John Hunter (Royal Navy officer)

John Hunter was born in Leith, Scotland, the son of William Hunter, a captain in the merchant service,[2] and Helen, née Drummond, daughter of J. Drummond and niece of George Drummond, several-time lord provost of Edinburgh.[1][2] As a boy Hunter was sent to live with an uncle in the town of King's Lynn in Norfolk, where, and also at Edinburgh, he received the classical education of the time. Hunter was sent to the University of Edinburgh, but soon left it to join the navy as a captain's servant to Thomas Knackston on HMS Grampus in May 1754.[1][3]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Journal of John Hunter.

Captain John Hunter, Governor of New South Wales, 1801

The expedition arrived in Port Jackson in January 1788. Hunter led an expedition to explore the Parramatta River early in 1788. This expedition explored and made soundings as far as Iron Cove, Five Dock Bay and Hen and Chicken Bay on the Parramatta River. The Sir William Dixson Research Library at the State Library of New South Wales holds the original copy of the chart of the expedition, entitled "Chart of the coasts and harbours of Botany-Bay, Port-Jackson and Broken-Bay, as survey'd by Capt.n John Hunter of H.M.S. Sirius". The expedition was significant because it may have marked the first contact to take place between the British and the Indigenous owners of the land, the Wangal Clan, in 1788. William Bradley's log says that this contact took place while Hunter was having breakfast and is remembered in the name of the suburb, Breakfast Point.

Hunter was ordered to the Cape of Good Hope for supplies in October 1788. He sailed around Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope, and from there back to New South Wales in May 1789, thus circumnavigating the globe. The voyage was made more difficult by leaky state of the ship, which rendered continual pumping necessary. Sirius was then refitted and sent to Norfolk Island with a large party of convicts, but was caught in a violent storm while anchored there. She was driven onto a coral reef and wrecked.[4] A number of the crew returned to Port Jackson aboard the brig HMS Supply, the remainder, including Hunter, waited for nearly at year on the island before being taken off. Hunter and some of his men returned to England aboard the chartered Dutch vessel Waakzaamheid after a long and arduous voyage. Finally arriving at Portsmouth in April 1792, Hunter was court-martialled for the loss of the Sirius but was honourably acquitted.[4] Hunter then prepared for publication his interesting An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, With the Discoveries That Have Been Made in New South Wales and the Southern Ocean Since the Publication of Phillip's Voyage, published at the beginning of 1793. An abridged edition appeared later in the same year. In the first edition of this work is found the earliest reference to the possibility of there being a strait between the mainland and Tasmania. On page 126 Hunter says: "There is reason thence to believe, that there is in that space either a very deep gulf, or a straight, which may separate Van Diemen's Land from New Holland."[2]

The French Revolutionary Wars having broken out during Hunter's time in England, he went to sea again as a volunteer aboard the 100-gun HMS Queen Charlotte, the flagship of his old patron Lord Howe. Hunter was present at the Glorious First of June on 1 June 1794, and remained in the ship until 1795. With Arthur Phillip's resignation from the governorship of New South Wales in July 1793, Hunter had applied for the position in October and was appointed governor in January 1794. Various delays occurred, and it was not until February 1795 that he was able to sail. Hunter arrived at Sydney on 7 September 1795 on HMS Reliance and took up the office of governor on 11 September 1795.[1]

Hunter's difficulties began before he arrived back in Sydney. Phillip left the colony in 1793, at the end of his term as governor, and for the following two years the military were in complete control. During the lieutenant-governorship of Francis Grose, who unmercifully exploited the convicts, a great traffic in alcoholic spirits sprang up, on which there was an enormous profit for the officers concerned. They had obtained the control of the courts and the management of the lands, public stores, and convict labour. Hunter realised that these powers had to be restored to the civil administration, a difficult task. And in John Macarthur he had an opponent who would ruthlessly defend his commercial interests. Hunter found himself practically helpless. A stronger man might have sent the officers home under arrest, but had Hunter attempted to do so he likely would have precipitated the rebellion which took place in William Bligh's time. Anonymous letters were even sent to the home authorities charging Hunter with participation in the very abuses he was striving to prevent. In spite of Hunter's vehement defence of the charges made against him, he was recalled in a dispatch dated 5 November 1799 from the Duke of Portland, one of the three secretaries of state.[1] Hunter acknowledged this dispatch on 20 April 1800, and left for England on 28 September 1800, handing over the government to Lieutenant-Governor Philip Gidley King. When Hunter arrived he endeavoured to vindicate his character with the authorities but was given no opportunity. Hunter was obliged to state his case in a long pamphlet printed in 1802, Governor Hunter's Remarks on the Causes of the Colonial Expense of the Establishment of New South Wales. Hints for the Reduction of Such Expense and for Reforming the Prevailing Abuses,[1] which has become a valuable document in early Australian history.

