George Bass | |
|---|---|
 Engraving of Bass fromThe Naval Pioneers of Australia by Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery, 1899 | |
| Born | (1771-01-30)30 January 1771 Sleaford,Lincolnshire, England |
| Disappeared | 5 February 1803(1803-02-05) (aged 32) Last seen before leavingPort Jackson, New South Wales, Australia |
| Occupations | Ship's surgeon and explorer |
| Spouse | Elizabeth Waterhouse |
George Bass (/bæs/; 30 January 1771 – after 5 February 1803) was a Britishnaval surgeon and explorer ofAustralia.
Bass was born on 30 January 1771 atAswarby, a hamlet nearSleaford,Lincolnshire,[1] the son of atenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah (née Newman).[2] His father died in 1777 when Bass was six. He had attendedBoston Grammar School and later trained in medicine at the hospital inBoston, Lincolnshire. At the age of 18, he was accepted inLondon as a member of theCompany of Surgeons, and in 1794 he joined theRoyal Navy as a surgeon.
He arrived inSydney inNew South Wales onHMSReliance on 7 September 1795.[3]
Also on the voyage wereMatthew Flinders,John Hunter,Bennelong, and his surgeon's assistant William Martin.
Bass had brought with him on theReliance a small boat with an 8-foot (2.4 m) keel and 5-foot (1.5 m) beam, which he called theTom Thumb on account of its size. In October 1795 Bass and Flinders, accompanied byWilliam Martin sailed theTom Thumb out ofPort Jackson toBotany Bay and explored theGeorges River further upstream than had been done previously by the colonists. Their reports on their return led to the settlement ofBanks' Town.[4]
In March 1796 the same party embarked on a second voyage in a larger boat, which they called theTom Thumb II.[5][6] During this trip they travelled as far down the coast asLake Illawarra, which they called Tom Thumb Lagoon. They exploredPort Hacking.
Later that year Bass discovered good land nearProspect Hill, found lost cattle brought out with theFirst Fleet, and failed in an attempt to cross theBlue Mountains.
In 1797, without Flinders, in an open whaleboat with a crew of six, Bass sailed toCape Howe, the farthest point of south-eastern Australia. From here he went westwards along what is now the coast of theGippsland region ofVictoria, toWestern Port, almost as far as the entrance toPort Phillip, on the north shore of which is the site of present-dayMelbourne. His belief that a strait separated the mainland fromVan Diemen's Land (nowTasmania) was backed up by his astute observation of the rapid tide and the long south-western swell atWilson's Promontory.
Bass visited theKiama area and made many notes on its botanical complexity and the amazing natural phenomenon, theKiama Blowhole, noting the volcanic geology around the Blowhole and contributed much to its understanding.
In 1798, this theory was confirmed when Bass and Flinders, in the sloopNorfolk, circumnavigated Van Diemen's Land. In the course of this voyage Bass visited the estuary of theDerwent River, found and named by CaptainJohn Hayes in 1793,[7] where the city ofHobart would be founded on the strength of his report in 1803. When the two returned to Sydney, Flinders recommended to GovernorJohn Hunter that the passage between Van Diemen's Land and the mainland be calledBass Strait.
"This was no more than a just tribute to my worthy friend and companion," Flinders wrote, "for the extreme dangers and fatigues he had undergone, in first entering it in a whaleboat, and to the correct judgement he had formed, from various indications, of the existence of a wide opening between Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales."
Bass was an enthusiastic naturalist and botanist, and he forwarded some of his botanical discoveries toSir Joseph Banks in London. "In this voyage of fourteen weeks I collected those few plants upon Van Diemen's Land which had not been familiar to me in New South Wales," he wrote to Banks, "and have done myself the honour of submitting them to your inspection." He was made an honorary member of the Society for Promoting Natural History, which later became theLinnean Society. Some of his observations were published in the second volume ofDavid Collins'sAn Account of the English colony in New South Wales. He was one of the first to describe the Australianmarsupial, thewombat.
On 8 October 1800,[8] George married Elizabeth Waterhouse atSt James's Church, Westminster.[9] She was the sister ofHenry Waterhouse, Bass's former shipmate, and captain of theReliance. In January 1801 Bass set sail again for Port Jackson, leaving Elizabeth behind, and though the couple wrote to each other, they did not meet again, as Bass never returned from this journey.[10]
Bass and a syndicate of friends had invested some £10,000 in the copper-sheathedbrigVenus, and a cargo of general goods to transport and sell inPort Jackson. Bass was the owner-manager and set sail in early 1801. (Among his influential friends and key business associates in the Antipodes was the principal surgeon of the satellite British colony onNorfolk Island,Thomas Jamison, who was subsequently appointed Surgeon-General of New South Wales.)
