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A gift of national importance
Pennantian Parrot (now known as a crimson rosella), Plate 13 in Surgeon General John White’s A journal of a voyage to New South Wales. This and many other plates in the book were reproduced from original paintings by Sarah Stone (c 1760–1844), a prolific and talented artist. She worked from specimens, rather than live animals, but still captured the playfulness characteristic of many Australian birds. ANMM Collection 00055487
When published in 1790, White’s A journal of a voyage to New South Wales was the first publication to outline such detail of the flora and fauna of the colony
Colonial Surgeon-General John White’s journal
In November 1788 John White, Principal Surgeon of the First Fleet, despatched his handwritten journal, containing details of life in the first months of the new colony, to his friend and editor Thomas Wilson in London. An early edition of the published version has now been generously donated to the National Maritime Collection, writes Daina Fletcher.
IN OCTOBER 1786, JOHN WHITE was appointed Principal Surgeon on the First Fleet to Botany Bay aboard the convict transport Charlotte, which sailed from Portsmouth, England, on 13 May 1787. In early 1788, he was appointed the first Surgeon-General of the colony of New South Wales. His involvement in the colonial enterprise lasted six years, and the journal that he kept provides important observations and insights into the colony’s early months, the well-being of the colonists and their interactions with Indigenous landowners. At this time the colony was in crisis, struggling with disease, limited supplies and crop failure. White’s greatest challenge remained the prevention of scurvy, which had plagued the voyage from England, and the search for fresh food sources commanded much of his attention. The extreme circumstances of the colony are worth exploring through White’s eyes. He chronicles the voyage of the Supply to Norfolk Island in March 1788, which rewarded the colony with excellent turtle, eighteen of which were brought here, and proved a seasonable supply to the convicts afflicted with the scurvy, many of whom were in a deplorable situation.
He records his discoveries of indigenous plants, such as ‘a plant growing on the sea shore, greatly resembling sage … and a kind of wild spinage [sic]’, as well as ‘a small berry like a white currant’ which proved a good antiscorbutic.1 And on 8 July 1788 he remarked: Here, where no other animal nourishment is to be procured, the Kangaroo is considered as a dainty; but in any other country I am sure that such food would be thrown to the dogs… White pursued a keen interest in natural history. His consignment to Thomas Wilson in November 1788 included specimens that excited his imagination and which he thought would do the same in England. Wilson noted:2
the non-descript Animals of New South Wales occupied a great deal of Mr White’s attention, and he preserved several specimens of them in spirits, which arrived in England in a very perfect state…
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01 Implements of New South Wales, Plate 63 in Surgeon General John White’s A journal of a voyage to New South Wales. ANMM Collection 00055487
02 Wha Tapoua Roo (now known as a brushtail possum), Plate 56 in White’s Journal. ANMM Collection 00055487
It took more than six months to prepare the text and its 65 engravings for publication. When published in 1790, John White’s A journal of a voyage to New South Wales / with sixty-five plates of non descript animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones of trees and other natural productions was the third account from the colonial enterprise circulating at the time, and included in its substantial natural history appendices two plates of Aboriginal fishing and hunting artefacts. It was the first publication to outline such detail about the flora and fauna of the colony. A number of deluxe copies were engraved in colour, others in black and white. More than 700 were printed, two of which were bought by Sir James Peachey, British politician and courtier, and his son, John Peachey. One of these was acquired by the Stewart family of Scotland after the contents of the Peachey family’s library were sold in 1872. The exact date of its arrival in Australia is unknown, but it is thought to have come to Melbourne in the 1890s with Cecil James Stewart, whose family had connections to Australia from the 1840s. The journal has been donated to the National Maritime Collection by C J Stewart’s grandson Peter Chaldjian under the Commonwealth Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. Mr Chaldjian says: Since this journal was passed down to me through my maternal family and though it has given my family great joy, in the back of my mind it has long been a goal of mine to find a home for this beautiful and highly interesting book. It is, thus, a great joy for me to know that the journal has found a wonderful home at the Australian National Maritime Museum and to know that it will be treated with care and attention and that future generations will derive great pleasure and knowledge from such a beautiful work.
While the existence of Surgeon-General John White’s handwritten journal is not on the public record, this fine early published edition of his impressions joins The Charlotte Medal in the National Maritime Collection as a significant artefact associated with the First Fleet and the earliest months of colonial Australia.
1 The journal can be read at gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301531.txt 2 John White, A journal of a voyage to New South Wales / with sixty-five plates of non descript animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones of trees and other natural productions, Thomas Wilson, London, 1790, page 269. Further reading Susannah Helman, ‘Sarah Stone’s birds’, 4 February 2020 nla.gov.au/ stories/blog/treasures/2020/02/04/sarah-stones-birds
The Charlotte Medal
Surgeon White commissioned the first work of European art in the colony from Thomas Barrett, a convicted thief and mutineer transported on the ship Charlotte. Barrett fashioned and engraved a medal commemorating the arrival of the fleet in Botany Bay, purportedly from a flattened surgeon’s metal kidney dish. After becoming the colony’s first artist, Barrett achieved another, and much more dubious, first: he was the first European in the colony to be executed. On 27 February 1788 Surgeon White rather dispassionately records that Barrett was ‘launched into eternity from “the fatal tree” for stealing ‘beef and pease’ from government stores.
The Cultural Gifts Program is an Australian Government Program that provides tax incentives to encourage gifts of culturally significant items to national collecting institutions. To find out more, go to arts.gov.au/ funding-and-support/ cultural-gifts-program or email the Head of Acquisitions Development: daina.fletcher@sea.museum
