33-904: Captain Peter Pégus was one of the first European settlers of the Swan River Colony in Western Australia . Peter was born to Peter Pégus (senior) in 1786, a wealthy cotton-plantation owner in Grenada , after whom Pégus Point on the southern tip of Carriacou is named. In 1806, he served as a Lieutenant with the Royal Tyrone Militia in Ireland. The following year, he transferred to the Connaught Rangers regiment, where he fought against Napoleon in
66-536: A cutter and gig with parties continuing on foot from 13 March. In late March, Success moved to Sydney , arriving there on 15 April. Stirling arrived back in England in July 1828, promoting in glowing terms the agricultural potential of the area. His lobbying was for the establishment of a free settlement – unlike penal colonies at New South Wales , Port Arthur and Norfolk Island – in
99-402: A few settlers arrived and additional stores were dispatched. By 1832 the population of the colony had reached about 1,500. Aboriginal people were not counted at that time, but in the south west have been estimated to number 15,000. The difficulty of clearing land to grow crops was so great that by 1850 the population of settlers had increased only to 5,886. This population had settled mainly around
132-584: A lack of Dutch exploration from then on. In 1801, the French ships Géographe captained by Nicolas Baudin and Naturaliste captained by Emmanuel Hamelin visited the area from the south. While Géographe continued northwards, Naturaliste remained for a few weeks. A small expedition dragged longboats over the sand bar and explored the Swan River. They also gave unfavourable descriptions regarding any potential settlement due to many mud flats upstream and
165-530: A privately run settlement were also started with a consortium of four gentlemen headed by Potter McQueen , a member of Parliament who had already acquired a large tract of land in New South Wales . The consortium withdrew after the Colonial Office refused to give it preference over independent settlers in selecting land, but one member, Thomas Peel , accepted the terms and proceeded alone. Peel
198-435: Is very attractive, and where it seems to me that nature has denied nothing to make it pleasurable beyond all islands I have ever seen, being very well provided for man's well-being, with timber, stone, and lime for building him houses, only lacking ploughmen to fill these fine plains. There is plentiful salt, and the coast is full of fish. Birds make themselves heard with pleasant song in these scented groves. So I believe that of
231-817: The Brouwer Route on the Indian Ocean route from the African Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch East Indies . On their way east they checked Île Saint-Paul and Île Amsterdam , but no wreckage or survivors were found. On 5 December they sailed on. On 29 December 1696, de Vlamingh's party landed on Rottnest Island . He saw numerous quokkas (a native marsupial), and thinking they were large rats he named it ' t Eylandt 't Rottenest ("Rats' Nest Island"). He afterwards wrote of it in his journal: "I had great pleasure in admiring this island, which
264-477: The Peninsular War . Peter retired from the army in 1828, and applied for land grants in Western Australia , not on the basis of military service, but instead, on the basis of the property he would bring to Australia. Peter's application was successful, and he arrived at the Swan River on 19 October 1829 aboard Atwick , with his wife Mary Jane, his younger son William, 2 sheep, 5 servants, and £1,552. He
297-590: The Swan River Settlement , or just Swan River , was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River , in Western Australia . This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth , and it became the capital city of Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia. On 6 February 1832, the colony was renamed the Colony of Western Australia , when
330-615: The galiot Weseltje , under Captain Cornelis de Vlamingh, son of Willem de Vlamingh. The expedition departed Texel 'strictly incognito' on 3 May 1696 and, because of the Nine Years' War with France, sailed around the coast of Scotland to Tristan da Cunha . In early September the three ships arrived at Cape of Good Hope, where they stayed for seven weeks because of scurvy among the crew. There, Cornelis de Vlamingh took command after Laurens T. Zeeman died. On 27 October, they left using
363-494: The 193 on board, only 75 made it to shore. A small boat that survived the wreckage then sailed to Batavia for help, but a subsequent search party found none of the survivors. The wreck was rediscovered in 1963. In 1658, three Dutch Republic ships, also partially searching for Vergulde Draeck visited the area. Waekende Boey under Captain S. Volckertszoon, Elburg under Captain J. Peereboom and Emeloort under Captain A. Joncke sighted Rottnest but did not proceed any closer to
