The first fleet collections: Colonisation of Australia
By Christopher Mills
Aborigine woman healing a child, drawn by Thomas Watling.
The collections of artists George Raper, Thomas Watling and the unknown Port Jackson Painter have provided a precious and unique record of the environment and indigenous peoples of Australia in the late eighteenth century, at the time of colonisation by the first British convicts in 1788. Poor preservation of original specimens and records has made these collections invaluable in tracing an otherwise incomplete period of history. Christopher Mills, head of Special Collections and Readers' Services at The Natural History Museum, explores the significance of these collections to science as well as other disciplines, such as ethnology, art history and anthropology.
The first fleet collections PDF (126.0 KB)
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