate. Phillip went some way towards winning the trust of the Eora, although the settlers were at all times treated extremely warily.

The Governor's main problem was with his own military officers, who wanted large grants of land, which Phillip had not been authorised to grant. As a result scurvy broke out, and in October 1788 Phillip had to send Sirius to Cape Town for supplies, and strict rationing was introduced, with thefts of food punished by hanging.

Stabilising the colony

By 1790 the situation had stabilised. Phillip assigned a convict, James Ruse, land at Rose Hill (now Parramatta) to establish proper farming, and when Ruse succeeded he received the first land grant in the colony. Sirius was wrecked in March 1790 at the satellite settlement of Norfolk Island, depriving Phillip of vital supplies.

By December 1790 Phillip was ready to return to England, but the colony had largely been forgotten in London and no instructions reached him, so he carried on. But July, when the vessels of the Third Fleet began to arrive, with 2,000 more convicts, food again ran short, and he had to send a ship to Calcutta for supplies.

By 1792 the colony was well-established, though Sydney remained an unplanned huddle of wooden huts and tents. The whaling industry was established, ships were visiting Sydney to trade, and convicts whose sentences had expired were taking up farming. The colony was still very short of skilled farmers, craftsmen and tradesmen, and the convicts continued to work as little as possible, even though they were working mainly to grow their own food.

In late 1792 Phillip, whose health was suffering from the poor diet, at last received permission to leave, and on 11 December 1792 he sailed in the ship Atlantic, taking with him Bennelong and many specimens of plants and animals. Phillip arrived in London in May 1793.

Later life

Phillip's wife, Margaret, had died in 1792.

Phillip was buried in St Nicholas's Church, Bathampton. A monument to Phillip in Bath Abbey Church was unveiled in 1937. His name is commemorated in Australia by Port Phillip, Phillip Island and many streets, parks and schools.

Alan Serle wrote of Phillip in the Australian Dictionary of Biography: "Steadfast in mind, modest, without self seeking, Phillip had imagination enough to conceive what the settlement might become, and the common sense to realize what at the moment was possible and expedient.