Port Essington

Port Essington (including the Cobourg Peninsula and Gurig National Park)
The remains of an early and unsuccessful attempt by Europeans to settle Australia's northern coast.
Port Essington, and the township which was variously known as Victoria or Port Victoria, is another instance of an unsuccessful attempt to settle the northern coastline of Australia. Because the settlement lasted for over a decade, and because it was the site of Ludwig Leichhardt's greatest triumph, it is perhaps more widely known than the other less successful attempts at Raffles Bay and Fort Dundas.

The ruins of Port Essington are located on the Cobourg Peninsula some 300 kilometres north of Darwin (570 km by road in a 4WD via Kakadu National Park). The peninsula was named by the explorer Phillip Parker King after Queen Victoria's uncle, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg. King also named the bay Port Essington after his friend Vice Admiral Sir William Essington.

The early history of the area is typical of the north coast of Australia. The first white person known to have explored the area was Peter Pieterzoon who sailed around the Cobourg Peninsula in 1636. He was followed by Abel Tasman in 1644 and Matthew Flinders in 1803.

The impulse to settle the northern extremity of Australia was largely driven by the prospect of a rival French settlement. The impulse was largely misguided because the area was extremely difficult to settle. The three unsuccessful British settlements give an idea of the problems which were caused by monsoonal weather, voracious wildlife, very unfriendly local Aborigines, and the lethargy which inevitably affects Europeans who try to work in the tropics.

Port Essington was actually chosen as the site of the first settlement but when the settlement party, led by Captain J. J. Gordon Bremer, arrived in 1824 they found that there was no fresh water and so, after three days, they moved to Melville Island where the settlement at Fort Dundas was established. The settlement lasted for four years before scurvy, tropical diseases, lack of fresh supplies, and antagonistic Aborigines forced it to be abandoned.

In 1827 a second attempt at a settlement was made by Captain James Stirling at Raffles Bay. The history of the settlement was a carbon copy of the problems at Fort Dundas and the settlement closed down after two years.

In 1837, against all common sense, the British government decided to try again and a settlement was established at Port Essington (officially known as Victoria). On 26 October 1838 Captain J. J. Gordon Bremer (who, by this time, must have been convinced that he was really out of luck when it came to leading expeditions) arrived at Port Essington. It was a military outpost and for the next eleven years was manned almost exclusively by Royal Marines. The population never exceeded 78 and the conditions were harsh.

In June 1839 Bremer had the good fortune to be posted to China to be part of the British forces during the Canton uprising. He never returned to the settlement which was smitten with fever and the problems which had beset the other settlements in the area.

Bremer was certainly not in the colony when a haggard and very bedraggled Ludwig Leichhardt arrived on 17 December 1845 having travelled over 4800 kilometres overland from Moreton Bay. It was Leichhardt's finest hour and when he returned to Sydney in March 1846 he was hailed as a hero.

The settlement was abandoned in 1849 and it wasn't until twenty years later that the successful settlement at Palmerston (the modern day site of Darwin) was established.