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The James Cook Heritage Trail

Port Jackson

Grade 4: An important naming that led to the establishment of the 1788 penal settlement at Sydney Cove. Good views of the entrance from the natural surroundings at North Head

Situation: Entrance to Sydney Harbour.

Coordinates (decimal): 33.83 S 151.27 E

Endeavour Journal, 6 May 1770:

Having seen every thing this place [Botany Bay] afforded we at day light in the Morning weigh’d with a light breeze at NW and put to sea and the wind soon after coming to the Southward we steer’d along shore NNE and at Noon we were by observation in the Latitude of 33.50 S about 2 or 3 Miles from the land and abreast of a Bay or Harbour wherein there appear’d to be a safe anchorage which I call’d Port Jackson. It lies 3 Leags to the northward of Botany Bay.

This Journal entry was to prompt Captain Arthur Phillip eighteen years later to investigate Port Jackson as a more promising alternative to Botany Bay, and to establish the first European settlement in Australia at Sydney Cove. Port Jackson was named after George Jackson, a Joint Secretary and later Judge Advocate at the Admiralty. Cook had worked as a stable boy on Jackson’s sister’s estate near Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, where he went to school. The other Joint Secretary, Phillip Stephens, was later commemorated at Port Stephens. Both were also commemorated by Cook on the coast of New Zealand. Prior to the Endeavourvoyage Cook had spent several northern summers surveying the coast of Newfoundland. During the winters he returned to London to draw up his charts and spent time at the Admiralty.He was well known to Stephens who, aware of his extraordinary abilities, recommended him to lead the Endeavour voyage.

Entrance to Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) from the north, with Botany Bay beyond