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==First penal settlement== {{See also|Norfolk Island Foundation Day}} [[File:Norfolk Island convict buildings.jpg|thumb|right|Convict buildings]] [[File:Norfolk Island convict grave.jpg|thumb|right|Gravestone of a convict]] [[File:Norfolk Island jail8.jpg|thumb|right|Norfolk Island jail]] Governor [[Arthur Phillip]]'s instructions, given to him in April 1787, included an injunction to send a party to secure Norfolk Island "as soon as Circumstances may admit of it…. to prevent its being occupied by the Subjects of any other European Power".{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} This could only have been a reference to the expedition then in the Pacific commanded by [[Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse]]. ''The Daily Universal Register'' of 11 November 1786 had stated: "the Botany Bay scheme is laid aside, as there is a strong presumption that a squadron from Brest are now, or soon will be, in possession of the very spot we meant to occupy in New Holland". This may have been a reference to a report from the British Ambassador in Paris, who had believed that when La Pérouse's expedition set out from Brest in August 1785 it had as one of its objectives the establishment of a settlement in New Zealand to forestall the British.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} La Pérouse did attempt to visit Norfolk Island, but only to investigate, not to take possession. He had instructions to investigate any colonies the British may have established, and in the process learned of the intention to settle Botany Bay and Norfolk Island, from despatches sent to him from Paris through St. Petersburg as well as by land across Siberia to Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, all of which he received on 26 September 1787, just four days before his departure from the port.<ref>La Pérouse to Castries, 28 September 1787, Archives du Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine, Vol.105, ''Journal de Lapérouse'', John Dunmore & Maurice de Brossard, ''Le Voyage de Lapérouse'', Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1985, Vol.II, pp.cxxxvii, 276.</ref> His ships, the ''Boussole'' and ''Astrolabe'', anchored off the northern side of the island on 13 January 1788, but at the time high seas were running, which made it too dangerous for the two ships’ boats that were put out to attempt a landing: “It was obvious that I would have had to wait maybe for a very long time for a moment suitable for a landing and a visit to this island was not worth this sacrifice”, he recorded in his journal.<ref>John Dunmore (ed.), ''The Journal of Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, 1785–1789'', London, Hakluyt Society, Vol.2, 1995, pp.442–5.</ref> Having noted that the island was still uninhabited, he was presumably the less inclined to risk a landing when there was no British settlement there to report on. When the First Fleet arrived at [[Port Jackson]] in January 1788, Phillip ordered Lieutenant [[Philip Gidley King]] to lead a party of 15 convicts and seven free men, including surgeon [[Thomas Jamison]] (the future Principal Surgeon of [[New South Wales]]), to take control of the island and prepare for its commercial development. They arrived on 6 March 1788.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} During the first year of the settlement, which was also called "Sydney" like its parent, more convicts and soldiers were sent to the island from New South Wales. A second village was started at Ball Bay, named after the captain of ''HMS Supply'', Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball. On 8 January 1789, the first child was born, Norfolk King, the son of Philip Gidley King and a convict, [[Ann Inett]].<ref name="mh">{{cite book |last=Hoare |first=Merval |title=Norfolk Island: An Outline of Its History, 1774 – 1968 |publisher=University of Queensland Press |year=1969 |location=St.Lucia, Queensland |author-link=Merval Hoare}}</ref> Norfolk King went on to become the first British Naval officer born in Australia, and was a Lieutenant, commanding the schooner [[HMS Ballahoo (1804)|''Ballahoo'']] when an American privateer captured her. The "Letter from an Officer of Marines at New South Wales, 16 November 1788", published in the London newspaper, ''The World'' on 15 May 1789, reported the glowing description of the island and its prospects by Philip Gidley King, but also drew attention to the fatal defect of the lack of a safe port: “The said Island lies near Port Jackson, and is nearly as large as the Isle of Wight. Lieutenant King, who was sent with a detachment of marines and some convicts, to settle there, gives the most flattering portrayal of it. The island is fully wooded. Its timber is in the opinion of everyone the most beautiful and finest in the world...they are most suitable for masts, yards, spars and such. The New Zealand flax-plant grows there in abundance. European grains and seeds also thrive wonderfully well on Norfolk Island. It only lacks a good port and suitable landing places, without which the island is of no use, but with them it would be of the greatest importance for Great Britain. How far these deficiencies can be improved by art and the hand of man, time must decide.”