George Bass
1771-1803
Bass was born in Licolnshire,
England on 3 February 1771. He became apprenticed to a local
surgeon, Patrick Francis, and apothocary. He received the bulk of his
surgeons training at
Surgeons Hall,
London which was located next to the Old Bailey. In 1789 he passed the examination to become a member of the Company of
surgeons and obtained a position as a
surgeon in the Royal Navy on the HMS
Flirt. He arrived at
Sydney Cove in 1795 with
Matthew Flinders. Within a few weeks the two men explored
Botany Bay and the Georges River in a small boat,
Tom Thumb. Some months later, in a larger boat of the same name, they made a coastal voyage as far south as
Port Hacking and also discovered
Lake Illawarra.
Late in 1797 Bass investigated reports that coal had been discovered and he located a seam at
Coalcliff. On this voyage he continued along the coast and named the
Shoalhaven River,
Twofold Bay and
Furneaux Land (now
Wilsons Promontory). From all he observed he deduced that there was a straight between
Victoria and
Van Diemen's Land. This was proved in 1798 when he sailed with
Flinders in a whaleboat named the
Norfolk,
circumnavigating the island of
Tasmania. During this time Bass sent flora to
Sir Joseph Banks, the
Botanist, for further study. He returned to
England in 1799, sailing on Pacific trader
Charles Bishop’s ship
Nautilus. In 1803 Bass sailed on a trading voyage with
Bishop to
South America just after his marriage to Elizabeth Waterhouse, the sister of his friend
Henry Waterhouse whom he met in his voyages around
Australia and
Tasmania. Both he and his ship, the
Venus disappeared soon after he departed on 5 February the same year.
Sources:
http://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/bass-george.html
http://www.slnsw.gov.au/flinders/biographies/bass1.html
http://www.gutenberg.net.au/pages/bass-flinders.html
http://www.stickyplanet.com.au/basshis.html