Historedia
Asia PacificEvent

Malden Island sighted by George Byron

When
1823–1825
Where
Malden Island
Episodes
2

Captain George Anson Byron, 7th Baron Byron, sighted Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean on 30 July 1825. Commanding HMS Blonde, he was returning from repatriating Hawaiian royal remains. The island was named for Lieutenant Charles Robert Malden, who sighted and explored it. Earlier sightings by whalers in 1823 and March 1825 are noted, but Byron's 1825 sighting is the primary event.

Episodes

  1. 1823-1824 · Malden IslandPrior Whaling Sightings

    Whaling captains Valentine Starbuck and William Clark may have sighted Malden Island in 1823, before the documented sighting by Samuel Bunker in March 1825.

  2. 30 July 1825 · Malden IslandSighting of Malden Island

    Captain George Anson Byron sighted Malden Island on 30 July 1825 during the return voyage of HMS Blonde from Honolulu to London.

Background and detail

Background. George Anson Byron, 7th Baron Byron, was a naval officer who succeeded the poet Lord Byron in 1824. He commanded HMS Blonde on a voyage to the Pacific to repatriate the bodies of King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu. The ship departed England in September 1824, carrying naturalists and lieutenants including Edward Belcher.

Sighting and Naming. On 30 July 1825, during the return journey, Byron sighted Malden Island. The island was named after Lieutenant Charles Robert Malden, the navigator of HMS Blonde, who sighted and briefly explored it. This event occurred during the return voyage from Honolulu to London.

Prior Sightings. The earliest documented European sighting was on 25 March 1825 by Captain Samuel Bunker. Whaling captains Valentine Starbuck and William Clark may have sighted the island in 1823. These prior sightings are noted but do not diminish the significance of Byron's 1825 sighting and naming.

People involved

Sources

  1. Malden Island Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-14
  2. HMS Blonde (1819) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-16
  3. George Byron, 7th Baron Byron Wikipedia, revision of 2026-05-23

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.