On passing throughBass Strait on his 1801 voyage, he recorded it simply as Bass Strait, like any other geographical feature. It seems, as Flinders' biographerErnest Scott observed, that Bass's natural modesty meant he felt no need to say "discovered by me" or "named after me".[citation needed]
On arrival, Bass found the colony awash with goods and he was unable to sell his cargo.Governor King was operating on a strict programme of economy and would not take the goods into the government store, even at a 50% discount. What King did though was contract with Bass to ship salt pork fromTahiti. Food was scarce in Sydney at that time[11] and prices were being driven up, yet pigs were plentiful in theSociety Islands and King could contract with Bass at 6 pence a pound where he'd been paying a shilling (12 pence) previously. The arrangement suited King's thrift, and was profitable for Bass. With his partner Charles Bishop, Bass sailed from Sydney in theVenus forDusky Sound inNew Zealand where they spent 14 days stripping iron from the wreck of Captain Brampton's old ship theEndeavour. This was made into axes which were used to trade for the pork in Tahiti before returning with the latter to Sydney by November 1802.[12]
In January 1803, Bass applied to King for a fishing monopoly extending from a line bisecting the lower South Island of New Zealand fromDusky Sound toOtago Harbour – now the site of the city ofDunedin – and including all the lands and seas to the south, notably theAntipodes Islands, probably on the basis of information from his brother-in-law Waterhouse, the discoverer of the Antipodes archipelago.[13] He expected much from it, but before he heard it had been declined he sailed south from Sydney never to return. Bass and Flinders were both operating out of Sydney during these times, but their stays there did not coincide.
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What became of Bass is unknown. He set sail on his last voyage in theVenus on 5 February 1803 and he and his crew were never seen again. His plan was to go to Tahiti and perhaps on to theSpanish colonies on the coast ofChile to buy provisions and bring them back to Sydney.
It has been suspected Bass may also have planned to engage in contraband trade in Chile. Spain reserved the import of goods into her colonies for Spanish ships and Spanish merchants, but the colonists needed more than they could supply, and shortages and heavy taxation caused high prices, encouraging an extensive illegal trade with foreign vessels. Port Jackson was described by some 19th-century historians as a base for such smuggling[14] Britain's strained relationship with Spain at that time meant British authorities were unconcerned.[citation needed]
Bass still had much of the general cargo he had brought to Sydney in 1801, and he may well have been tempted to take some to Chile. Two of his last letters have hints at a venture which he could not name, but in any case he set off in 1803, with a diplomatic letter from Governor King attesting his bona-fides and that his sole purpose, if he were on the West coast of South America, would be in procuring provisions.
As many months passed with no word of his arrival, Governor King and Bass's friends in Sydney were forced to accept that he had met some misfortune. In England in January 1806, Bass was listed by the Admiralty as lost at sea, and later that year Elizabeth was granted an annuity from the widows' fund, backdated to when Bass's half-pay had ended in June 1803. Bass had made the usual contributions to the fund from his salary.
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A good deal of speculation has taken place about Bass's fate. One story, attributed to William Campbell of thebrigHarrington, has it that Bass was captured by the Spanish in Chile and sent to the silver mines. TheHarrington was engaged in smuggling and returned to Sydney some three months after Bass's departure. However, this story dates from 1811 in a report by William Fitzmaurice. There are good records of Campbell in 1803, and then in 1805 when he captured a Spanish ship, but Bass is not mentioned at those times. Three months is also too short a time for Bass to reach Chile and then theHarrington to get back to Sydney.
Another factor against the South American story is that all British prisoners held by the Spanish in Chile and Peru were freed in 1808 and returned to Europe. If the crew of theVenus had indeed been captured, then none of the 25 survived.
AdventurerJørgen Jørgensen wrote about Bass in his 1835 autobiography, claiming Bass had attempted forced trade at gunpoint in Chile, and was captured when he let his guard down. Jørgensen probably met Bass, but this account is almost certainly an invention. Jørgensen's writing, though entertaining, was often far from factual.
A search of Spanish archives in 1903 by scholarPascual de Gayangos and a search of Peruvian archives in 2003 by historianJorge Ortiz-Sotelo found no mention of Bass. His ultimate fate remains a mystery.
Australia Post honoured George Bass in 1963 with apostage stamp, and again in 1998 in association withMatthew Flinders.
A re-enactment of the whaleboat voyage marked the 200th anniversary of Bass's voyage; the 9 metres (30 ft) "Elizabeth" skippered by Bern Cuthbertson arrived at Western Port on 5 January 1998. A plaque memorialising this was added to the Bass and Flinders memorial atFlinders.
The following places commemorate the name of George Bass:
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). "Bass, George".Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 3. London:Smith, Elder & Co.