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#1732797861237396-635: The Swan River ( Zwaanenrivier in Dutch) after the large number they observed there. The crew split into three parties, hoping to catch an Aboriginal , but about five days later they gave up their quest to catch a "South lander". On 22 January, they sailed through the Geelvink Channel . The next days they saw ten naked, black people. On 24 January they passed Red Bluff. Near Wittecarra they went looking for fresh water. On 4 February 1697, he landed at Dirk Hartog Island , Western Australia, and replaced
429-571: The Swan River Colony for Britain on 2 May. Parmelia arrived in Cockburn Sound on 2 June carrying Stirling and his party, and HMS Sulphur arrived on 8 June carrying members of the 63rd Regiment and families. Three merchant ships arrived shortly after: Calista on 5 August, St Leonard on 6 August and Marquis of Anglesea on 23 August. A series of accidents followed the arrivals which probably nearly caused
462-614: The Swan River area with himself as its governor. As a result of these reports, and a rumour in London that the French were about to establish a penal colony in the western part of Australia, possibly at Shark Bay , the Colonial Office assented to the proposal in mid-October 1828. In December 1828, a Secretary of State for Colonies despatch reserved land for the Crown, as well as for the clergy, and for education, and specified that water frontage
495-401: The Swan River. His ships could not sail up the river because of a sand bar at its mouth, so he sent out a sloop which even then required some dragging over the sand bar. They sailed until reaching mud flats probably near Heirisson Island . They saw some Aboriginal people but were not able to meet any close up. Vlamingh was also not impressed with the area, and this was probably the reason for
528-415: The abandonment of the expedition. Challenger and Sulphur both struck rocks while entering Cockburn Sound and were fortunate to escape with only minor damage. Parmelia however, under Stirling's "over confident pilotage", also ran aground, lost her rudder and damaged her keel, which necessitated extensive repairs. With winter now set in, the settlers were obliged to land on Garden Island . Bad weather and
561-473: The colony's founding lieutenant-governor , Captain James Stirling , belatedly received his commission. However, the name Swan River Colony remained in informal use for many years. The first recorded Europeans to sight land where the city of Perth is now located were Dutch sailors. Most likely the first visitor to the Swan River area was Frederick de Houtman on 19 July 1619, travelling on
594-701: The island Vlieland . In 1687, he and his wife sold their "apartment" in the Jordaan . De Vlamingh joined the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1688, and made his first voyage to Batavia in the same year. Following a second voyage, in 1694, he was asked, on request of Nicolaes Witsen , to mount an expedition to search for the Ridderschap van Holland , a VOC capital ship that was lost with 325 passengers and crew on its way to Batavia in 1694. VOC officials believed it might have run aground on
627-564: The late 17th century, where he landed in what is now Perth on the Swan River . The mission proved fruitless, but he charted parts of the continent's western coast. Willem de Vlamingh was born in Oost-Vlieland in the Dutch Republic . He was baptised on 28 November 1640. In 1664, de Vlamingh sailed to Novaya Zemlya and discovered Jelmerland. In 1668, he married; his profession was skipper in whaling , and he still lived on
660-517: The mainland because of the many reefs. They then travelled north and subsequently found the wreck of Vergulde Draeck (but still no survivors). They gave an unfavourable opinion of the area partly due to the dangerous reefs. The Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh was the next European in the area. Commanding three ships, Geelvinck , Nijptangh and Weseltje , he arrived at and named Rottnest on 29 December 1696, and on 10 January 1697 visited and named
693-402: The many people who seek to make themselves happy, there are many who would scorn the fortunes of our country for the choice of this one here, which would seem a paradise on earth". On 10 January 1697, he ventured up the Swan River . He and his crew are believed to have been the first Europeans to do so. They are also assumed to be the first Europeans to see black swans , and de Vlamingh named
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#1732797861237726-509: The new colony arrived back in England in late January 1830. They described the poor conditions and the starving state of the colonists, deemed the land totally unfit for agriculture, and reported (incorrectly) that the settlers had abandoned the colony. As a result of these reports, many people cancelled their migration plans or diverted to Cape Town in South Africa, or to the more well-established New South Wales colony. Nevertheless,