Hunter explored and opened up the country near Sydney, and also encouraged the explorations of Matthew Flinders and George Bass. A contemporary, midshipman Daniel Southwell described Hunter as "devoid of stiff pride, most accomplished in his profession, and, to sum up all, a worthy man."[5] But the circumstances in which he was placed made it very difficult for him to be completely successful as a governor. As his successor Philip Gidley King said, his conduct was "guided by the most upright intentions", and he was "most shamefully deceived by those on whom he had every reason to depend for assistance, information, and advice." Of his sojourn in the colony Hunter said that he "could not have had less comfort, although he would certainly have had greater peace of mind, had he spent the time in a penitentiary". His service as Governor was ultimately recognised through the grant of an annual pension of £300, approved by then-Prime Minister Henry Addington in October 1802.[6]

Hunter continued his interest in Australia long after he left it, and the suggested reforms in his pamphlet were of much value. When the platypus was first seen by Europeans in 1798, a pelt and sketch were sent back to the United Kingdom by John Hunter.[7]

Hunter tomb in St John's Church Gardens

In summer 1804 Hunter was given command of the 74-gun HMS Venerable, serving with the fleet off Brest under Admiral William Cornwallis. While sailing out of Torbay on the evening of 24 November, a sudden fog came down. The ships of the fleet, unaware of each other's positions and their own location became disorganised. Hunter twice narrowly avoided colliding with other ships, but ran aground at 8pm on the cliff near Paignton, and soon afterwards bilged.[4] A gale then struck the area, and with Venerable fast going to pieces, her crew were evacuated with little loss by HMS Impetueux. Hunter again underwent a court-martial, and was again fully acquitted.[4]

Hunter was promoted to rear-admiral on 2 October 1807, and then to vice-admiral on 31 July 1810 but never hoisted his flag at sea. Vice-Admiral John Hunter spent his final years in his home town of Leith, living at 6 Cassels Place.[8] He died at his London home at Judd Street, New Road, Hackney, London on 13 March 1821.[4] His tomb can be seen in the churchyard of St John-at-Hackney.

The Hunter River and Hunter Region north of Sydney are both named after him, as is the suburb of Hunters Hill in Sydney, and (partly) the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. In 1986 he was honoured on a postage stamp depicting his portrait issued by Australia Post.[9]

He retired to his home town of Leith and lived at a then-new Georgian house at 5 Cassels Place, part of the still extant Georgian terrace at the foot of Leith Walk, and now renumbered as 43 Leith Walk.[10]

A bust of Hunter was placed by the Australian government at the north end of The Shore in Leith in 1996.

• Historical Records of Australia
• Journals of the First Fleet

• Barnes, Robert. An unlikely leader: the life and times of Captain John Hunter. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009. ISBN 9781920899196.
• The Life of John Hunter, Navigator, Governor, Admiral", Arthur Hoyle, Mulini Press, Canberra, 2001
• D. Manning Richards. Destiny in Sydney: An epic novel of convicts, Aborigines, and Chinese embroiled in the birth of Sydney, Australia. First book in Sydney series. Washington DC: Aries Books, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9845410-0-3
• "The HUNTER Sketchbook: Birds & Flowers of New South Wales drawn on the Spot in 1788, 89 & 90 By Captain John Hunter RN of the First Fleet", John Calaby, editor, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1989

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Hunter (Royal Navy officer).

• Portraits of Hunter the National Portrait Gallery, London.
• Chart of the coasts and harbours of Botany-Bay, Port-Jackson and Broken-Bay, as survey'd by Capt.n John Hunter of H.M.S. Sirius
• Prentis, Malcolm. "Great Australian Presbyterians: The Game". Uniting Church in Australia. Archived from the original on 11 December 2006. Retrieved 7 March 2007.
• Works by John Hunter at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Hunter at Internet Archive