By Tim Barlass
It is not often that any of Governor Arthur Phillip’s material comes up for auction. The last was a letter 20 years ago and before that was 70 years earlier still.
No journals of NSW’s first governor survive so when a 20-page “fair copy” fragment turned up, providing a three-month snapshot of the colony in 1791-92, it was something of a must-have for the State Library of NSW.
State Library of NSW senior curator Sally Hone and Indigenous Engagement branch manager Damien Webb with the newly acquired fragment of Governor Arthur Phillip’s long-lost journal.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
A bookshop in rural England had put it up for auction as a “Third Fleet” document, and an Australian dealer in old books and manuscripts thought it interesting.
When the first 10 pages closely mirrored accounts, some verbatim, from Phillip’s chapters in 1793’s An Historical Journal of the Transaction of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, the dealers knew they were on to something.
The dealer checked the State Library’s collection and the handwriting matched that of a clerk who prepared documents for botanist Joseph Banks. The paper stock was also the same. The library paid about $450,000 and the document went on display at the Amaze Gallery on Saturday.
Senior curator Sally Hone said when Phillip died in Bath in 1814 his house was cleared and nobody knows where his papers went.
A page from Governor Arthur Phillip’s long-lost journal, now on display at the State Library’s Amaze Gallery.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“We have 20 pages, it is only a part of it, but where’s the rest? It is a huge mystery and very tantalising. This is not Arthur Phillip’s handwriting but it is written in the first person.
“It contains information about convict escapes and details on their return voyages to England. We learn that out-of-time convicts paid 8-10 guineas for a return voyage. These and other new details will excite many researchers.”
Governor Arthur Phillip by artist Francis Wheatley.Credit: State Library NSW
The last 10 pages detail a previously unknown visit to Sydney by Gomebeere, an Indigenous man Phillip met in the Hawkesbury region nine months earlier.
In January 1792 Phillip writes: “Like all the rest he appeared to think he had enjoyed every good this world affords before we came amongst them, and what we had to give except the hatchets was received with indifference. He past [sic] the night with Bannelong [sic] and those who live amongst us at Tubugulha [Benellong Point] where they had a dance, and left them early the next morning to return to the banks of the Hawkesbury.”
Damien Webb, head of the library’s Indigenous Engagement branch, said it provided an “important layer of new information about this complex, contested part of our history”.
“It’s a fascinating excerpt and Gomebeere appears to have some agency in his interaction with Phillip,” Webb said.
“Obviously the legacy of figures like Phillip for Aboriginal people casts a long shadow but these things give us human scale interactions which are so important.”
Governor Phillip’s formal reports on the progress of the colony were sent back to England and published by Captain John Hunter pictured on the left page.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
The papers report the population of the colony in January 1792 was 3741. Phillip organised eight marine settlers into a night patrol with 10 convicts to prevent thefts from gardens and crops by “wretches”. One convict who robbed the baker’s house by getting down the chimney was found guilty and executed the next day.
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correction
An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to 1972 rather than 1792.