759-624: The pewter plate left by Dirk Hartog in 1616 with a new one that bore a record of both of the Dutch sea-captains' visits. The original plate is preserved in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. de Vlamingh, with his son and Collaert, commanded a return fleet from the Indies on 3 or 11 February 1698, which arrived in his hometown, Amsterdam, on 16 August. However, it is not certain that de Vlamingh
792-438: The required repairs meant that Stirling did not manage to reach the mainland until 18 June, and the remaining settlers on Parmelia finally arrived in early August. In early September a major disaster occurred: Marquis of Anglesea was driven ashore during a gale and wrecked beyond repair. The ship did not break up, as had been expected, but instead survived to become Western Australia's first prison hulk . The first reports of
825-464: The sand bar (the sand bar wasn't removed until the 1890s when C. Y. O'Connor built Fremantle harbour). Later in March 1803, Géographe , with another ship Casuarina , passed by Rottnest on their way eventually back to France, but did not stop longer than a day or two. The next visit to the area was the first Australian-born maritime explorer, Phillip Parker King in 1822 on Bathurst . King
858-502: The ships Dordrecht and Amsterdam . His records indicate he first reached the Western Australian coast at latitude 32°20', which is approximately at Warnbro Sound . He did not land because of heavy surf, and so proceeded northwards without much investigation. On 28 April 1656, Vergulde Draeck en route to Batavia (now Jakarta ) was shipwrecked 107 km (66 mi) north of the Swan River near Ledge Point. Of
891-502: The southwestern coastline at Bunbury , Augusta and Albany . Karl Marx , in Das Kapital , used the Swan River Colony to illustrate a point about the necessity of a dependent workforce for capitalist production and colonisation. Willem de Vlamingh Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh (baptized 28 November 1640 – after 7 August 1702 ) was a Dutch sea captain who explored the central west coast of New Holland ( Australia ) in
924-522: The western coast of Australia. In 1696, de Vlamingh commanded the rescue mission to Australia's west coast to look for survivors of the Ridderschap van Holland that had gone missing two years earlier, and had admiral Sir James Couper on board. There were three ships under his command: the frigate Geelvink , captained by de Vlamingh himself; the Nijptang , under Captain Gerrit Collaert; and
957-580: Was allocated 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres), conditional on his arrival at the settlement before 1 November 1829 with 400 settlers. Peel arrived after this date with only 300 settlers, but was still granted 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres). The first ship to reach the Swan River was HMS Challenger . After she anchored off Garden Island on 25 April 1829 and then in Cockburn Sound on 27 April, Captain Charles Fremantle declared
990-832: Was allowed to select 7,300 hectares (18,000 acres) of land, which he did in the area known today as Thornlie . This area was named "Coleraine". However, in 1834, Coleraine was largely destroyed in a bushfire, which ended the settlement. Peter, who had lost much of his wealth, then left for Van Diemen's land per Elizabeth (a ship also carrying convicts) in March 1836. Following the death of his first wife in 1839, Peter married Mary Sophia Skardon in Launceston in 1840. Peter had two sons, Campbell John Pégus, born 1814 in Britain, and William Jeffries Pégus, born 1820 in Glasgow. Swan River Colony The Swan River Colony , also known as
1023-511: Was also the son of former Governor Philip Gidley King of New South Wales . However, King also was not impressed with the area. The founding father of Western Australia was Captain James Stirling who, in 1827, explored the Swan River area in HMS ; Success which first anchored off Rottnest , and later in Cockburn Sound. He was accompanied by Charles Fraser , the New South Wales botanist. Their initial exploration began on 8 March in
Peter Pégus - Misplaced Pages Continue
1056-505: Was still alive at that point, and burial records from Vlieland around this time do not exist. On an earlier retourship, de Vlamingh had sent Witsen a box with seashells, fruits and vegetation from New Holland (Australia) , as well as eleven drawings that Victor Victorsz had made on the expedition. De Vlamingh also included some black swans, but they died on the voyage. Witsen offered the drawings to Martin Lister . Witsen, who had invested in
1089-476: Was to be rationed. The most cursory exploration had preceded the British decision to found a settlement at the Swan River; the most makeshift arrangements were to govern its initial establishment and the granting of land; and the most sketchy surveys were to be made before the grants were actually occupied. A set of regulations were worked out for distributing land to settlers based on land grants . Negotiations for
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