Arrival and Establishment of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove
- When
- 1788
- Where
- Botany Bay, New South Wales; Sydney Cove, Port Jackson; Sydney, Colony of New South Wales; Lord Howe Island, Tasman Sea
- Episodes
- 4
In January 1788 the First Fleet, commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip, reached Botany Bay, moved to Sydney Cove in Port Jackson, and founded the British penal colony of New South Wales. HMS Supply sighted Lord Howe Island on 17 February while carrying convicts to Norfolk Island. A legacy claim that Sydney was formally named on 7 February 1788 could not be verified from supplied sources and is retained only as an unverified date.
Episodes
- HMS Supply leads the First Fleet into Botany Bay
The armed tender HMS Supply reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, ahead of the transports arriving over the following two days.
- Fleet moves to Sydney Cove and possession is declared
On 26 January 1788 the Fleet sailed from Botany Bay to Port Jackson, landing at Sydney Cove, where Phillip had chosen the penal settlement site and possession of New South Wales was declared.
- Sydney formally named
The settlement at Sydney Cove, named after the 1st Baron Sydney, the British Home Secretary, is associated with the formal founding of Sydney; a legacy claim of formal naming on 7 February 1788 is unverified by supplied sources.
- HMS Supply sights Lord Howe Island
On 17 February 1788 Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, commanding HMS Supply en route from Botany Bay to Norfolk Island with nine male and six female convicts, made the first reported sighting of Lord Howe Island.
Background and detail
Background. In September 1786 Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed Commodore of the fleet later known as the First Fleet, chosen to lead the expedition establishing a colony in New South Wales and to transport convicts and soldiers to Botany Bay. The 10-gun HMS Sirius was commissioned at Deptford on 25 October 1786 with Phillip in command. The fleet left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 carrying over 1,400 convicts, marines, sailors, colonial officials, and free settlers, and travelled more than 24,000 kilometres over 250 days.
Arrival at Botany Bay. HMS Supply reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, followed by the three fastest transports of the advance group on 19 January and the slower ships, including Sirius, on 20 January. Governor Phillip rejected Botany Bay as the colony's site, choosing Port Jackson to the north instead. A total of 1,420 people had embarked in 1787, and 1,373 were believed to have landed at Sydney Cove in January 1788.
Founding of Sydney. Sydney Cove, named after the British Home Secretary the 1st Baron Sydney, was the site Phillip selected between 21 and 23 January 1788 for the British penal settlement that became the city of Sydney. The Fleet sailed to Port Jackson on 26 January 1788, landing at Sydney Cove and raising the Union Jack, when possession of New South Wales was formally declared. The colony's non-indigenous population was reported as 1,030 in Phillip's first census to Lord Sydney.
People involved
- Captain Arthur Phillip · Commodore of the First Fleet and Governor, founder of the colony at Sydney Cove
- Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball · Commander of the Armed Tender HMS Supply, discoverer of Lord Howe Island
Sources
- First Fleet Wikipedia
- Sydney Cove Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-20
- Lord Howe Island Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-14
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.