{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} An idealised vision of the new British settlement was given in the novel by Therese Forster, ''Abentheuer auf einer Reise nach Neu-Holland [Adventures on a Voyage to New Holland],'' published in the German women's magazine, ''Flora'' for 1793 and 1794: <blockquote> We went towards the centre of this small island where at the foot of a round hill a crystal-clear river rushes forth, dividing up further on into several arms. Towards North and West the hill is covered with the most beautiful ploughed fields all the way down to the sea. The sight of these great flax fields is one of the loveliest I ever beheld. The slender stalks, of the most beautiful green and reaching far above a man's head, bent in the gentle breeze that blew from the sea. Their red blossoms, shining like rubies, danced in the green waves. The top of the hill and the whole of the south and east sides are covered with enormous pines whose dark green is enhanced by a pleasant foreground of cabbage palms and banana trees, and I also observed a low bush among them the fruit of which resembles our red currants but is much larger and hangs in purple and red clusters that help to give the whole a gay appearance. The dwellings of the colonists are strewn along the fringes of the forest and from my post I could see several of them. Simple houses surrounded by barns and stalls and the fields all enclosed with hedges give the region a youthful appearance the like of which is rarely found in Europe. And plants here bloom more luxuriantly and more perfectly with a natural vigour that knows no exhaustion and fears no poverty, a vigour that has disappeared from our continent.<ref>Therese Forster, née Heyne, also known as Therese Huber, in ''Flora: Teutschlands Töchtern geweiht von Freunden und Freundinnen des schönen Geschlechts,'' 4 (1793) 241-74; 1 (1794) 7–43, 209–75 [https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10612174?page=250,251] [https://books.google.com/books?id=8qlGAAAAcAAJ&q=Norfolk]; also published in a book in 1801 under the name of her second husband, Ludwig Ferdinand Huber, ''Erzählungen,'' Erste Sammlung, Bd.1, Braunschweig, S.84–202; English translation by Rodney Livingstone, ''Adventures on a Journey to New Holland,'' edited by Leslie Bodi, Melbourne, Lansdowne Press, 1966.</ref> </blockquote> More convicts were sent, and the island was seen as a farm, supplying Sydney with [[Cereal|grain]] and vegetables during its early years of near-starvation. However, crops often failed due to the salty wind, rats, and [[caterpillar]]s.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Frontiers of Taste: Food Sovereignty, Sustainability and Indigenous–Settler Relations In Australia|last=Rhea|first=Zane Ma|publisher=Springer|year=2016|isbn=9789811016301|pages=100}}</ref> The lack of a natural safe harbour hindered communication and the transport of supplies and produce. [[Manning Clark]] observed that "at first the convicts behaved well, but as more arrived from Sydney Cove, they renewed their wicked practices". These included an attempted overthrowing of King in January 1789 by convicts, described by [[Margaret Hazzard]] as "incorrigible rogues who took his 'goodwill' for weakness". While some convicts responded well to the opportunities offered to them to become respectable, most remained "idle and miserable wretches" according to Clark, despite the climate and their isolation from previous haunts of crime. The impending starvation at Sydney led to a great transplantation of convicts and marines to Norfolk Island in March 1790 on [[HMS Sirius (1786)|HMS ''Sirius'']]. This attempt to relieve the pressure on Sydney turned to disaster when ''Sirius'' was wrecked and, although there was no loss of life, some stores were destroyed, and the ship's crew was marooned for ten months. This news was met in Sydney with "unspeakable consternation".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/t/tench/watkin/settlement/chapter6.html|title=The Settlement at Port Jackson|author=Tench, Watkin|page=Chapter 6|access-date=7 December 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204080711/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/t/tench/watkin/settlement/chapter6.html|archive-date=4 December 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> Norfolk Island was now further cut off from Sydney which, with the arrival of the [[Second Fleet (Australia)|Second Fleet]] with its cargo of sick and abused convicts, had more pressing problems with which to contend. In spite of this the settlement grew slowly as more convicts were sent from Sydney. Many convicts chose to remain