A Third Copy of Philip Gidley King's Journal

The Royal Collections Trust (RCT) has just published on its Georgian Papers micro-site a previously unknown version of a First Fleet journal kept by Philip Gidley King, 2nd Lieutenant of HM Ship Sirius, aide-de-camp to Captain Arthur Phillip on the outward voyage, and commandant of the secondary settlement established on Norfolk Island.

Unlike the two previously known copies of his journal, some of the text is written in the form of a ship's log, however, it is also a fair copy, and its relationship to the other versions is complex.

Among other things, the RCT version makes it clear that there was only one flag-raising ceremony on the 26th of January 1788, the day when Phillip went ashore in Sydney Cove, and that it was held at two o'clock in the afternoon. (Based on the so-called private copy, which some historians thought was the original, it had been concluded that the flag-raising was in the morning, or that there were two such ceremonies.)

I stumbled across this journal in mid-2022, and a response from the RCT was initially delayed by the official mourning period for the late Queen. After some correspondence, they kindly photographed the journal,  sent me a copy and gave permission to publish my analysis. A summary of that analysis (based on a detailed comparison of the three versions) was published in my newsletter, 'A Fine Passage', in March 2023. Uploading the document to the Georgian Papers site was delayed for internal administrative reasons.