Why Matthew Flinders was Australia’s real-life Robinson Crusoe

Shipwrecked in violent seas Matthew Flinders helped 94 people survive on an island for three months while he mounted a daring rescue.

Portrait of explorer Matthew Flinders, 1806-1807, by artist Toussaint Antoine De Chazal from Art Gallery of South Australia.

Matthew Flinders was Australia’s real-life Robinson Crusoe.

The Englishman – whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather were doctors – was inspired to become an adventurer at sea instead of following in their footsteps after reading the famous book.

Flinders is the subject of the latest episode of the In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters:

Jim Haynes, who features Flinders in his new book Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits, says the great explorer once explained he was “induced to go to sea against the wishes of friends … after reading Robinson Crusoe”.

“He read Robinson Crusoe … and virtually ran away to sea,” Haynes says.

The fictional Crusoe was from York, while Flinders grew up in the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire, where he was born in 1774.

Flinders is best known for circumnavigating Australia and several expeditions of discovery in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

But is it his heroic role after a shipwreck off the Queensland coast in August 1803 that draws obvious comparisons to Crusoe.

Model of ship The Investigator on which Matthew Flinders circumnavigated Australia

Flinders was sailing as a passenger in HMS Porpoise en route to secure a new ship when it and another ship, the Cato, struck an uncharted reef in heavy seas on a dark night.

Passengers clung to the disintegrating Porpoise and watched the Cato vanish below the raging waves, fearing they would soon suffer a similar fate.

Meantime, the cowardly captain of a third ship, the Bridgewater, travelling in convoy, fled rather than attempt a rescue mission.

Flinders helped the 94 survivors and much of his ship’s provisions make it to an island where the sails were used to make tents.

He declared martial law and operated the island in the same manner as a British ship, until all were saved three months later after he sailed to Sydney and raised the alarm.

As Haynes puts it, having found himself shipwrecked like his hero Robinson Crusoe, Flinders swam through mountainous seas to board a leaking rowboat, chased a ship that deserted him, saved all but three of the passengers and crew of two wrecked ships, set up a well-run camp, then sailed more than 1000km in an open boat to organise a rescue mission.

Captain Matthew Flinders, who lived from 1774 to 1814, is best known for circumnavigating Australia.

Portrait of explorer Matthew Flinders circa 1800.

In a strange postscript, the third mate of the deserting ship, Mr Williams, was disgusted by his captain’s inhumanity, and revealed to authorities the captain’s account was a lie.

Williams then told Captain Palmer what he had done, and was kicked off the ship.

But in a remarkable twist of fate, the Bridgewater – and Palmer – were lost at sea on their voyage back to Britain – leaving Williams and a few others who left in protest at Mumbai to tell the true story.

Artist's impression of Matthew Flinders’ ship HMS Investigator.

Haynes describes the shipwreck survival tale as the finest and bravest of Flinders’ life of adventures, which included being later held as a prisoner on Mauritius for 6½ years.

“He’s a boy from a village called Donington, a very small village where his dad’s a surgeon,” Haynes says.

“He reads a book called Robinson Crusoe, which leads him to go to sea, and have adventures beyond the realms of Robinson Crusoe, and have all sorts of echoes of Robinson Crusoe.

“He’s shipwrecked, he’s kept on an island for many years, and he becomes an explorer, an adventurer, and somebody who to my mind anyway outshines any Robinson Crusoe.”

Listen to the interview about Matthew Flinders with Jim Haynes in the In Black and White podcast on iTunes, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.