as settlers on the expiry of their sentence, and the population grew to over 1,000 by 1792. Norfolk Island, in 1793, was described by Josef Espinosa y Tello, an officer of the Spanish expedition led by [[Alessandro Malaspina]] that visited New South Wales: <blockquote> The colony of Norfolk, settled shortly after that at Port Jackson, merits little attention both because of the small size of that island and because of the hilly nature of its terrain, and the particular circumstance of its lacking entirely an anchorage or a place where longboats can be drawn up with any security. Despite this, some 1,500 persons live there, and its fertile soil produces copiously all kinds of grains, although the difficulty of clearing the ground covered with trees and undergrowth retards the large harvests which the fertility of the land would yield without that obstacle. The pines are of a prodigious height, straight, thick and of the finest grain, and several have been felled of above 7 feet in diameter at the foot, six at 17 and five at 37 yards, having 147 feet of height in total and 120 to the first branches. The flax brought there from New Zealand bears a good aspect, but no great hopes are rested on its cultivation, and it seems that the second trials of this plant made in London have not achieved the happy outcome of the first.<ref>Josef Espinosa y Tello, ''Memorias sobre las Obervaciones Astronomicas, hechas por los Navegantes Españoles en Distintos Lugares del Globo,'' Madrid, Imprenta Real, 1809, Tomo II, tercera memoria, "Digresion sobre el establecimiento ingles de puerto Jackson", p.73. In fact, the "flax" ''(harakeke)'' was already growing wild on the island when the English settlers arrived, having been brought there some 400 years earlier by Maori settlers.</ref> </blockquote> <div class="infobox" style="width: 40%;"> Lieutenant governors of the first settlement: * 6 March 1788 – 24 March 1790: Lieutenant [[Philip Gidley King]] (1758–1808) * 24 March 1790 – Nov 1791: Major [[Robert Ross (British Marines officer)|Robert Ross]] (c.1740–1794) * 4 November 1791 – Oct 1796: Lieutenant Philip Gidley King * October 1796 – Nov 1799: Captain [[John Townson]] (1760–1835) * November 1799 – Jul 1800: Captain [[Thomas Rowley (soldier)|Thomas Rowley]] (c.1748–1806) * 26 June 1800 – 9 September 1804: Major [[Joseph Foveaux]] (1765–1846) * 9 September 1804 – January 1810: Lieutenant [[John Piper (military officer)|John Piper]] (1773–1851) * January 1810–15 February 1813: Lieutenant [[Thomas Crane]] (caretaker) * 15 February 1813 – 15 February 1814: Superintendent [[William Hutchinson (Superintendent)|William Hutchinson]] </div> Norfolk Island was governed by a succession of short-term commandants for the next 11 years, starting with King's replacement, Robert Ross, from 1789 to 1790. When [[Joseph Foveaux]] arrived as Lieutenant Governor in 1800, he found the settlement quite run down, little maintenance having been carried out in the previous four years, and he set about building it up, particularly through public works and attempts to improve education.<ref name="ADB Foveaux">{{cite web |url=http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010376b.htm |title=Foveaux, Joseph (1767–1846) |access-date=25 August 2007 |author=B. H. Fletcher |work=[[Australian Dictionary of Biography]], Volume 1 |publisher=[[Melbourne University Press|MUP]] |year=1966 |pages=407–409}}</ref> As early as 1794, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales Francis Grose suggested its closure as a penal settlement as it was too remote and difficult for shipping, and too costly to maintain.<ref>Grose to Hunter, 8 December 1794, ''Historical Records of New South Wales,'' Sydney, 1893, Vol.2, p.275.</ref> By 1803, the Secretary of State, [[Robert Hobart, 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire|Lord Hobart]], called for the removal of part of the Norfolk Island military establishment, settlers and convicts to [[Van Diemen's Land]], due to its great expense and the difficulties of communication between Norfolk Island and Sydney. This was achieved more slowly than anticipated, due to reluctance of settlers to uproot themselves from the land they had struggled to tame, and compensation claims for loss of stock. It was also delayed by King's insistence on its value for providing refreshment to the whalers. The first group of 159 left in February 1805 and was mainly composed of convicts and their families and military personnel, with only four groups of settlers departing. Between November 1807 and September 1808, five groups of 554 people departed. Only about 200 remained, forming a small settlement until the remnants were removed in 1813. A small party remained to slaughter stock and destroy all buildings so that there would be no inducement for anyone, especially from another European power, to visit that place. From 15 February 1814 to 6 June 1825, the island lay abandoned.
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