Going Ashore in January 1788: A New Insight

In talking with a friend today about where Arthur Phillip went ashore on the 26th of January, and where the flag-raising ceremony was held that afternoon [see Newsletter 18: Going Ashore in January 1788], I turned to the passage in David Collins’ journal where he wrote:

'In the evening of this day the whole of the party that came round in the Supply were assembled at the point where they had first landed in the morning, and on which a flag-staff had been purposely erected and an union jack displayed, when the marines fired several vollies; between which the governor and the officers who accompanied him drank the healths of his Majesty and the Royal Family, and success to the new colony. . .' [1]

I am very familiar with this passage, but today, for the first time, it struck me that Collins was saying they had assembled on ‘the point’ where they had come ashore that morning. I had always read 'point' in this passage as meaning ‘place’.

But on checking, I discovered that Collins never used the word ‘point’ to mean ‘place’ – ‘point’ was always used to refer to a point of land (and particularly the east and west coats of Sydney Cove), or one of its non-geographic senses (as in ‘make a point of’ or at a point in time). When he wanted to refer to a particular location, he used the word ‘place’.

The primary meaning of the western ‘point’ was the northern end where the observatory and later the magazine and the battery were erected (today known as Dawes Point). It is unclear where the point started, but surgeon John White, whose house stood just on the northern side of the hospital (which was located in what is now the block opposite the Museum of Contemporary Art), referred to ‘the point on which the hospital is built’. [2]

David Collins wasn’t present at the landing or the flag-raising ceremony, but his younger brother was and his family later claimed that Lieutenant William Collins had raised the flag. And David Collins was the Governor’s official secretary, responsible for keeping the official journal of the settlement.

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[1] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales [1798], Sydney: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1975, Vol.1, pp.4-5.

[2] John White, Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales [1790], Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1962, p.152.

Detail of William Dawes' plan of the settlement, July 1788, showing the west point.